Life is messy, controversial, fluid, contentious – lots of things a museum has difficulty with. This comment was made by a staff member at a prominent museum. What to do as a museum professional when faced with resistance, opposition, conflict – internally or externally, or both?
If we can’t bring ourselves to talk about the difficult issues and situations we encounter, our neglect undermines our efforts towards social justice and participation and suppresses change internally.
Unless these external and internal relationships are aligned, the potential for the organisation to meet its social agenda is compromised.
Our institutions are diverse, with different political and cultural frameworks. All come with their own political and social influences and pressures – and none of them are designed to support this way of working. Frequently, the result is the sterilisation of relationships and projects so that nothing messy is included.
I Object! Working through Conflict in Museums is an action learning/research project that brings together three prominent UK museum services (University College London, Glasgow and Tyne & Wear) that are using contested collections and new methodologies to pilot different ways to position the museum as a public sphere of debate and contestation.
It is a project that keeps the messiness in, as it faces up to these creative challenges central to democratic dialogue and participation in museums.
Six very different case studies from these museum services – from natural history as provocateur and youth curators tackling issues of faith and cultural identity – deal with very challenging situations, both internally and externally.
Collectively, they form a series of “working through conflict” experiences that raise questions about the assumptions we make, examining these experiences and their own role within them.
They demonstrate reflective working practice that includes a good deal of healthy questioning of models adopted from our own and other sectors (for example, faith-based mediation), while questioning the extent to which exploring this area may be intrusive.
Asking if the conflicting areas we may be interested in may take the people we engage with to places they don’t want to go, the projects also question if we run the risk that some participants may find the experience offensive, invasive or uncomfortable.
Is it our role to be thought provoking and to facilitate? If we are to facilitate, how do we identify and acquire the appropriate skills?
The group of professionals involved in the project will lead a session at the Museums Association conference, in which threats, problems and failures, inside and outside of the museum, will be explored. The discussion will propose that such complex work be seen as central to a participatory practice based on collective integrity.
Bernadette Lynch is a freelance museum writer/researcher and consultant.
See book review, October 2012
If we can’t bring ourselves to talk about the difficult issues and situations we encounter, our neglect undermines our efforts towards social justice and participation and suppresses change internally.
Unless these external and internal relationships are aligned, the potential for the organisation to meet its social agenda is compromised.
Our institutions are diverse, with different political and cultural frameworks. All come with their own political and social influences and pressures – and none of them are designed to support this way of working. Frequently, the result is the sterilisation of relationships and projects so that nothing messy is included.
I Object! Working through Conflict in Museums is an action learning/research project that brings together three prominent UK museum services (University College London, Glasgow and Tyne & Wear) that are using contested collections and new methodologies to pilot different ways to position the museum as a public sphere of debate and contestation.
It is a project that keeps the messiness in, as it faces up to these creative challenges central to democratic dialogue and participation in museums.
Six very different case studies from these museum services – from natural history as provocateur and youth curators tackling issues of faith and cultural identity – deal with very challenging situations, both internally and externally.
Collectively, they form a series of “working through conflict” experiences that raise questions about the assumptions we make, examining these experiences and their own role within them.
They demonstrate reflective working practice that includes a good deal of healthy questioning of models adopted from our own and other sectors (for example, faith-based mediation), while questioning the extent to which exploring this area may be intrusive.
Asking if the conflicting areas we may be interested in may take the people we engage with to places they don’t want to go, the projects also question if we run the risk that some participants may find the experience offensive, invasive or uncomfortable.
Is it our role to be thought provoking and to facilitate? If we are to facilitate, how do we identify and acquire the appropriate skills?
The group of professionals involved in the project will lead a session at the Museums Association conference, in which threats, problems and failures, inside and outside of the museum, will be explored. The discussion will propose that such complex work be seen as central to a participatory practice based on collective integrity.
Bernadette Lynch is a freelance museum writer/researcher and consultant.
See book review, October 2012
