ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses how recent and painful pasts can be incorporated into the plans of a yet-to-come Museum of Memory in Bogota, Columbia. It analyses the innovative institutional role of a museum, closed to the public. Shifting focus to representations of natural heritage as part of an immersive display, the book asks how museums working in a consumerist economy can fulfil a mission to educate audiences. It documents how museums may experiment with ways of combining artworks in the museum so that they offer different viewer experiences from those found in mainstream art museums. The book explores experimental museology and museum practices from very different angles. It illuminates the necessity for museums to adopt such dimensions into daily practice in order to not only meet the demands of complex communities and often contradictory obligations but to help shape future directions.
