A box of cereal sits alongside five cans of beans, five tins of soup, a packet of biscuits and a sparse display of other supermarket foods. By the standards of any age, this threadbare offering would not be enough to feed a family of three for several days. But thousands visiting one food bank in the north-east have little choice.
The items in question, representing the food parcels given out by Newcastle upon Tyne’s West End food bank, recently went on display at the city’s Discovery Museum. The food bank is the country’s busiest, reportedly feeding 1,000 people every week. The museum recorded visitors’ reactions to the parcel, including those surprised that it “wasn’t nutritious”, comments born of the parcel’s lack of fresh food, while others were astonished it was so big.
“There’s a responsibility for us because of where we’re situated,” says Kylea Little, the keeper of history at the museum, whose work has been supported by the Museums Association’s Transformers scheme for mid-career museum professionals.
“One third of the people residing in the museum’s locality live below the poverty line. It’s relevant to people’s lives today. We want to spark discussion about that, and help people examine all the facts and think about poverty in a considered way, not just see newsflashes about it.”
Two local artists have created a reproduction of a kitchen containing food-bank items, on show at the museum. Working on the project involved challenges, Little says, not least in terms of dealing with the sensitivities of food-bank users.
As inequality and unemployment continue to make headlines, poverty – officially defined as a lack of money to afford a standard of living considered normal or comfortable – is more relevant to museums than ever. From displays about an 18th-century hospital founded for children at risk of abandonment to an exhibition relating to the 2012 British Welfare Reform Act (the act that includes the bedroom tax), museums are tackling complex issues surrounding the economically marginalised and are rein- venting their displays in the process.
Balanced view
Alistair Hudson, the director of the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Mima), says many museums avoid poverty in their displays because of the emotions it provokes. This is especially pertinent in Middlesbrough, which a 2015 government poll revealed as having the highest proportion of deprived areas in the country. Front doors painted red in Middlesbrough, apparently identifying asylum seekers, made national headlines earlier this year.
Mima’s exhibition The Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise, which opened in February, displays artwork by plantation workers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). All profits from sales of merchandise related to the show will go back to the plantation workers.
“It is difficult to do a project that points the finger at poverty without addressing the issue,” Hudson says. “The way museums have been set up historically is along a spectatorship model. You invite people to come along, typically from a privileged financial position. The exhibition becomes part of a spectator economy, about generating resources and economics in our relatively wealthy environment without addressing the issue in hand.”
Hudson says the DRC show, as well as work with groups such as Streetwise Opera, an arts charity that serves those who have experienced homelessness, has helped shift the balance of power from a spectator economy to a social one.
Social challenges and the reasons for them are often seen through the media’s lens, and museum professionals must equip the public with a balanced view. The People’s History Museum in Manchester has one of the largest collections of historic trade union and political banners in the world, including one concerning the bedroom tax, which came into effect in 2013.
Exhibitions such as Show Me the Money: the Image of Finance, 1700 to the Present, which closed in January and explored how the financial world has been charted in visual media, provided a platform for discussion, says Chris Burgess, the curator of the People’s History Museum.
The best approach was simply to state the facts to avoid accusations of political bias, he adds. “We asked questions about what people thought about finance and who was at fault for the 2008 financial crash – the responses were really interesting. Quite a few people said we were all to blame for accruing so much credit card debt. We tried to stimulate debate and be a space where ideas could be discussed freely.”
Contemporary links
Poverty in the British media frequently focuses on those arriving – most recently, Syrian refugees – as opposed to those already living here. But while attitudes to the poor and migrants might overlap, we must be careful not to homogenise the two.
“Contrary to the dominant contemporary narrative, migration is not synonymous with poverty – not all migrants are eking out an existence on the margins of society,” says Andrew Steeds, the projects manager for the Migration Museum Project, an organisation hoping to found a museum devoted to the topic of migration in Britain.
Steeds says museums “should be spaces for debate, discussion and engagement with contemporary issues”. He highlights his organisation’s plans to open an exhibition in June in collaboration with residents of the main refugee camp in Calais.
Perhaps the biggest challenge museums face is making historic displays on poverty relevant to a contemporary audience. While some believe the links are obvious and worth exploring, others warn against the dangers of oversimplification.
Caro Howell, the director of London’s Foundling Museum, says the causes and consequences of poverty are worth show- casing, especially if they chime with con- temporary attitudes. The museum explores the history of the Foundling
the history of the Foundling Hospital, founded in 1739 to care for babies and young children at risk of abandonment. “The hospital was always dealing with overwhelming demand for limited places,” Howell says. “Fundamentally, it was trying to answer the same question we are now: how to find a fair way of deciding who receives support. Even now, we are wrestling with a similar idea with the refugee crisis and who we let into this country.”
Changing perceptions
Chris Haughton is an illustrator who has made work on show in the Foundling Museum’s current exhibition, Drawing on Childhood (until 1 May). The exhibition showcases artists’ depictions of orphaned, adopted, fostered or found children, and Haughton writes of how he was struck by the perception of orphans in bygone times. In accompanying text, he says it was commonly thought “that orphans should not be taken in or looked after because this would only encourage mothers”. He adds: “This argument seems absurd to a modern society, but the same hypothesis has been postulated about Syrian refugees.”
