Exhibiting

The current turn to exhibitions and exhibiting in cultural geography is part of a wider pivot in the humanities. It is also the latest episode in long histories of geography, exhibiting objects and artefacts in schoolrooms, university departments and museums. This chapter addresses exhibiting as a subject of geographical inquiry, in relation to cognate practices like archiving and advertising, and as a method of inquiry, including curating shows in permanent galleries and museums, staging displays in multi-purpose spaces and in the landscape at large. The chapter surveys two exhibition precincts: London's Exhibition Road, a major quarter of museums, including the gallery of the Royal Geographical Society, and the campus of the University of Nottingham, in which multidisciplinary exhibition making has been an integral part of civic minded research and teaching. The chapter raises issues of production and collaboration, reception and spectatorship, instruction and entertainment.