MUSEUMS, EQUALITY AND

SOCIAL JUSTICE

The last two decades have seen concerns for equality, diversity, social justice and human rights
move from the margins of museum thinking and practice, to the core. The arguments – both moral
and pragmatic – for engaging diverse audiences, creating the conditions for more equitable access
to museum resources, and opening up opportunities for participation, now enjoy considerable
consensus in many parts of the world. A growing number of institutions are concerned to construct
new narratives that represent a plurality of lived experiences, histories and identities which aim to
nurture support for more progressive, ethically-informed ways of seeing and to actively inform
contemporary public debates on often contested rights-related issues. At the same time it would be
misleading to suggest an even and uncontested transition from the museum as an organisation that
has been widely understood to marginalise, exclude and oppress to one which is wholly inclusive.
Moreover, there are signs that momentum towards making museums more inclusive and equitable
is slowing down or, in some contexts, reversing.
Museums, Equality and Social Justice aims to reflect on and, crucially, to inform debates in museum
research, policy and practice at this critical time. It brings together new research from academics
and practitioners and insights from artists, activists and commentators to explore the ways in which
museums, galleries and heritage organisations are engaging with the fast-changing equalities ter-
rain and the shifting politics of identity at global, national and local levels and to investigate their
potential to contribute to more equitable, fair and just societies.

Richard Sandell is Professor and Head of the School of Museum Studies at the University of
Leicester and his research interests focus on museums, human rights and equality. He is Series
Editor, with Christina Kreps, of Museum Meanings. His books include Museums, Society, Inequality
(2002); Museums, Prejudice and the Reframing of Difference (2007); Museum Management and Marketing
with Robert Janes (2007) and, with Jocelyn Dodd and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Re-Present-
ing Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum (2010).
Eithne Nightingale is Head of Equality and Diversity at the V&A and has worked in equal oppor-
tunities, education, community development and museums for over 30 years. She has taken a lead
on museum-wide equality strategies; collaborated with culturally diverse communities on initiatives
encompassing collections research, public programming and partnership development; and has writ-
ten and lectured extensively on diversity in museums both in the UK and internationally.
MUSEUM MEANINGS
Series Editors
Richard Sandell and Christina Kreps

Museums have undergone enormous changes in recent decades; an ongoing process of renewal
and transformation bringing with it changes in priority, practice and role as well as new expec-
tations, philosophies, imperatives and tensions that continue to attract attention from those
working in, and drawing upon, wide ranging disciplines.
Museum Meanings presents new research that explores diverse aspects of the shifting social,
cultural and political significance of museums and their agency beyond, as well as within, the
cultural sphere. Interdisciplinary, cross-cultural and international perspectives and empirical
investigation are brought to bear on the exploration of museums’ relationships with their
various publics (and analysis of the ways in which museums shape – and are shaped by – such
interactions).
Theoretical perspectives might be drawn from anthropology, cultural studies, art and art
history, learning and communication, media studies, architecture and design and material cul-
ture studies amongst others. Museums are understood very broadly – to include art galleries,
historic sites and other cultural heritage institutions – as are their relationships with diverse
constituencies.
The focus on the relationship of the museum to its publics shifts the emphasis from objects
and collections and the study of museums as text, to studies grounded in the analysis of bodies
and sites; identities and communities; ethics, moralities and politics.

Also in the series:

Museum Making Heritage and Identity

Narratives, Architectures, Exhibitions Engagement and Demission in the Contem-
Edited by Suzanne MacLeod, Laura Hourston porary World
Hanks and Jonathan Hale Edited by Marta Anico and Elsa Peralta

Museums in a Troubled World Museums and Community

Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse? Ideas, Issues and Challenges
Robert R. Janes Elizabeth Crooke
Recoding the Museum Liberating Culture
Digital Heritage and the Technologies of Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Museums,
Change Curation and Heritage Preservation
Ross Parry Christina F. Kreps

Rethinking Evolution in the Museum Re-imagining the Museum

Envisioning African Origins Beyond the Mausoleum
Monique Scott Andrea Witcomb

Museums, Society, Inequality

Museums and Education
Edited by Richard Sandell
Purpose, Pedagogy, Performance
Eilean Hooper-Greenhill Museums and the Interpretation of
Visual Culture
Museum Texts Eilean Hooper-Greenhill
Communication Frameworks
Louise Ravelli Museum, Media, Message
Edited by Eilean Hooper-Greenhill
Reshaping Museum Space
Architecture, design, exhibitions, Learning in the Museum
Edited by Suzanne MacLeod George Hein

Pasts Beyond Memory Colonialism and the Object

Evolution, Museums, Colonialism Empire, Material Culture and the Museum
Tony Bennett Edited by Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn
Praise for this book
‘Why do museums matter? The contributors to this volume address this important and timely ques-
tion from a rich variety of perspectives. Museums, Equality and Social Justice is essential reading for
anyone who cares about the roles that museums play in contemporary social life. The museums discussed
here are amongst those leading the way as agents of social justice and much is to be learned from their
experience.’
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, New York University, USA and
Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Poland.

‘This bold collection of writings reminds us of the merits of exploring unfamiliar and sometimes strange
seeming terrain in order to be relevant to the range of people who come to visit museums. No longer is
museum “best practice” confined to archival standards or matters of design and interpretation: it extends
to the realm of understanding what it means to live in and speak to the issues of the real world. A text
for our times.’
Bonita Bennett, District Six Museum, South Africa.
MUSEUMS, EQUALITY
AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Edited by Richard Sandell and

Eithne Nightingale
First published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Richard Sandell and Eithne Nightingale for selection and editorial matter;
individual contributions, the contributors.
The rights of Richard Sandell and Eithne Nightingale to be identified as the authors
of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Museums, equality, and social justice / edited by Richard Sandell and Eithne Nightingale.
p. cm. — (Museum meanings)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Museums—Social aspects. 2. Museums—Philosophy. I. Sandell, Richard, 1967–
II. Nightingale, Eithne.
AM7.M8835 2012
069—dc23
2011044793

ISBN: 978–0–415–50468–3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978–0–415–50469–0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978–0–203–12005–7 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon
CONTENTS

List of illustrations x
Notes on contributors xiii
Foreword by Mark O’Neill and Lois H. Silverman xx
Acknowledgements xxiii

Introduction 1
Eithne Nightingale and Richard Sandell

PART I
Margins to the core? 11

1 The heart of the matter: integrating equality and diversity into the
policy and practice of museums and galleries 13
Eithne Nightingale and Chandan Mahal

2 Museologically speaking: an interview with Fred Wilson 38

Janet Marstine

3 Moving beyond the mainstream: insight into the relationship between

community-based heritage organizations and the museum 45
Kimberly F. Keith

4 Beyond compliance? Museums, disability and the law 59

Heather J. L. Smith, Barry Ginley and Hannah Goodwin

5 Museums for social justice: managing organisational change 72

David Fleming
viii Contents

6 Fred Wilson, good work and the phenomenon of Freud’s

mystic writing pad 84
Janet Marstine

PART II
Connecting/competing equalities 103

7 The margins and the mainstream 105

Gary Younge

8 Cultural diversity: politics, policy and practices. The case

of Tate Encounters 114
Andrew Dewdney, David Dibosa and Victoria Walsh

9 A question of faith: the museum as a spiritual or secular space 125

John Reeve

10 A book with its pages always open? 142

Oliver Winchester

11 Unpacking gender: creating complex models for gender

inclusivity in museums 156
Amy K. Levin

12 Museums and autism: creating an inclusive community for learning 169

Susan Davis Baldino

13 Museums as intercultural spaces 181

Simona Bodo

PART III
Museums and the good society 193

14 Museums and the human rights frame 195

Richard Sandell

15 Creativity, learning and cultural rights 216

David Anderson

16 Exceeding the limits of representation? Petitioning for constitutional

change at the Museum of Australian Democracy 227
Kylie Message
 Contents ix

17 Towards social inclusion in Taiwan: museums, equality and

indigenous groups 243
Marzia Varutti

18 Social justice and community participation in non-Western contexts:

the Marib Museum Project in Yemen 254
Susan Kamel and Christine Gerbich

19 Embedding shared heritage: human rights discourse and the

London Mayor’s Commission on African and Asian Heritage 270
Janice Cheddie

20 Social media towards social change: potential and challenges for museums 281
Amelia Wong

21 Museums, African collections and social justice 294

Helen Mears and Wayne Modest

Index 310
ILLUSTRATIONS

Front cover
Patricia Cronin, Memorial to a Marriage, 2002.

Frontispiece
Maud Sulter, Terpsichore, 1992, V&A Museum. xxiv

Tables
12.1 Classroom learning challenges in school-aged and older learners on
the autism spectrum. 173

Figures
1.1 Entrance to Sugar and Slavery exhibition, Museum of London. 22
1.2 Africa Fashion Day, 1 October 2005, V&A Museum. 26
1.3 Chinese New Year celebrations, 30 January 2011, V&A Museum. 27
1.4 A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2011. 30
1.5 Children watching a Punch and Judy show during a St George’s Day
celebration at the V&A Museum of Childhood, 23 April 2011. 33
3.1 Jain Rangoli, made during Jainpedia Diwali Weekend, 13–14
November 2010 at the V&A Museum. 48
3.2 Charlie Phillips, Customers at the ‘Piss House’ pub on the Portobello Road, 1969. 54
4.1 British Sign Language Tour, V&A Museum. 66
4.2 Touch Tour, V&A Museum. 67
6.1 A Noble Tension Gallery, Seattle Art Museum. 98
9.1 The Gallery of Religious Art, St Mungo Museum. 127
9.2 Rachid Koraichi, The Invisible Masters, 2008. 131
 Illustrations xi

10.1 William Beckford at the age of 21, engraved after a painting by

Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1835, V&A Museum. 147
10.2 Plaster cast of original statue of David, by Michelangelo, Florence,
Italy, 1501–4, V&A Museum. 151
11.1 Luke Jerram, Glass sculpture of HIV virus, 2004. 160
11.2 Claude Cahun Resident Alien Card. 162
12.1 Learning architecture and modes of belonging for the Museum
Learners Club. 176
13.1 Rehearsal of the final theatre performance in the exhibition spaces of the
Guatelli Museum. 187
14.1 Patricia Cronin, Memorial to a Marriage, 2002. 201
14.2 Robert Mapplethorpe, Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter, 1979. 202
14.3 Exhibition poster for sh[OUT], 2009, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow. 203
16.1 Aboriginal people and supporters demonstrate at Parliament House on
5 March 1974. 230
16.2 Yirrkala artists, Yirritja moiety, Yirrkala Bark Petition 28.8.1963. 232
16.3 Galarrwuy Yunupingu at the presentation of the Yirrkala petition on
Land Rights to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Mr Ian Viner, 1977. 233
18.1 Tank in front of the ruins of the Sabaean town of Sirwah close to Marib. 256
18.2 Grave Stelae from the Awam cemetery, including representations of the
heads of the deceased. 258
21.1 Displays of ethnographic material, in this case from the ‘Baluba’ and ‘Zulu’,
as they appeared at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery until the early 1990s. 297
21.2 Display case showing Yoruba maternity figure and Ibejis twin figures
in the Horniman Museum. 302
21.3 Aubrey Williams, Untitled, 1958–64. 303
21.4 Chris Ofili, Tibidabo. Plate from the suite of ten entitled To T
from B with L., 1992. 304

Colour plates
Plates can be found between pp. 168–169.
1.1 John Everett Millais, The Blind Girl, 1856.
1.2a Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1974–1979.
1.2b Judy Chicago, Sojourner Truth place setting from The Dinner Party, 1974–1979.
1.3 James Tissot, Jesus Ministered to by Angels (Jésus assisté par les anges), 1886–1894.
1.4 The Singh Twins, EnTwinED, 2009.
1.5 Marshall D. Rumbaugh, Rosa Parks, 1983.
3.1a The Golden Throne made by Hafez Muhammad Multani, Lahore, about
1820–1830.
3.1b The Mortal Realms of the Universe, 1844.
6.1 Fred Wilson, The Museum: Mixed Metaphors (detail), 1993.
6.2 Fred Wilson, SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE WORLD – Believe it or Not! (detail),
2005.
6.3 Caspar Mayer, Bust of Ota Benga, A Bachichi man, as displayed by Fred Wilson in the
installation SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE WORLD – Believe it or Not!, 2005.
xii Illustrations

8.1 Sonia Boyce, Mr close-friend-of-the-family pays a visit whilst everyone else is out, 1985.
9.1 Islamic Middle East: The Jameel Gallery, V&A Museum.
9.2a Blessing of the space by Chinese Buddhists at the opening of the Robert H.N. Ho
Buddhist Sculpture Galleries, 28 April 2009, V&A Museum.
9.2b The opening of the Sacred Silver & Stained Glass Galleries, 22 November 2005,
V&A Museum.
10.1 Kissing Doesn’t Kill. Greed and Indifference Do. Poster by Gran Fury (designer), ACT
UP (publisher).
10.2 ‘Lesbians are coming out . . .’, Screenprint by See Red Women’s Workshop, no
date.
10.3 The Mazarin Chest, Japan, about 1640.
14.1 David Hockney, We Two Boys Together Clinging, 1961.
14.2 Sadie Lee, Holly Woodlawn Dressing II, 2007.
14.3 Grayson Perry, Transvestite Looking in Mirror, 2009.
14.4 Kristiane Taylor, Self-Med Woman, 2009.
16.1 Aboriginal Tent Embassy outside Parliament House, Canberra, 1972.
17.1 Deed of lease of indigenous lands issued by Han Chinese officers of the Qing gov-
ernment, late eighteenth century.
18.1a Interviewing local residents.
18.1b School group during an interview.
21.1 Chris Ofili, Afro Lunar Lovers, 2003.
21.2 The West Indian Front Room: Memories and Impressions of Black British Homes.
Geffrye Museum, London.
CONTRIBUTORS

The volume is comprised of chapters written by (and shaped through engagement with) the
following academics and researchers, practitioners, activists, artists and commentators:

Musleh Al-Qubati is an archaeologist who received his Master’s Degree from Sana’a Univer-
sity in 1998. He is currently working for the General Authority for Antiquities and Museums
(GOAM) of Yemen. Mr Al-Qubati has participated in a number of surveys and excava-
tions in Marib. Being a long-standing member of several international excavation teams in
Yemen, he has worked as part of the Marib Museum Team, Yemen from the start of the
project.

Rajiv Anand is a trained textile artist with a Master’s Degree in Art Theory. He has been
working in the museums sector for 16 years and has experience of developing projects at
a local, regional and national level. His expertise and experience lies in cultural diversity,
inclusion, arts education and audience development. Rajiv is a museum consultant who has
worked on the national diversity project JAINpedia for the Institute of Jainology. He previ-
ously worked for Kirklees Council for six years as the Community Museums Officer working
with the hardest to reach audiences on exhibitions and events. He relocated to London to join
the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council as the Cultural Diversity Officer advising the
local regional agencies on how best to attract diverse groups to museums. Rajiv also worked
for the Race Equality think tank the Runnymede Trust before joining the V&A as the South
Asian Officer and Diversity Team Leader.

David Anderson is Director General of the National Museum of Wales and formerly Director
of Learning and Interpretation at the V&A where he was manager of the museum’s learning
services, community programmes, and audience research and gallery interpretation. He also
had responsibility for cultural policy, diversity and external partnerships across the V&A. He
is the author of the influential report, A Common Wealth: Museums in the Learning Age (1999),
and has published and lectured widely on the educational and social role of museums.
xiv Contributors

Susan Davis Baldino teaches graduate courses in Museum Studies at Florida State University
and is a consultant and advocate for the arts, museums and persons with disabilities. She is a
member of the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, board chair for the Center for Autism
and Related Disabilities, past president of the Tallahassee Museum and former chair of the
Florida Association of Museums Foundation and has worked with ‘Keys to Exceptional Youth
Success’ that provides postsecondary scholarships for students with disabilities. Susan received
her PhD from the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester.

Simona Bodo is an independent researcher with a particular interest in the social agency of
museums and their role in the promotion of intercultural dialogue. On these issues she acts
as an adviser to public and private institutions (including the Ministry for Cultural Heritage
and Activities, Brera Picture Gallery, Fondazione ISMU – Initiatives and Studies on Mul-
tiethnicity), and has recently taken part in a number of projects supported by the Lifelong
Learning Programme of the European Union. She is co-creator and editor of Patrimonio e
Intercultura, an online resource devoted to the intercultural potential of heritage education
projects.

Janice Cheddie is a researcher, writer and academic whose work focuses on contemporary
visual culture, difference, cultural democracy and cultural policy. She is Visiting Lecturer at
the Greenwich Business School and Research Affiliate at the Institute of Converging Arts and
Sciences (ICAS), University Of Greenwich. She was lead consultant for the Heritage Diver-
sity Task Force, London Mayor’s Commission on African and Asian Heritage (2005–2009)
and associate editor of Embedding Shared Heritage (Greater London Authority, 2009).

Chia-Li Chen is an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Museum Studies, Taipei
National University of the Arts, Taiwan. She is the author of Museums and Cultural Identities:
Learning and Recollection in Local Museums in Taiwan and Wound on Exhibition: Notes on Memory
and Trauma. Her research interests focus on three main areas: museums and contemporary
social issues, visitor studies and the history of community and literature museums.

Andrew Dewdney is Professor of Educational Development at London South Bank Univer-

sity. His book, Post Critical Museology: Theory and Practice in the Art Museum (2012; co-edited
with David Dibosa and Victoria Walsh) broadens the Tate Encounters research findings, argu-
ing for a new approach to research in the cultural sector. He is currently writing a new edition
of The New Media Handbook (2006), co-authored with Peter Ride, which develops a frame-
work for thinking about the emerging academic field of study of new media. He is interested
in and concerned with the concept and practical utility of critical reflexivity and really useful
knowledge in the service of progressive cultural change.

David Dibosa trained as a curator, after receiving his first degree from Girton College, Cam-
bridge. He was awarded his PhD in Art History from Goldsmiths College, London, for a
thesis titled, Reclaiming Remembrance: Art, Shame and Commemoration. During the 1990s, David
curated public art projects, including a billboard project and a sculpture park in the West Mid-
lands. From 2004 to 2008, he was Senior Lecturer in Fine Art Theory at Wimbledon College
of Art, University of the Arts London (UAL). He remains at UAL, where he is now Course
Director for MA Art Theory, at Chelsea College of Art and Design.
 Contributors xv

David Fleming is Director of National Museums Liverpool, where he has worked since
2001. He has a special interest in the social value of museums, and their role in creating
social justice. Two recent projects – the International Slavery Museum and the Museum of
Liverpool – have been set up consciously to create social justice. He has travelled widely to
study museum work around the world and to develop ways to support greater international
co-operation between museums.

Christine Gerbich is Research Associate in Visitor Studies at the Technical University, Ber-
lin. She is a social scientist who has worked for several state-funded projects in the educational
and health sector in Germany. Since 2007 she has been a staff member of the Marib Museum
Team, being responsible for visitor research and exhibition evaluation. Since November
2009 she has been working for the project ‘Exhibition Experiment Museology: On Curating
Islamic Art and Culture’ at the Technical University in Berlin which aims to develop new
audiences for the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin.

Barry Ginley. In 1994, after an eye operation which went wrong, Barry has been visually
impaired. In 2001 he studied part time at the University of Reading and has gained the MSc
in Inclusive Environments Design and Management. Barry currently works as Head of Dis-
ability and Social Inclusion at the V&A and previously worked as a consultant to the RNIB.
Building on his expertise on disability, he has recently been appointed as one of 12 Ambas-
sadors for the ‘Strengthening Disabled People’s User-Led Organisations’ project on behalf of
the Office for Disability Issues.

Hannah Goodwin is the Manager of Accessibility at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, United
States, a position she took up following an Artist-in-Residence experience that exposed both
inclusive and non-inclusive practices in schools and other venues. As an artist and educator,
Hannah is committed to increasing access to cultural experiences for all and, more particularly,
furthering accessibility for people with disabilities within her practice, through teaching and
advocacy.

Susan Kamel is a curator and Research Associate in Museum Studies at the Technical Uni-
versity Berlin. From November 2009 she was responsible for the research project ‘Exhibition
Experiment Museology: On Curating Islamic Art and Culture’. The findings of this project
will contribute to the refurbishment of the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin. She is also work-
ing for the Marib Museum Project, a cooperative between the German Archaeological Insti-
tute, Branch Sanaa and the Yemeni Social Fund for Development. She has edited the book
From Imperial Museum to Communication Centre? On the new Role of Museums as Mediators between
Science and Non-Western Societies (2010) with Lidia Guzy and Rainer Hatoum and written
numerous articles on museums of Islamic art and cultures and museums in the Arab world.

Kimberly F. Keith earned her PhD in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London,

researching how US and UK museum practitioners develop and engage diverse audiences
in relation to disparate organisational cultures and strategic policies. For 15 years Kimberly
worked in museums developing educational programmes, most specifically for at-risk youth
and diverse audiences, at the Children’s Museum of Seattle, Washington and the Museum of
Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art in Tacoma, Washington. She is a Trustee
xvi Contributors

on the board of the Black Cultural Archives in the Brixton area of south London, and serves
on its Raleigh Hall Development Project Board.

Amy K. Levin is Director of Women’s Studies and Professor of English at Northern Illinois
University, where she has also served as a coordinator of Museum Studies. She received her
undergraduate degree from Harvard University and her doctorate from City University of
New York. Levin has published four books, including two on museums: Defining Memory:
Local Museums and the Construction of History in America’s Changing Communities (2007) and
Gender, Sexuality, and Museums: A Routledge Reader (2010). Her current research focuses on
narratives of Western humanitarian medical interventions in formerly colonised nations.

Chandan Mahal is Head of Audience Development at The Women’s Library, London Met-
ropolitan University, where she is responsible for managing the public events, and the learning
and community engagement programmes. She was previously the Diversity and Programme
Manager at the Museum of London, where she was responsible for overseeing the implemen-
tation of the museum’s equality and diversity strategies, with a particular focus on public pro-
grammes, audience development and workforce development. She was one of the commis-
sioners for the Mayor’s Commission on African and Asian Heritage in 2005 and is currently a
board member for engage (the National Association for Gallery Education).

Janet Marstine is Lecturer and Programme Director of Art Museum and Gallery Studies in
the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester. Her research focuses on museum
ethics in theory and practice and on institutional critique and its impact on ethics. Marstine
is editor of The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics: Redefining Ethics for the Twenty-First
Century Museum (2011) and New Museum Theory and Practice: An Introduction (2005). She is
the founder and former director of the Institute of Museum Ethics (IME) at Seton Hall
University.

Helen Mears is Keeper of World Art at Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton and Hove.
Previously she was African Diaspora Research Fellow at the V&A, London.

Kylie Message is Associate Professor in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology and
Associate Dean (Research Training) for the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Aus-
tralian National University. She is author of New Museums and the Making of Culture (2006)
and co-editor of volumes on cultural politics, collections, and material culture that include
Compelling Cultures: Representing Cultural Diversity and Cohesion in Multicultural Australia (with
A. Edmundson and U. Frederick, 2009) and Museum Theory: An Expanded Field (with A.
Witcomb, forthcoming). She is a Managing Editor for the journals Museum and Society and
Museum Worlds (Advances in Research) and review editor for Australian Historical Studies.

