Opponentindlæg: Outi Turpeinen - Recombining ideas from art and cultural history museums in theory and practice

Outi Turpeinen M.A. defended her doctoral dissertation, entitled “A Meaningful Museum Object. Critical visuality in cultural history museum exhibitions”, in public at the University of Arts and Design in Helsinki, Finland in November 2005. Her thesis examines the relationship between a cultural history museum exhibition and the objects on display. Specifically, it aims at shedding light on the formation of the meaning behind the exhibition. The main research questions are: How are meanings constructed for cultural history museums’ exhibition design? How are meanings represented as visual signs by the exhibition design? How does the relationship between exhibition design and museum objects, especially their visuality, affect interpretation?