Dr Kylie Message

Senior Lecturer
RSH Graduate Coursework Coordinator & Museums and Collections Program Convenor

T: ( 02 ) 612 55429

F: ( 02 ) 6125 2438
E: kylie.message@anu.edu.au

Research School of Humanities
College of Arts and Social Sciences

Qualifications:

PhD (UniMelb); BA (Hons.) (UniMelb)

Short biography:

Kylie Message graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2003. Her PhD dissertation investigated intersections between strategies of communication and affect as employed by narrative forms of text, cinema, and new museums from the perspective of critical cultural theory. From 2000-2003, Kylie was lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington and prior to 2000, Kylie taught at the University of Melbourne and at the National School of Design at Swinburne University.

In 2004, Kylie was Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the ARC Discovery Project Four South Pacific Museums in the Department of English with Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, at which time she began conducting empirical research into museums and public cultural sites of collective identity formation. In 2005, she was awarded an ARC Special Research Centre Research Fellowship in the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the ANU and was the following year appointed convenor of the Museums and Collections graduate program in the Research School of Humanities. In 2008 Kylie held the position of Graduate Coursework Convenor for the College of Arts and Social Sciences and she has, since 2008, also been Graduate Coursework Coordinator for the Research School of Humanities. Kylie will hold the position of National Europe Centre Deputy Director in 2011.

Research Interests:

Kylie's research examines the links between culture, politics, public policy and contemporary museums, and the intersections between social theory, cultural studies and museum studies. Key to her work is an investigation of the ways in which museums become sites of social action that may contribute to changes in the way citizenship is understood and defined. She has written widely on the development of contemporary museums globally and in the specific contexts of New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific. She is currently working on case studies from North America and Europe. In his commendation of her 2006 monograph, New Museums and the Making of Culture, Timothy W. Luke, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University wrote: 'Kylie Message insightfully reappraises the workings of "new museums" as social sites at which the past, the present, and future can be continuously contested and created in complex cultural struggles over national and personal identity. Global in scope, historical by design, and local on purpose, her wide-ranging analysis is an important contribution to contemporary debates about museum studies and cultural criticism'.

Current Research Projects:

Assessing collaborative, community-based museum practice and changing cultures of citizenship at the National Museum of the American Indian (Australian Research Council Discovery Project 0984602, 2009-12). Museums are increasingly expected to contribute to an expanded concept of citizenship that addresses the conditions and concerns of contemporary multicultural postcolonial societies. This project investigates programs developed by the National Museum of the American Indian that aim to create new practices of citizenship for Native Americans. The resulting study will analyse whether collaborative projects increase interventions by minority groups into intergovernmental spaces like museums. It will assess whether the National Museum of the American Indian might provide a model of practice for other national museums attempting to work in partnership with community-based museums to improve the experience and representation of citizenship.

Selected Publications:

Books and Monographs

2006 New Museums and the Making of Culture. Oxford and New York: Berg, pp. v-256. Available at http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=1881

Edited volumes

2009 Compelling cultures: representing cultural diversity and cohesion in multicultural Australia. Co-edited with A. Edmundson and U. Frederick. A special issue of Humanities Research, XV. 2. Available at http://epress.anu.edu.au/hrj2009_02_citation.html

2006 The Cultural Politics of Antipodean Museums. Co-edited with B. Dibley.  A special issue of New Zealand Sociology, 21.1.

Chapters in books

2009 Creating cultural citizenship out of contemporary art at the National Museum of the American Indian? In J. Anderson (ed), Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration, Convergence. Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, pp. 1061-66.

2008 Comparing cultures of citizenship and changing concepts of nation and community in the EU and USA. In P. Aronsson and A. Nyblom (eds), Comparing: National Museums, Territories, Nation-Building and Change. Norrkoping, Sweden, Linkoping University Press, pp. 21-40.

2008 The world within the city: the Great Exhibition, race, class and social reform (with E. Johnston). In J. A. Auerbach and P. H. Hoffenberg (eds), Britain, the Empire, and the World at the Great Exhibition of 1851. London: Ashgate, pp. 27-46.

2006 Contested sites of identity and the cult of the new: The Centre Culturel Tjibaou and the constitution of culture in New Caledonia. In C. Healy and A. Witcomb (eds), South Pacific Museums: Experiments in Culture. Melbourne and Sydney: Monash University e-Press and Sydney University Press, pp. 4.1-4.20 (Reprinted from reCollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia).

2005 Cosmopolitan New Museums and Cultural Policy: The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the National Museum of Australia. In I. Woodward and D. Ellison (eds), Sites of Cosmopolitanism. Brisbane: Centre for Public Culture and Ideas, Griffith University, CD Rom publication, 6 pages.