Wayne Modest is currently head of the Curatorial Department of the Tropenmuseum in

Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He previously held positions as Keeper of Anthropology at
the Horniman Museum in London and Director of the Museums of History and Ethnogra-
phy at the Institute of Jamaica. He also held visiting research affiliations at Yale Centre for
British Art, and New York University’s programme in Museum Studies. With a regional
focus on the Caribbean, his research interests include material and visual culture; slavery;
 Contributors xvii

museum anthropology and the histories of collecting and exhibitionary practices. His pub-
lications include catalogue contributions, book chapters and the forthcoming book The Col-
laborative Museum: Curators, Communities and Collections (co-edited with Viv Golding). He is
also working on an edited volume with Tim Barringer entitled Victorian Jamaica.

Eithne Nightingale is Head of Equality and Diversity at the V&A and initiated the major
Heritage Lottery Funded project, ‘Capacity Building and Cultural Ownership – Working
with Culturally Diverse Communities’ which encompassed collections research, public pro-
gramming and partnership development. She has written and lectured on diversity in muse-
ums in the UK and internationally and is currently carrying out research for a PhD on Chil-
dren, Migration and Diasporas, linked to the Museum of Childhood in London’s East End.
Eithne has worked in race relations, education, community development and museums for
over 30 years. She is also a photographer and a travel/fiction writer.

Mark O’Neill. Since moving to Glasgow in 1985 Mark O’Neill has led the creation of two new
museums, including the UK’s only museum of world religions, and the renewal of two Victorian
institutions, notably that of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which received 3.2 million
visits in its first year after reopening in 2006. He was Head of Glasgow Museums from 1998 to
2005 and Head of Arts and Museums from 2005 to 2010. In his current role as Director of Policy
& Research, Glasgow Life, he aims to apply visitor centred approaches developed in museums to
libraries, arts and sport. He has published and lectured widely on museum philosophy.

Irna Qureshi is a writer, anthropologist and oral historian specialising in British Asian herit-
age. She has curated several exhibitions on this theme and has worked with museums includ-
ing the V&A to implement strategies to develop South Asian audiences. She has written
about the public perception of Muslim actresses working in the Pakistani film industry and is
currently writing about being British, Pakistani and female in Bradford, against the backdrop
of classic Indian films.

Clifford Pereira FRGS is a freelance history researcher, one of two world authorities on the
Bombay Africans and recognised in East Africa and East Asia for his work on Africa and the
early Ming Dynasty. Cliff is a consultant to the British heritage sector, with considerable experi-
ence of partnership working with the Royal Geographical Society and numerous community
engagement projects with diverse funding bodies. A former Chairman of the Black and Asian
Studies Association (BASA) and a long time member of the Anglo-Portuguese Society, Cliff was
recently awarded Honorary Assistant Researcher by Royal Holloway, University of London.

John Reeve teaches on the Museums and Galleries in Education MA at the Institute of Educa-
tion, London University, and was previously Head of Education at the British Museum. He
is editor of the Journal of Education in Museums and was chair of GEM (Group for Education in
Museums) until September 2011. He is a trustee of Strawberry Hill House, and an adviser to
museums and galleries including Sir John Soane’s Museum and the National Gallery. He has
also worked with museums and heritage organisations abroad especially in India. He was co-
editor of The Responsive Museum (with Caroline Lang and Vicky Woollard, 2006). He edited
the catalogue for the Sacred exhibition at the British Library (2007) and wrote A Visitor’s Guide
to World Religions for the British Museum Press (2006).
xviii Contributors

Richard Sandell is Professor and Head of the School of Museum Studies at the Univer-
sity of Leicester. He has been awarded research fellowships at the Smithsonian Institution
(2004/2005) and the Humanities Research Center of the Australian National University
(2008) to pursue his research interests which focus on museums, human rights and equality.
He is the editor of Museums, Society, Inequality (2002), author of Museums, Prejudice and the
Reframing of Difference (2007); co-editor (with Robert R. Janes) of Museum Management and
Marketing (2008) and co-editor (with Jocelyn Dodd and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson of Re-
Presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum (2010)).

Atul Shah is founder and CEO of Diverse Ethics, a consultancy advising organisations on
ways of understanding and embracing cultural intelligence in the workplace. He is author of
Celebrating Diversity and Social Cohesion – A Jain Perspective. He was on the Board of the Muse-
ums, Libraries & Archives Council and is an active writer and broadcaster.

Lois H. Silverman is an independent scholar, museum studies specialist and consultant to

museums and social agencies worldwide. She is widely known for her publications, lectures
and seminars on visitor meaning-making and her innovative projects exploring the therapeu-
tic potential of museums. Drawing on her PhD from the Annenberg School for Commu-
nication and a Master’s of Social Work from Indiana University, Lois works on a variety of
collaborative projects between museums, social service agencies and communities. She is the
author of the groundbreaking book, The Social Work of Museums (Routledge, 2010) and the
co-editor of Transforming Practice (Museum Education Roundtable, 2000).

Harbinder Singh is the founding Director of the Maharajah Duleep Singh Centenary Trust
– Britain’s first Sikh heritage based organisation. He has led all of MDSCT’s major projects
over the past 18 years. These include collaborating with the V&A on the 1999 Arts of the Sikh
Kingdoms exhibition and with English Heritage on initiating and touring the Jawans to Generals
exhibition. He is responsible for conceiving and spearheading the launch of the Anglo Sikh
Heritage Trail which works in conjunction with a wide range of arts and heritage based insti-
tutions throughout the UK.

Heather J. L. Smith is the Equality Specialist for the National Trust for England, Wales and
Northern Ireland. She has worked at the Trust for eight years, holding positions responsible
for advising on access for disabled people, and integrating equality and diversity into the
National Trust’s strategy and planning. Prior to this, Heather lived in Scotland where she
worked in a contemporary art centre and completed her PhD. Her subject of research was the
provisions in museums and art galleries for blind and partially sighted people, something of
great personal interest following a series of major eye operations in her early years.

Marzia Varutti is based at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. Expand-
ing on her doctoral dissertation investigating museums in the People’s Republic of China, Dr
Varutti has subsequently conducted research on the relations between museums and indig-
enous groups in Taiwan (funded by the British Academy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
R.O.C.), and the representation of ethnic minorities in the museums of Norway (funded by
the Research Council of Norway). She has published on a wide range of themes including
cultural representation, museums and social inclusion, nationalism, and heritage and memory
– in China, Taiwan and Norway.
 Contributors xix

Victoria Walsh is a freelance curator, project manager and research consultant and was Head
of Public Programmes at Tate Britain (2005–2011) during which time she was co-investigator
of the major research project ‘Tate Encounters: Britishness and Visual Culture’. She is also
co-investigator of the Tate research project ‘Art School Educated: Curriculum Development
and Institutional Change in UK Art Schools 1960–2000’. She holds an MA in Art History
(Courtauld) in Curating (RCA 1995) and a doctorate on the artist J. A. M. Whistler (Oxford
Brookes 1996) and has published on post-war British artists Nigel Henderson, Francis Bacon,
Gilbert & George and architects Alison and Peter Smithson.

Fred Wilson is a conceptual and installation artist whose work explores the relationship
between museums, individual works of art, and collections of other kinds. Wilson’s work has
been featured in over 100 group exhibitions, including the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) as the
American representative, the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial Exhibition (1993),
and the 4th International Cairo Biennale (1992). He has had over 25 solo museum exhibitions
internationally, and has been the recipient of numerous honours and awards, among them,
the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award (the ‘Genius Grant’), Chicago
(1999). Fred Wilson is represented by The Pace Gallery, New York, and currently lives and
works in New York City.

Oliver Winchester is Project Curator at the Wellcome Collection in London. He was Assist-
ant Curator of the 2011 V&A exhibition Postmodernism: Style & Subversion 1970–1990 and
Head of the V&A LGBTQ Network having previously worked as Assistant Curator of Con-
temporary Programmes where he managed the V&A ‘Friday Late’ series. Specialising in sub-
cultural, queer and politically engaged visual culture, Oliver has worked at Christie’s auction
house and the Barbican Art Gallery and has worked on exhibitions that include Helen Chad-
wick: A Retrospective and Araki. Self: Life: Death and has written for various publications includ-
ing Queering the Museum at Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, most recently contributing
to the exhibition catalogue Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballet Russes. Oliver sits on the
Kensington & Chelsea Arts Grants Board.

Amelia Wong manages social media outreach and develops web content for the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum. She holds a BA in History/Art History from UCLA and a
PhD in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park, where her disser-
tation interrogated how museums are constructing community through social media in the
interest of democratic reform. She has also held several positions in humanities research in Los
Angeles and in the mid-Atlantic United States.

Gary Younge is an author, broadcaster and award-winning columnist for the Guardian, based
in Chicago. He also writes a monthly column, Beneath the Radar, for the Nation magazine
and is the Alfred Knobler Fellow for The Nation Institute. He has written three books: Who
Are We?, Stranger in a Strange Land and No Place Like Home. Raised in Stevenage by his Barba-
dian-born mother, Gary studied French and Russian at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh
and Newspaper Journalism at City University in London. He has reported extensively from all
over Europe, Africa the United States and the Caribbean and written for a variety of publica-
tions including The Los Angeles Times, GQ Style, The New Statesman, Hello!, Gay Times, The
Scotsman and Cosmopolitan.
FOREWORD

In the past 30 years, museums have faced waves of powerful external forces which have made
change inevitable. This book is about the choices some museums have made in response to
these pressures and the opportunities to which they gave rise. The accelerated growth of
consumer culture has forced museums to function in a highly market-driven economy, with
unprecedented competition for people’s time and attention. Museums responded, some
unwillingly, others enthusiastically, with blockbuster exhibitions, a focus on sponsorship and
philanthropy, and grandiose buildings which aspire to be ‘iconic’. More than ever before,
museums have become part of the world’s largest industry: tourism. At the same time, muse-
ums have struggled to keep up with the need for new forms of engagement arising from
the explosive popularity of social media and virtual experience. Under increasing scrutiny,
museums and their staff have been critiqued for complicity with structures of power, oppres-
sion and exclusion, attacked for their political agendas, and regularly subjected to the more
mundane but intrusive demands of democratic accountability through the policies of state
and foundation funders. Groups whose histories and identities have been ignored or deni-
grated by museums have demanded representation in displays and programmes. Underlying
these demands have been the principles of human rights which have inspired the struggle
for justice across the planet since the Second World War. Many museum staff have sought
to embrace these ideas and, working with communities, artists and academics, to use them
to change museums from within. This book is a record of how some museums responded
to the rights revolution which has taken place since the Universal Declaration was signed
in 1948.
The ‘global awakening’ in which people of all walks of life are recognising their power
to claim and exercise their human rights may seem sudden, but it is a consequence of these
longer-run developments. As this volume demonstrates, those who work in and value muse-
ums have been part of this revolution. While museums’ awareness of and passion for their
potential to foster social change have far outpaced our understanding of how to harness and
implement it, the chapters in this book take an essential step towards closing that gap. Muse-
ums themselves are experiencing a global awakening to their power and practice as agents of
cultural activism. Museums, Equality and Social Justice is a clear testament to the process.
 Foreword xxi

What comes across vividly in this volume is that museums and the people who work in
and with them are deep in the throes of profound, difficult and exciting learning that belies any
sense of easy progress. The kind of organisational learning required to engage with the rights
revolution poses a fundamental challenge for all expert institutions, including museums, per-
haps because it is both collective and highly personal. The museum’s imagined audiences can
no longer be limited by our own assumptions and blind spots and those of the culture within
which we grew up and were trained. All museum visitors, all citizens, and all the people
who created the museum objects must now be seen as fully human. This requires seeing the
world within new and unfamiliar frames, and has to be carried on, not about, but with people
who have been represented as somehow ‘other’. Few of us reach adulthood without absorb-
ing stereotypes and prejudices, whether based on class, ethnicity, race, gender or sexuality.
Confronting and overcoming the resulting blind spots can be emotionally demanding work,
with many consequent opportunities for insensitivity, embarrassment and failings of insight. It
requires humility and a courage which is not usually part of the culture of prestigious institu-
tions. Yet as this volume records, many museums and people who work in and with them are
rising to these challenges. Their learning is inspiring.
Many of the chapters in this collection reflect not only the desire of individuals to humanise
museums, but also offer the much-needed articulation of and reflection upon evolving best
practices and policy that is critically important at this juncture. With a welcome diversity of
authors, the editors fruitfully move the field-wide conversation from questions of whether or
not, to questions of how. These chapters reflect the on-going development of practice and
policy from tentative first steps – often dismissed as tokenistic and reflecting unreconstructed
stereotypes, to more equal and respectful engagement, to attempts to embed equality and
diversity in the heart of museums. The frustration and anger of those who responded to invita-
tions by museums or who demanded representation and participation in museum displays and
decision-making processes are apparent here. So is the willingness and insight of citizens, art-
ists and activists to help museums move towards practices and policies that suit the complexi-
ties and opportunities of diversity, social justice and human rights. The approaches to imple-
mentation and action illuminated in these pages create an empowering guide for practice.
Perhaps the most positive response to the rights revolution is a generosity of spirit and
an expression of solidarity with the human condition and, in particular, with those who are
marginalised. As the chapters make clear, however, good intentions and generosity are not
enough to sustain positive social change. The contribution of any social institution is only as
good as its analysis of society and as the role it chooses to play in response. Thus, the rights
revolution also confronts museums with a series of intellectual, political and ethical tasks as
well as cultural and emotional learning. The tasks go beyond the functions of curatorship,
conservation, management and education, to defining the museum in relation to the needs
of society, and embodying its role as well and fully as possible. As some of the contributors
venture to suggest, museums have unique contributions to make as agents of cultural activism,
as leaders, and as revolutionaries. This book is therefore a clarion call for museums to imagine
and embrace their full potential.
No matter what a museum’s legal structure, whether publicly funded, or authorised by
society to function as a charity, it is expected to contribute to the common good. If its basic
values do not include solidarity with the excluded, then the museum is reinforcing that exclu-
sion. While the most radical analysis will always find museums’ progressivism falling short, it is
also important not to make the ‘perfect revolution’ the enemy of the ‘good enough’ reform.
xxii Foreword

Any review of the state of the world and of museums would however suggest that, while
good foundations have been laid, and some promising work carried out, the task of realising
the potential of museums to contribute to creating a society where everyone is treated as fully
human has only just begun. The chapters in this remarkable collection are at once a record of
profound organisational learning, a critical guide for practice, and a stirring call for museums
to understand and realise their full potential in contributing to the creation of a richer, fairer
society.
Mark O’Neill and Lois H. Silverman
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are grateful to many individuals and organisations that have shaped our approach to
this book and enriched our thinking with their expertise, practice and insights, including
Rajiv Anand, Jocelyn Dodd, Nancy Fuller, James Gardner, Victoria Hollows, Eilean Hooper-
Greenhill, Robert Janes, Christina Kreps, Kylie Message, Kris Morrissey, Sarah Ogilvie,
Mark O’Neill, Cliff Pereira, Irna Qureshi, Atul Shah, Marjorie Schwarzer, Lois Silverman,
Harbinder Singh and the late Stephen Weil.
We are especially indebted to Chandan Mahal, Makeda Coastan, Christopher Breward,
David Anderson, Debbie Sibley and Sarah Ames who formed a steering group for a major
international conference – Margins to the Core? – Exploring the Shifting Roles and Increasing Sig-
nificance of Diversity and Equality in Contemporary Museum and Heritage Policy and Practice – held
at the V&A in 2010 that subsequently provided the impetus for this book.
Collaboration and dialogue with a range of organisations has enriched our understand-
ing of the themes and topics explored in the book including The Black Cultural Archives,
Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail, Black and Asian Studies Association, Institute of Jainology, Scot-
tish Transgender Alliance, The Mayor’s Commission on African and Asian Heritage (Greater
London Authority) and the Diversity in Heritage Group.
Eithne Nightingale would like to thank colleagues at the V&A especially Mark Jones,
Damien Whitmore, Beth McKillop, Teresa Hare-Duke, Liz Miller, Barry Ginley, Oliver
Winchester, Janet Browne, Helen Woodfield, Marilyn Greene and Amanda Bruce. She
would also like to thank the V&A for sponsoring research conducted for this book in the
United States and UK.
Richard Sandell is grateful to students and colleagues in the School of Museum Studies,
University of Leicester for their generosity, collegiality and support over the past 14 years and
to the Research School of Humanities, Australian National University, for the award of a
research fellowship in 2008 that supported his research into museums and human rights.
Finally the editors would like to thank Suzana Skrbic, Barbara Lloyd and John James for
their invaluable assistance in sourcing images and Matt Gibbons, Amy Davis Poynter, Ilaria
Parodi and Nicola Imrie for their support, advice and encouragement throughout the process
of bringing this volume to fruition.
Maud Sulter, Terpsichore, 1992. V&A Museum. Museum no. E. 1795–1991, © Maud Sulter.
INTRODUCTION
Eithne Nightingale and Richard Sandell

The last two decades have seen concerns for equality, diversity, social justice and human rights
move from the margins of museum thinking and practice, to the core. The arguments – both
moral and pragmatic – for engaging diverse audiences; creating the conditions for more equi-
table access to museum resources; and opening up opportunities to participate in (and benefit
from) museum experiences, now enjoy considerable consensus (Silverman 2010; Marstine
2011). Their influence can be detected in the practices, programmes, policies and structures of
museums and galleries throughout many parts of the world. Moreover, attempts to construct
new narratives that reflect demographic, social and cultural diversity and represent a plurality
of lived experiences, histories and identities – once the preserve of a few pioneering institu-
tions – are increasingly widespread. These trends in democratic representation and display
practice (and the controversies they have sometimes generated) have attracted considerable
academic interest (Macdonald 1998; Anico and Peralta 2009; O’Neill 2011). Moreover, a
growing number of museums, galleries and heritage organisations have become increasingly
confident in articulating their purpose and value in social terms and claiming a role as agents
of progressive social change (Sandell 2002, 2007). In particular, there is increasing professional
and scholarly interest in the potential for museums to take up an explicitly activist moral stand-
point on human rights issues – one that aims to actively shape the conversations that society
has about difference – and to engage visitors in (frequently challenging) debates pertaining to
social justice (Sandell 2007; Sandell et al. 2010).
At the same time it would be naïve and misleading to suggest an even and uncontested
transition from the museum as an organisation that has, for many years, been widely under-
stood to marginalise, exclude and oppress to one which is wholly inclusive and committed to
fairness and equity in all areas of practice. Indeed, some have questioned the extent to which
heightened attention to diversity and equality has brought about real change in institutions
– their values, policies and practices with regards to all areas of activity – as well as changes
in the demographic profile of those who visit, work within, collaborate with and benefit
from museums (O’Neill 2002). Moreover, whilst recent years have seen more widespread
and mainstream adoption of practices that respond to and engage with issues of diversity and
equality (and a welcome marginalisation of a minority of staunch opponents to this work)
2 E. Nightingale and R. Sandell

there are also worrying signs that momentum towards making museums more inclusive, equi-
table and socially engaged is slowing down or even – in the present political, social and
economic climate – reversing (Janes 2009).
Within this context we argue that there is a pressing need to explore the museum’s
relationship to (and potential to act upon) inequality and injustice; to investigate, better
understand and evidence the ways in which museums, heritage and culture not only reflect
but also shape normative conceptions of fairness and power relations between groups; as well
as impact individuals’ lived experiences. The increasing influence of morally-based human
rights discourses globally, alongside growing support for the argument that levels of inequality
and deprivation within society negatively impact social mobility and cohesion; crime levels;
economic viability; and the mental and physical wellbeing of all citizens (Wilkinson and
Pickett 2009), lend further support to the need for this investigative work. We therefore aim
to explore the unique role that museums might play in countering inequalities and engen-
dering support for social justice on both the local and global stage; a potential that, despite
significant shifts in policy and practice, remains largely untapped.
The book then is conceived to reflect on and inform debates in museum research, policy
and practice at this critical time by bringing together original, provocative, scholarly and
accessible contributions that explore the shifting roles and increasing significance of diversity,
equality and social justice in international, contemporary museum policy and practice. Whilst
comprehensive coverage of the numerous and complex issues involved in this field is not pos-
sible in a project of this kind, we have nevertheless sought to include diverse perspectives and
to be mindful of the importance of exploring both group-specific equality issues as well as the
themes that cut across the experiences of different communities. Taken together, contribu-
tions address different strands of equality – race, religion and belief, disability, sexual orienta-
tion, socio-economic status, age, gender – exploring common ground and strand-specific
issues as well as interconnections and tensions between them whilst, at the same time, critiqu-
ing these bounded classifications and recognising the shifting, sometimes arbitrary and hybrid,
nature of identity. The book is intended to complement other important studies dedicated to
specific social groups and equality issues.1 Equality discourses are considered alongside those
pertaining to human, legal and cultural rights, reflecting the ways in which these are increas-
ingly intertwined at both local and international levels. Collectively, the contributions to this
volume reflect on past practices and, crucially, seek to inform future debate and practice.
Whilst museums have increasingly experimented with more democratic forms of engage-
ment – creating enhanced opportunities for different perspectives, experiences and forms
of expertise to inform their work – less progress has been made towards the opening up
of opportunities to engage in academic debate. Publication, in particular, is often restricted
to a relatively narrow group of academics and researchers. We have therefore purposefully
attempted to draw upon a richer mix of perspectives in this collection. The volume is com-
prised of (and has been shaped by input from) academics and researchers (both established and
emerging), artists, activists, journalists and practitioners working at different levels in wide
ranging national, local and community based organisations and with experience of diverse col-
lections from contemporary art to natural science; from ethnic- or religious-specific museums
to those dedicated to human rights issues.
The volume grows out of a major international conference – From the Margins to the Core
– Exploring the Shifting Roles and Increasing Significance of Diversity and Equality in Contemporary
Museum and Heritage Policy and Practice – held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2010 and
 Introduction 3

organised in partnership with the University of Leicester. The event, which featured more
than 100 speakers and attracted delegates from many parts of the world, was the culmination
of more than two years of discussions with key figures in the field of diversity and equality.
A number of contributors to this volume participated in the conference (and have subse-
quently developed their arguments in chapter form) appearing alongside specially commis-
sioned work from additional contributors.
The concepts with which this book is centrally concerned – equality, diversity and social
justice – are closely linked and interdependent. However, recognising that understanding and
applicability of the terms varies according to the context and country in which they are used,
we deploy the terms in relatively distinctive ways.
Equality refers to the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of group membership
(for example, linked to race, gender, disability and so on) and is widely used in such areas as
employment, education, leisure and health services. Attempts to secure equality of opportu-
nity in these different arenas have been at the heart of many struggles for formally constituted
and legally recognised civil and human rights by different groups.
Diversity policies and practices generally embody measures intended to celebrate, promote
respect for, and enhance understanding of difference and – in terms of workforce – to harness
the benefits of diverse staff. Diversity encompasses visible and non-visible differences and can
include culture, socio-economic status, values and so on. Equality and diversity are closely
linked; there can be no equality of opportunity if difference is not understood, taken account
of, valued and harnessed.
We use the term social justice to refer to the ways in which museums, galleries and herit-
age organisations might acknowledge and act upon inequalities within and outside of the
cultural domain. This usage is underpinned by a belief in the constitutive, generative char-
acter of museums; their capacity to shape as well as reflect social and political relations and
to positively impact lived experiences of those who experience discrimination and prejudice.
Whilst museums have often operated in ways which exclude, marginalise and oppress, there is
growing support (and evidence) for the idea that museums can contribute towards more just,
equitable and fair societies.
We have purposefully omitted a detailed justification of the merits of a commitment to
equality and a concern for diversity and social justice within museums – an argument which
was necessary only a decade ago when growing interest in these issues provoked an often fierce
backlash from opponents arguing that museums should operate outside of these social and
political concerns and focus on the ‘core business’ of collecting, researching and interpreting
material to the public (O’Neill 2002; Sandell 2002). This position is possible because of a bur-
geoning body of empirical research (both within the museum studies literature and amongst
the many visitor studies carried out by museums around the world) that now evidences the
long-held view that museums have social value; that audiences gain learning and therapeutic
benefits from participation (Silverman 2002, 2010; Hooper-Greenhill 2007; O’Neill 2010);
that the narratives they construct and the moral standpoints they adopt have social effects and
consequences (Sandell 2007; Dodd et al. 2008) and that museums are highly valued public
forums for encountering and negotiating contested social issues (Message 2006; Cameron and
Kelly 2010; Barrett 2011). We therefore start from a position that reaffirms the fundamental
importance of issues of equality and diversity to the work of museums and the centrality of
this work to their future development, relevance and effectiveness. This enables us to open up
and address timely issues for further exploration and to develop ideas that can help to inform
4 E. Nightingale and R. Sandell

future innovation, developments and debates in museum thinking and practice. Crucially,
the volume seeks to examine issues of equality, diversity and human rights across all areas of
the museum’s organisation and activity and their actual and potential transformative impact
on leadership and management, governance, employment, collections development, public
programming, marketing and so on.
Contributors draw on a productive range of disciplines and theoretical perspectives to
address questions and concerns fundamental to contemporary practice and policy including
critical legal studies, social anthropology, social movement studies, change management, phi-
losophy, cultural studies, disability studies, politics and international relations to locate specific
arguments and case studies within a broader context.
Contributions have been grouped according to three primary themes, although many indi-
vidual chapters speak to issues that cut across these broad, closely interlinked parts.

