At a time of unnervingly rapid change –political, technological and more – the temptation to retreat into reassuring visions of a cosy past is strong for many people. And museums are well-equipped to meet that demand – they are, after all, custodians of the nation’s heritage, inevitably concerned with conserving.
But at a time when funds are being squeezed more than ever before, and when questions of national identity are at the forefront of people’s minds, it is vital for museums to face forward – to appeal to all parts of the community, to challenge assumptions about the past, and to be involved in debates that are shaping the future.
But what can museums offer as public spaces to debate issues such as equality, diversity and inclusion?
“We see ourselves as the place where context and background is provided to help us all respond to contemporary issues, including the topical hot potatoes,” says Janneke Greene, the acting director of the People’s History Museum (PHM) in Manchester. “The history PHM tells is by its nature contested. There is little point in shying away from this.
“Crucially, given the nature of the collection we hold, we want the debate to occur within a historical context,” Greene says. “Recent examples of this include the Euro Tunnel: In or Out, where the museum commissioned an artist to unpick what the EU was and explore the arguments for and against voting to remain in or leave the EU. Of late we have also delved in the collection to provide some historical context against which to set the recent Labour leadership election. By working in this way, we have found that the level of engagement with exhibitions – people responding online, writing comments in the exhibitions, and so on – has increased dramatically.”
The work of the PHM is an example of how museums have the potential to be the new public spheres, in the sense in which the term was used by the German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas (his discussion of the public sphere harked back to the coffee shops and salons that flourished in 18th- and 19th-century Europe, where inclusive, free debate formed a counterweight to the power of the state). With their public education remit, museums are in a good position to carry out this role.
“In terms of programming, outreach and educational work, we constantly grow our understanding of communities and we are lucky that a wide range of communities actively approach us to work with us,” Greene says. “An initiative that has really helped is our Community Gallery, a space in the museum that community groups can pitch for with an exhibition they want to curate. We have a selection panel with representation from diverse communities and the space is always massively in demand. It’s a win-win situation – the groups get free access to a professionally run city-centre exhibition space and the museum constantly learns from all the relationships we build.”
Platforms for debate
The ways museums are constructed can have a big impact on their role as forums for debate. Marseille’s Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (MuCEM), which opened in 2013, is huge, inclusive and, in its harbourside setting, open to the world. The French city, with its well-established population of people of North African descent and its history of commerce, trade and connection with the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Africa, has built a publicly funded monument to this diversity.
Last year’s MuCEM exhibition Shared Sacred Sites (“Lieux saints partagés”) explored geographical areas that were considered sacred by Islamic, Jewish and Christian religions. Using interviews with key imams, priests and rabbis, supplemented by testimonies, films, artefacts and maps, the interactive, immersive exhibition demonstrated the communalities and crossovers in geography, populations and thought. Through extensive use of film and video images of the Middle East screened super large, and clever use of silhouettes, the message was one of inclusivity.
“The issue of religious identities is one of the most sensitive for those of us living together in the Mediterranean,” says Julie Basquin, the museum’s communications director. “The objective of the exhibition was to inform as large an audience as possible about the stories of millions of people living in and around the Mediterranean.”
Like many other museums that want to engender debate, MuCEM collaborates internationally to develop its programming, working with museums in Istanbul, Morrocco, Athens, Alexandria, Brussels, London and Berlin. Working in partnership with other curators is a good way to make connections between debates in the news.
London’s National Maritime Museum, part of Royal Museums Greenwich, hosted a recent event that asked: “What can history teach us about the migrant crisis today?” This brought together specialists in trafficking and maritime migration from the International Maritime Organisation, artists, poets, refugees, and people that support migrants and refugees. The discussion used Huguenot maps and facts about internal migration in the UK to look at how scapegoating is an age-old problem.
“If we are not to alienate audiences we have to tread sensitively and be wary of a condescending, museum-knows-best tone,” says Sara Wajid, the former senior manager of public programmes at Royal Museums Greenwich. “But I’ve encountered a real thirst for non-partisan, grown-up public discussions outside the parameters of party politics. When the Brexit result came in I was dreading hosting the debate that afternoon on refugee issues, but it was the best forum to begin to make sense of the result with well-informed strangers from across the spectrum of opinion.”
