MEG Conference 2022 - Write Up by Amie KIrby.

 A word from our Chair

Thank you to everyone to made it to the MEG conference this year, including the incredible speakers who generously shared their thinking and practice, challenging us all to approach our work in news ways. A particular thanks to National Museums Scotland for hosting us, and putting on such a well-planned couple of days. After two years of online conversation, it was wonderful to catch up with friends and colleagues, and a real reminder of what makes MEG so unique as a community. 

 

This year’s Bursary holders, Amie Kirby and Rhea Blem were tasked with writing a blog about their experiences of the conference. They capture some of the conversations that were had, and offer critical insight that I think we can all learn from. I was particularly struck by Aime's reflection on the radical - a term which as she articulates so well has a moral capital, drawn on through change-oriented language used by museums with increasing confidence. 

 

Amie Kirby is an early career professional in the museums & heritage field. She currently works for Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery and is available for freelance projects. She holds a BA in Archaeology from the University of Durham, an MA in Art Gallery & Museum Studies from the University of Manchester, and is active in various political organising groups across Manchester. She is interested in the foregrounding of decolonial and abolitionist perspectives in the museum, seeing this space as a site of care-centred, relational practice.

 

“After all, radical simply means ‘grasping things at the root’”

Angela Y. Davis, Women Culture and Politics (1989)

I thought about this quote a lot on my train journey home from MEG 2022. My first time attending any academic conference, this event also was the first time I had met any MEG members in person since joining earlier this year. As a fresh-faced “early career professional” recently out of postgraduate study and considering a PhD, my motivation for attending was to engage not only with the latest invigorating research and chatter permeating the sector, but with people who believe similarly to me – that museums can be agents of social change.

Whilst there were many stimulating, insightful, and productive presentations, provocations and Q&A sessions, and I will summarise my favourites shortly, I couldn’t help but think of the above quote from Davis when reflecting on the many and varied ways in which the work being done is described as “radical”. As it was noted in the plenary discussion, Sara Wajid had previously called the group “quiet activists”. In a similar vein to the use of “radical”, there is much to unpack in the connotations of museum work being “activist”; notably in its romanticisation as Dr. Ayesha Fuentes noted. Moreover, with the decolonisation agenda firmly planted in institutions’ consciousness, how much “activist” museum work is quiet – and how much should it be?

This short summary of my experience at #MEG2022 aims to emphasise that, whilst amazing work is being done, there remains much to do – and it’s our collective responsibility to empower and amplify the voices of the communities who are the most excluded or marginalised by our institutions (Sheila Asante used the term “priority communities” and it has since remained fixed in my vocabulary).

Relationship-oriented Practice

One of the key themes running throughout multiple sessions of the conference was that of co-production. This brought about important critical points, such as how to approach those you wish to work with – instead of expecting them to come to you, how to recognise and act to correct the power imbalances between institution and community, the problems of “community” itself as a homogenising term, and how to ensure relationships are sustainable past the completion of a project.

These issues point towards a greater reckoning of “value” in the museums sector. As Miles Greenwood astutely pointed out, museums have the potential to hold value, i.e. in being freely accessed in cases where there is no admission charge, but their value is far from innate and is not something to be taken for granted. Indeed, the value of museums and the work we find ourselves in is constructed – and once we recognise this, we must question who imposes this value and to which ends. This was further emphasised by Sheila Asante’s provocation that in order to embed care-centred, relational practices into museum work, we must “flip the narrative”. Rather than asking how we can engage our priority communities, we must ask: why encourage people to engage in the perpetuation of trauma? What would their involvement do to enrich their own understanding and wellbeing?

Once this is understood, it is imperative to change the ways in which we work with people. As Asante noted, this must involve the very structures and processes of decision-making that permeate our work; when we lead with the importance of process, there is great scope to understand cultivated relationships as an ongoing process – not a “decolonial” tick-box. Many of the talks across Day 1 highlighted the importance of relationship-oriented practice, such as Dr Karen Jacobs, whose work with Māori artist George Nuku emphasised the importance of privileging Indigenous worldviews which emphasise the relationships between people, and their relationship to land.

Elaborating in the Q&A session, Jacobs asserted a wariness of relationships constructed for or in tandem with a project – as relationships should be reciprocal, longstanding, community-led, and “not extractive”. Similarly, Rosa Dyer noted the importance of building relationships between two individuals, rather than the homogenising and spurious categories of “institution” and “community”. In this way, we must not only rethink structures and processes embedded in our institutions – but we must continually interrogate the place we hold in these institutions and how we carry ourselves as such.

We Must Reinvent to Move Forwards

“But the urgency for decolonisation didn’t come from us! It came from activists out there, indigenous communities out there” – Prof Wayne Modest

In realising the need to diverge from our identities as agents of museum institutions, it becomes apparent that we must break out of the museum walls, so to speak, and to reinvent if we are to engage with the individuals we wish to reach in a way that is meaningful to them. One of the primary ways to do so is to step outside of our conceptions of the important work our institutions do, and to realise instead that relationship-centred, care-grounded community work is being done all the time, it already exists – just outside of museums. By being more aware and mindful of where work already exists, we can begin to look inwards and see where our museums may, or may not, serve, supplement, and amplify this work.