The Geffrye Museum’s 2015 exhibition Homes of the Homeless: Seeking Shelter in Victorian London explored homelessness and those living in temporary accommodation at the time. Hannah Fleming, the curator of the show, says society’s poorest sometimes got depicted homogeneously because they left so little behind, but the Geffrye Museum used archaeological artefacts, including broken ceramics and sherry glasses, to create a different picture.
“There are more objects associated with poverty than you might think,” Fleming says. “They aren’t the sort of objects that usually survive and end up in museums.”
Fleming highlights the fact that the museum collaborated on the show with New Horizon Youth Centre, a day centre in London that works with young vulnerable people. “That group talked about the material things that mattered to them, perhaps those that could be used to demonstrate an attachment to a home in some way,” she says. “The objects they picked often linked to the historic examples we put on show.”
Fleming also emphasises the importance of trying to obtain testimonies from those experiencing poverty, rather than having comments from those who have not been exposed to it first-hand.
Beverley Cook, a curator at the Museum of London, says poverty is such a subjective term that museums can sometimes oversimplify the issue, partly because displays have historically been geared towards hitting early-stage National Curriculum topics.
“A particular problem with portraying Victorian poverty is the public’s perception of it, which is largely informed by Victorian dramas and novelists’ depictions of it, like that of Charles Dickens,” Cook says. “There were fewer people at the extreme level of poverty than we tend to imagine.”
Some charitable Victorian figures used posed pictures of ragged-looking children to help them raise funds, she says. “Breaking down that image and conveying the message that poverty was just as complex an issue then as it is now is tricky.”
The topic remains divisive: should museums make links to the past or try to break down the stigma? Erica Davies, the director of London’s Ragged School Museum, warns against linking contemporary and historic poverty, especially in the capital. “There is nothing like that kind of poverty today,” she says, referring to the Victorian era.
She emphasises that in contemporary terms, London is better off than other areas of the country, and seeking any links between contemporary deprivation and that seen in the past in cities makes her pause for thought. “Compared with people in Middlesbrough, or areas where industry has been devastated, those in London aren’t poor in opportunity.”
Poverty can be a divisive and emotive issue and museums must be careful not to oversimplify it and to treat those that are suffering economic hardship with sensitivity. But, whether dealing with historic or contemporary poverty, there are links to be made between past and present and a chance to present the voices of those seldom heard and often forgotten.
Rob Sharp is a freelance journalist
The items in question, representing the food parcels given out by Newcastle upon Tyne’s West End food bank, recently went on display at the city’s Discovery Museum. The food bank is the country’s busiest, reportedly feeding 1,000 people every week. The museum recorded visitors’ reactions to the parcel, including those surprised that it “wasn’t nutritious”, comments born of the parcel’s lack of fresh food, while others were astonished it was so big.
“There’s a responsibility for us because of where we’re situated,” says Kylea Little, the keeper of history at the museum, whose work has been supported by the Museums Association’s Transformers scheme for mid-career museum professionals.
“One third of the people residing in the museum’s locality live below the poverty line. It’s relevant to people’s lives today. We want to spark discussion about that, and help people examine all the facts and think about poverty in a considered way, not just see newsflashes about it.”
Two local artists have created a reproduction of a kitchen containing food-bank items, on show at the museum. Working on the project involved challenges, Little says, not least in terms of dealing with the sensitivities of food-bank users.
As inequality and unemployment continue to make headlines, poverty – officially defined as a lack of money to afford a standard of living considered normal or comfortable – is more relevant to museums than ever. From displays about an 18th-century hospital founded for children at risk of abandonment to an exhibition relating to the 2012 British Welfare Reform Act (the act that includes the bedroom tax), museums are tackling complex issues surrounding the economically marginalised and are rein- venting their displays in the process.
Balanced view
Alistair Hudson, the director of the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Mima), says many museums avoid poverty in their displays because of the emotions it provokes. This is especially pertinent in Middlesbrough, which a 2015 government poll revealed as having the highest proportion of deprived areas in the country. Front doors painted red in Middlesbrough, apparently identifying asylum seekers, made national headlines earlier this year.
Mima’s exhibition The Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise, which opened in February, displays artwork by plantation workers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). All profits from sales of merchandise related to the show will go back to the plantation workers.
“It is difficult to do a project that points the finger at poverty without addressing the issue,” Hudson says. “The way museums have been set up historically is along a spectatorship model. You invite people to come along, typically from a privileged financial position. The exhibition becomes part of a spectator economy, about generating resources and economics in our relatively wealthy environment without addressing the issue in hand.”
Hudson says the DRC show, as well as work with groups such as Streetwise Opera, an arts charity that serves those who have experienced homelessness, has helped shift the balance of power from a spectator economy to a social one.
