Impact assessment
The MA’s Museums 2020 initiative has raised a whole series of questions about the future of museums and the impact they have on people’s lives. Rob Sharp reports
Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum, the Art Fund Prize’s 2012 Museum of the Year, calls itself the focus for “a million thoughts”. This slogan highlights its far-reaching community engagement programme.
And there is no better maxim for the numerous responses to the Museums Association’s (MA) Museums 2020 project, which has prompted significant debate in the sector by placing impact at the centre of its message.
Since the Museums 2020 consultation paper was launched in July last year there have been written responses, workshops and web debates as part of the ongoing discussion about what roles museums could and should be playing in 2020.
However, the deliberate focus on social impact in the consultation document has led to considerable contention. On one side of the argument are those who say it is vital for museums to prioritise social impact and public value, especially at a time when they are being measured against hospitals, the police and other public services.
On the other side are those who maintain that unless collections are put at the centre of a national rethink, the central benefits, say, of an 18th-century oil-painting or a Roman axe-head, risk getting swamped in a modern obsession with measurable change.
In December’s Museums Journal, Natural History Museum earth sciences curator Tim Ewin warned against the under-representation of the role of collections in the debate, writing: “This unbalancing will only lead to a poorer service for all and diminish support for museums as they fail in their duty.” He added that “museums need a balance between intrinsic and instrumental values”.
The Collections Trust, in its response to Museums 2020, emphasised that museums’ impact is “rooted in material and intangible culture – the collections they manage on behalf of the public”.
Maurice Davies, the MA’s head of policy and communication, says it’s a question of “looking at the whole of the outside world and seeing where museums’ work fits into the great scheme of things. Museums can be so much more than buildings that interpret collections. Times are hard. Museums can play a part in doing something positive in society.”
Public benefit
For many though the “collections versus impact” debate is a red herring and they would argue that most people who work in museums accepted that impact was central decades ago.
“I would be dismayed if there was a debate between collections and impact,” says Hedley Swain, director, museums and renaissance, at Arts Council England.
“It would be like a hospital talking about curing people versus doctors. We should only talk about collections in terms of public impact. I would hope there are no public museums getting public money that are not putting public benefit front and square to what they do.”
So collections are central to everything that museums do. And one of the reasons that they are important to society as a whole is that they can help improve people’s lives. And there are many good examples of how museums are already doing this.
National Museums Liverpool’s House of Memories project works with dementia sufferers and uses collections to influence memory and nostalgia. It also helps train carers to understand the disease. As one of a number of different methods used locally, visits to museums and the use of artefacts has been used to jump-start patients’ recall.
“Such projects exemplify the work that museums should be doing,” says David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool. “What we achieve is much more important than the mechanics of how we do it. Collections are not the be all and end all. Why can’t we face up to that?”
John Roles, head of museums and galleries at Leeds City Council, cites initiatives such as Stories of the World, part of last year’s Cultural Olympiad, in which local young people curated and designed entire shows themselves. “It’s quite resource intensive,” he says. “It’s a cultural challenge for staff to hand over control.”
Co-production
Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales (NMW) staff are working with more than 20 community groups on the renaissance of the St Fagans: National History Museum.
David Anderson, director general of NMW, says it’s an example of the impact that museums can have. Over 130 consultations were held, making sure that what locals wanted was central to the initiative.
“In Wales and in other parts of the UK, co-productions are gaining in strength,” says Anderson. “St Fagans is a ‘shifting museum’ that is being developed with the public.”
For Anderson, any difference between the “instrumental” and the “intrinsic” is “intellectually bankrupt”. “Even to create a museum is a social act,” he says. “One person’s instrumental is another person’s intrinsic.”
Other responses to Museums 2020 hint at similar trends for inclusion and social impact. Brighton Museums cites its World Stories: Young Voices project, where a gallery of ethnographic objects was developed in collaboration with groups of young people.
At Richmond’s Orleans House gallery, a project worked with two artists to create an animation, What Makes Me Happy, designed as a starting point for discussing mental well-being.
The gallery is also using its collection of local landscape paintings to encourage people to develop a sense of stewardship over their environment, using images of Richmond Hill, the country’s first legally protected view.
Many such stories hint at what museums can do if they choose to make a difference, moving the debate on to meaningful action.
“It’s not always the best idea to frame the debate in terms of collections versus impact,” says museum consultant May Redfern.
“Of course impact is essential. But what are the impacts we as museums are best placed to make and how can we achieve them? Museums are organisations that look after collections for public benefit. How can we do that? That’s the debate.”
