I could not agree more with Eithne Nightingale’s comment that museums have a crucial role to play in shaping and reflecting on social justice issues.
Discussions around this topic are nicely captured in the Museums 2020 initiative on the Museums Association website, where thinkers are sharing ideas for how museums can make a difference for individuals, communities and the environment.
Looking at the UK from mainland Europe, there are some excellent examples in the UK of museums going beyond their traditional remits – the Museum of East Anglian Life and the Happy Museum Project, for example.
Following the Arab Spring, and ongoing radical social change in the region, Unesco has also been focused on promoting the role of museums as agents for social transformation.
While there is much scope and willingness to engage among the local populations and civil society stakeholders, the hardest thing is to change the mindsets of the officials running museums.
To have maximum impact in addressing social injustice, and other “bigger-than-self” issues, museums are most effective if they venture out of the comfort zones and team up with seemingly unusual partners.
One such partner who is very interested in working with museums is the Dulwich Centre in Adelaide, Australia. The centre has an active foundation which works with children and adults who have experienced significant trauma or adversity.
Its work includes direct counselling and community work with individuals and communities, developing and helping them to implement respectful, effective, and culturally-appropriate methodologies to respond to mental health issues and collective trauma.
I believe that connecting its work to local museums would bring an extra dimension to endeavours of addressing social injustice and hardship. In this context, I would like to invite all of you to engage with Missions Models Money’s Re:think programme.
This is a global platform designed to activate and support everyone working with arts and culture to make the world better. Through its projects and its website, we aim to collect, develop and spread examples of this energy and how we can generate it.
We hope that the relationships we make and the body of evidence we build will encourage recognition of art and culture as a resource with a vital role in helping us make that leap to a liveable world.
Vanessa Kredler, programme specialist, Unesco, Paris