Contemporary debates obviously benefit from a diversity of views, and it is no different in museums. But what does it mean for museums to be inclusive and diverse? At the top end, it means hiring people of colour, women, and disabled people, at senior levels.
Inspiring initiative
Nazia Ali, the curator of Collecting Birmingham at Birmingham Museums Trust, has helped develop the ActiveCurating initiative, a socially responsible approach to museum curating that has been supported by the Museums Association’s Transformers workforce programme. As part of this, the trust runs “work days” for local kids to highlight career opportunities in the museum sector.
“I aim to continue to advocate fundamental change in curatorial practice throughout the museum sector,” Ali says. “We want to inspire the next generation to not only visit and use Birmingham’s museums but to feel confident about the possibility of working in them.”
Ali and her team are using methods of curating that involve the public deciding what will go in exhibitions. For Collecting Birmingham, they asked people to donate items relating to districts of the city.
Among the objects given were a door from Winson Green prison reflecting the Victorian heritage of the building, while manufacturing in the city is exemplified by various items from the HP Sauce factory – a production worker’s hat, employee handbooks and a 1986 sauce bottle.
Inviting people to donate attracted a broader range of objects than museum staff expected.
At the Shetland Museum and Archives extensive use of oral history is made to give colour, voice (literally) and shade to the working lives of the women who gutted herring. There are large herring barrels on the working quayside inscribed with the words, sayings and poetry of Shetland dialect. You can hear testimonies, songs and reflections via dedicated headphones or large sound installations and sound posts. The museum recreates “Pict” life through reconstructions of dense, smelly house interiors and recorded songs sung by women working.
Carol Christiansen, the curator and community museums officer for Shetland Museum and Archives, says: “People use us as a resource and they come to us with their objects. We rely on Shetlanders to give us vital information – from their own photos and memories – that we just don’t have.” This relationship is the result of lots of outreach work – drinking tea and eating cake at fetes and jumble sales is vital.
One of the issues around diversity in museums is who is excluded and why. Hassan Mahamdallie, arts consultant and one of the co-directors of the Muslim Institute, believes that part of the problem is existential, and not simply because of curatorial choices or employment.
“I think the challenge the sector faces around diversity is intimately linked to that overarching tension between the certainties of museums’ historic role and their search for an identity in the uncertain and complex world we live in today,” Mahamdallie says.
Critical thinking
Whatever the challenges are, tackling assumptions, ignorance and racism in museums is critical, in terms of content and approach to curating, but also among staff. It is vital not to recirculate the same images, tropes and mis-truths about “the other”.
Among museum staff, diversity can still be a thorny subject, with people dancing round the topic, unsure what is “politically correct”. Unconscious bias influences decisions around programming, interpretation and representation in museum spaces.
In order to be truly diverse, our museums need to continue to try and reverse the gaze: present people as they see themselves, not how they are viewed, or presented as “the other”. This involves being brave, taking risks, not reverting to the usual suspects.
“After years of discussion it’s clear that only much stronger, braver action from all of us – funders, sector bodies, museums – will make an impact when it comes to real diversity,” says John Orna-Ornstein, the director of museums at Arts Council England. “All institutions build up cultures, languages, ways of including some and excluding others (anthropologically), of validating certain languages, of framing things in ways that don’t include others.”
Those of us who have “made it” into the British or global public spheres have jumped through complex cultural and political hoops to prove that we understand British culture, that we will deliver, that we won’t rock the boat.
But for others to flourish in the future, institutions need to be more robust, to take risks and engage in contemporary conversations with migrants and refugees that are diverse, inclusive, and outside their comfort zone.
“Every generation rewrites the national story through the lens of their current concerns and anxieties,” says Sara Wajid. “This process enables us to reflect more deeply on our current way of doing things and become better equipped to find solutions and avert disasters.
“We think better collectively when we take the long view about complex issues such as the refugee humanitarian crisis. Good historians can support more sophisticated public discourse about the urgent matters of the day. Knowing that British history includes a long-standing story of immigrants and refugees offsets panic reactions and public hysteria. It’s one of the main responsibilities of museums to perform this function.”