One example I was rather captivated with was that of the Nigeria60 project by the Horniman Museum & Gardens, discussed by Dr Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp. This project, produced in collaboration with Alafuro Sikoki-Coleman and other prominent Nigerian creatives, explores and celebrates the global impact of Nigerian creativity and directly brings this into conversation with collections of Nigerian material in the Horniman. Here, contemporary collecting of creative material was used as a method to interrogate existing collections with more accountability and criticality whilst using the process of creativity to form an “anti-collection”, in which ideas of fixing, permanence and centrality are refuted. As Zetterstrom-Sharp illustrated, this project serves to remind us that creativity is flourishing all the time, especially outside of museums. By emphasising creation and creativity, museums are better placed to don the role of facilitators, as opposed to animators or controllers of the narrative. This is again supported by Karen Jacobs’ description of the work completed with George Nuku – whereby nurturing relationships with artists and activists can lead to work that challenges the role of institutions.

Where Next: Interdisciplinary, Collaboration, and Grasping at the Root

One of the most exciting elements of this conference was the Work In Progress session, where current PhD students presented their research. The presentations themselves and the Q&A that followed felt dialogic and engaging; allowing speakers the opportunity to receive feedback on their work, and audience members to be provided with fresh, critical thought. Amy Shakespeare’s presentation on “Exhibiting Absence”, for example, was well-conceived and thought-provoking, putting forwards some of the arguments mentioned in this article – such as prioritising the formation of relationships between individuals.

Shakespeare’s use of “the three radicals” (radical trust, radical hope, and radical empathy) as a methodological basis prompted questions surrounding the use, or over-use, of ‘radical’ as terminology. Indeed, we must interrogate our language use continually whilst it changes at rapid pace; this includes recognising that larger institutions are guilty of co-opting or romanticising terms such as “radical” (which are often politically-charged) to denote a wildly different or innovative way of doing things; when in fact this way of doing things has been commonplace for many groups on the peripheries of our networks. Indeed, as I asserted at the beginning of this article, Angela Y. Davis says that radical simply means “to grasp at the root”: to get to the root cause of what you are trying to do and who you are trying to form relationships with. This should not be wildly innovative.

Conclusion

#MEG2022 has proved that museums are at their best when they are for and within the communities they serve. As practitioners, we are at our best when we work together: across distance and across disciplines. The prioritising of relationships and sustainable, embedded care-oriented practice holds true power to enable our users to define the value of museums for themselves: changing institutional culture beyond short-term participatory projects.

As an Early Career Professional whose interests lie in the intersection between museums and political organising, it is welcomed and refreshing to hear so many assertions of what should be done differently in order to prioritise relational working. The next step, whilst difficult, is to let such provocations spur us to action – to work together step-by-step to plot how change can occur in our institutions from the ground-up. As MEG member Mario Tuki from Rapa Nui noted in the end discussion, priority communities are more than capable of speaking for themselves. Arguably, the way we commit to change is to decentre ourselves.

MEG Conference 2022 - Post-conference Reflection by Rhea Blem

A word from our Chair

Thank you to everyone to made it to the MEG conference this year, including the incredible speakers who generously shared their thinking and practice, challenging us all to approach our work in news ways. A particular thanks to National Museums Scotland for hosting us, and putting on such a well-planned couple of days. After two years of online conversation, it was wonderful to catch up with friends and colleagues, and a real reminder of what makes MEG so unique as a community. 

 

This year’s Bursary holders, Amie Kirby and Rhea Blem were tasked with writing a blog about their experiences of the conference. They capture some of the conversations that were had, and offer critical insight that I think we can all learn from. I was particularly struck by Aime's reflection on the radical - a term which as she articulates so well has a moral capital, drawn on through change-oriented language used by museums with increasing confidence. 

 

Rhea Blem is completing her master’s in Art history of the African continent at Freie Universität Berlin. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Art history and English Literature from the University of Zurich, she has worked as a research, curatorial and teaching assistant at the Kunsthaus Zurich, the University of Zurich, and the Max Plank Institute for Art History in Rome. Her master thesis investigates “collecting” practices in late 19^th to early 20^th century KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa in the context of extractive colonialism. Her research interests include the arts and material cultures of the African continent, colonial practices of “collection”, accumulation, and display, postcolonial provenance research, and exploring possibilities for restorative, anti-colonial, and anti-racist approaches to (art-)history and museology.

Post-conference Reflection

Rhea Blem

 

Arriving in Edinburgh from Berlin on the 27^th of April, I was not sure what to expect. The 2022 MEG Conference was the first larger event I would be attending in person since before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Looking forward to and simultaneously feeling slightly nervous of human-to-human conversations, I consoled myself with the thought that we were all a little bit “out of practice” when it came to social interactions. I felt excited to spend the following days among people who shared an interest in thinking about museum pasts and presents in order to shape better futures within and beyond museums. Having only recently applied for MEG membership, I knew no one else and was initially quite overwhelmed with the number of people who turned up at the National Museum of Scotland on Thursday morning. Quite soon though, I realised I was not the only one feeling this way and adjusted to the new space, which was already buzzing with lively discussions, and people greeting old friends. The collective excitement at finally meeting up again in person was palpable and contagious. I quickly found myself involved in numerous conversations in what I experienced as a warm, welcoming, and open-minded environment.