Margins to the core?

The chapters in this part examine the challenges encountered in effecting long-term change in
museum policies and practices across key areas such as governance, leadership, organisational
values and structure, workforce, collections and programming.
Whilst the authors explore very different contexts and approach the theme of organisa-
tional change from markedly different professional, scholarly and personal backgrounds, there
is nevertheless a degree of consensus around the need for an embedded and sustained com-
mitment to the principles of equality and social justice. Whilst some examine how factors
within and outside the museum shape decisions, others examine the potentially transformative
effects of specific strategies such as collaboration and partnership with external organisations;
co-creative practice with excluded communities; and institutional critique through engage-
ment with artists.
Eithne Nightingale and Chandan Mahal explore how far different institutions have inte-
grated diversity and equality imperatives into their strategic planning and core business.
Drawing on examples from the United States and UK, they discuss issues of leadership and
ownership; the role of individual staff; decision-making processes, consultation and collabora-
tion with external individuals and organisations. In reviewing how different equalities are pri-
oritised, and interconnect, they examine the relative merits of initiatives that address specific
community experiences (such as the Museum of African American History and Culture due
to open on the Mall in Washington, DC in 2015) and approaches that favour the threading of
diversity throughout broader museum narratives. Informed by research in the UK and United
States, they envisage what a fully equitable, diverse and inclusive museum might look like.
Fred Wilson, in his interview with Janet Marstine, reviews the development of more
socially just and engaged museums and galleries over recent decades. His insights – generated
through experience of working within institutions as a trustee, and as an artist and curator
brought in to develop specific projects – highlight the need for leadership, greater relevance,
risk taking and experimentation and for a more diverse workforce, a change which, he argues,
is a prerequisite for long-term transformation. Whilst acknowledging progress in how muse-
ums and galleries ‘reflect change’ he believes their potential for ‘driving change’ has yet to be
realised.
Several authors touch on the theme of collaboration, an important and growing trend in
professional practice. Kimberly Keith interviews leaders from culturally specific community
 Introduction 5

heritage organisations to inform discussion of the opportunities and pitfalls bound up in col-
laboration between mainstream museums and community agencies. Her analysis highlights
the significance of genuine commitment, dialogue, respect and the establishment of common
values in establishing mutually beneficial and equitable partnerships.
Heather Smith, Barry Ginley and Hannah Goodwin identify the barriers within museums,
galleries and heritage organisations, which have hindered attempts to extend access for disa-
bled visitors. Their analysis reveals both the importance and the limitations of formal mecha-
nisms for instigating change (such as the law) and highlights the impact on policy and practice
of individuals with specialist expertise in (and responsibility for) access and disability. To create
genuine and sustained change – that can transform both the culture of an organisation and
the quality of experience it offers to visitors – they call for ongoing dialogue and co-creative
practices with disabled audiences.
David Fleming offers a candid account of his experiences of leading two major museum
services (operating in very deprived cities in England) through a long-term, sometimes pain-
ful process of organisational change, a prerequisite for surviving changing political, social and
economic contexts. His reflections on the interrelated aspects of museum policy, practice
and culture (vision and shared values, strategic planning, programming, finance and so on)
offer an holistic understanding of the need for (and challenges involved in) transforming
organisations.
Janet Marstine’s chapter helpfully locates museums’ attempts to evolve in response to diver-
sity and social justice imperatives within a broader trend of heightened concern for ethical issues
across a range of professions. More particularly, her in-depth empirical analysis of the impact of
Fred Wilson’s ‘compassionate form of institutional critique’ – that has often interrogated collec-
tions through a post-colonial lens – offers new insights for museum leaders of how organisations
change and are changed and highlights the importance of alignment between the values of the
individual, the sector, the organisation and the global context within which they operate.

Connecting/competing equalities
The chapters in this part examine not only specific equality strands – gender, disability, race,
age, sexual orientation, religion and belief, socio-economic status and so on – but also the
common ground that they share as well as the tensions between them. Contributors explore
how museums are responding to the fast-changing equalities terrain and shifting politics of
identity at global, national and local levels and highlight the ways in which the universalising
discourse of human rights intersects with the contingent character of particular equality strug-
gles in different international contexts.
In the opening chapter Gary Younge reveals how familiar categories – race, gender and so
on – are necessary and valuable for progressing equality and, at the same time, flawed; inca-
pable of expressing the dynamic and shifting character of identity. Drawing upon the lived
experiences of diverse individuals he makes a powerful case for recognising and respecting
difference in all its forms. Economic difference, he argues, is key but has been largely ignored
with the white working class often ‘stranded without a sponsor’. His analysis highlights the
struggle between those who occupy the ‘core’ (with greater access to power and resources)
and those at the ‘margins’ who help define the mainstream. Recognising their interdepend-
ence, Younge argues that such a struggle can be both creative and transformative as long as
people respect and meet each other halfway.
6 E. Nightingale and R. Sandell

Presenting the findings from a major research project that examined the ways in which young
people perceived and engaged with art at Tate Britain, Andrew Dewdney, David Dibosa and Vic-
toria Walsh similarly highlight the limitations of fixed identity categories. They critique policies
that measure success on the basis that museum audiences, staff or collections are more ‘diverse’,
drawing on Fanon’s concept of epidermalization to argue that categorisation according to skin
colour masks issues of power. Asserting that politics has been replaced by government policies that
seem to have failed, they argue instead for new, alternative ways of engaging with inequality.
John Reeve argues that museums have been largely neglectful of issues of religion and
belief, often deploying interpretive frames that emphasise the aesthetic qualities of objects
at the expense of their spiritual significance. Drawing on examples from across the globe he
questions this approach arguing for the importance of context for all audiences. As ‘secular
guardian[s] of religious artefacts’ (Chin 2010) he asks that museums enter into more meaning-
ful collaborations with faith communities, are multi-voiced in their interpretations and take
up more active roles in contemporary public debates around religion.
Oliver Winchester considers attempts by museums to develop more inclusive narratives of
sexual identity and problematises the ‘restrictive trans-historical essentialism’ that has under-
pinned many initiatives to date. Drawing on the collections of the V&A and interrogating
very different objects, their biographies and possible meanings, his analysis urges us to go
beyond presenting a series of discovered identities and hidden histories, proposing approaches
to interpretation that can accommodate the variety and complexity of lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and queer (LGBTQ) lived experience.
Amy Levin employs queer and feminist theory and analyses the representational strategies
in contemporary exhibitions to assess the extent to which museums might resist and move
beyond limiting and reductive binary classifications with regards to gender and sexuality. Her
discussion helpfully explores ways in which gender and sexual identities intersect with issues
of class, race, ethnicity and colonialism and also addresses, head on, the tensions that can arise
between LGBT communities and some religious groups.
Susan Baldino sheds light on the needs of a growing but poorly understood audience and
one largely neglected and under served by museums. Her groundbreaking study, capturing
the outcomes of an action research project involving museums, schools and young people,
offers compelling evidence that museums hold enormous potential to develop transformative
learning experiences for people on the autism spectrum.
In the final chapter in this part, Simona Bodo explores the potential for museums to support
intercultural understanding and respect in societies characterised by increasing diversity and ten-
sions between communities. Critiquing recent museum and heritage practices, she calls for an
approach which goes beyond targeting according to racial origin and ethnicity in favour of the
opening up of a third space; one which is transformative for all parties – the institution as well as
those participants who, in Gary Younge’s words, live in both the ‘core’ as well as the ‘margins’.

Museums and the good society

What roles might museums play in promoting social justice and engendering support for human
rights? More particularly, how are museums engaging with and responding to claims to cul-
tural access and demands for more equitable forms of representation by diverse communities?
The chapters in this part address these questions, interrogating and problematising the part that
museums might play in nurturing more equitable, fair and just societies. Whilst grounded in
 Introduction 7

analysis of very different settings, chapters by Sandell, Varutti and Message, share a concern to
understand the agency of museums in relation to broader rights claims and struggles.
Richard Sandell draws on debates and theoretical perspectives from a range of disciplines to
examine museums’ increasing engagement with human rights issues, exploring their potential
to function as ‘sites of persuasion’ (Morphy 2006) that engender support for often controver-
sial rights claims. Gathering evidence from museum practitioners, news media, audiences and
transgender rights activists he shows how museums not only reflect but potentially reconfigure
normative moral codes and conventions at both a local and global level.
Marzia Varutti focuses attention on Taiwan, offering a fascinating account of how national,
local and newly created museums have engaged with human rights issues since the fall of the
military dictatorship in 1987 and become increasingly involved in contemporary social issues.
Her analysis focuses, in particular, on the ways in which museums have been caught up in
indigenous rights movements and the challenges that persist as the country has increasingly
sought to recognise, rather than suppress, differences.
Opening up a dialogue between critical legal studies and museum studies, Kylie Message
further examines the potential for museums to progress a social justice agenda. Exploring the
clash between ‘constituted’ power – as reflected in the Museum of Australian Democracy
– and ‘constituent’ power exemplified by the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and the Yirrkala bark
petitions, both signifiers of aboriginal struggles over land reform, Message presents new ways
of understanding the relationship between culture and the legal processes through which
rights are commonly formalised.
David Anderson shows how cultural rights – enshrined in international legislation – are
frequently misunderstood by the public and media and widely ignored by governments and
museums. Drawing on research into creativity and synthesising concepts from the fields of
human rights, politics and international relations, Anderson posits a framework within which
everyone has the right to have their culture recognised; freedom of expression; opportunities
to engage with other cultures, to participate in cultural activities and be creative. Through
a focus on obligations towards (and claims made by) faith communities, he considers how a
commitment to cultural rights for all might be negotiated by museums and galleries.
Susan Kamel and Christine Gerbich offer an honest and reflective account of the challenges
of applying new approaches to museum thinking and practice to their work in supporting the
construction of a new archaeological museum in Yemen and where many museums have fol-
lowed in the imperialist ‘orientalist’ tradition. They show how awareness of the local context
and ‘appropriate’ museology’s (Kreps 2008) concern for inclusion holds considerable poten-
tial for supporting both progressive museum practice and a re-examination of issues that are
sometimes taken for granted in Western museums.
Janice Cheddie reflects on her involvement with the Mayor’s Commission on African and
Asian Heritage in London which brought together Black and Asian scholars and community
practitioners on the one hand and museum and heritage practitioners on the other. Drawing
on this experience she shows how human rights can be deployed to articulate the case for
cultural diversity; emphasises the need to consider how knowledge is acquired, negotiated
and disseminated; underlines the importance of class and gender and the need for the sector to
focus on structural difference and inequality rather than racial or ethnic identity.
Amelia Wong draws on innovative practice across the world, from both within and beyond
the museum field, to show how social media can radically alter the ways in which museums
engage with their audiences and pursue their social goals in more ethical, transparent and
8 E. Nightingale and R. Sandell

impactful ways. At the same time, her nuanced critique cautions against overly celebratory
claims regarding the role that social media can play in support of equality and social justice and
points to how museums can most effectively harness their promising potential.
In the final chapter, Helen Mears and Wayne Modest address the potential for African col-
lections in Western museums – created out of colonialism – to be redirected towards social
justice endeavours claiming that such collections offer unique entry points into developing
understanding of our historic and contemporary diversity. Their powerful critique of discrim-
inatory museum practices and their call for radical change and ongoing reflection speaks back
to the need, highlighted by contributors to Part I, to dismantle those internal structures that
serve to exclude to bring about fundamental changes within museum thinking and practice.
A project such as this is bound to be selective and there are, inevitably, omissions. Yet by
bringing together consideration of diverse equality concerns and exploring the relationships
between them, we hope to have created a volume that makes a unique contribution to the
field; one which complements and enriches important work that focuses on the museum’s
engagement with particular communities’ experiences of marginalisation and exclusion. Our
aim has been to produce a volume that is both reflective and challenging, that can critique
some cherished and long-held assumptions, inform future practice and research and ultimately
assist museums in realising their untapped potential to contribute to a more equal society.

Note
1 See, for example, Smith et al.’s volume on heritage and issues of class (2011); recent work by Night-
ingale (2010) on museums and cultural diversity; Sandell et al.’s (2010) focus on disability representa-
tion; and Levin’s collection of writings on gender and sexual identity in the museum (2010).

References
Anico, M. and Peralta, E. (eds) (2009) Heritage and Identity: Engagement and Demission in the Contemporary
World, London and New York: Routledge.
Barrett, J. (2011) Museums and the Public Sphere, Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Cameron, F. and Kelly, L. (eds) (2010) Hot Topics, Public Culture, Museums, Newcastle upon Tyne:
Cambridge Scholars.
Chin, K. (2010) ‘Seeing Religion with New Eyes at the Asian Civilizations Museum’, Material Religion,
6 (2): 192–216.
Dodd, J., Sandell, R., Jolly, D. and Jones, C. (2008) Rethinking Disability Representation in Museums and
Galleries, Leicester: Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, University of Leicester.
Hooper-Greenhill, E. (2007) Museums and Education: Purpose, Pedagogy, Performance, London and New
York: Routledge.
Janes, R. R. (2009) Museums in a Troubled World: Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse?, London and New
York: Routledge.
Kreps, C. F. (2008) ‘Appropriate Museology in Theory and Practice’, Museum Management and Curator-
ship, 23 (1): 23–41.
Levin, A. K. (ed.) (2010) Gender, Sexuality, and Museums: A Routledge Reader, London and New York:
Routledge.
Macdonald, S. (1998) ‘Exhibitions of Power and Powers of Exhibition: An Introduction to the Politics
of Display’, in S. Macdonald (ed.) The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture, London and New
York: Routledge: 1–21.
Marstine, J. (ed.) (2011) Redefining Ethics for the Twenty First Century Museum: The Routledge Companion
to Museum Ethics, London and New York: Routledge.
 Introduction 9

Message, K. (2006) New Museums and the Making of Culture, Oxford: Berg.
Morphy, H. (2006) ‘Sites of Persuasion: Yingapungapu at the National Museum of Australia’, in I. Karp,
C. A. Kratz, L. Szwaja and T. Ybarra-Frausto (eds) Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transfor-
mations, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press: 469–499.
Nightingale, E. (ed.) (2010) Capacity Building and Cultural Ownership – Working with Culturally Diverse
Communities, London: V&A.
O’Neill, M. (2002) ‘The Good Enough Visitor’, in R. Sandell (ed.) Museums, Society, Inequality, London
and New York: Routledge: 24–40.
O’Neill, M. (2010) ‘Cultural Attendance and Public Mental Health – From Research to Practice’,
Journal of Public Mental Health, 9 (4): 22–29.
O’Neill, M. (2011) ‘Religion and Cultural Policy: Two Museum Case Studies’, International Journal of
Cultural Policy, 17 (2): 225–243.
Sandell, R. (ed.) (2002) ‘Museums and the Combating of Social Inequality: Roles, Responsibilities,
Resistance’, in R. Sandell (ed.) Museums, Society, Inequality, London and New York: Routledge:
3–23.
Sandell, R. (2007) Museum, Prejudice and the Reframing of Difference, London and New York:
Routledge.
Sandell, R., Dodd, J. and Garland-Thomson, R. (eds) (2010) Re-Presenting Disability: Activism and Agency
in the Museum, London and New York: Routledge.
Silverman, L. (2002) ‘The Therapeutic Potential of Museums as Pathways to Inclusion’, in R. Sandell
(ed.) Museums, Society, Inequality, London and New York: Routledge: 69–83.
Silverman, L. H. (2010) The Social Work of Museums, London and New York: Routledge.
Smith, L., Shackel, P. and Campbell, G. (eds) (2011) Heritage, Labour and the Working Classes, London
and New York: Routledge.
Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2009) The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, London:
Penguin.
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PART I

Margins to the core?

This page intentionally left blank
1
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
Integrating equality and diversity into the policy
and practice of museums and galleries

Eithne Nightingale and Chandan Mahal

For too long equality and diversity considerations have been relegated to the margins of the busi-
ness of museums and galleries (Sandell 2002) with many institutions interpreting their respon-
sibilities in this area as being limited to one area of activity (for example, collections or staffing)
or restricted to specific equality issues (such as race, gender or disability) with a corresponding
disregard for the interconnections or tensions between them. Ignoring the changing nature of our
society and the multi-faceted and shifting nature of people’s identities they have often been lim-
ited (or at worst, insensitive or inappropriate) in their response to diversity and equality issues.
At the same time, there have been examples of outstanding work at institutional, depart-
mental or individual levels. Some organisations have genuinely tried to embed diversity and
equality across their organisation; to engage staff at all levels; to draw on the expertise of
stakeholders outside the institution in order to respond to changes within society (Janes 2009;
Silverman 2010); and to adopt approaches which advance opportunity across a range of equal-
ities or foster relations between groups of people (Bruce and Hollows 2007).
This chapter draws on good practice to explore the challenges inherent in this work
as experienced in a range of museums in both the United Kingdom and United States. It
explores how far museums and galleries have integrated diversity and equality into mainstream
policy; the importance and nature of leadership; the role of staff across the organisation and
the significance of internal and external networks, consultation and partnerships. It assesses
whether some institutions have focussed on particular equality strands more than others (and
for what reasons) and considers whether sufficient attention has been given to exploring the
interconnections and tensions between equality issues. It attempts to identify both barriers
to, and effective drivers for, change in order to inform future practice in both developing
and sustaining this work, recognising the different political, social and economic contexts in
which people work. Lastly, drawing on this evidence, it endeavours to envision what a truly
equitable, diverse and inclusive museum might look like.
We have based much of the discussion on an analysis of museum policies and on inter-
views conducted with staff occupying different roles in a range of national, local and regional
museums in the UK and the United States.1 We have also drawn on our own experience of
holding roles with a specific brief on developing equality and diversity policies and practices in
14 E. Nightingale and C. Mahal

museums based in London. Eithne Nightingale is Head of Equality and Diversity at the Victo-
ria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London, a national museum that holds world-class collections
in art and design. Chandan Mahal, formerly Diversity Manager at the Museum of London, is
Head of Audience Development at the Women’s Library, also based in London.

Strategic planning and policy formulation

During the interviews we were concerned to establish the role of strategic planning and policy
formulation in advancing equality. Are such processes a prerequisite for the mainstreaming
of diversity and equality issues or are they viewed simply as time-consuming, ineffective and
overly bureaucratic? Do policies and plans instigate genuine change and nurture consensus and
commitment amongst staff or do they encourage complacency and remain largely ignored?
The Museum of London was one of the early pioneers in approaching issues of equality
and diversity strategically. In 2003 a Cultural Diversity Audit was carried out which covered
four areas: leadership; communication; service delivery; and employment. This led to the
appointment of a Diversity Manager, Chandan Mahal, who drove forward the recommen-
dations of the audit and oversaw the development of the Museum’s Race Equality Scheme
partly in response to the requirements of the UK Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.2
This was followed by the setting up of an Equality and Diversity Strategy Group in 2005,
composed of members of senior management, heads of department and staff from across the
Museum. Within the Directorate, individual members of senior management took a lead on
different aspects of diversity – race, disability, LGBT and so on. There was also a Disability
Working Group. In response to equality legislation, equality impact assessments were intro-
duced to identify both positive and negative impacts on all new major policies and functions in
relation to specific equality strands. The two Diversity Managers3 worked with colleagues in
Human Resources and, with the active support of senior management, organised professional
development training delivered by external consultants. During this period the main focus was
on policy and developing diversity action plans for different departments, which the Diversity
Managers had a role in monitoring and reviewing. The Diversity Managers subsequently went
on to work on gallery projects as part of the Community and Audiences department, which
has since become the Public Programmes department. There are no longer dedicated Diver-
sity Managers, the Equality and Diversity Steering Group no longer exists nor does the prac-
tice of each director championing some aspect of diversity. This is not to suggest, however,
that issues of equality and diversity are deemed less important. Indeed Cathy Ross, Director
of Collections and Learning at the Museum of London asserts that:

It has got translated incredibly well in terms of the broader understanding within the
organisation. Everybody knows that it is terribly important and it’s something that’s
been internalised in terms of people’s thinking particularly in terms of exhibitions. It’s
no longer something just on the outside so that has been good.