Thembi Mutch is a freelance writer
But at a time when funds are being squeezed more than ever before, and when questions of national identity are at the forefront of people’s minds, it is vital for museums to face forward – to appeal to all parts of the community, to challenge assumptions about the past, and to be involved in debates that are shaping the future.
But what can museums offer as public spaces to debate issues such as equality, diversity and inclusion?
“We see ourselves as the place where context and background is provided to help us all respond to contemporary issues, including the topical hot potatoes,” says Janneke Greene, the acting director of the People’s History Museum (PHM) in Manchester. “The history PHM tells is by its nature contested. There is little point in shying away from this.
“Crucially, given the nature of the collection we hold, we want the debate to occur within a historical context,” Greene says. “Recent examples of this include the Euro Tunnel: In or Out, where the museum commissioned an artist to unpick what the EU was and explore the arguments for and against voting to remain in or leave the EU. Of late we have also delved in the collection to provide some historical context against which to set the recent Labour leadership election. By working in this way, we have found that the level of engagement with exhibitions – people responding online, writing comments in the exhibitions, and so on – has increased dramatically.”
The work of the PHM is an example of how museums have the potential to be the new public spheres, in the sense in which the term was used by the German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas (his discussion of the public sphere harked back to the coffee shops and salons that flourished in 18th- and 19th-century Europe, where inclusive, free debate formed a counterweight to the power of the state). With their public education remit, museums are in a good position to carry out this role.
“In terms of programming, outreach and educational work, we constantly grow our understanding of communities and we are lucky that a wide range of communities actively approach us to work with us,” Greene says. “An initiative that has really helped is our Community Gallery, a space in the museum that community groups can pitch for with an exhibition they want to curate. We have a selection panel with representation from diverse communities and the space is always massively in demand. It’s a win-win situation – the groups get free access to a professionally run city-centre exhibition space and the museum constantly learns from all the relationships we build.”
Platforms for debate
The ways museums are constructed can have a big impact on their role as forums for debate. Marseille’s Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (MuCEM), which opened in 2013, is huge, inclusive and, in its harbourside setting, open to the world. The French city, with its well-established population of people of North African descent and its history of commerce, trade and connection with the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Africa, has built a publicly funded monument to this diversity.
Last year’s MuCEM exhibition Shared Sacred Sites (“Lieux saints partagés”) explored geographical areas that were considered sacred by Islamic, Jewish and Christian religions. Using interviews with key imams, priests and rabbis, supplemented by testimonies, films, artefacts and maps, the interactive, immersive exhibition demonstrated the communalities and crossovers in geography, populations and thought. Through extensive use of film and video images of the Middle East screened super large, and clever use of silhouettes, the message was one of inclusivity.
“The issue of religious identities is one of the most sensitive for those of us living together in the Mediterranean,” says Julie Basquin, the museum’s communications director. “The objective of the exhibition was to inform as large an audience as possible about the stories of millions of people living in and around the Mediterranean.”
Like many other museums that want to engender debate, MuCEM collaborates internationally to develop its programming, working with museums in Istanbul, Morrocco, Athens, Alexandria, Brussels, London and Berlin. Working in partnership with other curators is a good way to make connections between debates in the news.
London’s National Maritime Museum, part of Royal Museums Greenwich, hosted a recent event that asked: “What can history teach us about the migrant crisis today?” This brought together specialists in trafficking and maritime migration from the International Maritime Organisation, artists, poets, refugees, and people that support migrants and refugees. The discussion used Huguenot maps and facts about internal migration in the UK to look at how scapegoating is an age-old problem.
“If we are not to alienate audiences we have to tread sensitively and be wary of a condescending, museum-knows-best tone,” says Sara Wajid, the former senior manager of public programmes at Royal Museums Greenwich. “But I’ve encountered a real thirst for non-partisan, grown-up public discussions outside the parameters of party politics. When the Brexit result came in I was dreading hosting the debate that afternoon on refugee issues, but it was the best forum to begin to make sense of the result with well-informed strangers from across the spectrum of opinion.”