What followed were two intense, very interesting days of talks, discussions, exchanges, reflections, which I have decided not to summarise in detail. Instead, I want to revisit the beginning and end of the conference, touch upon recurring themes, and share some thoughts on what struck me as particularly important, what moved me and continues to accompany me now, almost two months later.
In the introduction to the conference, Dr Samuel Alberti (NMS) asked how we can make world culture museums relevant for contemporary and diverse audiences. This served as a point of departure for the subsequent “provocations” panel, which explored the question: How can we make museums relevant for social and environmental justice today?

The respondents spoke about the enduring legacies of colonialism, empire, enslavement, and racism. They stressed the need for museums to be held accountable in addressing and actively disproving these legacies. Sheila Asante (Museum Galleries Scotland) observed that museums, which had been part of a conscious effort to subjugate people historically discriminated against, frequently continue to perpetuate exclusionary and racist narratives. These ways of telling “history through the lens of white [middle class] people” continue to feed the assumption that museums are for certain people and not for “Others”. Museums, Sheila Asante argues, need to develop “racial literacy” and anti-racism needs to be embedded in work structures and museum practices. Miles Greenwood (Glasgow Life) recentred the educational value and responsibility of museums to confront the challenges faced by our societies today (racism, poverty, structural inequality, climate change…). Miles Greenwood also questioned what value is created through increasing the perceived relevance of museums and whom this value serves, asking: What are museums doing to provide social justice for marginalised communities?

 This question was echoed by Nelson Cummins (Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights), who criticised the lack of engagement with questions of empire, colonialism, and racism in some museums, as well as a frequent failure to mention anticolonial resistance and agency of (formerly) colonised peoples. Insisting that museums can be sites of learning and critical engagement, Nelson Cummins argued that museums need to acknowledge not only the history of racism and colonialism, but how these continue to shape our present. Dr Peter Loovers’ (University of St Andrews) contribution reminded of the need to bring social and environmental justice together in tackling issues such as global heating, and of the central role of indigenous peoples in this process. This point resurfaced in subsequent papers that addressed ethnographic collections as “environmental archives” with capabilities to facilitate intercultural and interspecies knowledge dialogues (Rosa Dyer, Birkbeck, University of London and Pitt Rivers Museum), collaborative approaches to research on and conservation of “biocultural” collections (Dr Mark Nesbitt et al., Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Birkbeck, University of London), and indigenous (creative) responses to addressing the colonial dimensions of climate change (Dr Karen Jacobs, Sainsbury Research Unit).

The provocations discussed the challenges and structural problems of the museum sector, but also highlighted the possibilities for museums to potentially function as spaces for learning about and furthering the cause of social justice, for (re)building trust, for community engagement, for healing, for reflection, for restitution[1], for reparations, for forging new narratives, for imagining and shaping better futures, locally, as well as on a planetary level.