Social challenges and the reasons for them are often seen through the media’s lens, and museum professionals must equip the public with a balanced view. The People’s History Museum in Manchester has one of the largest collections of historic trade union and political banners in the world, including one concerning the bedroom tax, which came into effect in 2013.
Exhibitions such as Show Me the Money: the Image of Finance, 1700 to the Present, which closed in January and explored how the financial world has been charted in visual media, provided a platform for discussion, says Chris Burgess, the curator of the People’s History Museum.
The best approach was simply to state the facts to avoid accusations of political bias, he adds. “We asked questions about what people thought about finance and who was at fault for the 2008 financial crash – the responses were really interesting. Quite a few people said we were all to blame for accruing so much credit card debt. We tried to stimulate debate and be a space where ideas could be discussed freely.”
Museums should be spaces for debate, discussion and engagement with contemporary issues"
Contemporary links
Poverty in the British media frequently focuses on those arriving – most recently, Syrian refugees – as opposed to those already living here. But while attitudes to the poor and migrants might overlap, we must be careful not to homogenise the two.
“Contrary to the dominant contemporary narrative, migration is not synonymous with poverty – not all migrants are eking out an existence on the margins of society,” says Andrew Steeds, the projects manager for the Migration Museum Project, an organisation hoping to found a museum devoted to the topic of migration in Britain.
Steeds says museums “should be spaces for debate, discussion and engagement with contemporary issues”. He highlights his organisation’s plans to open an exhibition in June in collaboration with residents of the main refugee camp in Calais.
Perhaps the biggest challenge museums face is making historic displays on poverty relevant to a contemporary audience. While some believe the links are obvious and worth exploring, others warn against the dangers of oversimplification.
Caro Howell, the director of London’s Foundling Museum, says the causes and consequences of poverty are worth show- casing, especially if they chime with con- temporary attitudes. The museum explores the history of the Foundling
the history of the Foundling Hospital, founded in 1739 to care for babies and young children at risk of abandonment. “The hospital was always dealing with overwhelming demand for limited places,” Howell says. “Fundamentally, it was trying to answer the same question we are now: how to find a fair way of deciding who receives support. Even now, we are wrestling with a similar idea with the refugee crisis and who we let into this country.”
Changing perceptions
Chris Haughton is an illustrator who has made work on show in the Foundling Museum’s current exhibition, Drawing on Childhood (until 1 May). The exhibition showcases artists’ depictions of orphaned, adopted, fostered or found children, and Haughton writes of how he was struck by the perception of orphans in bygone times. In accompanying text, he says it was commonly thought “that orphans should not be taken in or looked after because this would only encourage mothers”. He adds: “This argument seems absurd to a modern society, but the same hypothesis has been postulated about Syrian refugees.”
The Geffrye Museum’s 2015 exhibition Homes of the Homeless: Seeking Shelter in Victorian London explored homelessness and those living in temporary accommodation at the time. Hannah Fleming, the curator of the show, says society’s poorest sometimes got depicted homogeneously because they left so little behind, but the Geffrye Museum used archaeological artefacts, including broken ceramics and sherry glasses, to create a different picture.
“There are more objects associated with poverty than you might think,” Fleming says. “They aren’t the sort of objects that usually survive and end up in museums.”
Fleming highlights the fact that the museum collaborated on the show with New Horizon Youth Centre, a day centre in London that works with young vulnerable people. “That group talked about the material things that mattered to them, perhaps those that could be used to demonstrate an attachment to a home in some way,” she says. “The objects they picked often linked to the historic examples we put on show.”
Fleming also emphasises the importance of trying to obtain testimonies from those experiencing poverty, rather than having comments from those who have not been exposed to it first-hand.
Beverley Cook, a curator at the Museum of London, says poverty is such a subjective term that museums can sometimes oversimplify the issue, partly because displays have historically been geared towards hitting early-stage National Curriculum topics.
“A particular problem with portraying Victorian poverty is the public’s perception of it, which is largely informed by Victorian dramas and novelists’ depictions of it, like that of Charles Dickens,” Cook says. “There were fewer people at the extreme level of poverty than we tend to imagine.”
Some charitable Victorian figures used posed pictures of ragged-looking children to help them raise funds, she says. “Breaking down that image and conveying the message that poverty was just as complex an issue then as it is now is tricky.”
The topic remains divisive: should museums make links to the past or try to break down the stigma? Erica Davies, the director of London’s Ragged School Museum, warns against linking contemporary and historic poverty, especially in the capital. “There is nothing like that kind of poverty today,” she says, referring to the Victorian era.
She emphasises that in contemporary terms, London is better off than other areas of the country, and seeking any links between contemporary deprivation and that seen in the past in cities makes her pause for thought. “Compared with people in Middlesbrough, or areas where industry has been devastated, those in London aren’t poor in opportunity.”
Poverty can be a divisive and emotive issue and museums must be careful not to oversimplify it and to treat those that are suffering economic hardship with sensitivity. But, whether dealing with historic or contemporary poverty, there are links to be made between past and present and a chance to present the voices of those seldom heard and often forgotten.
Rob Sharp is a freelance journalist