What if museum critics were challenged to envision their own exhibitions? In Curatorial Dreams, fourteen authors from disciplines throughout the social sciences and humanities propose exhibitions inspired by their research and critical concerns to creatively put theory into practice. Pushing the boundaries of museology, this collection gives rare insight into the process of conceptualizing exhibitions. The contributors offer concrete, innovative projects, each designed for a specific setting in which to translate critical academic theory about society, culture, and history into accessible imagined exhibitions. Spanning Australia, Barbados, Canada, Chile, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States, the exhibitions are staged in museums, scientific institutions, art galleries, and everyday sites. Essays explore political and practical constraints, imaginative freedom, and experiment with critical, participatory, and socially relevant exhibition design. While the deconstructive critique of museums remains relevant, Curatorial Dreams charts new ground, proposing unique modes of engagement that enrich public scholarship and dialogue.

Shelley Ruth Butler's profile page

Erica Lehrer is Canada Research Chair in Museum and Heritage Studies at Concordia University.

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“Accessibly written and engaging, Curatorial Dreams is an ambitious pronouncement on ‘civically-engaged scholarship’ and its dialectic with a self-reflexive public museum culture, a must-read for museum studies scholars and practitioners alike.” Internati

“This book takes the wonderfully original idea to get those who usually write about museums to come up with proposals for their ‘dream’ exhibitions. The result is thought-provoking and sometimes brilliantly inventive.” Sharon Macdonald, Humbolt-Universität zu Berlin

“A highly inventive and intellectually rewarding approach to thinking about the world.” The Globe & Mail

"A ground-breaking book." Robert Fulford, National Post

“The essays expand the curatorial imagination to empathically and collectively intervene, inspire, and heal.” ARLIS/NA Reviews