Many of the papers presented over the following days would pick up on these aspects, notably the participation  of historically marginalised and/or descendant communities. Several speakers reiterated the necessity for sustainable, long-term partnerships and relationships based on trust, and long-term funding in efforts to put these principles into practice. The equal (re)valuation of and exchange between different forms of knowledge was another returning theme. This should entail equivalent and adequate value (including financially) for participants contributing “indigenous knowledges”. Yet how can this be ensured within ongoing structures of (global) inequality and asymmetries of power? I have also been wondering about the value afforded to the emotional labour invested by descendant and creator communities in these processes. We heard about collaborations, co-curations, and co-production of knowledge(s), about interdisciplinary approaches to provenance research, about repatriation as a historically situated practice, about how social and environmental (and perhaps epistemic) justice need to be thought in conjunction, about reactivations and reanimations of “objects”, emotional and spiritual aspects of working with “colonial collections” and ancestral remains, about museums as process and the potential of impermanence.
It was interesting and also personally relevant to me to hear Dr Giovanna Vitelli (The Hunterian), Dr Briony Widdis (Queens University Belfast), Dr Jeremiah Garsha (University College Dublin) and Mark Hall (Perth Museum and Art Gallery) speak about the specificities of addressing legacies of empire and colonialism in (Northern) Ireland and Scotland. Although I grew up for the most part in Switzerland, my family on my father’s side are white South Africans of mostly British, and, (perhaps not) incidentally, predominantly Scottish descent. Understanding how I am implicated in (ongoing) histories of colonialism and racism, and how this informs and motivates my research, is an ongoing process. I therefore appreciated Briony Widdis’ frank self-positioning regarding her own colonial ancestry as an introduction to her talk. Thinking further about particularities of Scottish or Irish participation in projects of empire and colonialism seems crucial, if issues related to social justice, racism and structural inequality are to be addressed.
As someone who has spent many years observing museums from the “outside” as a student and university researcher, but who aims, eventually, to work in the museum sector, gaining insight into some of the practical challenges, which museum professionals encounter on an everyday basis, was an especially helpful aspect of the conference. Even though I am aware that implementing theoretical approaches to the “ethics” of curation, display, and “care” of “colonial collections” is rarely straight forward, hearing directly from museum professionals about the complexities, challenges, and affective dimensions of their work, is fascinating and humbling. Contributors  reflected on the practicalities of restitution, storage, conservation, and questions of classification with critical self-awareness and humility. Dr Lucie Carreau and Sam Daisely’s honest account of their attempts to respectfully interact with human remains, acknowledged not practical as well as emotional aspects of the “Stores move” project at MAA, Cambridge. Hearing these testimonies touched and impressed me.
I was especially heartened by and would like to highlight the “work-in-progress” papers of the “early-career” PhD researchers (Melissa Shiress, Amy Shakespeare, Nathalie Cooper, Alba Ferrándiz Gaudens, but also Rosa Dyer), who presented convincing approaches to dealing with cultural heritage collected in contexts of colonial injustice.
In a talk on the South African collections at the Horniman Museum, Nathalie Cooper (University of Warwick) referred to Dr Wandile Kasibe’s description of the museum as a colonial “crime scene”, and ethnography as tool of empire and racist violence. These violent legacies are still very much alive in our institutions, in our methods, and in ways of seeing and representing formerly colonised people and places. As we heard at the outset of the conference, these legacies  need to be addressed and repaired by museums, who continue to profit from the absence of cultural heritage in places “of origin”.
For institutions built on dispossession and violence (symbolic, structural, and physical), whose self-image as places that accumulate, store and ostensibly “care for” the cultural heritage of people who continue to be constructed as “Other”, what does “decolonisation” actually mean?
Possible ways forward were proposed in Dr Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp’s (Horniman Museum and Gardens) talk on the “anti-collection”, which questioned the very nature of museums as spaces with and for collections. The paper offered suggestions for museums to move beyond the logic of accumulation and retention that has shaped their identities and actions. Similar questions were addressed by PhD researcher Amy Shakespeare (University of Exeter), who proposed a “return and explain” approach and explored the potential of engaging with “empty spaces” left behind by objects when they return to places or communities of belonging. These presentations raised questions about the role of restitution in a wider anticolonial framework.
It is absolutely crucial to celebrate every small step in the direction of more equitable relations between museums and descendant communities as well as the growing awareness about colonialism and racism. Nonetheless, I was left with the overwhelming realisation of how much still remains be done. Notwithstanding the comforting examples of “successful” projects, such as the first restitution of “Benin Bronze” from a UK institution by the University of Aberdeen (Neil Curtis) or the possibilities offered by digital technologies to facilitate and enhance encounters and connections between people, places, and things (Louisa Minkin et al; Alice Watterson et al; Dr Ali Clark et al), it seems vital, at this point, not to become complacent. As Neil Curtis admitted, “if you’re more than a hundred years late there’s no sense in saying you’re ‘first’”. The work that lies before us is essential and long overdue. It is unsettling, uncomfortable, and leads into the unknown. Keeping in mind that “decolonization is not a metaphor”[2], as Jeremiah Garsha and Amy Shakespeare cautioned, we need to ask ourselves what museums and what, in particular, white museum and university professionals, including myself, are willing to give up, to further the cause and urgent need for decolonisation? “True” decolonisation  must lead to social-economic justice, i.e., restitution and reparations, and is, ultimately, “not about museums” (Neil Curtis). It has thus become clear, that for museums to be(come) relevant, they need to become instruments of social and environmental change. And this change must serve the needs and wishes of those who have been negatively impacted by the often violent extraction of natural and cultural resources under colonialism, empire, and racism.
I was moved and motivated by the varied and sometimes vulnerable accounts of people’s experiences of working with or on “ethnographic collections”, increasingly together with descendant communities, and of how they are addressing colonial continuities in their institutions. In concluding, I want to recentre questions of positionality and representation by revisiting a prescient statement made in the closing discussion: Mario Tuki (Museo de Rapa Nui, Isla de Pascua, Chile) observed that although repatriation had been mentioned in many of the talks, there had been a lot of talking about and talking for indigenous and marginalised communities. The assertion that there were “communities who could speak for themselves” and the consequent call for a “more balanced testimony of people doing the work on repatriation” was met with an uneasy silence. This silence lingered on and stayed with me after the conference. It reinforced, for me, the urgent need for fundamental and structural change as well as the importance of listening to and actually hearing the voices of people who have been marginalised through European colonial narratives and actions. The recognition that this was still a very white space, also made me question my own position as a white, middle class educated,  “early career” researcher who wishes to contribute to processing colonial history with and perhaps at some point without “world culture collections”.
Prioritising antiracist work on a personal, institutional and societal level and striving for structural change, seems even more urgent in the light of these remarks. Returning to the questions posed in the introduction – “how can we make world culture museums relevant for contemporary and diverse audiences?” and “how can we make museums relevant for social and environmental justice today?” – the participation of people from communities who have been negatively impacted by colonialism, empire, and racism, is key. “Contemporary and diverse audience” need to be part of shaping the futures of museums, not only as audiences or external advisors but on all levels.
Nonetheless, as was made apparent through the provocations, and by the remarks outlined above, museums continue to function as spaces of exclusion and, in some cases, re-traumatisation. As Sheila Asante rightly asked, “Why would you want to participate in a racist museum?” Considering the history of museums, ethnography, and other colonial disciplines as tools of empire and racial violence, and the fact that museums still often re-enact or fail to deconstruct this violence, maybe we should be asking ourselves a different question. For museums to be(come) relevant and accessible to “contemporary and diverse audiences”, and for them to contribute to social and environmental justice today, they need, first and foremost, to become safer, less violent, and more inclusive. So, how can we make world culture museums safer places, not only for “contemporary and diverse audiences”, but for fellow researchers, collaborators, and co-creators, including for members of descendant communities? This question could and should, I think, be extended to events such as this conference where we discuss possible futures of museums.
Realising that the same ideologies and structures that enabled the removal of “objects” from people to whom they belonged, continue to shape our border regimes that violently restrict people’s freedom of movement today, and the added injustice that formerly colonized people and places are disproportionately endangered by the effects of global heating, re-affirms the responsibility of museums and other institutions with colonial histories, but also the need for political action and change. This is a vast and intimidating task, but one which I believe is already underway, and one which people all over the world understand to be essential and are committed to being a part of. The wide range of institutional affiliations of people attending the 2022 MEG Conference attests to the will of many individuals to confront the colonial legacies and racism in their institutions, to focus resources and skills on building trust, to learn and unlearn, to repair. Attending the conference impressed upon me the significance of community for this work, of forming mutually supportive relationships through knowledge exchange and social interactions.
It was incredibly special and a privilege to be able to take part in the 2022 MEG Conference. I am very thankful for the opportunity. I am happy for the many friendly and engaging conversations, grateful to those who charmingly coaxed me out of my shyness, who made me feel part of this community. I look forward to joining again in subsequent years, to seeing new and known faces, and to contributing to creating an open, inclusive environment for discussing and drafting visions of how to build better futures, both within, and beyond museums.