2005 Clara Law's Floating Life. In C. Ferrall, P. Millar and K. Smith (eds), East by South: the Australasian Imagination of China. Wellington: Victoria University Press, pp. 311-23.

2004 Watching Over the Wounded Eye of Georges Bataille and the Multiple Dead Eyes of Andres Serrano. In E. Klaver (ed), Images of the Corpse: From the Renaissance to Cyberspace, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 113-32.

2002 Theorizing the New Museum: A Process of Discovery. In Cultural Sites, Cultural Theory, Cultural Policy, Wellington: Te Papa and Victoria University of Wellington, pp. 339-46.

2001 Being Within Story, Screen, and Museum Space... just like Alice... In P. Lichty (ed), Through the Looking Glass: Technology and Creativity at the Beginning of the Next Millennium International Exhibition, Ohio: Beachwood Center for the Arts.

2000 Crystal Palace to Media Museum: A Conceptual Framework for Experience and Sight. In R. Ascott (ed), Art Technology Consciousness: mind@large, Bristol UK: Intellect Books, pp. 134-38.

2000 Crystal Palace to Media Museum: A Conceptual Framework for Experience and Sight. In R. Ascott and M. Punt (eds), Consciousness Reframed, Newport: CAiiA-STAR, The University of Wales College, pp. 134-38.

1997 Mapping Movement and Meaning in Everyday Urban Space. In L. Finch and C. McConville (eds), Images of the Urban, QLD: Sunshine Coast University College, pp. 52-60.

Journal articles

2010 Economies of scale, publicity and world heritage value. Curator: The Museum Journal (invited / forthcoming).

2009 Culture, citizenship and Australian multiculturalism: the contest over identity formation at the National Museum of Australia. Humanities Research, XV.2: 23-48.

2009 Multiplying sites of sovereignty through Community and Constituent Services at the National Museum of the National Museum of the American Indian? museum and society, 7.1: 50-67.

2009 Museum studies: borderwork, genealogy, revolution. museum and society, 7.2: 125-32.

2009 New museums in the twenty-first century: Still looking for signs of difference. Konsthistorisk tidskrift Journal of Art History (in press).

2009 New directions for civil renewal in Britain: Social capital and culture for all? International Journal of Cultural Studies, 12.3: 257-78.  

2008 Reflecting on the New Museum Through an Antipodean Lens: The Museum of Sydney and 'The Imaginary Museum'. Third Text: Critical Perspectives on Art and Culture, 22.6: 755-68.

2007 Meeting the challenges of the future? Museums and the public good. reCollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia, 2.1: 71-93.

2007 Museums and the utility of culture: the politics of liberal democracy and cultural well-being. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 13.2: 235-56.

2007 Performing History: The Circa Theatre at the National Museum of Australia. Metro, 153: 148-51.

2006 Contested sites of identity and the cult of the new: The Centre Culturel Tjibaou and the constitution of culture in New Caledonia. reCollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia, 1.1: 7-28.

2006 The New Museum. Theory Culture and Society, 23.2-3: 603-606.

2006 The shock of the re-newed modern: MoMA 2004. museum and society, 4.1: 27-50.

2005 Are We There Yet? Natalie Robertson's Road Signs and the Redirection of Cultural Memory. Space and Culture: International Journal of Social Spaces, 8.4: 449-58.

2005 Contemporary Identity, Culture and the Art of Redress: Tokyo Street Style and Shigeyuki Kihara in Aotearoa New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Media Studies, 9.1: 5-17.

2005 Representing Cultural Diversity in a Global Context: The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and The National Museum of Australia. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 8.4: 465-85.

2004 A Symptomatic Museum: The New, the NMA and the Culture Wars (with C. Healy). Borderlands e-journal, 3.3, http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no3_2004/messagehealy_symptom.htm.

2003 Beyond proper comprehension: Housewife implosions in Rain. Metro, 136: 78-80.

2003 Whale Rider and the Politics of Location. Metro, 136: 86-90.

2000 Watching Witt: Alongside and Beyond The Thin Red Line. The UTS Review (now Cultural Studies Review), 6.2: 167-80.

1998 Abject Bodies and the Regulation of Maternity. Journal of Australian Studies, 59: 147-53.

Reports

2009 Invited submission to the Australian Government, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Review of the Protection of Moveable Cultural Heritage legislation 198 (with H. Morphy). Canberra: Institute for Professional Practice in Heritage and the Arts, ANU.

