ABSTRACT
The subject of ‘museums as a context for ceramics’ initially appears straightforward. Museums provide a ubiquitous experience, as popular as going to football or the theatre. Yet this experience is suffused with ambivalent and ambiguous meanings and intentions. It is rare to be alone in a museum, so the collective act of wandering and wondering raises questions about the identity of us, of things and of place. As Manuel Castells (2000) states in his observation of crowds, the collective sway provides not unified stability but uncertainty and instability.