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[1] During the conference, the term “repatriation” was mostly frequently used. I choose to use the term “restitution”, which alludes to the actual act of “taking” as well as the act of “giving back” to a place or people of “origin”.
[2] Tuck, E., Yang, K. W., “Decolonization is not a metaphor”, in: Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2012), pp. 1-40.
 

John Mack Conference: Africa & Beyond – 23-24 May 2022 – UEA Norwich

 This event is not only a celebration of John’s work over many years at the British Museum and UEA, but also a celebration of being able to gather together for the first time in over two years. The event is sponsored to keep registration costs low, especially for students (£25 for both days, including lunches, teas and reception).

A programme of papers will touch on areas of John ’ s work and interests. Speakers include: Kiprop Lagat, Department of Culture, Kenya Henrietta Lidchi, National Museum of World Cultures, The Netherlands Allen Roberts, University of California, Los Angeles Abubakar Sule Sani, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria Kenji Yoshida, Minpaku, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka

Full details can be found on the UEA website.

Event - Settler Colonialism, Slavery and the Problem of Decolonizing Museums

 

CALL FOR PAPERS: Ireland, Museums, Empire, Colonialism: Collections, Archives, Buildings and Landscapes : Deadline 2 July 2021

Ulster Museum and Queen’s University Belfast (or online depending on COVID-19).

8-9 April 2022.

Confirmed keynotes: Professor Hakim Adi (University of Chichester), Professor Corinne Fowler (University of Leicester), Professor Jane Ohlmeyer (Trinity College Dublin), Lynn Scarff (National Museum of Ireland) and Dr Audrey Whitty (National Museum of Ireland and Irish Museums Association).

 

We have issued a Call for Papers for this inter-disciplinary conference, which will interrogate the complexities of Ireland’s relationship with the British Empire, and of Irish involvement in colonialism. The conference aims to connect academic researchers, museum practitioners, activists and policymakers who are interested in objects, archives, buildings, and landscapes in both public and private spaces and throughout the island of Ireland; and to inform current debates surrounding collections from colonised regions, including Africa, the Americas, the Arctic, Asia and Oceania.  Further details of the conference and its themes can be found at  News | CFP | Centre for Public History | Queen's University Belfast (qub.ac.uk)

 

Papers on the conference themes but not pertaining to Ireland will be welcome.  It is intended that the conference proceedings will be collected in an edited volume.

 

The conference is organised by the Centre for Public History and Institute of Irish Studies in Queen’s University Belfast. The partners in the project are National Museums NI, the Irish Museums Association, Northern Ireland Museums Council and the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates at the University of Maynooth.

 

ABSTRACTS:

If you would like to speak at the conference, please submit an abstract of 250 words with a 400-word CV or academic personal website address, by 17:00 on 2 July 2021. In the event of any queries, please email imec@qub.ac.uk .