Yet she expresses reservations as to whether the museum is ‘actually knuckling down and get-
ting some proper planned documents and strategies to move us forward on this’.
Annette Day, Head of Programmes, points to the need to review progress: ‘It would be
good to have a way of measuring change. What does not happen is the review and measuring
of diversity . . . the Diversity Manager role did more of that’.
 The heart of the matter 15

Rita McLean, Director of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery in the Midlands, UK,
reinforces the importance of monitoring impact: ‘Consistency is quite hard . . . it is really use-
ful to check what you’re doing regularly to make sure it does not slip off the agenda’.
Of all the museums interviewed, it was Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery that showed
the most consistent approach to integrating equality and diversity into their annual strategic
planning. This included carrying out equality impact assessments on all new major policies
and functions such as the collecting policy, lifelong learning and audience development strate-
gies. Such a practice forces the organisation to consider both negative and positive impacts in
relation to the multiple equality strands that have now been subsumed into the Equality Act
2010 (race, disability, gender, LGBT, marital status, age and religion and belief).4 For example
the equality impact assessment of the museum’s Collecting Policy 2009–2013 outlines specific
positive impacts such as strengthening the representation of work by black, Asian and disa-
bled artists; increasing the representation of Muslim cultures and other faith groups. Overall
impacts include improving the quality of life through celebrating diversity and contributing
to community cohesion, thus directly linking the core activity of the museum to equality
and social issues (Plate 1.1). The equality impact assessment identifies no potential negative
impacts of the collecting policy.
The Horniman Museum in south London, a ‘free, family-friendly museum with exhibits
from around the world’, takes a rather different approach. Assistant Director, Finbarr Whoo-
ley, states that the Museum is ‘policy light’, adding that ‘we don’t even have an audience
development policy’. However the Museum does follow the general line of direction from
the Trustees who set out an aspiration that the visitor profile, which is measured through an
annual survey, matches that of the local community. Indeed the Horniman has been very
successful in diversifying its audience with the percentage of black, Asian and minority ethnic
audiences (BAME) increasing from 8–9 per cent in 2000 to 34 per cent in 2010.
Rebecca McGinnis, Access Coordinator and Museum Educator at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York, who previously worked in London, remarked on the differ-
ence between the two environments in which she has worked: ‘Coming here [to the United
States] I was all ready to have a policy but it doesn’t quite pan out that way although I think
we’re moving more in that direction’.
Lonnie Bunch, Director of the National Museum of African and American History and
Culture (NMAAHC), believes that there is more of an emphasis on policy in the UK largely
because of the role of the Government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport, there
being no equivalent body in the United States. The fact that most of the funding for US
museums, apart from the Smithsonian, is from private rather than public sources may also
be a contributing factor although certain businesses (both in the UK and United States) have
been very active in the areas of diversity and equality incorporating this into their mission and
strategic plans.
The V&A has had an Access, Inclusion and Diversity Strategy, approved by the Museum’s
Trustees, since 2003. In addition there have been related action plans and, as required by law,
both Disability and Gender Equality Schemes. All of these have now been integrated into one
policy in line with the Equality Act 2010. In addition, the V&A’s annual strategic plan makes
clear reference to issues of access and equality and has as one of its four objectives: ‘To provide
optimum access to collections and services for diverse audiences, now and in the future’. All
staff members have equality and diversity included as one of their corporate objectives in their
annual performance management plans.
16 E. Nightingale and C. Mahal

However, whilst the V&A has pioneered many equality and diversity initiatives, the
Museum has been resistant to introducing equality impact assessments except in the area of
employment, despite the benefits of having an audit trail in the event of a discrimination case.
There is concern that such assessments are overly bureaucratic and indeed the present UK
Equality Act 2010 is unclear as to the requirement of such assessments. It was the former gen-
der, race and disability legislation, now subsumed under the UK Equality Act 2010, that led to
the introduction of equality impact assessments in the UK and, whilst many local authorities
and health services complied, the arts and cultural sector has been more reticent. The fact that
Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery is funded by the local council undoubtedly contrib-
uted to their more consistent compliance.
The V&A’s Equality and Diversity Strategy Group (formerly the Access, Inclusion and
Diversity Strategy Group), chaired by an Equality and Diversity Champion who is a sen-
ior manager, is a formally constituted sub-committee of the Museum’s Management Board.
There are, or have been, other short- or long-term working parties around specific issues such
as socio-economic class; religion and belief; LGBTQ and a Staff Disability Forum. Some of
these, initiated by staff around common interests, have undoubtedly contributed to significant
change within the V&A.
However a recent evaluation of a major project in the Museum – Capacity Building and
Cultural Ownership – Working with Culturally Diverse Communities – funded by the Heritage
Lottery Fund, questioned the effectiveness of the former Access, Inclusion and Diversity Strat-
egy Group. A Social Network Analysis – that examined the relationships that existed between
individuals in the organisation – showed that few of the Group’s members were on other
committees in the Museum and concluded that the Group therefore had limited influence.
Steps have since been taken to recruit more members who are in a better position to influence
change but the effect of this has yet to be seen.
The potential for inertia and limited influence of committees is well expressed by Magdalena
Mieri, Director of the Smithsonian’s Latino History and Culture Program at the National
Museum of American History: ‘I don’t think committees work. They suggest things are
changing and let people feel good about themselves . . . but often committee members aren’t
empowered or willing to make real changes’.
So where does the future lie? Does the fact that Horniman Museum has significantly
diversified its visitor profile, despite its lack of detailed policy, support the view that this is
not a prerequisite for change? Is the V&A right to resist implementing a more rigorous equal-
ity assessment in relation to all its policies and plans, preferring a less bureaucratic response?
Does the case of the Museum of London, where there is no longer an emphasis on policies
or meetings, mean that such an approach is now outdated given that diversity and equality
have become more central to people’s thinking? Does the size, location, funding or remit of
a museum determine the need for a more or less formal approach?
It seems clear that policies that are not consulted upon or consistently applied in practice
are unhelpful as are procedures that are so bureaucratic that either they are not implemented
or they alienate people. The existence of strategy groups or committees – unless focussed and
with an influential, well-networked membership – may encourage complacency. If policy-
making is to affect change there needs to be a set of specific objectives that can be measured,
based on the particular context of the museum, and integrated into strategic planning. Some
equality impact assessments may have become too onerous and therefore counter-productive
but we would argue that there needs to be some mechanism, however basic, where staff are
 The heart of the matter 17

prompted to consider the potential impact on equality concerns, both positive and negative, at
the initial conception of any major policy or plan and for this to be recorded. This could be in
relation to audience development, employment or collecting policies or the development of a
gallery, public programme or exhibition. The role of dedicated posts (see also Chapter 4, this
volume) is further explored in the next section but it is clear that there needs to be someone
with a clear responsibility for coordinating policy across the institution, ensuring consistency
and, importantly, reviewing and reporting progress against set objectives.
Interestingly discussions around the implementation of the Equality Act in the UK also
point to the need to undertake an Equality Analysis and set specific, measurable and realistic
objectives and for these to be transparent, monitored and made public.

Ownership and leadership

Leadership is often cited as a critical factor in driving forward change, and was frequently
referred to in our interviews, but such a claim poses interesting questions. How far is any
individual leader able to move forward without broader support from across the organisation
(Chapter 5, this volume)? What happens when directors, senior managers and others in posi-
tions of authority constitute a barrier to change through limited interest in (or commitment
to) equality issues? Since progress is often initiated by highly committed staff lower down in
the organisation or working on the edges of the museum and in response to external factors,
how might this commitment be harnessed to achieve change in core values and practices?
Cathy Ross believes that leadership has been a key driver for change at the Museum of
London: ‘It has been driven by the top in that the Director has always been incredibly aware
of diversity and keen that the Museum should be a model of good practice for diversity’. Yet
she also expresses concerns about key people leaving:

Things have changed for the better. I think diversity has been mainstreamed into our
thinking but sometimes I worry if those key people leave, whether it’s sufficiently
embedded to carry on . . . If the Director left, this may have an impact. He has been a
key driver and it’s a Director’s prerogative, to steer things in a particular way . . . but I
think it has been embedded.

Camille Akeju, the Director of the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, believes
that leadership, per se, is not enough:

It’s one thing for a leader to go in and say ‘this is what we’re doing’. It’s another thing for a
leader to go in and help staff identify the changes that need to happen across the organisa-
tion and to ensure individuals take ownership and responsibility for those changes.

At Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, it is the Planning and Support Manager who, at
present, has overall responsibility for overseeing and driving forward equality and diversity
issues but as the head of service, Rita McLean, asserts: ‘leadership is not just at my level but
right through the organisation. Progress is impossible without this’.
Clearly, a concern for diversity and equality should be part of everyone’s responsibility but,
at the same time, progress will only be made when individual staff members have the knowl-
edge and skills, the confidence and commitment, to integrate this into their work.
18 E. Nightingale and C. Mahal

What has been striking during this research is the difference that individuals can make,
sometimes (but by no means always) irrespective of their ethnic or social background, their
experience, role or position within the hierarchy.
Rosie Miles, a curator of Prints and Drawings at the V&A from the 1970s until 2007, col-
lected work by black artists from Britain, the United States, the Caribbean and Africa even
though, at the time, the V&A did not officially collect from Africa or the African Diaspora.
It was also a few interested V&A curators, supported by educators, who started to identify
overlooked collections of relevance to the African Diaspora, an initiative that, with later
funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, has led to the uncovering of over 4,300 objects, a
revision of the Collecting Policy and active consideration of an ‘Africa’ gallery (Chapter 21,
this volume).
At the Museum of London, Alex Werner (Head of History Collections Department)
became an enthusiastic collector of works of African or Caribbean material, a gap that, in
this case, had been identified by the Museum. It was he who acquired the French edition
of Quobna Ottobah Cugoano’s Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the
Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species Humbly Submitted to the Inhabitants of Great Britain,
showing how such texts were circulating in Europe. Vincent Carretta, Professor of English
at the University of Maryland, United States, called Cugoano ‘the first Anglophone-African
historian of slavery and the slave trade, and the first African to criticize European imperialism
in the Americas’.5 The French introduction also includes information about Cugoano’s life
and character that had not been recorded before.
There are many more examples of curators at the Museum of London actively collecting
material relating to all aspects of diversity, one of the priority areas identified in the contempo-
rary collecting plan. In 2008, for example, the Museum acquired significant material relating
to the Sri Lankan Minister, Kamal Chunchie, an important figure who set up the Coloured
Men’s Institute in 1926 to support black and Asian sailors living in poor conditions in Lon-
don’s East End.
We found other instances of individual staff members who have made distinctive contri-
butions, sometimes beyond their job responsibilities. Cedric Yeh is a curator working with
the Armed Forces collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
(NMAH). Twelve years ago Cedric Yeh began to take a personal interest in museum-wide
collections that related to Asian Pacific American history, the Museum later supporting what
became his ‘official, unofficial position’. His motivation was to ensure that the Asian Pacific
American community, of which he himself is a member, should see their own heritage
reflected in the NMAH:

The objects I identified weren’t collected for their significance in terms of diversity.
They’re labelled as ‘machinery’ or ‘fabrics’ and things like that and we would have to
do a lot of research to uncover what exactly we had . . . We found remarkable pieces
that no one had known about.

The first piece displayed at the NMAH was a porcelain figure of a white man pushing out a
Chinese labourer from the safety of a nest, referring to the Exclusion Act of 1882, the only
law that ever targeted a specific ethnic group. Inside the nest are whites, African Americans
and other ethnic groups.
 The heart of the matter 19

We did a little research and found out more about the maker of this mass product . . .
and we were wondering, ‘who was he selling these to and where would you put this’?
On a mantle piece, on top of a fireplace, on your office desk?

Fath Davis Ruffins, curator of African American History and Culture at the NMAH, believes
that no substantial change will happen until the staff composition is more diverse and, indeed,
the example of Cedric Yeh lends support to this view:

If you don’t diversify the staff then you don’t have people who have some of these
concerns . . . historically what has been collected in the Smithsonian has been because a
person was really interested in that particular thing.

It is interesting that Fath Davis Ruffins, an African American, was one of three people who
were employed under an affirmative action programme over 20 years ago. One of the others
was Spencer Crew, who made his way up to be Director of NMAH, a clear vindication of
such approaches to staff diversity. In the UK, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery has been
an enthusiastic supporter of positive (affirmative) action traineeships targeted at black and eth-
nic minorities, with a high percentage of trainees moving onto full-time positions and being
promoted within the sector although, not as yet, at director level (Davies and Shaw 2010).
There have been other positive action programmes targeted at people with disabilities and, at
the Smithsonian, a foundation pays stipends for interns with disabilities.
Positive action programmes, however, should not replace a more thorough critique of
employment policies. As Sandell (2000: 217) has argued:

Some organisations, which may not necessarily operate direct racial discrimination,
nevertheless may develop corporate cultures that reflect the norms, attitudes and values
of the dominant majority and can serve indirectly to exclude ethnic minorities. Within
such organisations can exist a tendency to recruit to an implicit model, one that reflects
the existing demographics of the profession.

Magdalena Mieri, Director of the Latino History and Culture Program at the NMAH, iden-
tifies this tendency to recruit ‘in one’s own image’ as a significant barrier to organisational
change: ‘There have been a number of openings for junior positions and it’s always the same
people . . . It’s not taking the risk to hire someone that might look a little different’.
In 2010 there was an executive order from the US President to increase the number of
people employed with severe disabilities. However, as Beth Ziebarth, Director of the Acces-
sibility Program, points out, executive orders do not address internal reticence: ‘There is a real
attitude issue with the supervisors and the managers as to the perceived difficulty in having
a person with a disability working with you, the additional expense’. Similar concerns have
been expressed at the V&A where, nevertheless, there has been an increase in disabled staff
from 2 per cent to 6 per cent over a period of eight years.6
Diversifying staff is clearly an important issue; one that works in tandem with measures to
encourage all staff to take on responsibility for equality and diversity issues. Yet how does one
engage those individuals who resist change; who may not see the relevance of equality con-
siderations to their area of work; or lack the skills or confidence to contribute? The challenge
of encouraging colleagues to ‘get on board’, is well expressed by Magdalena Mieri:
20 E. Nightingale and C. Mahal

It’s truly a challenge to convince my colleagues that Latinos have been here a long time,
that they are part of this society. It’s the largest minority in this country – a reality that
the Smithsonian needs to embrace in terms of the collections . . . I try to do programmes
that I think could be really good for this institution, to help us to think broader, but some
colleagues don’t come to the programmes. Everyone is too busy, so I don’t know how to
deal with that . . . internally. I don’t know how to break in, how to make inroads.

Several institutions, both in the UK and United States, employ staff with a specific remit to
help embed diversity and equality across the organisation and who face the same challenges
as Magdalena Mieri. They may have a generic role to develop policy across all equalities and
across all functions, as previously at the Museum of London, or a more specific role in relation
to one area of responsibility, for example, employment or reaching new audiences. Alterna-
tively they may have a remit to address a specific strand of equality (for example, in relation to
disability or to work with communities generally under-represented in most museums’ visi-
tor profiles, such as the Latino, African Caribbean or Asian communities). Such staff may be
located in different parts of the institution and operate at different levels within the hierarchy
thereby influencing their ability to effect change across the organisation.
Often posts with a specific responsibility for outreach or to broaden audiences sit within
education or public facing departments. Whilst these posts are key to excellent work such
a model, if interpreted as the sole or major focus for the museum’s diversity and equality
work, can undermine the position that issues of diversity and equality are just as relevant to
employment practices, for example, or to collections. This contradiction was pointed out by
some senior managers when interviewed by the evaluator of the V&A programme, Capacity
Building and Cultural Ownership – Working with Culturally Diverse Communities. Although a
cross-museum initiative, the project was managed by the Head of Diversity placed within the
Learning and Interpretation Department. The project evaluator, Professor Simon Roodhouse,
concluded in his report to the Museum: ‘A whole museum, centrally driven, networked sys-
tem approach, generating new knowledge, may deliver the next stage of development. It does
point to consideration being given to integrating diversity into policy priorities’.
This need for a centrally driven approach was recognised early on by the Museum of Lon-
don with the Diversity Manager reporting directly to the Director. At English Heritage, the
Head of Social Inclusion & Diversity and the Social Inclusion & Diversity Adviser work in
the Government Advice department in the Directorate of National Advice and Information.
Their role is to ensure legal compliance and co-ordination of corporate policy on all aspects
of equality and diversity as well as to support English Heritage’s aim to broaden engagement
with the historic environment. The National Trust, too, has a central strategic role, work-
ing across the organisation in relation to all equalities. The staff member with a role to drive
forward equality and diversity policy at the Tate is placed in the Directorate, confirming the
importance of a central strategic position.
At the Smithsonian in Washington there are central units concerned with different strands
of cultural diversity that work across the departments and across the museums. There is also
a centrally placed disability post in the Directorate, again with a wide-ranging role, as Beth
Ziebarth, Director of the Accessibility Program states:

We work on guidelines to help enforce or implement the policy, we do staff train-

ing, we plan direct accessibility services like signing interpreters, real time captioning,
 The heart of the matter 21

alternative formats of publications etc. I’m responsible for reviewing and advising on
facility and exhibition designs. We do outreach to the disability community . . . we’re
always cooking up ways that we can integrate more about the history of people with
disabilities into what is happening at this museum.

However, Beth Ziebarth does not underestimate the internal barriers that hinder attempts to
embed a concern for greater access across all activities of the Museum:

Most of our administration would view people with disabilities just in terms of acces-
sibility issues – facility access – not even thinking about access to the programs . . . and
never getting into the idea of content and the idea of reflecting people with disabilities
in our displays and exhibitions.

The effectiveness of such ‘diversity or equality’ posts in supporting change or influencing all
areas of the organisation may not only depend on where they are located but also their position
in the hierarchy. The Social Network Analysis that identified the relative lack of influence of
the V&A’s earlier Access, Inclusion and Diversity Strategy Group, also showed that the staff
who were most consulted about diversity by people from across the Museum (in particular,
the Head of Diversity and the Manager of the project, Capacity Building and Cultural Ownership
– Working with Culturally Diverse Communities) had little access to most senior managers and the
Director. Such posts, however effective in building networks across and beyond the museum,
are ultimately dependent on the support they receive from the leadership and the access they
have to decision-making processes.

Consultation, collaboration and partnerships

Another major factor in driving forward change can be the degree of openness to external
influence. As Lonnie Bunch, Director of the National Museum of African American History
and Culture (NMAAHC), states: ‘Change seems to me to often start outside . . . then that
begins to play out in the museums’.
Some museums are particularly active in recognising and harnessing expertise beyond their
walls. The Museum of London used external advisors in the development of the London
Sugar Slavery Gallery in Docklands (Figure 1.1) and it was the Museum’s collaboration with
members of London’s LGBT communities that was a catalyst for research into existing collec-
tions and a collecting policy around LGBT history.7 Drawing on this experience, the Museum
of London established a Community Collaboration Committee made up of senior managers
and staff. An additional Review Group meets before the Collaboration Committee to review
the 50 or so proposals they receive a year. As Annette Day, Head of Programmes, explains:

If the Review Group feels it is a proposal that the Museum can take further, someone
is assigned to work with the partner to develop it further. The aim of this is to be more
transparent, and more equitable about how we deal with external partnerships.

The recommendations of the Collaboration Committee also feed into the Exhibitions Com-
mittee. Interestingly neither the membership of the Community Collaboration Committee
nor the Review Group include any external representatives.
FIGURE 1.1 Entrance to Sugar and Slavery exhibition, Museum of London. With permission of the Museum of London.
 The heart of the matter 23

Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery has a Community Action Panel with significant
external representation. This meets monthly and has advised on a wide range of issues – from
the exhibitions policy to gallery redisplays, from the website to sale of goods in the shop.
Birmingham Museum also has a Community Gallery that encourages staff to work alongside
community groups turning participatory arts projects into high quality exhibitions.
Katherine Ott, a curator in the Division of Medicine and Science at the Smithsonian’s
NMAH, who is planning an exhibition about the history of disability in the United States
and who has previously organised exhibitions about the Disability Rights Movement, con-
siders that the active involvement of people with disabilities is key. Drawing on the familiar
slogan of the disability rights movement in the United States, she stated: ‘“Nothing about
us without us”. You can’t do it if you don’t have the people you are representing as part
of the team’.
Yet such community collaborations are often fraught with tensions with external partners
feeling that the partnership may be far from equitable (see Chapter 3, this volume). The more
powerful and prestigious the institution, the less likely they may be prepared to listen to exter-
nal advice or to share power. It is therefore impressive to read in the introductory text of the
National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) on the Mall in Washington that, ‘The
Museum rests on a foundation of consultation, collaboration and co-operation with natives.
It has shared the power museums usually keep’.
However the media and other commentators have criticised the NMAI for its lack of
coherence and scholarship even though it has attracted large, diverse audiences. The NMAI
itself has learned much since opening their two facilities in New York City (1994) and Wash-
ington, DC (2004) and has re-organized to have more emphasis on research and scholarship,
both internally and externally, engaging a broader group of scholars in planning exhibitions
and major programmes. Many complex factors come into play, as noted by John Haworth,
NMAI’s New York Director:

For NMAI, we engage native communities, with both native and non-native scholars
informing our work . . . An indigenous perspective is primary to everything we do
and we want to make certain that the design, the lighting, the presentation is expertly
rendered, beautifully designed.

Lonnie Bunch makes a similar point but identifies an important difference between American-
Indian and African-American communities:

The Indian museum argued rightly, from their point of view, that they have been vic-
tims of some of this scholarship and therefore they wanted to err on the side of commu-
nity. What I argued is the African American experience is further along when it comes
to interpretation. There is fifty years of scholarship and I’ve argued that the African
American story is more important than just to be in the hands of the community so what
I wanted was . . . a tension between scholarship and community.

The Social Network Analysis carried out for the Capacity Building and Cultural Ownership
project at the V&A identified over 80 black, Asian and minority ethnic organisations with
which the project had worked but found that most of these relationships did not extend
24 E. Nightingale and C. Mahal

beyond the project staff members, many of whom have subsequently left. This points to
the need for a ‘whole museum approach’ to ensure the Museum both sustains, and benefits
more broadly from, such relationships and, conversely, that such external partners feel able to
network, influence and forge relationships with people across and through the organisation
including at senior level (see Chapter 3, this volume). Organisations who have worked col-
laboratively with museums and galleries may often feel ‘dropped’ when the specific exhibition
or programme is over. The importance of such ‘cultural flows’ – both at a formal and informal
level and between individuals and organisations (see Chapter 8, this volume) – in either serv-
ing as a barrier or contributing to change, should not be underestimated.
What is clear is that leadership from trustees, directors and senior managers is important.
But more importantly, it is the nature of that leadership which is most significant; leader-
ship that allows others to contribute and supports them to take ownership of diversity and
equality initiatives is what is needed. Individuals and groups (both formally and informally
constituted) can affect change and particularly so when managers are responsive to ideas and
concerns of staff at all levels and from across the institution. Diversity of staffing is central but
the additional challenge is in engaging everyone, even the most reluctant, ensuring coherence
across organisations and identifying and removing barriers to change. For senior managers and
those with a specific remit on diversity and equality this can be a daunting task but one best
achieved when channels of communication are open, networks of influence are sustained and
when the ‘core’ listens to, and takes account of, those at the margins, recognising that such
positions often change and are in flux. Museums and galleries need to consult, collaborate or
form partnerships with external stakeholders thus benefitting from the rich resources that lie
outside their organisations.