2009 Invited submission to the Review of Collections Council of Australia, Significance 2.0:a guide to assessing the significance of collections (with H. Morphy). Canberra: Institute for Professional Practice in Heritage and the Arts, ANU.

2007 Wellington Institute of Technology's Bachelor of Creative Technologies Accreditation Report (External NZPPC/NZQA & WelTec appointed member of NZPPC/NZQA investigative panel)

2006 Accreditation Evaluation Report - 3rd yr evaluation of Wellington Institute of Technology's Bachelor of Visual Arts (External NZPPC/NZQA appointed monitor commissioned by NZPPC)

2004 Accreditation Evaluation Report - 2nd yr evaluation of Wellington Institute of Technology's Bachelor of Visual Arts (External NZPPC/NZQA appointed monitor commissioned by NZPPC)

2003 Wellington Institute of Technology's Bachelor of Visual Arts Accreditation Report (External NZVCC nominated member of NZPPC/NZQA investigative panel)

Catalogue essays

2006 Ongoing dialogues and reinventions of Heide. Lead catalogue essay for D. Kahan, M. Burder and A. Johnson, In Modern Memory, Melbourne: Blindside Artist Run Space (September), n.p.

2003 Cruising The Imaginary Museum. Lead catalogue essay for David Clegg, The Imaginary Museum, Wellington: Adam Art Gallery, 2003; Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, 2003 Christchurch Art Gallery, 2004.

1998 Stories of the now-here. Lead catalogue essay in J. Verdon (ed), self remembering - home, Fitzroy: James Verdon, pp. 10-16.

Other

2010 [Encyclopedia entry] Black Hole. In A. Parr (ed), The Deleuze Dictionary, 2nd Edition (revised & expanded), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (in press).

2010 [Encyclopedia entry] Body Without Organs. In A. Parr (ed), The Deleuze Dictionary, 2nd Edition (revised & expanded), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (in press).

2010 [Encyclopedia entry] Stratification. In A. Parr (ed), The Deleuze Dictionary, 2nd Edition (revised & expanded), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (in press).

2010 [Encyclopedia entry] Territory. In A. Parr (ed), The Deleuze Dictionary, 2nd Edition (revised & expanded), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (in press).

2009 [Introduction to special issue] Compelling cultures: representing cultural diversity and cohesion in multicultural Australia (with A. Edmundson and U. Frederick). Humanities Research, XV.2: 9-16.

2007 [Poster presentation] New narratives of nation, the reinvention of democracy and the search for new governance models at the NMAI and Te Papa. Making National Museums: National Museum Narratives, Leicester: Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester.

2006 [Introduction to special issue] The cultural politics of Antipodean museums (with B. Dibley). New Zealand Sociology, 21.1: 4-8.

2005 [Encyclopedia entry] Black Hole. In A. Parr (ed), The Deleuze Dictionary, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 28-30.

2005 [Encyclopedia entry] Body Without Organs. In A. Parr (ed), The Deleuze Dictionary, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 32-34.

2005 [Encyclopedia entry] Segmentarity. In A. Parr (ed), The Deleuze Dictionary, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 240-42.

2005 [Encyclopedia entry] Stratification. In A. Parr (ed), The Deleuze Dictionary, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 266-68

2005 [Encyclopedia entry] Territory. In A. Parr (ed), The Deleuze Dictionary, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 274-76.

2002 [Review] It's All Done With Mirrors: About Television (Book Review). Illusions, 33: 46-48.

1999 [Review] onSITE: Australian Jewish History Gallery Review. inSITE, Aug-Sept.: 8-9.

1998 [Review] Darling, Don't Speak With Your Mouth Full: (Biting Into the) Binary Code. Flash, Feb: 6-7.

Disciplines:

Museum studies
Cultural studies

Teaching:

Kylie supervises graduate students in all areas of museum and collections-based research and in 2009 will teach:

● MUSC8007 Museums and Collections Key Concepts and Practices

● MUSC8001 Museums and Society

● MUSC8002 Museums and Collections, Meaning and Message

● MUSC8009 Museums and Collections Research Project

● HUMN8001 Interdisciplinary Humanities Research: Methods, Theories and Skills (with Carolyn Strange)

● HUMN8012 Writing, World Histories and Lives Research Project

Conferences:

Keynote Address at the MA09: Culture – Access – Innovation: Annual Museums Aotearoa conference, Gisborne, New Zealand: ‘The search for new narratives of nation and citizenship at the National Museum of the American Indian’ (April 2009)

Keynote Address at Past, Present, Future: The History of the Modern Art Museum, A Symposium at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden: ‘Museums in the twenty-first century: Still looking for signs of difference’ (Oct 2008)