Rob Sharp is a freelance journalist
From chiming rocks to musical moon slices, there are few better examples of thinking imaginatively about collections to achieve impact than Leicestershire County Council’s Held in the Hand project, joint winner of last year’s Clore Award for Museum Learning.
Organisers commissioned artists from across Britain to make a small sculpture that could be “held in the hand”. Part of the brief was that they needed to make contemporary art accessible, regardless of disability.
Workshops were held in local schools with artists. In some cases the objects helped pupils develop their ideas and vocalise them. Each sculpture has its own box that includes notes from the artist explaining how the object was made and the artist’s interpretation of what the object is.
The project is part of the local authority’s Museum Without Walls initiative that delivers collections to local venues. A related project, Touch Tables, uses tables with differently designed tiles to provide touch stimulus for dementia patients.
According to Lisa Webb, the council’s artworks and resource box officer, such objects can also be used to reconnect people with their past and rekindle their sense of identity.
Artists have been briefed using lessons learned during the project to date: what worked, what didn’t.
“We also showed them some real museum objects typically used for reminiscence activities,” says Webb. “So the challenge now will be for them to design and make new Held in the Hand objects that will trigger memories, encourage reminiscence, interaction and activities.”
New themes featured include working life, fashion and childhood. “We are also building four new tables capable of holding individual tiles so they can be wheeled up to people in armchairs or wheelchairs. They will work well in care homes but also with people with profound multiple learning disabilities.”
Barnsley’s Arts and Museums Service has a big year ahead. A new “people’s museum”, Experience Barnsley, will open at the newly renovated town hall in May. The project has drawn on locals’ expertise and collections to create a showcase for the town’s history.
More than four years of community engagement have been put into the scheme, which the service hopes will build a sense of lasting engagement with individuals and communities, partly by using residents’ own histories and objects to represent their stories for the first time in a different, engaging way.
“By donating, interpreting and helping to engage others with the new collections, people are right at the centre of what we’re doing,” says John Tanner, the new museum’s project manager.
“This doesn’t stop now. It’s an active and ongoing process. We hope the benefits for individuals, our communities, but also the collections, will be considerable.”
Over the next three years the new museum plans to hold exhibitions on storytelling (as part of a children’s festival), Roman history in the area (co-produced with local groups and schools), the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike, along with shows on Barnsley Football Club and the local impact of the first world war.
A call-up service to Barnsley’s social history collections is in the pipeline, allowing the public to study objects first hand. Responding to requests raised by public consultation, about 35% of the new museum’s permanent displays will be changed each summer.
And there is no better maxim for the numerous responses to the Museums Association’s (MA) Museums 2020 project, which has prompted significant debate in the sector by placing impact at the centre of its message.
Since the Museums 2020 consultation paper was launched in July last year there have been written responses, workshops and web debates as part of the ongoing discussion about what roles museums could and should be playing in 2020.
However, the deliberate focus on social impact in the consultation document has led to considerable contention. On one side of the argument are those who say it is vital for museums to prioritise social impact and public value, especially at a time when they are being measured against hospitals, the police and other public services.
On the other side are those who maintain that unless collections are put at the centre of a national rethink, the central benefits, say, of an 18th-century oil-painting or a Roman axe-head, risk getting swamped in a modern obsession with measurable change.
In December’s Museums Journal, Natural History Museum earth sciences curator Tim Ewin warned against the under-representation of the role of collections in the debate, writing: “This unbalancing will only lead to a poorer service for all and diminish support for museums as they fail in their duty.” He added that “museums need a balance between intrinsic and instrumental values”.
The Collections Trust, in its response to Museums 2020, emphasised that museums’ impact is “rooted in material and intangible culture – the collections they manage on behalf of the public”.
Maurice Davies, the MA’s head of policy and communication, says it’s a question of “looking at the whole of the outside world and seeing where museums’ work fits into the great scheme of things. Museums can be so much more than buildings that interpret collections. Times are hard. Museums can play a part in doing something positive in society.”
Public benefit
For many though the “collections versus impact” debate is a red herring and they would argue that most people who work in museums accepted that impact was central decades ago.
“I would be dismayed if there was a debate between collections and impact,” says Hedley Swain, director, museums and renaissance, at Arts Council England.
“It would be like a hospital talking about curing people versus doctors. We should only talk about collections in terms of public impact. I would hope there are no public museums getting public money that are not putting public benefit front and square to what they do.”
So collections are central to everything that museums do. And one of the reasons that they are important to society as a whole is that they can help improve people’s lives. And there are many good examples of how museums are already doing this.
National Museums Liverpool’s House of Memories project works with dementia sufferers and uses collections to influence memory and nostalgia. It also helps train carers to understand the disease. As one of a number of different methods used locally, visits to museums and the use of artefacts has been used to jump-start patients’ recall.