Connecting and competing equalities

Museums are faced with a range of challenges with regard to different equality strands that they
may or may not address consciously in developing strategic priorities. It is clearly a challenge to
address all strands simultaneously and yet, do institutions risk emphasising concern for one group
at the expense of another? In an increasingly fluid and globalised world are distinctions on the
basis of disability, gender, race, sexual and gender identity, age, socio-economic status, religion
or belief less relevant or are they increasingly intertwined? Are identity politics passé and issues of
poverty more pertinent? How are strategic priorities arrived at and what is the impact of the dif-
ferent political, social, cultural, local, national and international contexts in which we operate?
It was clear from the interviews we conducted that much of the emphasis, both in the UK
and United States, in relation to collections, programming and audience development has been
on issues of race and ethnicity. This is certainly the case at the V&A which has a long tradition
of working with UK based South Asian and Chinese communities, spearheaded by the Asia
department and supported by staff in the Education department. In addition, over the last decade,
the V&A has developed programmes and initiatives to engage people from diverse cultural back-
grounds including black British African Caribbean communities. Such programmes and initiatives
have included gallery developments, exhibitions, public, learning and community programmes.
Making assumptions about specific audiences’ areas of interest based on race or ethnicity
is problematic (see Chapter 3, this volume) and yet, whilst the V&A has not solely focussed
on culturally specific content as a means to attract diverse visitors, this is an approach that has
yielded results. Such temporary exhibitions as Arts of the Sikh Kingdom (1999) and Black British
 The heart of the matter 25

Style (2004/2005) or festivals such as Chinese New Year and programmes and events around
the 200th anniversary of parliamentary abolition of slavery in 2007, for example, have brought
in a significantly larger proportion of visitors from black, Asian and minority ethnic com-
munities (between 25 per cent and 90 per cent) compared with the regular V&A visitorship
(Figures 1.2 and 1.3). It is difficult to track whether such programmes have had an effect on
overall visitor figures but the percentage of black, Asian and minority ethnic audiences at the
South Kensington site increased from 8 per cent in 2001 to 14 per cent in 2010/2011. This is,
however, not to maintain that numbers are the only criteria for success.
Other UK museums too have given considerable emphasis to cultural diversity. Birming-
ham Museums and Art Gallery, located in a city with one of the highest percentages of black,
Asian and minority ethnic residents in the UK, is keen to make sure that, as Rita McLean
states, ‘our collections are representative and to make connections between our collections
and communities’.
There has been no specific research carried out into the reasons for the dramatic increase
in black, Asian and minority ethnic visitors at the Horniman Museum (from 8/9 per cent in
2010 to 34 per cent in 2010). Finbarr Whooley suggests that key drivers for change have been
the development of the African Worlds Gallery, the focus on customer care and the growth in
family audiences as a result of a strong multi-cultural learning programme.
At the Museum of London, race and ethnicity has always been an important focus given
the history and ethnic diversity of the city. As Cathy Ross stated,

I remember thinking that class was more important than race to put it crudely, particu-
larly as I had come from Newcastle. It took me about three years to understand that
London is a different ball game, that race is incredibly important and that, ethnicity,
belonging and identity are actually things of the moment.

The situation in the United States is even more pronounced due partly to two central aspects of
the nation’s history; slavery and the genocide of American Indians. Indeed, the very foundations
of the country are based on people emigrating to the United States from across the world.
One response to this situation has been the growth of ethnic-specific museums – Latino,
Asian Pacific American and African American. Although some are local community museums
in specific cities, towns or neighbourhoods – such as the Chinese Museum in New York
– others occupy more prominent positions at a national level. The National Museum of the
American Indian (NMAI) opened in 2004 on the Mall opposite Capitol Hill in Washington,
DC. The new National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC),
scheduled to open in 2015, is also planned for the Mall. An equivalent, but perhaps less high
profile, development in the UK is the new premises of the Black Cultural Archives to be
opened in 2013 in Brixton, south London.
Camille Akeju, Director of the Anacostia Community Museum, voices her concerns about
the NMAAHC:

I don’t think we do ourselves justice by having a stand-alone identity. It will always make
you vulnerable. I think the charge should have been to make the National Museum of
American History relevant and equitable in its interpretation of history.

Fath Davis Ruffins, curator at the NMAH, suggests that ethnically specific museums may be
less relevant for younger people:
FIGURE 1.2 Africa Fashion Day, 1 October 2005, V&A Museum. With permission of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
 The heart of the matter 27

FIGURE 1.3 Chinese New Year celebrations, 30 January 2011, V&A Museum. With permission
of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
28 E. Nightingale and C. Mahal

Some people actually opposed having an African American Museum because it poten-
tially takes African American history and culture out of American History and Culture
. . . A lot of younger people in the US don’t see race and ethnicity in the way that peo-
ple who are baby boomers and older see it . . . so, to some degree, we may end up with
institutions on the Mall that reflect an older way of thinking . . . it will be interesting
to see what younger people do with the American Indian Museum, African American
Museum, maybe Latino Museum.

Spencer Crew, the first black Director of the NMAH, makes a similar point whilst also believ-
ing that ethnic museums will continue to have a role:

I’m not sure if it will resonate in the same way for the younger generations . . . because I
think they’re a much more multi-racial group . . . The spectrum of people dating other
people of different backgrounds is just becoming more and more the norm.

James Gardner, then Senior Scholar at the Smithsonian Institution, also supports the contri-
bution of ethnic specific museums whilst recognising the challenge of making the NMAH
‘relevant and equitable’:

The argument I would make is there are two different dynamics. One is about breadth
and integration – which is what the American History Museum is about and the other
is about breadth, which relates to the African American Museum . . . The voice of the
American History Museum is an old white guy, you know, that’s the voice, that’s the
default voice.

He makes an additional point:

There’s an assumption that only people of colour have race . . . it’s a conceptual issue, a
real obstacle . . . One of the interesting developments in the US is the growing interest,
and no museum has dealt with this yet, in whiteness studies.

Lonnie Bunch, Director, is all too aware of these dichotomies but sees the NMAAHC as a
potential space that will allow Americans to confront the issue of race, something he believes
they rarely do:

Let’s take African American culture and use it as a lens to understand what it means
to be an American, the mainstream story of America shaped by race. A museum that’s
separate really allows us to illuminate America in a way that we couldn’t if we only had
a gallery and a half in the Museum of American history.

The tension between focusing separate attention on a specific group or embedding that group’s
experiences and perspectives into mainstream narratives and practices is one which resonates
across different equality concerns. In fact Charles Desmarais, previously Deputy Director for
Art, Brooklyn Museum, in supporting the rationale for the Centre for Feminist Art at the
Museum, makes the case for both approaches:
 The heart of the matter 29

I don’t think that we want to pigeonhole all women into the Feminist Art Centre or
require that every examination of work by men or women is looked at through that
lens, but that lens is useful as a part of the whole view of the subject.

The Centre for Feminist Art was developed as the result of the intervention of Elizabeth
Sackler, a board member who offered to acquire Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party if the Museum
could display it (Plates 1.2a and 1.2b). Interestingly, one of the biggest categories of books
and gifts that are bought in the museum store relate to the Centre for Feminist Art, argu-
ably lending support to the business case for such an initiative, alongside any social, moral or
political case.
Other equality issues might also benefit from being considered from a business case per-
spective. Charles Desmarais believes that the Museum misses opportunities, for example, by
neglecting to emphasise the religious dimension of their collections, recognising that the big-
gest sales in the museum shop are of a series of New Testament watercolour illustrations by
the French artist, James Tissot, of the Life of Christ (Plate 1.3).

We did this exhibition on Tissot but I don’t think we were very successful. In the late
19th century, early 20th century, people would fall on their knees in front of these pic-
tures. I would have really played up the religious aspect and yet, institutionally, that’s
not something we would do.

Brooklyn Museum is not unusual in playing down the religious dimension in its galleries or
exhibitions. Museums in both UK and United States, whilst holding objects of spiritual and
cultural significance to diverse communities, often see issues of religious and belief as prob-
lematic, wishing to assert their secular or aesthetic role (see Chapters 9 and 15, this volume).
Yet, it might be argued that museums are not only missing out on opportunities to engage
new audiences but also to utilise such collections to increase interfaith understanding. The
intercultural tours at the V&A, run by guides who are themselves from different faiths, point
to the potential for this wider social and educational role. As Rashida Hunzai, one of the
Intercultural Tour Guides, comments:

My first tour was to show a group of ministers of various Christian churches and imams
of mosques from a Lancashire town whose motivation was to build bridges to overcome
religious and racial tensions in their community . . . When we examined the Safa-
vid church vestment woven for Armenian priests to conduct mass, both the Christian
and Muslim members of the group began to understand that there was greater mutual
understanding and cultural appreciation several hundred years ago between the follow-
ers [of these two] religions.
Nightingale 2010: 50

Other drivers for change stem from legal imperatives bound up in equality and anti-dis-
crimination laws (see also Chapter 4, this volume). In both the United States and UK the law
has been instrumental in requiring museums and galleries to address issues of access. Yet, as
Rebecca McGinnis of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Figure 1.4) points out, institutions
may need a prompt to not only comply but to recognise that good practice necessitates going
beyond the legal requirements:
30 E. Nightingale and C. Mahal

FIGURE 1.4 A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2011. Photo: Eithne Nightingale.
 The heart of the matter 31

So the Council’s office, the lawyers can say ‘we are breaking the law’ and that’s the first
point. That’s when people listen and then we can say ‘and here are some guidelines
for exhibition design that incorporate the legal compliance issues but also include best
practice’.

Whilst the UK’s Equality Act 2010 offers specific protection on the basis of a number of
characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy
and maternity, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation) there are no legal requirements
to specifically address socio-economic class and museums (in both the UK and United States)
seem to place less emphasis on this issue than on race and ethnicity for example. Tyne and
Wear Museums in the UK provides a rare example of an organisation that set out to achieve
a sustained shift in the proportion of visitors it attracted from lower socio-economic groups, a
task that took many years and a holistic approach to managing organisational change (Fleming
2002).
Social class or socio-economic background poses other pragmatic challenges for museums.
Damien Whitmore, Director of Public Affairs and Programming at the V&A, when discussing
how the museum might enhance its appeal to visitors from a broader socio-economic class,
asked an interesting question, ‘What would the programme look like?’. If you look at the
V&A programme at South Kensington at any point in time there are several exhibitions which
focus on or incorporate aspects of cultural diversity – India Design Now; Fictions and Figures
– South African Photography; Chinese Watercolours and so on. Exhibitions that attract a higher
proportion of visitors from a broader social class are rather less easy to identify.
Fath Davis Ruffins from the NMAH points to other difficulties: ‘If you ask most people
they will say they’re middle class regardless of where they are on the income spectrum’. At
the Horniman Museum in south London it is the aquarium, the only free one in the area,
which appeals most to lower income families. It would seem self-evident that charging would
be a significant barrier but the lifting of entrance fees at the V&A has not substantially led to
a broader socio-economic visitor profile. Clearly barriers to participation other than financial
ones continue to deter some visitors from working-class backgrounds.
Of course issues of socio-economic class dovetail with other equality strands and the V&A
at South Kensington, having struggled to formulate a strategy to attract a broader social class
per se, has decided to address socio-economic status through other audience priorities – for
example, race and ethnicity; disability and young people – and where they have more of an
understanding of how to attract such audiences. The Museum was more successful in attract-
ing a broader social class of the Sikh community, for example, during the exhibition the Arts
of the Sikh Kingdoms through extensive networking with Sikh organisations across the UK and
outreach to gurdwaras (temples). Over 60 per cent of the 119,000 visitors were Sikh; of these,
70 per cent had never visited the V&A before and over 30 per cent had never visited any
museum or gallery (Nightingale and Swallow 2003). The V&A Museum of Childhood, on
the borders of two of the most deprived boroughs in the UK and with a strong community,
family and schools programme, is far more effective than the V&A at South Kensington in
attracting visitors from a broader social class.8
Clearly no equality issue operates in isolation. In the United States, for example, the larg-
est proportion of people with disabilities is American Indian. In the UK people from black
and minority ethnic communities remain three times more likely than average to be detained
under the Mental Health Act.9 Identities shift and are multi-faceted (Younge 2010, and
32 E. Nightingale and C. Mahal

Chapter 7, this volume). Someone can be bisexual, Asian Caribbean and Hindu; or white,
disabled and Muslim. Any one of those aspects of identity may take on greater or lesser signifi-
cance for the individual at different times and in different contexts (Modood 2010).
An important and effective way of addressing multiple equality issues simultaneously and
exploring how they intersect is through more universal themes that cut across diverse iden-
tity categories and group experiences. The Museum of London’s new Galleries of Modern
London (Plate 1.4), for example, gave the staff an opportunity to take such an approach. As
Annette Day commented:
We wanted to include voices of women, voices of soldiers from other parts of the
Empire, people talking about the mother country, people who came as Jewish refugees,
people from different classes. In the Portraits exhibition . . . we tried to juxtapose inter-
esting portraits against those from the 60s so they do talk about race, class and gender or
sexuality quite explicitly.
Similarly, Cathy Ross stated:
The other things in that period that we wanted to cover and that we were also aware
of were more recent issues around diversity, for example around religion and focus on
Islam. We picked some films to reflect this. For example there is an early film of when
the Regents Park mosque was being built.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery all show evidence
of diversity having been considered in the development of interpretive themes, selection of
objects and interpretation. Paintings of American Indians by George Caitlin remind us of
the tragic eclipse of the native way of life; studio portraits of women posing for the African-
American photographer, James Van Der Zee, evoke the vibrancy and glamour of Harlem;
and a sculpture of Rosa Parks (Plate 1.5), arrested for daring to sit in the white part of the bus,
recall the struggle for civil rights.
Camille Akeju emphasises the need to show how histories interact, citing an exhibition at
the National Geographic Museum in Washington about African-American contributions to
American history and culture:

One of the things I liked best about that exhibit is that they tell the white American
story and African American story in parallel streams of thought and then they intersect
– in and out – you can’t tell one without the other.

Interestingly, with the setting up of the new African American Museum on the Mall, the
Anacostia Community Museum – set up as a satellite of the Smithsonian in the 1960s in a
part of Washington where the community was 99 per cent African American – is changing to
become an urban issues-focused museum.
Museums may encounter difficulties when they are perceived to focus on one or more groups
at the expense of others. In response to the criticism that, in focusing on other faiths, the Bir-
mingham Museums and Art Gallery had ignored Christianity, the Museum used the Papal visit
in 2011 to display objects related to Cardinal Newman who was beatified during the Pope’s visit.
Aware of tensions in the local area, the V&A Museum of Childhood in the East End of London
has developed programmes and initiatives to attract and sustain local white audiences whilst, at
the same time, attracting new black, Asian and minority ethnic audiences (Figure 1.5). There
are very often new challenges created through dealing with issues simultaneously but sometimes
FIGURE 1.5 Children watching a Punch and Judy show during a St George’s Day celebration at the V&A Museum of
Childhood, 23 April 2011 (in partnership with Tower Hamlets Council). With permission of the Museum of Childhood,
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
34 E. Nightingale and C. Mahal

museums underestimate the preparedness of audiences to engage with such complexities. The
V&A’s Museum of Childhood for example, as part of the World in the East End project, inte-
grated the story of a relationship between a Jehovah’s Witness mother and her lesbian daughter
into the Families Gallery and with no adverse reaction. In fact this part of the galleries, which
draws on both tangible and intangible material collected from and by diverse communities, is
popular with all audiences. Museums need to be both braver in addressing such complexity and
also more transparent on how (and why) they are addressing such issues.
At the same time, there may be valid reasons for placing more emphasis on one group
rather than another. Certain local, regional or national audiences may be under-represented;
the museum collections or expertise may offer specific opportunities. There may be a political,
social, moral, legal or business case for strategic decisions, all of which should be considered.
Yet given the increasingly fluid and hybrid nature of our societies there seem to be important
reasons for developing approaches which consider equality issues and strands simultaneously,
which show how they intertwine, that identify opportunities for bridging relationships or
exploring tensions between groups. Lastly, given the increasing gap between rich and poor
– in the United States and the UK where the richest 20 per cent earn nine times as much as
the poorest in comparison to Japan and Scandinavia where the figures is less than four times
as much (Wilkinson and Pickett 2010) – there is an imperative that socio-economic class
becomes more of a priority.
It is no easy task for museums to make decisions given finite resources and particularly in
a time of economic restraint. Institutions may well be vulnerable to criticism that they are
not doing enough in one area or focusing on one equality at the expense of another. Their
audiences may reduce over time if they do not address changes in demographics; they may
even face a legal challenge or a reduction in specific funding depending on decisions they
take. These are just some of the reasons why a clear and transparent policy, with an explicit
rationale as to how decisions have been arrived and what has been achieved against set objec-
tives, is so important.

The equitable, diverse and inclusive museum

What might this ideal equitable, inclusive institution – which reflects and embraces all aspects
of diversity – look like? Clearly no one size fits all but the interviews we conducted have
highlighted insights and examples of good practice that can help contribute to this utopian
vision.
Policies that gather dust or are merely a ‘tick box exercise’ are inadequate. A broad under-
standing of the issues, shared across the staff of the museum, though important, is also not
enough. Diversity and equality need to be incorporated into strategic planning with the set-
ting of specific objectives that are regularly reviewed whilst, at the same time, avoiding overly
bureaucratic and time-consuming procedures. When devising a policy or major project or
programme there needs to be a requirement or prompt, however light touch, for staff mem-
bers to consider diversity and equality from both a positive and negative standpoint, recording
this and any consequent action. Someone in a senior enough position to effect change, and/or
with full support from the chief executive and access to decision-making, needs to oversee and
coordinate such processes.
Committee structures can be effective but only where they have influence. Both for-
mal and informal networks and consortia are important for the generation and pursuit of
 The heart of the matter 35

cross-departmental ideas and initiatives. An organisation that supports staff to be collaborative

and to take up an active role in advancing equality, that involves staff at all levels and listens to
their concerns and ideas, is a healthy one.
Leadership, practised at all levels of the organisation, is a key issue but equally ownership
– through which everyone can contribute to a vision that can be translated into practical reali-
ties – is also important. Posts with a dedicated responsibility for equality and diversity, whether
that is with a strategic or operational brief or having a focus on one equality issue or more,
can be influential in driving change but need active support of senior managers and such posts
should not undermine the notion that diversity and equality are everyone’s responsibility.
Given the difference that individuals can make, organisations need to utilise and support those
with specific experience and interest as well as the less confident or reticent, whether that is
through staff development, mentoring or line management direction and support. Directors,
senior managers and line managers could also benefit from staff development whether that is
in understanding their legal responsibilities, incorporating equality into strategic planning or
dealing with change.
The diversifying of both staff and internships is important but this process cannot rely solely
on positive/affirmative action schemes, important as these are. Institutions need to move away
from a model of employing ‘like for like’ and, as in other professions and in the corporate sec-
tor, recognise the strength in having a diverse workforce. They need to develop practical ways
to achieve this, whether that is through training in equal employment practice, using different
mechanisms and channels to attract candidates, varying the composition of interview panels or
using positive action clauses as allowed by law. An holistic approach to diversity management
is needed for long-term, sustainable change.
Strategic priorities will change according to the nature of the institution, the resources
available and the political, socio-economic and geographical context in which it operates.
Beyond ensuring legal compliance across all equality concerns it is evident there is no one
model. There may be a rationale at one time for focusing on a specific aspect of diversity and
equality; there may be another for working more broadly.
Clearly there needs to be some understanding and knowledge of the strengths and resources
of the organisation, what is and is not being achieved. This could be in the areas of diversifying
the workforce or audiences, fostering relations between communities, contributing to social
cohesion or highlighting the contribution of a particular culture or individuals from specific
backgrounds.
Specific equalities may throw up particular or similar challenges. Museums need to be
aware of changing demographics, hybrid notions of identity and belonging, to understand
whether a specific ethnic museum, exhibition or programme is appropriate. Race and ethnic-
ity do not exclude white. Museums seem to have paid less attention to socio-economic status
and some serious debate, rethinking and leadership needs to occur in relation to this issue, tak-
ing into account that fewer people now consider themselves ‘working class’. The fact remains,
however, that our national galleries and museums in both the United States and UK attract a
significantly higher percentage of the wealthy and the more educated and that both countries
are amongst the most unequal societies in the world.
Museums seem wary of addressing issues of religion and belief, perhaps missing opportuni-
ties to engage people for whom the collections are of both spiritual and cultural significance.
We restrict our thinking on gender issues if we don’t include men or transgender people; if
we think of only who visits and not of how we interpret collections; if we look simply at
36 E. Nightingale and C. Mahal

the numbers of men and women staff employed and ignore barriers for progression to senior
level positions. We restrict our thinking on disability if we only think of making our buildings
physically accessible rather than exploring how disabled people are portrayed in our collec-
tions, the number of disabled staff we employ, of targeted rather than inclusive programming.
Developing programmes for previously excluded communities makes market sense, an issue
that is often ignored. There is value in examining the business case for diversity and equality
alongside moral, social, ethical and legal considerations.
Institutions need to be more brave, less afraid of conflict or of tackling sensitive issues
within society such as the tension between some LGBT and faith communities. They need to
pursue experimental and innovative ways of interweaving histories and bringing communities
together.
Lastly museums and galleries need to be more nimble-footed: to predict and be at the
forefront of change rather than trying (often failing) to catch up. A more diverse staff is a
prerequisite for this, as is the development of external networks and partnerships of those who
can support the museum in becoming more inclusive. Relationships need to be developed as
genuine collaborations where the museums draws on the richness and diversity of expertise of
different stakeholders whether they be funders, sponsors, visitors and non-visitors, academics
or communities. A museum or gallery that is responsive, creative and not afraid of risk taking;
that listens to those at the margins to determine priorities; enlists support and reviews where
it is going, is one which is moving towards becoming a more diverse, inclusive and equitable
museum.

Notes
1 We would like to thank and acknowledge the contributions of all interviewees including Rita
McLean, Director of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK; Annette Day,
Head of Programmes, and Cathy Ross, Director of Collections and Learning, at the Museum of
London, UK; Finbarr Whooley, Assistant Director, Horniman Museum, London; Amelia Wong,
Production Coordinator, Division of Outreach Technology, United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, Washington, DC; staff of the Smithsonian Institution including Lonnie Bunch, Director,
National Museum of African and American History and Culture; Magdalena Mieri, Director of the
Latino History and Culture Program, National Museum of American History (NMAH); Cedric Yeh,
Deputy Chair, Armed Forces History, NMAH; Fath Davis Ruffins, Curator of African American
History and Culture, Division of Home and Community Life, NMAH; Camille Akeju, Director
of the Anacostia Community Museum; Katherine Ott, Curator, Division of Medicine and Science,
NMAH; Beth Ziebarth, Director, Accessibility Program, Eduardo Diaz, Executive Director, Latino
Centre; Stephen Velasquez, Associate Curator, Division of Home and Community Life, NMAH;
James Gardner, then Senior Scholar, National Museum of American History and National Portrait
Gallery; Spencer Crew, African-American historian, formerly Director of the NMAH; John Haworth,
Director, National Museum of the American Indian; Charles Desmarais, then Deputy Director for
Art, and Kevin Stayton, Chief Curator, Brooklyn Museum, New York, United States; Rebecca
McGinnis, Access Coordinator and Museum Educator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
2 The Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 placed a duty on most public authorities in the UK to
eliminate race discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and good relations between all racial
groups. It has now been subsumed into the Equality Act 2010 (England, Wales and Scotland).
3 A second Diversity Manager, June Bam Hutchison, was appointed on a short-term contract from
2006 to 2008. Chandan Mahal left her post as Diversity Manager at the Museum of London at the
end of 2007.
4 The Equality Act came into force on 1 October 2010 and covers England, Scotland and Wales.
The Act applies to all employers and organisations that provide a service to the public or a section
of the public (service providers). It also applies to anyone who sells goods or provides facilities. The
 The heart of the matter 37

grounds on which discrimination will be deemed unlawful are now called ‘protected characteristics’.
They are: Age; Disability; Gender Reassignment; Marriage and Civil Partnership; Pregnancy and
Maternity; Race; Religion or Belief; Sex; Sexual Orientation.
Public authorities are subject to the equality duty, in the exercise of their functions, have due
regard to the need to: i) Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other
conduct prohibited by the Act; ii) Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a
protected characteristic and those who do not; iii) Foster good relations between people who share
a protected characteristic and those who do not. See www.equalities.gov.uk.
5 Cited in Jackson (2009: 192).
6 The number of staff with disabilities employed in 2009/2010 was 6 per cent.
7 Interestingly it was an internal working group of staff that was the stimulus for a parallel initiative at
the V&A. See Chapter 10, this volume.
8 The Museum of Childhood attracts a higher percentage of people from Level 5 (unskilled) to Level
8 (never worked or long-term unemployed) groups (based on National Statistics Socio-Economic
Classification) in comparison with the V&A at South Kensington (18 per cent as compared to 9 per
cent in 2010/2011).
9 For further details see MIND (2010).

