Revealing all

Why are many written histories of museums so dull and uninteresting? Could it be because they are often commissioned by the museum itself, which seeks to control the image it presents to the world? In the past this has tended to lead to a safe and uncritical linear narrative over more revelatory and idiosyncratic approaches.

Yet there are signs that the dry, yawn-inducing institutional history is giving way to a "biographical" genre, which has a greater potential to engage the public.

This new methodology focuses on critical questions concerning the life story of the museum, of the collection, and of the people who look after the objects and impart meanings to them. The genre assumes that visitors are genuinely interested in the sort of questions that museums have in the past been reluctant to disclose.

How did all these things get here? How and why were they collected, and how have the life stories of the objects been altered by shifts in the contexts of ownership? Such questions are as pertinent to curatorial practice as to published histories of museums.

The historian Eilean Hooper-Greenhill has identified two dominant forms of writing within museum historiography - the encyclopaedic account, which "attempts to produce chronological, incremental descriptions of the development of museums", and a second approach comprising "narratives concerning either single individuals as collectors or focusing on the history of single institutions".

A Museums and Biographies conference at the National Gallery in London later this month will explore a range of issues bearing on these contrasting strategies. Co-organised by the Museums and Galleries History Group and the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies at Newcastle University, the conference has struck a chord across the museum and academic sectors.

The overwhelming response to the call for papers (more than 100 abstracts were submitted) suggests that biographical or monographic approaches can be both a fruitful means of analytical enquiry and a productive curatorial methodology.

The roots of these biographical methodologies can be traced back to the cross-pollination of anthropology, art history, material culture studies, and critical theory that emerged during the late 1980s and which gathered speed over the following decade.

The pioneering inquiries by anthropologists Igor Kopytoff and Arjun Appadurai into The Social Life of Things (1988) provided the code for many of the practical and theoretical developments emerging in museums today.

Sam Alberti, who holds a lectureship at the Centre for Museology at the University of Manchester and a research fellowship at Manchester Museum, is a co-organiser of the London conference.

"In a sense we're pushing at an open door with these ideas," says Alberti. "We're effectively unpacking the black box of museum practices. Histories are usually the history of the collections, but now we're exploring how and why the objects got there. How did that antelope arrive in rainy Glasgow? These are the sorts of questions visitors ask."

Alberti's own method takes on a three-pronged approach: "First, we're interested in how the object got to be where it is; secondly, what happens to it within the collection, including the impact of the micro-practices of research and display; and thirdly, we're studying the reception of the object and visitors' responses to it."

Biographical approaches offer a way of connecting with people, says National Gallery archivist Alan Crookham, whose own illustrated history of London's National Gallery will be published in October.

"Institutional histories can be quite dry, but when you talk about an object as if it were a person with a life story, it comes alive and goes beyond a specialist appeal," says Crookham. "Applying that to a museum environment provides a way of engaging with a much wider audience, helping museums respond to visitors and create a dialogue."

Helen Rees Leahy, the director of the Centre for Museology at the University of Manchester, says the recent shift in focus can also be seen in the innovative ways some museums are beginning to explore their own autobiographies.

She points to Tate Modern's reconstruction in May of its 1971 Robert Morris installation, Bodyspacemotionthings (at the time, this was the first occasion that an art gallery had invited the public to interact physically with an art work), as an example of this emerging exhibition genre.

"To what extent are these projects just institutional navel-gazing, or can they produce reflexive practices that can be built upon?" asks Rees Leahy. "It is all about trying to think of different ways to tell histories. How do we tell these stories and what resources can we draw on?"

One obvious resource is the experience acquired by long-term keepers and curators. Science writer Richard Fortey spent more than 30 years working as a palaeontologist at London's Natural History Museum (NHM), before retiring to devote more time to writing.

The knowledge and insights he gleaned during his time behind the scenes were creatively channelled into his lively and idiosyncratic book, Dry Store Room No 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum. The publication has been applauded for the privileged glimpse it offers of a realm that is generally hidden from the public.

Fortey says: "The problem with official histories is their tendency to deal with the big decisions by the management, the institution as an institution, rather than as a shop floor, as a social history of the museum and the people who work there. This is because museums like to be in control of the public's perception."

Fortey himself had to wait until he was no longer a paid employee of the NHM before he could commit his warts-and-all account to paper.

"There were certain episodes I'd lived through that I felt needed to be said. For example, we were 'Thatcherised' at one point - put out to be tested by the market - and this is not always good for research."

Fortey's honest biography of his former institution (the hardback of which has gone into a third reprint) met with a mixed reception inside the museum. "I had a terribly nice response from colleagues, but not so nice from the museum management," he says.

Fortey has employed a biographical approach in a number of his books, seeing the methodology as critical to what he does. "My starting point is that your life is a kind of museum collection, a collection of memories and experiences, so this book was my collection of stories."

He cites the growing interest in gathering oral history as further evidence that museums and their long-serving staff of curious, interesting, passionate and occasionally eccentric people represent a biographical resource that has never been fully tapped.

"Museums are changing and there is now a move to bring collections out - our Darwin 2 project exemplifies this - allowing access to what is usually hidden."

Tom Flynn is a writer and moderator of the Museum Security Network