There was a lot of talk about co-production in the democracy and dialogue strand at the Museums Association's conference in Liverpool last month.
Co-production can be loosely defined as a museum inviting in community members to help produce exhibitions. For me, co-production should mean the museum relinquishing some of its power and being brave enough to allow input into curating the exhibition. But of course life would be too easy if there was agreement about what co-production actually means.
When Bernadette Lynch was introducing her strand to conference she said the point of the dialogue is being willing to listen to someone who doesn't agree with your own view.
The problem isn't so much in the listening. Museums appear to be getting better at this; at least in opening up to new people and voices. The sticking point is implementing this new stuff they may have learned. This was particularly telling in the sessions about the evaluation of the Revealing Histories exhibitions in Manchester.
Though a very vocal and proactive consultation group was assembled, the evaluation found that the exhibition at one particular museum used none of the input of the consultation group. "Containment and avoidance" were words used in the evaluation to describe the attitude behind the scenes at the museum.
And it was not beyond some of the consultation group to pick this up. Indeed even though they were being invited in for their stories and ideas, it was still the museum who was in control of how those stories were to be told.
A later session at conference felt the boundaries of co-production to be unclear. In it a member of the management team from a museum in Manchester said it was important to allow the power balance to shift but not so much that the museum loses control.
And he cautioned that regular museum visitors feel their "monopoly" and how their past is understood - the social order - is threatened when alternative voices are brought in. Well, it's about time I say.
Co-production can be loosely defined as a museum inviting in community members to help produce exhibitions. For me, co-production should mean the museum relinquishing some of its power and being brave enough to allow input into curating the exhibition. But of course life would be too easy if there was agreement about what co-production actually means.
When Bernadette Lynch was introducing her strand to conference she said the point of the dialogue is being willing to listen to someone who doesn't agree with your own view.
The problem isn't so much in the listening. Museums appear to be getting better at this; at least in opening up to new people and voices. The sticking point is implementing this new stuff they may have learned. This was particularly telling in the sessions about the evaluation of the Revealing Histories exhibitions in Manchester.
Though a very vocal and proactive consultation group was assembled, the evaluation found that the exhibition at one particular museum used none of the input of the consultation group. "Containment and avoidance" were words used in the evaluation to describe the attitude behind the scenes at the museum.
And it was not beyond some of the consultation group to pick this up. Indeed even though they were being invited in for their stories and ideas, it was still the museum who was in control of how those stories were to be told.
A later session at conference felt the boundaries of co-production to be unclear. In it a member of the management team from a museum in Manchester said it was important to allow the power balance to shift but not so much that the museum loses control.
And he cautioned that regular museum visitors feel their "monopoly" and how their past is understood - the social order - is threatened when alternative voices are brought in. Well, it's about time I say.