References
Bruce, K. and Hollows, V. (2007) Towards an Engaged Gallery. Contemporary Art and Human Rights:
GoMA’s Social Justice Programmes, Glasgow: Glasgow Museums.
Davies, M. and Shaw, L. (2010) ‘Measuring the ethnic diversity of the museum workforce and the
impact and cost of positive-action training, with particular reference to the Diversify scheme’, Cul-
tural Trends, 19(3): 147–179.
Fleming, D. (2002) ‘Positioning the museum for social inclusion’, in R. Sandell (ed.), Museums, Society,
Inequality, London and New York: Routledge: 213–224.
Jackson, M. (2009) Let this Voice be Heard: Anthony Benezet, Father of Atlantic Abolitionism, Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Janes, R. R. (2009) Museums in a Troubled World: Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse, London and New York:
Routledge.
MIND (2010) ‘Racial equality in mental health stuck at a standstill’, report Online. Available at: www.
mind.org.uk/news/2785_racial_equality_in_mental_health_stuck_at_a_standstill (accessed 12 Octo-
ber 2011).
Modood, T. (2010) Still Not Easy Being British: Struggles for a Multicultural Citizenship, London: Trentham
Books.
Nightingale, E. (ed.) (2010) Capacity Building and Cultural Ownership – Working with Culturally Diverse
Communities, London: V&A.
Nightingale, E. and Swallow, D. (2003) ‘The arts of the Sikh kingdoms; collaborating with a commu-
nity’, in L. Peers and A. Brown (eds), Museums and Source Communities: A Routledge Reader, London
and New York: Routledge: 55–71.
Sandell, R. (2000) ‘The strategic significance of workforce diversity in museums’, International Journal of
Heritage Studies, 6(3): 213–230.
Sandell, R. (2002) ‘Museums and the combating of social inequality: roles, responsibilities, resistance’, in
R. Sandell (ed.), Museums, Society, Inequality, London and New York: Routledge: 3–23.
Silverman, L. (2010) The Social Work of Museums, London: Routledge.
Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2010) The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, London: Pen-
guin Books.
Younge, G. (2010) Who Are We? And Should it Matter in the 21st Century? London: Penguin Books.
2
MUSEOLOGICALLY SPEAKING
An interview with Fred Wilson

Janet Marstine

Marstine: Do you think art museums in the US have become more socially just
over the course of your career?
Wilson: I think museums are more socially just in the way that the rest of the country is
more socially just because, since the 1970s, the popular media has expanded people’s
awareness. The core audience, for art museums at least, remains white, upper mid-
dle-class and well educated. There’s still lots that has to happen in the United States
around equity and social justice. But, in my lifetime, I’ve seen a great change in that
museums are now realizing that there are people not in the room that should be there.
That issue of social inclusivity is now discussed all the way to the board level. I am on
the board of trustees at several major institutions. Diversifying the board has become a
part of the discussions of nominating committees. That is a huge change. When I first
came into the art world, even those people who really were do-gooders, who wanted
change, were just wringing their hands, asking – how do we make ‘them’ happy? You
know, the language being used – ‘them’ – showed that not only were these museum
professionals clueless, but they had no connection or access to anybody other than
people like themselves. They didn’t know how to make that leap. Others didn’t want
to make that leap, but they were masking it. But, over the course of thirty years, there
has been enough agitation in some circles, and enough education in others, that staff
members now see a need for a socially equitable museum structure. Staff members also
understand that they can gain from it, not only financially, but intellectually. And I
see this development not only in museums but also in nonprofit art organizations and
commercial art galleries.
Marstine: You emphasize the way that museums have been impacted by society at
large. Do you also think that museums have the power to impact society?
Wilson: They do, but they haven’t taken full reign of that. At this point, the majority of
museums are just trying to keep up. They’re not leading; they’re just where everyone
else is. I’m talking about mainstream, large institutions that people look to as models.
They’re not risk-takers. Risk-taking tends to take place at smaller, more marginalized
institutions.
 Museologically speaking 39

Marstine: What are some of the biggest factors that impede museums’ social
engagement?
Wilson: Institutions change very slowly. The rate of change is so slow, in large part, because
of money but also because the desire for change has to come not only from the staff but
also from the trustees. In the art museum, while boards have grasped the significance
of diversity, they differ in opinion on what social justice is, and I imagine many would
not see its relevance for art museums if asked flatly. In fact, in my capacity as a museum
board member, I’ve never been involved in a conversation like that. However, while the
words ‘social justice’ might not be uttered in the boardroom, it is nevertheless possible to
gain agreement from the board for an idea that may just help to move the institution in
that direction. Art museum boards are not monolithic; the variety and complexity of the
individuals, given their economic clout, might surprise people. Boards do have to agree
on things to move forward. Everybody is aware of this balance of power, so the pace of
change is slow.
Art museums in the United States are in a really funny position. They need to court
the elite for financial support but, at the same time, they also try to speak to ‘the street’, as
museums also rely on the average visitor for support – not to mention the large amounts
they get from foundations and corporations that look at audience numbers before they
give money. And so art museums have this dual personality.
Marstine: What does it mean to substantively embed diversity in a museum?
Wilson: Awareness is the first step. And, for many museums, there is awareness. Once you
have awareness, you can no longer deny the reality. Current museum scholarship often
shows that awareness. For example, many exhibition catalogue essays today discuss artists
of color with great sensitivity. But sometimes the scholarship overshadows what muse-
ums could do to create change. The next layer is embedding diversity in the staffing across
all departments of these institutions, from marketing and development to registration,
curation and education, so that the conversations about diversity become more insightful,
not simplistic readings of artists’ works or token exhibitions for Black History Month.
But, at the same time, just ‘looking the part’ is, in itself, not creating change. A museum’s
staff has to be committed to pushing forward the dialogue on inclusivity, and follow the
dialogue with systemic action.
A lot of museum education departments are doing really interesting things with mar-
ginalized communities. I think the future of embedding diversity is to further integrate
what museum educators are doing with curatorial conversations.
In the end, embedding diversity and social justice through mission and vision state-
ments, strategic plans and promotional materials is perhaps most effective, with the
museum structure existing today, as it is proactive; it keeps the agenda on the forefront
for all to see and holds the institution accountable over the long term.
Marstine: What innovative models come to mind when you imagine a more socially
responsible museum?
Wilson: Well, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis has three full-time social
workers on staff, working side-by-side with the curators to create themes for exhibi-
tions and programs for the most vulnerable, impoverished and ignored communities. I
don’t think there’s any one model, though. I think there are specific aspects of practice,
particularly in the area of risk-taking, that museums could emulate. The bigger museums
get, the more they lose their nimbleness. For whatever reason, museums seem to lose a
40 J. Marstine

lot of this flexibility when they ‘professionalize’ and go through the accreditation process.
This is why I am the ‘fly in the ointment’; I am not ‘accredited’ or ‘professionalized’. I
bring my experience, passion and creativity to the museum, and my projects reflect that.
I try to establish a relaxed relationship with various departments within the museum. I
can do nothing else – it is who I am. In this regard, perhaps I embody the spontaneity of
the street, and bring it into the museum. I’m not streetwise or anything like that, neces-
sarily, but I try to bring the outside in, be it popular culture or current scholarship from
other fields, so that museum people can, for a moment, not follow the rules the way they
normally would.
Marstine: What are the unique challenges that art museums face, as distinct from
other kinds of museums?
Wilson: I believe the future of the museum lies in accepting its holistic, interdisciplinary
nature, as it originates from the Wunderkammer, where diverse subjects were mixed
together and existed in a dialogue. Of course it would be a twenty-first century museum,
not the Wunderkammer of the past. Art museums, in particular, are too rarefied today, as
if to deny the interdisciplinary, contextual aspects of their collections – for example, the
anthropological, the historical, and the sociological. That’s a problem. Of course other
types of museums need to be open to other scholarship as well, but the art museum prides
itself on the lack of context more than the others.
Marstine: What special role can university museums play in creating a more socially
just institution?
Wilson: University museums have the opportunity to foster life-long learning. Typically,
however, students experience the university museum – if they do go in at all – the way
they would experience any other museum anywhere, as something apart from their lives,
and not particularly relevant to their developing skills in visual, creative, and critical
thinking; they understand museum-going as a leisure activity, rather than a learning expe-
rience, and this perception remains with them when they go out into the world. Cur-
rently, many university museums define their audience as their city or town’s inhabitants.
Too often they mimic and see themselves in dialogue with more high profile museums
around the country. I think university museums should focus on students and the campus
community as their primary audience. The museum should focus on programming that
engages student audiences through teaching basic museological literacy: how to read and
use a museum. Universities should support these efforts. All the university’s departments
have collections of one sort or another; they can enhance all that the students learn.
In terms of promoting social justice, because university museums exist within a spe-
cific, academic community and don’t typically have the same systems of governance as
other kinds of museums, they can do a lot of things that these other museums can’t do.
They have the ability to be nimble and address challenging themes. The university is a
place for scholarship, debate and the development of ideas and the university museum can
play a leading role if it is embedded physically and intellectually in campus life.
Marstine: What is the role of the culturally specific museum in the United States?
Wilson: In regions of the Anglophonic world with significant indigenous populations – the
United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – museums and source communities
have begun a dialogue on what constitutes culturally sensitive modes of research, display,
interpretation and promotion. Communities have their own viewpoints on what is the
right thing to do and the right way to think about it and this is how culturally specific
 Museologically speaking 41

museums have emerged. In a way, it is important that the culturally specific museum
ignores mainstream museum culture. The dialogue is within a cultural community. For
culturally specific audiences, the museum is a relief from the onslaught of imagery and
point-of-view of the mainstream. It is a safe place to reassess and assert one’s identity,
and see it in ‘museum’ terms. Within any particular community, however, you have a
diversity of opinions about identity. I think it’s important to push the outer edges of what
it means to be in any particular community, to challenge stereotypes and to explore issues
that might not immediately seem relevant to the community in question but that engage
identity from multiple perspectives. Another significant aspect of culturally specific muse-
ums is that they are training grounds for people within underrepresented communities
to gain museological experience in a supportive environment where their opinions are
respected and talents are nurtured. Emerging from the environment of the culturally spe-
cific museum are not only new themes and new ways of looking but also new concepts
of what the ‘museum’ means within particular communities. And that may also be useful
to ‘mainstream’ museums.
The National Museum of the American Indian is doing this. Mainstream circles have
leveled some heavy criticism at NMAI’s architecture, design and interpretation. But, in
my mind, when the mainstream doesn’t get it, yet the point is very clear to people of
color or specific cultural, ethnic, or economic groups, that often indicates that some-
thing really radical is taking place. From my observation, I believe NMAI is not overly
concerned with explaining the cultural significance of every object in the collection; the
conversation is: we are all around you; we look like you, we don’t look like you, we are
what you imagine we are, and we are mostly not what you imagine we are, but we’re
here. The whole museum is political. If you want to know this other stuff, you go to
some other museum.
Marstine: Do you think that diversity and equality in the museum are dependent
on public funding and that private funding is a contradiction in terms with
social justice?
Wilson: Hell no. Not in this country! Look at the censorship of the Smithsonian during the
Enola Gay and The West as America exhibitions. In the US, public funding of cultural
institutions makes them vulnerable to the agendas and whims of politicians; a healthy bal-
ance between private and public funding is most likely to encourage diversity initiatives.
What we have in our favor in the United States is that politicians don’t really care about
art so they are not really looking. When we have a national pavilion at the Venice Bien-
nale, we really can do whatever we want.
Marstine: In your opinion, what is the relationship between social justice and activ-
ism in museums?
Wilson: Museums need to be politically engaged but the danger of activism is that it can be
seen as a brand. That’s not how I, personally, approach things because when you present
yourself as an activist, people who are interested in that agenda go towards you but a
whole lot of other people walk away. Also, activist agendas can become too fixed. It’s
important to have clear goals but as people gather around the idea of something and it
picks up steam, it can veer off and become something no longer creative but instead static
and didactic.
Political significance can emerge from many different avenues in the museum, includ-
ing the aesthetic. For example, in its temporary exhibitions, the Metropolitan Museum
42 J. Marstine

brings together all kinds of objects from diverse communities around a common aesthetic
or art historical moment. That’s a major feat. For a show on Byzantium, the Met was
able to negotiate with countries that have a long history of warring with each another.
And the Met does this over and over and over again to create the exhibitions that they
do.
Marstine: Are you suggesting that we don’t want to underestimate the power
of aesthetics in promoting a kind of social justice which may go under the
radar?
Wilson: Right. It’s very important not to be reductive in our thinking about institutions. For
instance, the Museum of Modern Art, in its early days, was engaged in all sorts of socially
responsible programs and exhibitions. Social justice is not a new thing to museums; it is
part of the complex history of museums. Some institutions might be surprised by what
they find on social justice in their archives.
Marstine: What has the artist’s role been in creating a more diverse and socially
responsible museum?
Wilson: In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, artists worked hard to agitate for change in the
museum. In New York, the Art Workers’ Coalition was responsible for creating a free
day at MoMA. The Guerrilla Girls and PESTS, an organization of artists of color, organ-
ized various types of guerrilla activities at various museums and galleries for lack of inclu-
sion. Artists were the majority on the funding panels of the state and federal arts councils.
Many artists of color were on these panels, too. They actively forced change through
funding or de-funding institutions. Because of them, an artist of color can now walk
into a gallery and the receptionist at the front desk won’t assume that they are a delivery
person or cleaner.
Marstine: What role has institutional critique played in advancing issues of ethics
and social justice?
Wilson: Institutional critique has helped move the dialogue forward. Institutional critique
remains under the radar for collectors and their ilk, however, as it’s not valued by the
art market. I had a fire in my belly around issues of social justice because they directly
affected me and because, as an outsider, I was able to see the rhetoric of the museum and
the profession’s complete denial of the codes in place, codes that exclude, stereotype, and
reinforce hegemonic power structures. I wanted to explore how museums were talking
about culture and what wasn’t being talked about.
Marstine: How do you situate your own work in terms of the insider/outsider
dichotomy?
Wilson: I started out as someone who understood museums but was not an insider. I wasn’t
of that country, but I understood how to act within that country and pretend. I’d been a
tourist, so to speak, so I knew a few words, and I knew how to behave, which is a big
deal if you are in another country. If you know a few words, and you know how to act,
people get relaxed around you. My being the outsider inadvertently made museum staff
become a bit dislocated and unstable, but ultimately it was mutual respect, friendship, and
trust which enabled them to take risks. People were very frank with me about themselves,
even if a bit guarded about how they felt about my project. But now I’m a total insider;
I can’t get any more inside. Now that I know a lot more, I have the opportunity to dig
deeper to find new avenues to explore.
Marstine: You are on the Board of Trustees at the Whitney Museum of American
 Museologically speaking 43

Art, the Sculpture Center, the American Academy in Rome, and Creative
Capital. How do you define your position as a trustee?
Wilson: I’m still trying to figure this out which, I think, is healthy. What others think my role
is, and how much do I create the role, as opposed to what they want me for, are questions
I still have. All these boards are as varied as the institutions they represent. They have
different strengths and weaknesses. I am the president of the Sculpture Center board,
and have been a trustee for many years, so my role there is somewhat different from the
others, as the director and I maintain a close working relationship. But in general, I am
the artists’ voice, and I speak for the artist community. I also speak for the museum com-
munity because I have this breadth of understanding about museums, and I am typically
the only trustee like that. Diversity and other specific social issues don’t come up much
in the meetings with the full board unless I bring it up; it’s mostly the brass tacks. The
interesting stuff happens in the committee meetings. However, I have noticed over the
years that, every so often, there’s an assumption among a few members on these boards
that those with the money have the real decision-making power. But in my experience,
when it comes right down to it, my voice and my vote count.
At the Whitney I’m on the education and collections committees and I do a bit of
writing and speaking for them to support the fund-raising effort. I’m there to support the
director and the staff, because I understand what their needs and issues are. But just as I
do with my museum interventions, at the board meetings I sit back and absorb what’s
happening before I insert my ideas, so that my actions are well thought-out, decisive, and
will make a difference. I’m thinking for the long term.
Marstine: Do you think that a less hierarchical and more collaborative organiza-
tional model helps museums to instill social responsibility?
Wilson: Ha! I really don’t know about this. I don’t know of any museum that is run exactly
in this way. A non-hierarchical model in art museums sounds like it makes more sense
because many artists are non-hierarchical. The corporate model in which whoever is at
the top decides what is important and then middle managers blindly carry out orders is
anathema to how I personally work or think. In the art museum, if departments become
fiefdoms, shoe-horning artists and their work into that hierarchical system impedes the
museum visitor’s understanding of how art jumps across boundaries. I imagine a non-
hierarchical, collaborative model allows for fluidity and cross dialogue. But as far as social
justice is concerned – as with any business, government, or organization – success also
depends on how you hire and why you hire, and on who are the people involved. A col-
laborative model does not preclude individuals that don’t listen or unfairly dominate the
group and, conversely, a really strong leader in a corporate model, who has a visionary
way of thinking, can be a catalyst for change.
Marstine: How can museums better recognize the contributions and voices of
support staff?
Wilson: With major initiatives such as defining mission and imagining new construction or
simply understanding the public’s reaction to exhibitions or programs, everyone should
be invited to give their opinions and ideas; when museum administration brings support
staff in after the decisions have been made the institution loses out on significant insights
and exceptionally high interest in the museum and their jobs. However, if we’re talking
about diversity, museums cannot simply look to support staff if underrepresented groups
happen to be in those positions. Because those staff members may be protecting their
44 J. Marstine

jobs, it’s not fair or effective to expect them to represent perspectives on inclusivity. It is
very important that underrepresented groups are hired in all departments and at all levels.
That said, for institutions to be open to risk-taking, staff members across departments
need to talk together in order to question their assumptions. For example, the Pulitzer
Foundation for the Arts developed a project, in conjunction with its staff social workers,
in which they hired ex-offenders to be guards in their galleries; as part of their training,
the guards learned about the art works from the curators. What the curators didn’t real-
ize beforehand was how much they’d get back from the new guards. Such collaborative
efforts melt away personal and museological assumptions.
3
MOVING BEYOND THE MAINSTREAM
Insight into the relationship between
community-based heritage organizations
and the museum

Kimberly F. Keith

This chapter explores the nature of collaborative relationships between community-based

heritage organizations and museums and their potential to progress social justice, understood
for the purposes of this chapter to refer to attempts to establish equality, equity and parity
where it is currently lacking. The particular aspect of the museum that will be examined is
its position as truth-teller, authority and keeper of what is sacred in society, a role that was
established at its inception and is linked to its colonial and empirical past (Duncan and Wal-
lach 1978; Bennett 1995). Once established, this position became ingrained in the public’s
imagination and the museum’s narrative came to be accepted as the ‘mainstream’ account of
arts and culture which went largely unchallenged until the later part of the twentieth century
(Sandell 2002, 2007; Crooke 2007; Pollock and Zemans 2007). In recent years the narrative of
the museum has been challenged both from inside and outside of the institution. Key external
drivers for change include government agendas to promote access, inclusion and diversity
through audience development and exhibition content. Moreover academic discourse, arising
from cultural politics and feminist critiques, has recognized that the interpretation of objects
and artifacts held in museums must be considered from multiple perspectives, particularly
related to the cultures, religions and societies from which the objects are derived (Jordan and
Weedon 1995; Lidchi 1997; Hall 2001). Internal drivers for change include the response to
such external influences by individual practitioners and the consequent implementation of
organizational change management in accordance with social, cultural and financial trends
beyond the museum’s walls.

Context
In the United Kingdom, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and agen-
cies such as the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and Arts Council England (ACE) foster the
promotion of access, inclusion and diversity through policy initiatives that are often tied to
special funding. These policies are specifically designed to address unequal access to the arts
and culture, often incorporating broader social aims to encourage community cohesion and
promote cross-cultural awareness and understanding. One means to advance the engagement
46 K. F. Keith

and portrayal of diverse peoples and cultures has been through the support of collaborative
projects between museums and community-based heritage organizations. Such collaborations
can help further access and inclusion with regards to diversifying audiences of the ‘mainstream’
museum, and at the same time they can also interrogate the museum’s narrative which sup-
ports and perpetuates its position of authority.
Community-based heritage organizations engage in a range of activities from establishing
community archives to providing access to cultural and creative expression, the aim of which
is to help shape the identity, and both preserve and promote the social and cultural history,
of diverse groups. In terms of social justice, collaboration between museums and heritage
organizations can begin to address issues of equity through questioning the partiality of the
museum’s traditional narrative and expanding this through the inclusion of external, different,
and potentially oppositional, voices. Collaborations can also serve to create parity between
organizations of differing sizes, scale and scope.
However, as the museum and the community-based heritage organization are distinctly
and differently situated in the social and cultural landscape, variations in their mission and
approach can create tensions during the collaborative process. This chapter will examine
these tensions whilst questioning the potential and actual influence of community-based her-
itage organizations (often working in the ‘margins’) on museums (that operate largely in
the ‘mainstream’). The benefits and drawbacks to partnership, and the challenges of work-
ing with the ‘mainstream’, will be interrogated through testimony drawn from discussion
between four heritage sector practitioners who have worked collaboratively with museums.
Although distinct positions are offered, drawn from individuals’ personal experiences, this
chapter aims to offer a collective account of the present relationship between the ‘margins’
and the ‘mainstream’.

Community heritage sector practitioners

The four practitioners whose experiences inform this chapter are Harbinder Singh, Cliff
Pereira, Rajiv Anand and Kimberly Keith. Harbinder Singh is the Honorary Director of the
Anglo-Sikh Heritage Trail (ASHT), a national initiative that draws together relevant UK
locations, institutions and artifacts to create virtual and actual trails pertaining to Sikh heritage
and culture. The main aim of ASHT is to promote greater awareness of the shared heritage
between Sikhs and mainstream Britons. The material content at the center of its initiatives
are the many Sikh or Sikh-related artifacts held in national, regional and local museums in the
UK (Plate 3.1a).
Cliff Pereira is the former Chair of the Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA), the
aim of which is to foster research and disseminate information on the history of Black peoples
in Britain. BASA publishes a newsletter three times a year and holds an annual conference.
BASA has taken up issues with government departments and agencies such as English Herit-
age (with regard to the blue plaque scheme that functions to commemorate the link between
notable figures of the past and the buildings with which they are associated) and the Museums,
Libraries and Archives Council regarding material held in archives, libraries and museums in
Britain. Additionally, Cliff has had extensive involvement with exhibitions and community
engagement initiatives with the Royal Geographical Society.
Rajiv Anand is the museum consultant for the Institute of Jainology, which espouses that
‘compassion and non-violence towards all living beings are the fundamental principles of Jain
 Moving beyond the mainstream 47

philosophy’. The Institute’s mission is ‘to propagate Jainism and its values through art, culture
and education’ (Institute of Jainology 2011). The mission is met through objectives such as: pro-
viding a platform for interaction between different Jain communities and organizations; creating
an awareness of the history, art, philosophy and practices of Jain faith, including its relevance to
today’s world; and undertaking the cataloging and digitization of Jain manuscripts and artifacts.
Kimberly Keith, the author of this chapter and chair of the discussions on which this chap-
ter draws, is a trustee for the Black Cultural Archives (BCA). This is a ‘national institution
dedicated to collecting, preserving and celebrating the histories of people of African descent
in the UK. Using its unique collection, the BCA promotes the teaching, learning and under-
standing of the African peoples’ contribution to the society and culture of Britain’ (Black Cul-
tural Archives 2011). Its public programs and partnership initiatives with organizations such as
the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Film Institute enable a variety of communities
to learn and connect with this often hidden history.