 

Cultures of Care – Reflections from the Museum Ethnographers Group Conference, 6 May 2021 by Dr Nuala Morse

As part of MEG’s online annual conference this year, I had the opportunity to present a conversation with Dr Jennie Morgan (University of Stirling), exploring the idea of ‘cultures of care’ in museums. Our starting point was a previous set of discussion that had brought out work together, and responding to a sense that our need for care, and to care better, had become ever more dramatically apparent as the Covid-19 pandemic runs on.

In my own work, I have been thinking and writing about care in the context of community engagement work in museums, which I present in my recent book, The Museum as Space of Social Care (2020). Within the book, I consider care in the very intimate settings of engagement sessions with vulnerable or marginalised groups, notably in the context of health and wellbeing programming, to a wider reflection on the social role of museums in an increasingly careless world. 

Talking of care in the museum is, in a sense, entirely ordinary since care for collections is central to museum work. The idea that the museum should also care for its communities is well-established in rhetoric, though perhaps the practice is more patchy. Certainly, members and associates of MEG have been demonstrating care in practice through their work with communities, both diasporas and distant constituents. And yet, wider discussion of care for people are currently absent from museum discourse.

The book explores ‘care thinking’ through a number of directions.

First, care as practice and capacity: here I draw out the myriad of mundane acts that that take place within community engagement session, which are remarkable as acts of everyday care – making people feel safe, included, valued, respected, and listened to. This work is all too often overlooked in terms of its time, its skills and its qualities. Caring work takes time, effort – a proactive willingness to care for others and an awareness of the dynamics of caring relations, their ambivalences and their contradictions. This is not to say that caring cannot be learnt; but it does requires working at.

The second approach is through looking at its logics. The notion of ‘logics’ draws our attention away from codes and procedures, to consider what is appropriate or logical to do in a certain situation. The logic of care is therefore about distilling what makes ‘good’ care, with clear attention to its specificity Defining care is not a fixed thing, but rather something that happens in and through practice.

Key point here is that care is relational – in order to become good care, it has to be recognised and received as care. As such, care is a shared accomplishment. We might say that care needs to be co-produced (to use a familiar museum term). This is important, as it is very possible to care badly. Indeed, care is often criticised as being patronising, and it can be used to exploit, control and abuse. Good care happens only when it is shared.

Another direction I explore in the book is the ‘museumness of care’, drawing on previous work with Ealasaid Munro. This is the idea that the museum can provide its own version of care; that it has innate capacities to care that could be activated using museum objects and spaces, and culture more widely.

The final direction is to explore an ethics of care, as the basis for a new direction for museums practice and theory (towards a ‘care-ful museology’, if you will). The ethics of care presupposes that we all need care. Drawing on feminist work, care is here defined as a broader philosophy,

‘a species of activities that includes everything we do to maintain, continue, and repair our world so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, self-sustaining web’ (Fisher and Tronto, 1993)

Applied to the museum, care ethics is about repositioning the museum as active within networks of mutual support, and within wider landscapes of care organisations, both formal and informal. This defines what I call the museum as a space of social care.

In essence, the idea of a museum for/in the community is not new (and this is a good thing!). But I suggest that through care thinking, we can provide different coordinates for activating this community role.

My work to date has focused on thinking through care in the museum from as emerging from community engagement settings primarily with social history collections, and primarily local communities, often marginalised and excluded groups accessing a range of social services and formal care organisations. Bringing this discussion to MEG colleagues, was an opportunity to explore how care thinking might already feature in their own work with ethnographic collections, and their own practices of community engagement.

As part of the MEG discussion and drawing on her work ass part of the AHRC HeritageFutures project, Jennie described how care is often expressed through collecting and preservation practices intended to navigate the challenge of curating profusion. We then opened up to the floor, and we had a wide-ranging discussion about care. (note: these are here reported in my own words, any misreporting or misunderstandings are therefore entirely my own)

1) How can care be expanded across the organisation?  What about care for staff at this time?

2) Is care/the idea of the museum as a space of social care another form of instrumentalisation of culture, this time to plug the gaps left behind by cuts to health and social care services?

3) How do we prioritise care, and does caring for some come at the expenses of caring for others?

4) What can we learn from Indigenous forms of ‘caring with’? (short answer here is surely lots)

I am grateful for colleague’s engagement in the session, which has given me much to think through, in considering the potential of care as a way of articulating the future work of museums. Of course we only scratched the surface – to my mind care opens up real possibilities for different approaches to outlining the museum’s responsibility (and obligation?) to care, but also some challenges, to ensure that care work doesn’t become parochial, patronising, or worse. We need to understand cultures of care as shared accomplishment in the future of the museum.

I welcome any further thoughts and discussion, and thank delegates again for their engagement – you can reach me at nuala.morse@leicester.ac.uk

If you are interested in hearing more about the book, please do join me in conversation on July 1^st, 12 pm BST for a virtual book launch Book through eventbrite. 