“Such projects exemplify the work that museums should be doing,” says David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool. “What we achieve is much more important than the mechanics of how we do it. Collections are not the be all and end all. Why can’t we face up to that?”
John Roles, head of museums and galleries at Leeds City Council, cites initiatives such as Stories of the World, part of last year’s Cultural Olympiad, in which local young people curated and designed entire shows themselves. “It’s quite resource intensive,” he says. “It’s a cultural challenge for staff to hand over control.”
Co-production
Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales (NMW) staff are working with more than 20 community groups on the renaissance of the St Fagans: National History Museum.
David Anderson, director general of NMW, says it’s an example of the impact that museums can have. Over 130 consultations were held, making sure that what locals wanted was central to the initiative.
“In Wales and in other parts of the UK, co-productions are gaining in strength,” says Anderson. “St Fagans is a ‘shifting museum’ that is being developed with the public.”
For Anderson, any difference between the “instrumental” and the “intrinsic” is “intellectually bankrupt”. “Even to create a museum is a social act,” he says. “One person’s instrumental is another person’s intrinsic.”
Other responses to Museums 2020 hint at similar trends for inclusion and social impact. Brighton Museums cites its World Stories: Young Voices project, where a gallery of ethnographic objects was developed in collaboration with groups of young people.
At Richmond’s Orleans House gallery, a project worked with two artists to create an animation, What Makes Me Happy, designed as a starting point for discussing mental well-being.
The gallery is also using its collection of local landscape paintings to encourage people to develop a sense of stewardship over their environment, using images of Richmond Hill, the country’s first legally protected view.
Many such stories hint at what museums can do if they choose to make a difference, moving the debate on to meaningful action.
“It’s not always the best idea to frame the debate in terms of collections versus impact,” says museum consultant May Redfern.
“Of course impact is essential. But what are the impacts we as museums are best placed to make and how can we achieve them? Museums are organisations that look after collections for public benefit. How can we do that? That’s the debate.”
Rob Sharp is a freelance journalist
Boxing clever in Leicestershire
From chiming rocks to musical moon slices, there are few better examples of thinking imaginatively about collections to achieve impact than Leicestershire County Council’s Held in the Hand project, joint winner of last year’s Clore Award for Museum Learning.
Organisers commissioned artists from across Britain to make a small sculpture that could be “held in the hand”. Part of the brief was that they needed to make contemporary art accessible, regardless of disability.
Workshops were held in local schools with artists. In some cases the objects helped pupils develop their ideas and vocalise them. Each sculpture has its own box that includes notes from the artist explaining how the object was made and the artist’s interpretation of what the object is.
The project is part of the local authority’s Museum Without Walls initiative that delivers collections to local venues. A related project, Touch Tables, uses tables with differently designed tiles to provide touch stimulus for dementia patients.
According to Lisa Webb, the council’s artworks and resource box officer, such objects can also be used to reconnect people with their past and rekindle their sense of identity.
Artists have been briefed using lessons learned during the project to date: what worked, what didn’t.
“We also showed them some real museum objects typically used for reminiscence activities,” says Webb. “So the challenge now will be for them to design and make new Held in the Hand objects that will trigger memories, encourage reminiscence, interaction and activities.”
New themes featured include working life, fashion and childhood. “We are also building four new tables capable of holding individual tiles so they can be wheeled up to people in armchairs or wheelchairs. They will work well in care homes but also with people with profound multiple learning disabilities.”
People’s history in Barnsley
Barnsley’s Arts and Museums Service has a big year ahead. A new “people’s museum”, Experience Barnsley, will open at the newly renovated town hall in May. The project has drawn on locals’ expertise and collections to create a showcase for the town’s history.
More than four years of community engagement have been put into the scheme, which the service hopes will build a sense of lasting engagement with individuals and communities, partly by using residents’ own histories and objects to represent their stories for the first time in a different, engaging way.
“By donating, interpreting and helping to engage others with the new collections, people are right at the centre of what we’re doing,” says John Tanner, the new museum’s project manager.
“This doesn’t stop now. It’s an active and ongoing process. We hope the benefits for individuals, our communities, but also the collections, will be considerable.”
Over the next three years the new museum plans to hold exhibitions on storytelling (as part of a children’s festival), Roman history in the area (co-produced with local groups and schools), the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike, along with shows on Barnsley Football Club and the local impact of the first world war.
A call-up service to Barnsley’s social history collections is in the pipeline, allowing the public to study objects first hand. Responding to requests raised by public consultation, about 35% of the new museum’s permanent displays will be changed each summer.