Affect, Mediation and Subjectivity-as-Encounter: Finding the Feeling of the Foundling

This article will take the subject of affect as a space of critical reflection on the limits of museums when conceived primarily as communications media. Drawing from a range of interdisciplinary debates across media and cultural theory, including the field of affect studies and approaches to subjectivity, embodiment and mediation, the article will outline some core issues of relevance to curatorial practices. I will pose the question of what it might mean to enter into suggestive relations with another – human and non-human – by focusing upon the embodied experience of visiting the Foundling Museum in London. The article will attempt to ‘find the feeling of the foundling’ in order to raise critical and creative questions about the entry of affect into the arts and humanities, and ways of newly conceiving interactive publics no longer considered primarily as consumers of meaning.