BARKER LANGHAM CURATES SESSIONS FOR WORKING INTERNATIONALLY CONFERENCE FOR INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF MUSEUMS UK

 

Working Internationally Conference

Leading cultural consultancy, Barker Langham, has joined forces with the International Council of Museums UK (ICOM UK) to curate a series of panels for the 2021 Working Internationally Conference. Titled Shifting Landscapes, Shifting Perspectives, this online conference takes place over three days (16–18 March) and will explore and debate some of the most significant global issues affecting the cultural industry: social justice, sustainability and the future of museums.

 

ICOM UK and Barker Langham share a common goal to open up discussion on museums, their future and their evolution. Both organisations want to throw a spotlight on the projects and people behind the scenes that are making change in the world.

 

Barker Langham’s global team works with museums, institutions and cultural organisations across the world. This international outlook shapes every aspect of their work and their focus on identifying different perspectives, fresh ideas and best practice has been the genesis of the sessions that they have developed for the Working Internationally Conference.

 

Eric Langham, Founder, Barker Langham 

“It’s a real privilege for us to contribute to this conference and to offer our perspective on the museum world as it continues to shift and evolve. What is especially fascinating is that although we acknowledge that no single country, region or even museum faces an identical set of challenges, or behaves in the same way, the three topics that we focus on – social justice, futures and sustainability – are topics that define humanity.”

 

Each day of the conference will focus on a major global issue: 

Social Justice: Museum responses to decolonisation, restitution, Black Lives Matter, representation and youth on Tuesday 16 March

Museums and Sustainability: Challenges of working in and responding to a changing climate on Wednesday 17 March

The Future of Museums: Where are we now, and where do we go from here? on Thursday 18 March

 

Barker Langham Curated Sessions

 

The Barker Langham curated sessions will examine the complexity of the debates around each of these topics. The films aim to curate a toolbox of ideas and experiences that conference delegates can use to inform and shape their own thinking.

 

Eric Langham, Founder, Barker Langham

“It is our aspiration to make the films conversational so they work in dialogue with the conference participants but also allow us to draw on the wealth of ideas already out there in the world – creating a bigger conversation.”

 

The three hour-long sessions, each based around an audio-visual think-piece, feature a diverse group of speakers. A live Q&A will be held during each session as part of the chat function on the conference platform.

 

Day 1: Wednesday 16 March – Social Justice 

14:00 – 15:00 Barker Langham Curated Session – Just Outcomes 

In the context of a sustained move to decolonise museums, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the growth of a global debate about economic inequality, social justice has become a hot topic for museums.

Subhadra Das (UCL), Clara Paillard (Public and Commercial Services Union), Deborah Tulani Salahu-Din (National Museum of African American History and Culture), Matt and Jess Turtle (Museum of Homelessness) and Anne Wetsi Mpoma (independent curator, Brussels) tackle some of the toughest questions facing our profession, from re-centering the stories we tell, to changing pay and hiring policies, to empowering visitors to transform their communities.

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Day 2: Tuesday 17 March – Museums and Sustainability

14:00 – 15:00 Barker Langham Curated Session – Testaments from the Age of Humans 

Every object can tell a story of humanity’s impact on our planet and every museum has the power to be a voice for climate action. In this session, Barker Langham will take the audience on a virtual journey across the world’s museums and cultural landmarks, showcasing captivating and unexpected stories that shed new light on the way we think about our places, collections and institutions in the context of the global environmental crisis.

This international tour will take in institutions including the District Six Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the National Museum of Qatar and many more. At each museum, we will hear stories of environmental change and people’s evolving relationship with, and effect on, the world.  

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Day 3: Thursday 18 March – The Future of Museums 

This day will be introduced and chaired by Eric Langham

14:00 – 15:00 Barker Langham Curated Session – Responsive Futures

Through political turmoil, public health crises, economic downturns and seismic shifts in global culture, museums have to adapt to survive and remain relevant. Today, many are using rapid-response collecting as a proactive tool to build archives that speak to who we are now. 

 

Sharing inspiring stories of the ways in which museums have responded to disruption, this film will examine the act of collecting in times of strife. With insights from Foteini Aravani (Museum of London), Dr Aaron Bryant (Museum of African American History and Culture), Anna Burckhardt (Museum of Modern Art) and Suzy Hakimian (Museum of Minerals and Chair of ICOM Lebanon), it will ask how museums are navigating ever-changing landscapes, and shed light on why and for whom they collect.

 

Further Information

The 2021 Working Internationally Conference, organised by ICOM UK in partnership with NMDC, with support from the British Council and curatorial support from Barker Langham, takes place online from 16–18 March 2021.  

The conference is free of charge for ICOM UK and NMDC members. For booking, and the full programme of speakers and events, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2021-working-internationally-conference-registration-136012148999?aff=erelexpmlt

About Barker Langham

The Barker Langham team includes museum and culture professionals living and working across Europe, China, Africa, the Middle East and North America. Together, they are one of the world’s leading cultural consultancies, creating pioneering and sustainable projects for museums, historical sites, governments and charities. They have successfully delivered over 250 projects, from community oral history initiatives to international mega-museums. Barker Langham’s interdisciplinary team works collaboratively across curation, strategy, interpretation, business planning, audience development, research and recruitment, and approaches every project with the same enthusiasm for seeking out and telling compelling stories and for creating memorable and meaningful experiences. They are expert advisors and mentors for the UK Heritage Fund, the European Union, the Museums Association and UNESCO.

