Presenting the Unknown: infrastructure, influence and information in the management of uncertain objects in museums and galleries

This thesis examines unknown objects and their associated information in collections across institution types including history, art, and science. Unknown objects are defined as those with uncertain or unknown core record elements. As both outliers and unexpectedly representative subjects of collections and their management, unknown objects provide the unique lens through which this cross-disciplinary study is conducted. Comparative case studies at the National Portrait Gallery, V&A Museum, British Museum, Pitt Rivers Museum, Natural History Museum and Science Museum provide foundations for methods and analysis through the examination of unknown objects, collections records, and interviews with personnel.

This research project illuminates the effect of museum and gallery systems on the creation and maintenance of ‘unknownness’ in collections both on and off display.

Specific reasons for unknowns vary by case. However, this project argues that the networked interactions between objects, records, industry standards, and institutional systems and histories characterise the unknown in museum and gallery environments universally. Within these networked interactions, common influences (such as the separation of collections and documentation) and themes (such as searchability) are at the core of unknownness in collections and serve as the framework for this thesis.

This study addresses a gap in research of the systems that manage museums and galleries as caretakers of not only objects, but also information, and elucidates relationships between the unknown, and knowledge production and management.

This project is relevant for museum and gallery studies, and any discipline where meaning is made and managed. Working to further academic understandings of collections and their information, this thesis also aims to encourage practical applications of these understandings in the development of more effective collections management policies and procedures for the future.