What happens when the subject of your exhibition suddenly becomes the hot- button topic at the top of the news agenda?
This is the situation in which staff at London’s National Maritime Museum (NMM) find themselves, with the ongoing refugee crisis across Europe shining a spotlight on its work with the Migration Museum Project.
This focus on migration, which includes three films about the issues surrounding migration at sea, developed with the International Maritime Organisation, opened in June and runs until mid-November in the Rethink gallery, a space for visitors to explore and respond to the themes of the museum.
Lack of resources
Joanna Salter, the NMM’s digital participation manager, says she would have liked the exhibition to have been more reactive to the events that unfolded over the summer. But Salter feels that the museum lacked the resources to do that credibly – the gallery can only be redesigned once every six months under its current budget.
The NMM team was quite cautious about provoking debate on an issue such as migration in what is a largely unfacilitated space, because they feel responsible for the visitor experience, says Emily Miller, the education manager at the Migration Museum Project. But, so far, visitors have responded “really thoughtfully”.
Tackling contemporary issues as they unfold requires a flexible approach, as Chris Burgess, the curator (collections and exhibitions) at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, discovered when putting on the museum’s Election Live! exhibition earlier this year.
With political pundits predicting a hung parliament, the museum scheduled the exhibition to the end of June, thinking the post-election negotiations would be an interesting subject, but the outright Conservative victory meant that the exhibition lost some momentum and there was a “notable decline in interest” after May.
Nonetheless, Burgess says that covering something so topical meant that the museum became “a point where people could come together and discuss politics” and it was inundated with press enquiries.
The museum sought academic input into the exhibition and was careful not to take any party’s political line. Burgess jokes that he was accused of being both a fascist and a crypto- communist so “we felt we found a middle ground”.
But the museum took a stand on encouraging people to vote and to participate in civil society, which visitors “found refreshing”.
“Museums can be challenging and can challenge people’s views, even if they don’t agree with you,” he says.
Difficult issues
Sharon Heal, the director of the Museums Association, believes museums should
be tackling difficult issues, and that, as organisations, they are well placed to host discussions and debates on these issues, and can “provide precisely the historical context that is needed”.
But when your museum is in the middle of a community, and events are still raw, it is important to reflect and be sensitive, says Deborah Hedgecock, the curator at Tottenham’s Bruce Castle Museum, which had an exhibition on the 1985 Broadwater Farm riot when the 2011 riots broke out.
The London museum did not do anything different than usual, she says, “but we were open to people and organisations reflecting on the theme”.
Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, p3
This is the situation in which staff at London’s National Maritime Museum (NMM) find themselves, with the ongoing refugee crisis across Europe shining a spotlight on its work with the Migration Museum Project.
This focus on migration, which includes three films about the issues surrounding migration at sea, developed with the International Maritime Organisation, opened in June and runs until mid-November in the Rethink gallery, a space for visitors to explore and respond to the themes of the museum.
Lack of resources
Joanna Salter, the NMM’s digital participation manager, says she would have liked the exhibition to have been more reactive to the events that unfolded over the summer. But Salter feels that the museum lacked the resources to do that credibly – the gallery can only be redesigned once every six months under its current budget.
The NMM team was quite cautious about provoking debate on an issue such as migration in what is a largely unfacilitated space, because they feel responsible for the visitor experience, says Emily Miller, the education manager at the Migration Museum Project. But, so far, visitors have responded “really thoughtfully”.
Tackling contemporary issues as they unfold requires a flexible approach, as Chris Burgess, the curator (collections and exhibitions) at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, discovered when putting on the museum’s Election Live! exhibition earlier this year.
With political pundits predicting a hung parliament, the museum scheduled the exhibition to the end of June, thinking the post-election negotiations would be an interesting subject, but the outright Conservative victory meant that the exhibition lost some momentum and there was a “notable decline in interest” after May.
Nonetheless, Burgess says that covering something so topical meant that the museum became “a point where people could come together and discuss politics” and it was inundated with press enquiries.
The museum sought academic input into the exhibition and was careful not to take any party’s political line. Burgess jokes that he was accused of being both a fascist and a crypto- communist so “we felt we found a middle ground”.
But the museum took a stand on encouraging people to vote and to participate in civil society, which visitors “found refreshing”.
“Museums can be challenging and can challenge people’s views, even if they don’t agree with you,” he says.
Difficult issues
Sharon Heal, the director of the Museums Association, believes museums should
be tackling difficult issues, and that, as organisations, they are well placed to host discussions and debates on these issues, and can “provide precisely the historical context that is needed”.
But when your museum is in the middle of a community, and events are still raw, it is important to reflect and be sensitive, says Deborah Hedgecock, the curator at Tottenham’s Bruce Castle Museum, which had an exhibition on the 1985 Broadwater Farm riot when the 2011 riots broke out.
The London museum did not do anything different than usual, she says, “but we were open to people and organisations reflecting on the theme”.
Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, p3
