From where I’m standing
Museums should shout louder about these powerful stories
I cried for the first time in a museum. No, I didn’t fall over or accidentally break a priceless object. It was a storytelling project led by refugees and asylum seekers at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) that was the cause.
Running for three years, My V&A, is the brainchild of Esol (English for speakers of other languages) and arts education officer, Clare Paul. She trains around seven refugees each year to deliver a tour of the museum, selecting any object on display that illustrates their stories about the circumstances in which they were forced from their countries and how they ended up in Britain.
Rwanda, Burma, Iraq, Sudan and Uganda all feature this year. I was particularly touched by Marie Lyse Numuhoza’s story of growing up in Rwanda and the wonderful childhood she had until the 1994 genocide struck and she had to flee, leaving many family members behind.
Like all the storytellers involved in the project, Numuhoza’s delivery is powerful and pointed and the wonder of cultures far removed from many of our own is revealed. It is both a joy and tribulation to take part in the tour. It is also a striking reminder that objects are about people, a fact some museums struggle to convey.
The refugee tour guides I spoke with all said how reticent they were at first to participate. But now it has given them new skills and opened their minds to the fact that museums are there for them.
I learned about the tours as a delegate at a V&A-hosted conference. Since enthusiastically telling colleagues and friends about them and writing about it for a national newspaper, I have been asked why we don’t hear about these smaller projects that happen in a museum and are open to the public?
It’s a good question, and my guess is that staff are so overrun with work that the smaller and free events are less likely to be press released. But I can tell you I got much more out of this experience than say a Kylie or Grace Kelly exhibition.
Running for three years, My V&A, is the brainchild of Esol (English for speakers of other languages) and arts education officer, Clare Paul. She trains around seven refugees each year to deliver a tour of the museum, selecting any object on display that illustrates their stories about the circumstances in which they were forced from their countries and how they ended up in Britain.
Rwanda, Burma, Iraq, Sudan and Uganda all feature this year. I was particularly touched by Marie Lyse Numuhoza’s story of growing up in Rwanda and the wonderful childhood she had until the 1994 genocide struck and she had to flee, leaving many family members behind.
Like all the storytellers involved in the project, Numuhoza’s delivery is powerful and pointed and the wonder of cultures far removed from many of our own is revealed. It is both a joy and tribulation to take part in the tour. It is also a striking reminder that objects are about people, a fact some museums struggle to convey.
The refugee tour guides I spoke with all said how reticent they were at first to participate. But now it has given them new skills and opened their minds to the fact that museums are there for them.
I learned about the tours as a delegate at a V&A-hosted conference. Since enthusiastically telling colleagues and friends about them and writing about it for a national newspaper, I have been asked why we don’t hear about these smaller projects that happen in a museum and are open to the public?
It’s a good question, and my guess is that staff are so overrun with work that the smaller and free events are less likely to be press released. But I can tell you I got much more out of this experience than say a Kylie or Grace Kelly exhibition.