Negotiating the exhibition

Exhibitions are socially contested spaces. Here, negotiations take place regarding who speaks and who is heard. The (un)conscious intentions of the exhibition creators collide spatially with the perceived interpretations of the visitors. But what actually happens in this setting? Until now, research has primarily examined art historical staging analyses and empirical visitor studies separately. The question of the relationship between people and objects in space has been relatively rarely addressed. Through comprehensive field research and references to space and action theory, Luise Reitstätter provides answers and illustrates the site-specific logics of the social space of exhibitions.