 

www.barkerlangham.com

 

Conference: Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future

The following conference includes several panels on museums and collections which may be of interest to our members.  

ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

14 - 18 September 2020

The Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future conference is jointly organised by the RAI, the RGS, the British Academy, the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS, and the BM’s Department for Africa, Oceania and the Americas. The conference was originally planned as a face to face conference to be held in June 2020, but it will now be an online conference to be held 14-18 September 2020.
 
The RAI believes that anthropology and geography should be close, all the more so as the two disciplines have so much in common, both today and in the past. It hopes very much that through this conference, existing dialogues can be explored and further conversations take place on a host of vital issues including the Anthropocene, definitions of ethnology, methodology and fieldwork, contemporary understanding, education and public awareness, and the place of our disciplines in the modern world. We hope equally that this will lead to a shared intellectual understanding of our past and the emergence of the two disciplines, and an even closer engagement in the future, particularly in terms of emerging fields of mutual interest: e.g. digital media, geospatial mapping, and satellite photography.

Informal enquiries may be made to info@therai.org.uk

Registration opens 1 July 2020

Full details can be found on the RAI website. 

Call for papers: Settler responsibilities towards decolonisation

The University of Auckland is hosting a Marsden Funded international symposium in February 2021, and invites submissions from across the arts. Given the uncertain nature of the Covid-19 situation, the University is preparing to host this conference virtually if needed.

This symposium will delve into the possible roles and responsibilities involved with decolonisation, focusing on both theoretical and empirical research that explores these issues in Aotearoa New Zealand and elsewhere in the indigenous-settler world.

Papers from all disciplines that examine these issues are welcome, and accommodation and meals will be provided for accepted participants.

The deadline for a paper proposal and Curriculum Vitae is 31 May 2020.

Full details on their website. 

From De-Colonial to Anti-Colonial: What’s Next for Museum Interpretation? conference 31 March 2020

Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, Tuesday 31 March 2020

Conference programmed by Sonya Dyer in collaboration with the Understanding British Portraits network

What do we mean when we talk about decolonisation? Why is it necessary? What specific challenges does portraiture as a genre present? What strategies can museums and galleries put in place to support the process of decolonisation? What is the difference between being de-colonial and anti-colonial?
Dealing with the impact of Britain’s colonial history within the cultural sector is a process – an on-going series of actions and activities that aim to change the way we interpret our complex and contentious history through portraiture. By sharing ideas, strategies and activism, delegates are invited to take part in a day of conversation aimed at inspiring and empowering them to action within their institutions.

More details will be going up on the Barber Institute website soon. 

⇒ Opportunity for film maker – deadline Monday 17 February 2020

The Understanding British Portraits professional network wishes to appoint a film maker for this conference which forms part of the UBP network’s events programme for museum and gallery professionals and researchers in the UK. This is an opportunity to contribute to the planning and delivery of a legacy film which will encapsulate some of the messages and debate at the event, and offer a relevant resource for museum professionals engaging with the process of collection and institutional decolonisation. The role would suit a freelancer with some knowledge of the current conversations around decolonisation in the museum/arts/heritage sectors. Formal study or qualification in this field is not necessary, and we welcome applications from film makers with empathy for the subject matter, who will bring enthusiasm and creativity to the project.

Full details and job description can be found on the Barber Institute website. 

Decolonisation and Democratisation Conference: call for papers

Decolonisation + Democratisation is a national conference exploring how heritage and arts organisations are engaging and sharing ownership with communities.

Have you got big ideas about how to transform the face of heritage and the arts? Are there some simple steps to changing how we think about and work with communities that can have significant impacts?

 If so, we want to hear from you. We are looking for submissions from all career levels and all sizes of organisation.   

 We are particularly keen to hear examples of: 

·         Museums working in partnership, especially ones involving organisations/ individuals outside of the cultural sector

·         Museums being used for non-traditional activities

·         Ways of enhancing collections knowledge through partnership work

·         “Failures” as well as success stories, which can help others learn

When: Thursday 10^th September, 2020  

Where: Colchester Castle, Essex  

Where presentations involve community partners, we would love to hear from both parties and have bursaries to support community participation.  

If you are unable to get to Colchester in person, please do still get in touch as we would love to explore remote contributions, such as via Skype. 

 We are looking for contributions for:   

·                     Workshop activities (30 mins)  

·                     Short presentations (20 mins)  

If you have something to share, we’d love to hear from you. Email us with:  

·                     Name(s) and contact details, including organisation   

·                     Summary and title of your idea (no more than 300 words), including structure   

·                     What you expect delegates to take away from your session  

Submissions to be emailed to Ben.Paites @colchester.gov.uk by 9am on Monday 30^th March. All submissions will be considered and we shall inform successful applicants by Friday 24^th April. All presenters will receive free entry to the conference. (NB: the cost for delegates will be £25 for the day).   

https://cimuseums.org.uk/danddconference/