Interdisciplinary Exhibitions and the Production of Knowledge

Book excerpt: How can exhibitions not only stage existing knowledge, but also raise questions that lead to new research? This question has become ever more relevant due to the museum sector's growing interest in the development of thematic exhibitions that combine narratives and objects from art, science, cultural history, and everyday life. Using theories from interdisciplinarity studies, Henriette Pleiger identifies different ways of producing knowledge during the exhibition-making process, as well as the mechanisms that are necessary for an exhibition to be considered interdisciplinary. The development of such exhibitions can be understood as collaborative research processes.