Contemporary debates obviously benefit from a diversity of views, and it is no different in museums. But what does it mean for museums to be inclusive and diverse? At the top end, it means hiring people of colour, women, and disabled people, at senior levels.
Inspiring initiative
Nazia Ali, the curator of Collecting Birmingham at Birmingham Museums Trust, has helped develop the ActiveCurating initiative, a socially responsible approach to museum curating that has been supported by the Museums Association’s Transformers workforce programme. As part of this, the trust runs “work days” for local kids to highlight career opportunities in the museum sector.
“I aim to continue to advocate fundamental change in curatorial practice throughout the museum sector,” Ali says. “We want to inspire the next generation to not only visit and use Birmingham’s museums but to feel confident about the possibility of working in them.”
Ali and her team are using methods of curating that involve the public deciding what will go in exhibitions. For Collecting Birmingham, they asked people to donate items relating to districts of the city.
Among the objects given were a door from Winson Green prison reflecting the Victorian heritage of the building, while manufacturing in the city is exemplified by various items from the HP Sauce factory – a production worker’s hat, employee handbooks and a 1986 sauce bottle.
Inviting people to donate attracted a broader range of objects than museum staff expected.
At the Shetland Museum and Archives extensive use of oral history is made to give colour, voice (literally) and shade to the working lives of the women who gutted herring. There are large herring barrels on the working quayside inscribed with the words, sayings and poetry of Shetland dialect. You can hear testimonies, songs and reflections via dedicated headphones or large sound installations and sound posts. The museum recreates “Pict” life through reconstructions of dense, smelly house interiors and recorded songs sung by women working.
Carol Christiansen, the curator and community museums officer for Shetland Museum and Archives, says: “People use us as a resource and they come to us with their objects. We rely on Shetlanders to give us vital information – from their own photos and memories – that we just don’t have.” This relationship is the result of lots of outreach work – drinking tea and eating cake at fetes and jumble sales is vital.
One of the issues around diversity in museums is who is excluded and why. Hassan Mahamdallie, arts consultant and one of the co-directors of the Muslim Institute, believes that part of the problem is existential, and not simply because of curatorial choices or employment.
“I think the challenge the sector faces around diversity is intimately linked to that overarching tension between the certainties of museums’ historic role and their search for an identity in the uncertain and complex world we live in today,” Mahamdallie says.
Critical thinking
Whatever the challenges are, tackling assumptions, ignorance and racism in museums is critical, in terms of content and approach to curating, but also among staff. It is vital not to recirculate the same images, tropes and mis-truths about “the other”.
Among museum staff, diversity can still be a thorny subject, with people dancing round the topic, unsure what is “politically correct”. Unconscious bias influences decisions around programming, interpretation and representation in museum spaces.
In order to be truly diverse, our museums need to continue to try and reverse the gaze: present people as they see themselves, not how they are viewed, or presented as “the other”. This involves being brave, taking risks, not reverting to the usual suspects.
“After years of discussion it’s clear that only much stronger, braver action from all of us – funders, sector bodies, museums – will make an impact when it comes to real diversity,” says John Orna-Ornstein, the director of museums at Arts Council England. “All institutions build up cultures, languages, ways of including some and excluding others (anthropologically), of validating certain languages, of framing things in ways that don’t include others.”
Those of us who have “made it” into the British or global public spheres have jumped through complex cultural and political hoops to prove that we understand British culture, that we will deliver, that we won’t rock the boat.
But for others to flourish in the future, institutions need to be more robust, to take risks and engage in contemporary conversations with migrants and refugees that are diverse, inclusive, and outside their comfort zone.
“Every generation rewrites the national story through the lens of their current concerns and anxieties,” says Sara Wajid. “This process enables us to reflect more deeply on our current way of doing things and become better equipped to find solutions and avert disasters.
“We think better collectively when we take the long view about complex issues such as the refugee humanitarian crisis. Good historians can support more sophisticated public discourse about the urgent matters of the day. Knowing that British history includes a long-standing story of immigrants and refugees offsets panic reactions and public hysteria. It’s one of the main responsibilities of museums to perform this function.”
Thembi Mutch is a freelance writer