Keynote Address at NaMu: Comparing: National Museums, Territories, Nation-Building and Change conference, Linköping University, Sweden: ‘Comparing cultures of citizenship and changing concepts of nation and community in museums in the EU and USA’ (Feb 2008)

Invited panelist and contributor to The State We’re in symposium, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London: ‘Comparing cultures of citizenship and changing concepts of nation and community in museums in the EU and USA’ (Jun 2008)

Invited presentation to Museums of the Twenty First Century: Inclusions and Exclusions symposium, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia: ‘Museums of the Twenty First Century: Inclusions and Exclusions’ (Nov 2008)

Invited presentation to Historiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden: ‘Museum trends 1989-2001 and beyond’ (Oct 2008)

Keynote Address at Museums in Australia conference, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, Australia: ‘The problem of democratic public culture: museums and public policy’ (Nov 2007)

Invited participant of NaMu: National Museum Narratives workshop at Leicester University, UK (Jun 2007)

Keynote Address at Economies of culture/culture of economies symposium, The University of Auckland, New Zealand: ‘Museums and the utility of culture’ (Nov 2006)

Invited participant of Masterclass for Early Career Researchers with Professor Toby Miller, at the University of Melbourne (May 2006).

Plenary Address at Biculturalism or Multiculturalism? conference, University of Canterbury, Canterbury, New Zealand: ‘Cosmopolitan new museums: Representing cultural diversity in a global context’ (Sept 2005)

Plenary Address at Art and Commemoration conference, Humanities Research Centre, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia: ‘Are we there yet? Natalie Robertson’s road signs and the redirection of cultural memory’ (Aug 2005)

Plenary Address at Rebirth of the Museum? international symposium, University of Melbourne: ‘The Imaginary Museum / The New Museum as Effect’ (July 2004)

‘The Imaginary Museum / The New Museum as Effect’, presentation for the Museum Studies program, New York University, USA (Nov 2004)

Plenary Address at Trans-Tasman Conference: Educating the Nation & the Media conference, Stout Research Centre and Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand: ‘ “Australians are Kiwi-bashers” says Clark: Trans-Tasman Rivalry and the fate of our national carriers’ (Oct 2003)

‘Apparatus, form, and content: The viewing screen as topographic surface, paper presented at VideoStar: Artists Using Video symposium, School of Fine Arts, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand (Oct 2001)

‘Creating cultural citizenship out of contemporary art at the National Museum of the American Indian?’, paper presented at Cultural Citizenship: The Fourth Annual ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (The University of Manchester), St Hugh’s College, Oxford University (Sept 2008).

‘Creating cultural citizenship out of contemporary art at the National Museum of the American Indian?, paper presented at Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration, Convergence: The 32nd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art, The University of Melbourne (Jan 2008)

‘Diversity, cosmopolitanism and new museums: Shifting architectures of representation and engagement within a global context’, paper presented at Sites of Cosmopolitanism: Citizenship, Aesthetics, Culture conference, Centre for Public Culture and Ideas, Griffith University and the Brisbane Museum (July 2005)

‘Representing cultural diversity in a global context’, paper presented at CCR 20/20/20 seminar series, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, The Australian National University (Jun 2005)

‘Contested sites of identity and the cult of the new: The Tjibaou Cultural Centre and the constitution of culture in New Caledonia’, paper presented at Autumn Seminar Series, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, The Australian National University (May 2005)

Invited presentation to Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand: ‘David Clegg’s Imaginary Museum project’ (May 2004)

‘Video installation, narrative form, and the immersive experience’, paper presented at 32nd AULLA Congress Knowledge and Nation, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (Feb 2003)

‘Theorizing the New Museum: A Process of Discovery’, paper presented at Cultural Sites, Cultural Theory, Cultural Policy, 2nd International Cultural Policy Research conference, Te Papa Tongarewa & Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (Jan 2002)

‘Crystal Palace to Media Museum: A Conceptual Framework for Experience and Sight’, paper presented at CAiiA 2000 - Consciousness Reframed: Art, Technology and Consciousness conference, The University of Wales, UK (Aug 2000)

‘Mapping movement and meaning in everyday urban space’, paper presented at Images of the Urban conference, the International Australian Studies Association and The Sunshine Coast University College, Queensland (July 1997)

‘Modernism, consumerism and the regulation of maternity within 1950s Australia’, paper presented at Everyday Wonders: Popular Culture Past and Present Xth International Conference, the Australian Studies Centre and University of Queensland (Jun 1997)

Professional societies:

Museums Australia; committee member of Museum Studies special interest group

Institute for Professional Practice in Heritage and the Arts; (founding) program coodinator