Artists' ‘embedded reinterpretation’ in museums and sites of heritage

Artists’ ‘embedded reinterpretation’ results in responsive artwork, consciously made and sited in proximity to existing artworks or artefacts, the latter acting as a source. The methodology provides a practice-based means of broad thematic, conceptual, contextual or environmental critique which goes beyond approaches which emphasise purely formal resonances between artefacts. How embedded reinterpretation produces dramatic juxtapositions in space and time is also important as its range of methods have a retrospective and prospective foci. This also holds implications and anticipations for an existing body of cultural history if applied through the practice of interventions in museums. This article concludes with two such curatorial case studies and a prospective project. Artist’s embedded reinterpretation can be considered as a challenge to notions of periodisation, more importantly it develops creative reciprocity and affiliation, to enable imaginative disruption in ordered environments.