Expanding the museum’s narrative

The efficacy of collaborative work between the ‘mainstream’ and the ‘margins’ was inter-
rogated through a discussion that queried the role of community-based organizations in
influencing museums and the effectiveness of ‘mainstream’ organizations in recognizing
and utilizing external expertise. One recurring theme throughout the discussion was the
desire to enhance and expand upon the museum’s narrative of specific objects and/or par-
ticular cultures. In relation to this, concerns were raised about the power and authority of
the curator who is often perceived as difficult to access and holding tight control over the
museum’s narrative.

Rajiv: I worked at the V&A [Victoria and Albert Museum] as the South Asian Education
Officer for three years from 2005 until 2008 and then straight after that I came into con-
sultancy work. So, in a way, I’ve got an almost ‘insider-outsider’ approach because I’ve
worked very closely with the curatorial staff in the Asia Department and the educators in
the Learning and Interpretation Department, which I was part of, to bring the collections
and the objects ‘alive’ through relevant sorts of cultural interpretations that can be under-
stood by everybody. And I think contextualization is really important and also issues of
access, intellectual access as well, because the curators can write as much as they want, or
as little as they want, but you need to be a specialist to understand what they’re saying.

Rajiv was able to influence the V&A’s narrative on South Asian objects and artifacts because
he was employed by the V&A as an expert on South Asian culture. However, he faced chal-
lenges in making his voice heard as, at the V&A, the educational and curatorial functions
operate as separate silos and do not work together on a regular basis. This was felt to be the
case in many museums rather than an issue specific to the V&A. As Rajiv was in the Learn-
ing and Interpretation Department and was not in a curatorial position he had to purpose-
fully instigate cross-departmental dialogue in order to bring about change in the museum’s
narrative. Later, when he was employed by the Institute of Jainology to work on the V&A’s
JAINpedia exhibitions, utilizing fifteenth- to nineteenth-century artifacts in the V&A’s col-
lection, he was in a position as a community heritage representative to contribute to the cul-
tural interpretation of the material and to influence the curatorial voice (Plate 3.1b and Fig-
ure 3.1). Rajiv was uniquely placed to do this but many community heritage organizations
FIGURE 3.1 Jain Rangoli, made during Jainpedia Diwali Weekend, 13–14 November 2010 at the V&A. Event orga-
nized in partnership with the Institute of Jainology. With permission of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
 Moving beyond the mainstream 49

lack the resources, contacts and relationships needed to access museums in a significant way.
His comments raise two points. First, the curatorial voice can be highly specialized and dif-
ficult to engage with by non-specialists and, second, the need to modify the curator’s voice
may be evident to an outsider but is perhaps hard to disentangle or address as an insider.
This indicates that it may take an outsider’s perception with an insider’s access to create
change in the museum’s narrative, a point which highlights the necessity for organizations on
the ‘margins’ to collaborate with the ‘mainstream’.
Ideally, information regarding the social and cultural significance of specific objects would
augment or change the museum’s narrative. This enhanced narrative could affect both the
repositioning of objects in the museum’s catalog or gallery, and the engagement of diverse
audiences. However the assumed connection between visitors and material representations
of particular social and cultural traditions can be problematic. This is well illustrated by a
further point raised by Rajiv that ‘identity is so fluid, everyone has their own different facets.
You could be an Asian migrant and gay, and be disabled at the same time’. This complexity of
the individual’s identity is in accordance with layered, stratified, nuanced, fluid and non-fixed
notions of race and ethnicity (Gilroy 1993; Hall and Du Gay 1996; Back and Solomos 2000)
but is rarely observed by museum practice.

Harbinder: There is a sort of perverse inconsistency in the position of museums which is that
it’s okay for a white middle class lady to come here because she has a fascination for Ital-
ian sculpture although she’s never been to Italy. But if I’m Asian and I come here, then
the expectation is that the only thing I’m going to be interested in is the Sikh objects.
And that, to me, totally throws the raison d’être for the whole existence of the museum.
So when I came here for that exhibition it wasn’t because they had the chair of Ranjit
Singh. It was because this is a world collection and I’m here to enjoy it! Why should our
enjoyment be assumed to be limited to only those objects in which we have an historical
interest?
Cliff: It’s also a very narrow-minded approach to who the public actually is. The museums
have this approach, as you said, that we, as minorities, are only interested in our own
narrative. But then if the majority is not aware that another narrative exists – or in some
cases maybe they are aware – then they’re not actually engaging with it, so maybe it’s a
question of getting away from ‘boxing the narrative’ into these ethnicities.

Often museums contact minority communities when they have a project presumed to be
representative of that particular community. However identity is complex and deeply personal
and when groups or individuals are approached as part of a ‘target audience’, based upon con-
jecture about an aspect of their being, there may be antipathy encountered in the exchange.
This is one reason to avoid ‘boxing the narrative’ in relation to ethnicities and difference as
it is important not to assume that membership to a specific community equates to an interest
in learning about that culture, especially from an organization outside of that community. At
the same time it is imperative for the museum to collaborate with representatives of specific
communities to ensure the accuracy of its narrative. This all points to the complexity of col-
laboration as difference and diversity must simultaneously be negotiated in relation to the
object, the museum’s narrative, its audience and the personal and professional positions of
individual practitioners.
50 K. F. Keith

Keepers of the museum’s narrative

The challenges of working with curators who are keepers of the museum’s narrative and the
staffing dynamics of the museum were topics that repeatedly arose throughout our discussions.

Harbinder: One of the biggest issues I’ve found is capacity and that they [curators] tend to be
very transient in what they do, and the amount of time that we [heritage organizations]
have of their attention is pretty small . . . But the bigger problem, I think, is continuity;
when staff move on from one project to another or they move between museums and
disciplines then it’s very difficult to pick up the baton again and not to drop it and to
have that continuity. That staff evolution or rotation to me is one of the biggest frustrat-
ing factors. It’s bad enough engaging with curators when they’re not moving – that is a
challenge in itself – but when they move on, or they – or we – get new people coming
in, then we’re sometimes having to re-establish our credentials afresh. So I would call it
the transient nature of museum work that is a problem to us.
Kimberly: Yes, often the relationships with community representatives reside with the
individual that is facilitating the program and when they move on that’s a prob-
lem. But when the institution – as opposed to an individual practitioner – takes
ownership of a project and states that it is between them and say, the Institute of
Jainology or the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail, that it’s a partnership, but then conversely
the museum does not have the capacity to continue the relationship, I see this as being
tokenistic and instrumentalist.
Cliff: I think, from BASA’s perspective, the real problem is this embedded, or I would say
constitutional, agenda that’s missing − that there is no mission statement by the Muse-
ums Association or by any single museum to address the sensitivities and the accessibil-
ity to these [culturally specific] collections . . . But doesn’t that mean that now, having
recognized these objects as existing, there should be some sort of mission statement to
acknowledge that? We don’t find any movement by the museum sector to actually do
that. And I think that’s something that needs to be addressed. Because once you’ve
got the statement, you then have a back-up for the lack of continuity that you were talk-
ing about, because a mission statement stays even though the people involved can move
on.

This exchange raises many interesting points. When the ‘margins’ and the ‘mainstream’ collabo-
rate it is often individual practitioners who establish organizational relationships. Continuity and
transience affect individuals and organizations significantly and even when measures are taken
to track the activity of the partnership (written documentation and rigorous verbal and written
fact sharing) there is still the potential for information loss, misinterpretation and/or a relation-
ship breakdown when individuals move on. This is because collaborations are developed, in
part, through the convergence of the personal and professional characteristics of individual
practitioners in addition to their roles within both the partnership and their particular organiza-
tions, which are all aspects of their respective social, cultural and symbolic capital (Bourdieu
1984, 1985). It seems impossible for organizations to capture and absorb the nuanced details
involved in these interpersonal encounters which build and sustain relationships so that when
an individual leaves a partnership, part of the relationship is lost. In order to mitigate against
this it is necessary to recognize the significance of the role of the individual, to be aware of the
 Moving beyond the mainstream 51

challenges inherent in sharing information across departments and between organizations, and
to take measures to ensure that communication is consistently reviewed and assessed.
If the museum has not taken measures to enfold the relationship into its organizational and
operational culture, the museum’s capacity to continue the relationship is compromised when
the practitioner leaves, leading to the development of tokenistic and instrumentalist practices
and projects. This is because the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of partnerships is often carried out by an
individual (and is established during the process of collaboration); remove the individual and
the collaborative effort could be reduced to an objectified quantitative output, and the muse-
um’s narrative may continue to be drawn from its traditional position of authority, steeped
in colonial and empirical tropes. Cliff suggested that this circumstance could be alleviated
through the development of a mission statement specifically designed to address culturally-
specific collections. However, a mission statement may not necessarily counter the potential
for instrumentalist practices as it would require enforcement by individuals who may or may
not be disposed to engage in collaborative efforts to expand the museum’s narrative.

Challenges to affecting the museum’s narrative

Cliff believes that minority narratives, and particularly feminist narratives, are lacking in the
national museums that he has worked with. In his view the museum’s ‘imperialistic terms have
not moved on to the twenty-first century. In fact, they haven’t moved to the post-colonial, let
alone into the post-post-colonial twenty-first century’. He also mentioned that museums he
has visited in both Canada and Australia are moving forward using terms such as ‘a world col-
lection’. These international museums are recontextualizing objects through an examination
of their provenance and the settings in which they are displayed, incorporating multiple cul-
tural interpretations throughout this process. Cliff mentioned that community input was inte-
gral to this approach and that its implementation can have the two-fold result of empowering
the community, through allowing its voice to be heard on a national platform, and expanding
the museum’s narrative, which may in turn increase the museum’s accessibility. Cliff added
that such changes in language and context were in response to pressure applied by individu-
als within heritage institutions who acted as brokers with the museum and who had vested
interests in the outcomes. In many cases these brokers were ethnic minorities themselves. Cliff
likened this process to one which he experienced at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS)
in the UK where the permanent inclusion of working-class and ethnic minority staff and the
addition of cultural advisory groups for specific projects promoted the development of multi-
strand narratives which have expanded the social and cultural context of the RGS collection.
Such examples of good practice by museums both abroad and in the UK led to the group
reflecting on exhibitions and projects that took place across Britain in 2007 and which marked
the bicentenary of the parliamentary abolition of the slave trade. Many such events were
created in response to government initiatives and linked to time-bound funding. Negative
views about these projects included the fact that they were time-limited, that ethnic minor-
ity staff were employed on short-term contracts for project-specific activities and changes in
the museum’s material content and narrative was on a temporary rather than long-term basis.
Museums returned to their ‘normal’ operating procedures after the 2007 season of events.
When a project is time-limited and funding and other resources are restricted, the oppor-
tunity to develop shared values is also limited and without shared values it is difficult to build
a sustainable collaboration. For example, if the distinct positions of the museum and heritage
52 K. F. Keith

organization outlined at the outset of this chapter are considered – i.e. that the museum is the
authority and keeper of what is sacred in society and that the heritage organization promotes
the social and cultural significance of the heritage of particular minority groups – then it is pos-
sible to infer that the values for each organization stem from distinct positions. The museum
is concerned with the conservation, display and narrative of the object. The community
heritage organization is concerned with the purpose, significance and meaning of the object.
This could be interpreted as the museum being ‘object’ oriented and the heritage organization
being ‘people’ oriented with the values behind these positions being significantly different. If
there are no shared values around project objectives, such as determining the primary signifi-
cance of the object within the collaboration, then the partnership may be solely a ‘tick-box
exercise’. Such an instrumentalist approach to conducting a partnership would be unlikely to
produce evidence of sustainable outcomes based on a shared ethos and purpose.
The temporary appointment of ethnic minority staff for time-bound, project-based initia-
tives is tokenistic and problematic, leading to unsustainable relationships with both visitors
and community heritage organizations. Museums may be able to fulfill short-term funding
objectives and pay lip service by hiring ethnic minorities, but if such staff are not retained on a
permanent basis then there can be no systemic change in the museum’s narrative or ability to
increase accessibility to museum collections. Ethnic minorities, according to the practitioners
whose experiences inform this chapter, merge professional interests with personal interests
and ethnic, religious, cultural, sexual and gender characteristics. The permanent placement of
individuals with these characteristics could begin to inform change in the museum’s organiza-
tional and operational practices (Chapters 1 and 2, this volume). Without the sentiment and
interest which stems from both a personal and professional investment in the state of museum
practices, organizational change may be slow to occur, if at all.
Change in the museum’s narrative or content as a result of engagement in temporary
exhibitions or activities is often short-lived. The resources attached to these projects are often
unsustainable and it may not be possible to continue relationships with audiences and organi-
zations beyond the scope of the project. As the museum moves on to its next initiative focus
will shift to another topic, resources will be directed towards the next group, and the museum
will most likely not include previous stakeholders in these new developments. Once con-
sidered necessary and important, audiences and organizations can feel abandoned and used.
This is problematic as a project may be of central significance to the community group but
may be just one of many for the museum and perhaps of less significance than other projects.
If the community group allocates a significant amount of resources towards a collaborative
project, expectations for both the project and the partnership are elevated. Unless the tempo-
rary nature of the project and the finite boundaries of the partnership are explicitly communi-
cated, feelings of resentment may arise within the community group, leaving the impression
that the collaboration between the ‘margins’ and the ‘mainstream’ is both tokenistic, instru-
mentalist and poorly valued.
Although these points were raised particularly in relation to the season of events in 2007
they were also considered to be applicable to the regular operations of the museum which
often include time-bound activities such as ‘special’ and ‘temporary’ exhibitions and pro-
grams frequently tied to specific funding. The museum continues to seek funding to work
with community-heritage groups yet, for the most part, this funding is for supplementary
projects that lie outside of its general operating budget, thus supporting the notion that these
projects are not of primary concern as they are, quite literally, at the ‘margins’ of the museum’s
 Moving beyond the mainstream 53

operations. This issue of priority and centrality must be addressed in order to minimize ten-
sions between the ‘margins’ and the ‘mainstream’ and create sustainable relationships which
would genuinely progress social justice in the museum.
In order to address these tensions and to implement change it is first necessary for someone
within the museum to recognize the obligation to do so, which in itself can be quite a chal-
lenge. Individuals tend to work within the confines of their specialism, inhabiting a specific
position within the organizational structure and culture of their particular museum. This situ-
ation raises two key concerns. First, an individual practitioner may not recognize the need
to incorporate or explore diverse perspectives and, second, gaining access to and influencing
museum practitioners can be difficult. The museum’s position will not move if individuals
in the ‘mainstream’ are not motivated to do so and if individuals from the ‘margins’ are not
able to influence the process. Harbinder suggested that this particular dilemma stems from the
fact that heritage organizations often do not have the resources or capacity to engage with
museums; that the time required to influence the ‘mainstream’ is considerable and, as a result,
entire communities, including their representative organizations, have abrogated responsibil-
ity for changing the museum’s narrative. If the ‘margins’ cannot access the ‘mainstream’ and if
the ‘mainstream’ is entrenched in its position and cannot look outwards, then the initial steps
towards achieving social justice through collaboration cannot be taken.

Benefits of (and obstacles to) effective partnerships

There are benefits to be gained through collaboration between the ‘mainstream’ and the ‘mar-
gins’ despite the challenges that need to be negotiated. Harbinder suggested that one of the
greatest benefits was access to collections and the availability of complementary resources, such
as technical knowledge in terms of conservation and display practices. Access prevents isolation
and he felt that, when access was granted, the opportunity to ‘alter the perspective of those
objects or even simply to expand the description that there was of those objects’ was possible. In
this sense Harbinder felt that collaboration was useful because it helped to redress certain issues
that may have otherwise been overlooked. Yet issues of access and the opportunity to contribute
diverse perspectives raised the concern that, when information flows one way – from the ‘mar-
gins’ to the ‘mainstream’ – a collaborative effort can be reduced simply to a process of consulta-
tion which can undermine the equality, equity and parity aspects of any partnership.

Harbinder: I did not necessarily always expect there would be reciprocity in our partnership
with the museum because I thought that we were the lead partner; we didn’t need any-
thing back sometimes. So I look at it from that angle. That it was they – the museum
– who needed to be corrected and we didn’t need any correcting from that side.
Kimberly: Right; I understand and I share your position. I’m still thinking about this word
‘collaboration’, and I think of partnership and then I also think ‘we’re the little heritage
guys and they’re the big “mainstream” guys’, and if we’re collaborating with them, I see
that as doing something together, or something that’s circular and reciprocal; but I don’t
see partnerships as working that way. I certainly don’t see ours as working that way; I
see it as consultation. Honestly, [in the V&A/BCA partnership project, Staying Power 1]
the museum’s curators could purchase photographs that were produced by Black British
photographers or that have Black people in them and they could say that they are about
Black British identity and that could be the end of it (Figure 3.2). But, by having the BCA
FIGURE 3.2 Charlie Phillips, Customers at the ‘Piss House’ pub on the Portobello Road, Notting Hill, London, 1 Janu-
ary 1969. Photo by Charlie Phillips/Getty Images. Collection: Hulton Archive, one of the photographs purchased
through the Staying Power project.
 Moving beyond the mainstream 55

at the table, we actually talk about the subject matter and the content and the rationale of
purchasing one artist’s work over another, and what it means to the Black community to
do that – we have a dialogue about that. However, the communication and advice seem
to be going one way.

Harbinder felt that ASHT was the lead partner in its collaboration with the museum and that his
organization did not need anything other than access to collections and the potential to correct
the narrative of the museum. I countered with my perception of the dynamic between the ‘mar-
gins’ and the ‘mainstream’ as being between small and large organizations, in terms of size, scale
and scope; with the implication being that small heritage organizations are often the secondary
partner in collaborative efforts. The terms ‘lead’ and ‘secondary’, used to describe the relative
positions of partner organizations, highlight various aspects of inequality. Factors such as age of
the organization; collection size or content; subject specialism; geographic location; member-
ship numbers and scale of operating budgets, all contribute to the actual and perceived position
of an organization and its relative status in the partnership. In Harbinder’s case his organization’s
social and cultural capital was of paramount importance, leading him to determine ASHT to
be the lead partner. The perception of the position of ASHT by the museum is unknown.
However, in my view, it is unlikely that the museum would have considered ASHT to be the
lead partner. The relative positions of the partner organizations, either actual or perceived and
either spoken or unspoken, influence how individuals interact during the collaborative process
– from how they speak to one another to which organization retains the tangible outputs of the
collaboration. Not addressing and discussing the relative positions of the organizations involved
in partnerships and implications therein can undermine the collaborative effort.
When differing organizations collaborate, equity and equality concerns often focus on the
use or allocation of resources or, more specifically, the (unequal) distribution of resources.
In the example of the Staying Power project, the V&A was awarded funds to acquire objects for
its collection which it could have done without the input of the BCA in terms of the technical
aspects of acquisition, determining the type and quality of print, the provenance of the artist
or the object’s significance in relation to its existing collection. The V&A partnered with the
BCA in order to ensure that the social and cultural significance of the subject matter of the
images reflected Black British identity. As the BCA did not receive remuneration for its input
and will not retain the photographs in its archive collection, this could support the notion that
the relationship built around Staying Power is primarily consultative in nature.
All practitioners cited examples where their organizations contributed significant amounts
of professional subject expertise to museums for no remuneration or material benefit.
This was seen as problematic on two accounts. First, many practitioners from community her-
itage organizations, and arguably from most charitable/non-profit organizations, work on ‘a
budget of love’, meaning that they contribute time and resources beyond the stated parameters
of their job descriptions and hours of employment in order to fulfill tasks and meet objectives
that they feel passionate about and without additional compensation. Second, in Cliff’s words,
‘some institutions expect community collaboration to be free because they don’t consider
communities to have a receipt stamp on them’. These conditions create often unrealistic
expectations which, in turn, create a vicious cycle: museums expect community expertise
for free; free expertise is given because community experts feel strongly about expanding the
museum’s narrative. Museums expect to pay for the expertise of academics and scholars who
contribute to their catalog and exhibition content yet the same expectation is not held for
56 K. F. Keith

community-heritage expertise. Heritage experts are accustomed to being on the margins and
to giving away their knowledge without remuneration. In Staying Power the classification,
documentation and accompanying narrative of the photographs in the V&A catalog is of the
utmost importance to the BCA because it may affect how visitors view and interact with the
objects. For the BCA, it is important that the narrative is representative of Black people and
the Black experience; providing a significant motivating factor for the BCA to partner with
the V&A. But the BCA’s engagement is also partially instrumentalist in that, whilst it may
work on a ‘budget of love’, it is also working with the world’s premier museum of art and
design thus deriving a certain amount of cachet and kudos from funders and heritage sector
peers.

The struggle to focus on social responsibility

The practitioners suggested that issues of equity and social responsibility should be addressed
by both the museum and the funder and that efforts should go beyond the bare minimum
required by the UK Equality Act 2010. There was concern that funders rarely require muse-
ums to address the practical issues of enabling access to specific audiences, such as taking objects
or exhibitions into specific communities or providing transportation for targeted communities
to come to the museum. Without the funder obliging the museum to embed access and inclu-
sion considerations into grant applications and subsequent project planning, the museum may
not address these issues at all.
The practitioners expressed a desire for funders to be more proactive in the collaborations
that they support but recognized that many funders, whilst setting parameters for the muse-
um’s engagement with Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, do not them-
selves have a deep understanding of BAME needs or interests. Any understanding of minority
ethnic communities should be developed through an exploration of the positional nature
of difference and multiculturalism. Ideally, this would be combined with a consideration of
the varied nature of both audiences and material objects when working with the museum.
Operating without this knowledge is a symptom of what contemporary theorist Stanley Fish
refers to as ‘boutique multiculturalism’. This he describes as ‘the multiculturalism of ethnic
restaurants . . . weekend festivals . . . [which] is characterized by its superficial or cosmetic
relationship to the objects of its affection’ (1997: 378) and which is conducted without actu-
ally engaging with difference at a deeper level.
It is particularly problematic when funders stick to the superficial safety-zone of ‘bou-
tique multiculturalism’ as museums and their community heritage partners feel pressure, as
suggested by Cliff, to ‘tailor programs and engagements to fit a funder’s criteria, rather than
start with what the community wants and then seek support to fund the community-based
initiative’. If a program for a specific community stems from a tenuous understanding of, and
a lack of consultation with, said community, the resulting program may be irrelevant to the
community yet fulfill the objectives of the initial policy and funding remit, rendering the
program a tick-box exercise.

