Redistributive Urban Museography and Heritage Presentification: An Empirical Evaluation of an Urban African Art Exhibition in Commercial Shop Windows
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines Presentificacion: African Spirits Become Present in the Streets of Huesca as a case study of redistributive urban museography and decolonial mediation in commercial public space. The study combines curatorial, cartographic, and photographic documentation, an educational-visits programme, and a profile-differentiated survey (N = 140) to analyze how thirteen shop windows relocated encounters with heritage from institutional space to a network of everyday micro-sites and assess their reception. A parallel exhibition further addressed educational curatorship as a process of selection, contextualization, and intercultural interpretation. Results show a high overall rating (M = 8.75/10; SD = 1.25), a recommendation score of 8.80, and a continuation intention of 8.53; 96.4% would participate again. Citizens scored significantly higher than student groups on these indicators. The common aesthetic and cultural reception index reached 3.77/5 (α = 0.945), with no overall differences between profiles except for comprehension. The multivariate model explained 43.5% of the variance in overall rating; emotional response and citizen-group membership were the only predictors with a significant independent association. The case conceptualizes the shop window as an ambivalent technology of heritage presentification, raising questions about its educational potential through critical mediation, cultural contextualization, and conditions of observation.
Source: Heritage
Institution: Universidad de Zaragoza
Language: English
Subfield: Museology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,930
OpenAlex ID: W7225620935