Conclusion
The various tensions inherent in the collaborative process between the museum and the com-
munity heritage organization have been explored throughout this chapter. Creating change in
 Moving beyond the mainstream 57

the museum’s narrative, negotiating organizational and individual positions, generating social
justice in partnerships and operating in the face of policy and funding agendas were issues
that evoked tensions during collaboration. By examining the tensions, particularly those that
may go unsaid during the process, specific areas of concern can be recognized and addressed
in future partnerships. This can be best achieved through developing shared values and clear
objectives and through open dialogue employed in a reciprocal partnership. If social justice
is to be achieved through collaboration, the delicate balance of power in the precarious rela-
tionship between the ‘margins’ and the ‘mainstream’ must be addressed and negotiated by
individual practitioners and implemented throughout their respective organizations.
Through the convergence of the ‘margins’ and the ‘mainstream’, exhibitions can enlighten,
programs and projects may engage, and awareness and understanding can be fostered. Although
effective collaboration is often measured in terms of tangible or measurable outputs rather than
outcomes such as shifts in organizational and operational practices, the success of collabora-
tions can be evidenced in their ability to endure despite the tensions that are involved.

Note
1 Staying Power is a five-year partnership between the V&A and the Black Cultural Archives, supported
by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund. The primary aim of the project is to
collect photographs relating to the Black British experience from the 1950s to the 1990s.

References
Back, L. and Solomos, J. (2000) Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader, London and New York:
Routledge.
Bennett, T. (1995) The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, London and New York:
Routledge.
Black Cultural Archives (2011) Online. Available at: www.bcaheritage.org.uk (accessed 12 October
2011).
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1985) ‘The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups’, Social Science Information, 24, Sep-
tember: 195–220.
Crooke, E. (2007) Museums and Community: Ideas, Issues and Challenges, London and New York:
Routledge.
Duncan, C. and Wallach, A. (1978) ‘The Museum of Modern Art as Late Capitalist Ritual: An Icono-
graphic Analysis’, Marxist Perspectives, 1(4): 28–51.
Fish, S. (1997) ‘Boutique Multiculturalism or Why Liberals are Incapable of Hate Speech’, Critical
Inquiry, 23(2): 378–396.
Gilroy, P. (1993) The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, London: Verso.
Hall, S. (2001) ‘Museums of Modern Art and the End of History’, in S. Hall and S. Maharaj, Moder-
nity and Difference, Annotations 6, United Kingdom: Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA):
8–23.
Hall, S. and Du Gay P. (eds) (1996) Questions of Cultural Identity, London, Thousand Oaks and New
Delhi: Sage.
Institute of Jainology (2011) Online. Available at: www.jainology.org (accessed 12 October 2011).
Jordan, G. and Weedon, C. (1995) Cultural Politics: Class, Gender, Race and the Postmodern World, Oxford:
Blackwell.
Lidchi, H. (1997) ‘The Poetics and Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures’, in S. Hall (ed.) Representation:
Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London: Sage/Open University: 151–222.
58 K. F. Keith

Pollock, G. and Zemans, J. (eds) (2007) Museums After Modernism: Strategies of Engagement, Malden and
Oxford: Carlton Blackwell Publishing.
Sandell, R. (ed.) (2002) Museums, Society, Inequality, London and New York: Routledge.
Sandell, R. (2007) Museums, Prejudice and the Reframing of Difference, London and New York:
Routledge.
4
BEYOND COMPLIANCE?
Museums, disability and the law

Heather J. L. Smith, Barry Ginley and Hannah Goodwin

Access should be formally established as a right and not a benevolent demonstration of being
reasonable.
Prideaux 2006: 62

The second half of the twentieth century saw the emergence and increasing influence of the
disability rights movement in the United States and UK. Disability activists played a key role
in increasing the visibility of disabled people, making a powerful case for equality and high-
lighting widespread social, political, economic and cultural discrimination. Alongside battles
for equal access to education, employment opportunities, participation in political processes
and so on, activists also sought to challenge dominant cultural representations of disability (the
disabled person as freak, outsider, recipient of charity) that underpinned deeply entrenched
negative attitudes (including fear, repulsion and pity) amongst the non-disabled population
(Gartner and Joe 1987; Hevey 1992; Oliver 1996).
The separation of disabled people from the mainstream and their exclusion from many
institutions and settings within the public sphere was challenged alongside the assumption
that the ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ of disability was to be found in medical knowledge. As
disability scholars Barnes et al. (1999: 27) explained:

In developing what became known as a social approach to disability, disabled people

. . . argued that it is society which disabled people with impairments, and therefore any
meaningful solution must be directed at social change rather than individual adjustment
and rehabilitation.

Disability activists made the cause they championed impossible to ignore at a political level
and the need for a legislative response that would tackle discrimination became increasingly
inevitable. In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990,
followed some years later by the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in the UK in 1995.
These landmark acts and subject revisions and additions to the bodies of anti-discrimination
legislation that exist in the UK and United States (as well as their counterparts in many other
60 H. J. L. Smith et al.

parts of the world), have undoubtedly played a key role in enhancing access to cultural organi-
sations for disabled people. However, despite some important advances in the sector and
impressive examples of innovation, the experiences of visitors suggest that there is a consider-
able distance to go before equality for disabled people is fully embedded in museum thinking,
practice and organisational values. As Marcus Weisen (2010: 54) argues:

Billions have been spent in recent years on new museums, major extensions and refur-
bishments across the globe, with little or no regard paid to providing a shared experi-
ence of the collections for disabled people. The cumulative effect is discrimination on a
grand scale against disabled people.

To understand this situation – in which some organisations have made significant advances
whilst others appear to have neglected their legal obligations and, more fundamentally, dem-
onstrated a lack of concern for the needs of their audiences – we consider the strengths and
weaknesses of legislation as a driver for change and the additional strategies that might be
pursued to create truly accessible, inclusive and welcoming cultural organisations.
Legislation is usually introduced to enforce behaviour; either to make something happen
or to make something stop. It is the place of recourse when nothing else has, or is deemed
likely, to work. In the world of disability discrimination, legislation therefore constitutes a
powerful driver for change, one that can be brought to bear on institutions – like museums
and heritage organisations – that might otherwise be slow to tackle entrenched discriminatory
practices. At the same time, however, the law has often been perceived as a blunt instrument,
determining a prescribed course which does not always allow for the peculiarities of particular
circumstances to be fully recognised. More significantly, there is a danger that a reliance on the
law to achieve change can focus too much attention on what (minimum) changes are deemed
necessary to meet legal requirements, rather than fostering a climate in which a genuine con-
cern for (and commitment to achieving) full equality of rights is embedded.
In this chapter we draw on our experience as practitioners concerned with enhancing
access to culture for disabled people and reflect on progress in our own organisations – the
National Trust and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in the UK, and the Museum of
Fine Arts (MFA), Boston in the United States – to explore how greater equality might be
achieved within the cultural sector. We do not intend to assess one organisation against the
other or to provide a detailed, direct comparison of UK and US discrimination legislation.
Rather our goal is to explore the impact of this legislation in general and highlight other ways
in which progress might be made. When reviewing the work of the V&A, MFA and the
National Trust, particular attention will be played to the role legislation plays in motivating
accessibility improvements at these organisations, the progress made since the inception of
the ADA (1990) and the DDA (1995), changing staff structures and responsibilities, and the
involvement of disabled people in the development of solutions to accessibility.
The organisations within which we work share some common aims but are inevitably
shaped in different ways by variable levels of resource to effect change, their different locations
and their operation under two different legislative structures. All three organisations welcome
the public to their spaces and acknowledge a responsibility for making their collections, facili-
ties and services accessible to the present day public, as well as preserving them for future
generations. The V&A, ‘the world’s greatest museum of art and design’ in London, receives a
significant proportion of its funding from the UK government and holds collections unrivalled
 Beyond compliance? 61

in their scope and diversity. The MFA in Boston, Massachusetts, is an independent museum
and benefits substantially from both corporate and public donations. Since it was established
in the late nineteenth century, its collection has grown to over 450,000 works of art. The
National Trust is a charity and part of the UK voluntary sector, relying heavily on member-
ship subscriptions and other fundraising to continue to care for over 350 historic places includ-
ing 140 registered museums in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Developing legislation
In the UK, the development of legislation to increase the rights of disabled people began
towards the end of the Second World War, with the introduction of The Disabled Per-
sons (Employment) Act 1944. Whilst the act, intended to support disabled people in finding
employment, was motivated in large part by the needs of the economy and the effect of the
war on workforce availability (rather than a wholehearted recognition of the rights of disabled
people) it nevertheless spurred disability campaigners on.
It was not until the 1970s that the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act (CSDPA
1970) introduced, through a code of practice, responsibilities for providing access to public
buildings. The CSDPA 1970 code of practice stated:

Any person undertaking the provision of any building or premises to which the public
are to be admitted, whether on payment or otherwise, shall, in the means of access both
to and within the building or premises, and in the parking facilities and sanitary conven-
iences to be available (if any), make provision, in so far as it is in the circumstances both
practicable and reasonable, for the needs of members of the public visiting the building
or premises who are disabled.

The CSDPA 1970 also ensured, for the first time, the appointment of a Minister for Disabled
People. The original appointee, Alf Morris, was vociferous in his views on the importance of
advancing access for disabled people:

We must all insist that it is an affront to civilised values, in a country claiming to respect
human rights, for a citizen with a past or present disability to suffer prejudice, exclu-
sion and both demeaning and hurtful discrimination for no other reason than her or his
disability. It is an utter disgrace that to the restrictions that disability imposes there are
added the gratuitous extra handicaps that attitudinal and physical barriers create. Let no
one imagine that such discrimination is a thing of the past.1

In the years that followed, the changing international climate and growing global support for
human rights drove UK disability activists on to campaign for a yet more robust law. The
Disability Discrimination Act was eventually introduced in 1995.
Activists in the United States had campaigned for legislation that aimed to establish com-
plete prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of disability with a defined timeline for
action. The ADA 1990 followed the 1973 Rehabilitation Act which, as with the initial UK
legislation, had focused primarily on employment issues. Under the ADA, no individual may
be discriminated against on the basis of disability with regard to equal enjoyment of goods and
services in places of public accommodation (including museums). The legislation provides
62 H. J. L. Smith et al.

similar protections against discrimination for disabled people as the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin and other character-
istics illegal.
A perceived key difference between the ADA in the United States and the DDA in the
United Kingdom was the inclusion in the former of ‘titles’ which include technical specifica-
tions for precisely how premises should be made accessible for disabled people. The CSDPA
1970 and the DDA 1995 had kept such specific information outside of the legislation itself,
arguably making the US legislation stronger than that in the UK.

Reasonable adjustment
Closer analysis of the titles of the ADA 1990, however, suggests that they were not quite the
‘sticks’ to drive forward improvements that they had initially been perceived to be. Although
technical detail is contained in the legislation, its use (just as with the code of practice, regula-
tions and recommendations that followed the introduction of the DDA in the UK), is never-
theless built around the concept of ‘reasonable adjustment’.
The term ‘reasonable adjustment’ (also known as ‘reasonable accommodation’) places obli-
gations on employers and service providers to take steps to remove barriers that exclude
or discriminate against disabled people. On the one hand, reasonable adjustment has been
understood to be critical for advancing accessibility for disabled people (Lawson 2008), not
least because it places a duty on service providers to take an active approach to the disman-
tling of barriers to participation. On the other hand, however, it has been criticised for being
too vague and too dependent on wide ranging factors to be a powerful means of enforcing
change.
In 2006, the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds published the findings
from a major research project analysing the legislative structures and technical expressions of
discrimination and disability in the context of the built environment in six European states
(the UK, Malta, Ireland, France, Italy and Sweden) and compared these with approaches in
the United States and Australia. In the report, Simon Prideaux (2006: 38) highlights the inher-
ent weaknesses in the reliance, within UK legislation, on the concept of reasonable adjustment
to effectively tackle discriminatory barriers to access:

Significantly, the use of the provisos ‘reasonable’, ‘practical’ and ‘impractical’ through-
out the majority of UK legislation serves to dilute the true extent of the requirements
laid down by the DDA. Numerous permutations merge together so that businesses
are relieved of the obligation to make substantial improvement to both their services
and their properties. Alterations may be deemed to be ineffective, too costly or too
disruptive.

The report raises similar concerns in relation to US legislation alongside a discussion of the
practical challenges associated with enforcing compliance with the ADA (ibid.).
For many disabled people, the concept of ‘reasonable adjustment’ and the degree of flex-
ibility it affords to organisations has permitted too many public service providers and employ-
ers to sidestep their duty to dismantle barriers to access and participation. Disabled people
remain poorly consulted on improvements and temporary, ill-thought-through (and often
ineffective) attempts to overcome poor access are often introduced in place of long-term
 Beyond compliance? 63

solutions. Organisations can tend to view reasonable adjustments in terms of the minimum
changes that will ensure legal compliance, demonstrating limited understanding of (or com-
mitment to) the moral imperatives that underpin the legislation.
Given the limitations of legislative responses to discrimination, what else might be done to
promote equal access for disabled people? In this next section, we turn to the museum con-
text to consider the progress made against the backdrop of anti-discrimination legislation in
the United States and UK and, more particularly, to consider what other strategies might be
pursued to develop more effective and sustainable solutions to equal access.

Progress in cultural organisations

Janice Majewski and Lonnie Bunch (1998) describe three distinct tiers of access that museums
should address to meet the needs of disabled visitors; access to the physical environment, access
to content, and access to history and culture. Their analysis offers a productive way for reviewing
the progress that museums have made towards greater access and helps to highlight ways in
which further gains might be secured.
The first tier they identify concerns provision of access to the physical environment of
the museum, enabling disabled visitors to enter the building and move freely around it. It is
this area which cultural organisations have tended to focus most attention on, in part because
physical barriers (and the solutions developed to address them, such as ramps and handrails) are
more readily visible and more widely understood than other means of exclusion. This process
of improving physical access in organisations has often begun with the development of poli-
cies and procedures, the identification of objectives as well as a prioritised list of adaptations
which require investment. Policies can help to demonstrate an understanding of the impera-
tives presented by anti-discrimination laws; they can evidence an organisation’s commitment
to the principle of working towards equal access and they can hold staff to account for a
particular way of working. However, words on a page do not, in themselves, effect change.
Moreover, there is a danger that access solutions developed without the full involvement of
disabled people will fail to satisfactorily address the physical barriers faced by visitors with wide
ranging impairments.
The V&A, Museum of Fine Arts and the National Trust, in common with many other
cultural organisations, have developed policies and strategies to promote inclusion and to
clarify the implications of (and obligations posed by) anti-discrimination legislation. The V&A,
which receives funding directly from central government (the Department of Culture Media
and Sport), is required to meet a number of key performance indicators including those which
directly relate to improvements in access and broadening audiences. These performance meas-
ures are identified in the museum’s strategic plan which senior managers are tasked to deliver,
helping to embed a responsibility for access within the organisation. Moreover, a concern for
access is embodied within the museum’s Future Plan, an overarching ten-year redevelopment
scheme designed to open up the V&A to more people, ensuring that all construction and refur-
bishment projects must comply with relevant building regulations and standards. At a more
detailed level, the V&A has implemented a Disability Action Plan to support the museum in
achieving equality in terms of employment, service provision as well as access to premises and
to ensure the consistent availability of support whenever disabled people visit the site.
The second tier Majewski and Bunch (ibid.: 156) identify concerns the provision of access
to content. In exhibitions, they argue;
64 H. J. L. Smith et al.

museums must give consideration to issues that range from label legibility to label text
comprehension; from video captions and audio description to multiple levels of under-
standing and enjoyment of the exhibition’s themes and content. Accessibility to content
means accessibility to the written word, the objects, the media presentations, and the
interactives.

Whilst a number of organisations have made considerable progress towards improving access
to content, many more have consistently overlooked this issue. Marcus Weisen highlights
good practice in gallery refurbishment and re-display at both the British Museum and the
V&A which both consider intellectual access for blind people in every new gallery redevelop-
ment. He further highlights the Cité des Sciences et de L’Industrie in Paris that has commit-
ted to building a level of intellectual access for visually impaired and Deaf people into every
temporary exhibition since 1986. However, Weisen also highlights the highly uneven quality
of practice in this area, citing a list of new, high profile museum developments internationally
that have wholly neglected access for people with sensory impairments (sometimes in spite
of legal duties to promote access). The best intellectual access, he concludes, is developed by
museums that work to develop ‘a living culture of best practice’ (2010: 57), one which goes
beyond a reductive and narrow focus on legal requirements.
Similarly, Catherine Kudlick’s personal account (2005: 78) of her experiences as a visually
impaired person attempting to visit museums and galleries in the United States with a blind
companion, prompts her to reflect on the persistence of multiple barriers to access, the impact
of disability legislation and the need for further change:

Why is it that when America seems eager to open its civic places to the broadest possible
audience, certain public institutions appear so ill-informed about people who require
alternative ways to fully participate? Here we are, at a time when the [Americans with
Disabilities Act] has been in effect for over a decade, people with disabilities have seen
the promise of increased social awareness and powerful technology, and a generation
of people . . . have grown up in large urban centers pouring money into their civic
places. And yet in the early twenty-first century, two people still couldn’t visit this
museum on the spur of the moment or at the very least encounter employees sensitized
enough to treat them with anything but contempt. Why is it that some people view
visitors like us as problems rather than as opportunities to present exhibitions in new
and interesting ways?

There is growing awareness in museums that providing a variety of ways for visitors to access
information can facilitate a range of learning experiences and opportunities as well as improve
access for more people. Indeed, information in large print, Braille or audio, for example, is
increasingly available in the more committed organisations. The Disability Discrimination
Act included audio guides as an example of an ‘auxiliary aid’ which might be considered
‘reasonable’ to provide so it is perhaps not surprising that this provision is more prevalent
than others. For people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, the availability of induction loops
at reception desks, in cafés and in shops is also increasing. However, these types of interven-
tion do not meet all the needs of people with wide ranging hearing or sight impairments and
a wider variety of interpretation options would significantly improve the visitor experience
for more people.
 Beyond compliance? 65

Whilst the V&A, MFA and the National Trust offer interpretation in many of these stand-
ard ‘alternative’ formats there have also been attempts to develop more creative approaches to
access that begin to challenge the accustomed boundaries of ‘reasonable adjustment’. At the
MFA, for example, a commitment to making its programmes accessible to disabled visitors has
included increasing provisions for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing and increasing the
availability of audio interpretation for blind and partially sighted people. New technologies
have supported experimentation with FM assistive-listening devices available for events and
drop-in guided tours as well as the introduction of an iPod touch guide, with multiple acces-
sible features. These facilities are offered free for Deaf, blind and partially sighted visitors. Key
to the MFA’s approach is providing choice, and consequently the Museum is looking at new
ways to support visitors with disabilities who may need additional assistance once they get to
the Museum. Similarly, the V&A has improved provision of its talks programme for people
with sight or hearing impairments (Figure 4. 1 and 4.2) and devised a workshop programme
specifically tailored for the needs of mental health service users. Scanning pens are available
to convert text into speech. At the National Trust, some sites are now training their staff
and volunteers in audio descriptive skills to support blind and partially sighted visitors and to
improve the experience for visitors generally. Some properties are trialling assistive listening
devices during their guided tours to further enhance accessibility.
The third tier of access that Majewski and Bunch highlight concerns the representation
of disabled people and the inclusion of disability-related narratives and interpretation within
exhibitions. This, they argue, has been almost entirely overlooked. Whilst recent years have
seen an increase in experimentation in this area,2 many organisations (even those with an
established track record in developing exhibitions exploring issues related to other minority
and excluded groups) continue to neglect the stories, lives and experiences of disabled peo-
ple. Many museum staff remain anxious about this area of work and unsure how to proceed
although recent initiatives have highlighted the significance of collaborative and participatory
practices that can ensure disabled people are empowered to play a leading role in presenting
their own histories and experiences (Dodd et al. 2008). Much more needs to be done to ensure
that exhibitions, displays and events that include the experiences of disabled people become
an established feature of cultural organisations’ programmes.

Moving forward
How then might access and equality for disabled people – at all of the tiers proposed by
Majewski and Bunch – be advanced within cultural organisations to become an embedded
feature of good practice? In this last section, we focus two critical issues; the internal arrange-
ments within organisations and the relationships that museums, galleries and heritage organisa-
tions can build with external communities.

Staffing structures and responsibilities

As cultural organisations face difficult financial times and the need to achieve more with fewer
resources, there is a danger that specialist expertise in the field of access is lost. As organisa-
tions accrue greater experience in enhancing access and recognise the value of making this
work part of everyone’s responsibility, there may be a temptation to move away from a
model which relies on specialist individuals or units to both manage legal compliance and to
FIGURE 4.1 British Sign Language (BSL) Tour; Programmes for deaf and hard of hearing visitors. V&A Museum. With
permission of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
 Beyond compliance? 67

FIGURE 4.2 Touch Tour; Programmes for blind and partially-sighted visitors. V&A Museum.
With permission of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
68 H. J. L. Smith et al.

drive forward more creative approaches to equality. Indeed, in recent months we have seen
a number of organisations in both the UK and United States make cuts along these lines. It
is perhaps unsurprising, given our own professional backgrounds and responsibilities, that we
would argue that there is a continuing need for staff with specialist expertise but our experi-
ences of initiating change, nurturing shared values and embedding a commitment to greater
access for disabled people within our own large organisations attests to the importance of
these roles.
Whilst a truly inclusive and accessible organisation requires the commitment and input of
staff in all areas and at all levels, policies and procedures do not write themselves and, to be
effective, they rely on in-depth knowledge of the needs of audiences, as well as the require-
ments of the law. In our own organisations, strategies to coordinate responses to legislation
and enhance awareness of the value and significance of broadening access per se have been
driven forward by individuals with particular responsibility for this.
Following on from the use of external access consultants on specific new gallery devel-
opments, the V&A appointed its first Disability and Access Officer in 2002 to guide the
museum through the implications of the DDA. This appointment provided opportunities to
work more broadly across the museum (rather than confining activity to specific projects); to
develop a Disability Action Plan; and to build relationships between the museum and a range
of external disability organisations. The postholder chairs an Access Group where representa-
tives from leading disability organisations provide guidance and advice on best practice and
how this can be utilised by the museum. There is also a Staff Disability Forum, where V&A
staff can get involved in the development of policy and practices which will provide a more
inclusive environment and service to disabled people. The forum is also used to consult with
disabled employees on their experience of working for the organisation.
The National Trust developed a post in the early 1990s when the DDA was being devel-
oped but before the act was passed. This post grew out of increasing awareness within the
Trust that access provision at the historic properties that the Trust cares for was insufficient
to meet the needs of diverse audiences. As well as leading on new initiatives, the postholder
(originally titled Access for All Adviser) was able to make connections with disability organisa-
tions and local access groups and, in doing so, support individual sites to increase their capacity
for trying new ideas. Crucially, sites were supported and encouraged to involve disabled visi-
tors in developing ideas for enhancing access. The Trust is divided into a number of regions
across England, Wales and Northern Ireland and each area has a member of staff who works
with the Equality Specialist at a national level, to develop improvements to individual sites.
Some sites have taken this a step further and asked a member of their staff or volunteer teams
to take a lead role in co-ordinating their own access initiatives. These initiatives have proved
to be an effective way of increasing ownership of (and commitment to) the accessibility
agenda at a local level.
At the MFA, the specialist access post was created well before the introduction of the ADA
and has been a part of the organisation for around 30 years. As such, it is the longest standing
post from the three organisations discussed here. Although the position has had different titles
over the past three decades, it has remained an integral part of the MFA. The post reflects the
organisation’s long-standing aspiration to become a truly accessible organisation in every facet
of its activity, with all departments sharing responsibility for achieving this goal. While the
MFA’s initial commitment to accessibility predates the ADA, the legislation has clearly played
a role in moving the organisation forward. In order to become a museum that welcomes
 Beyond compliance? 69

people of all abilities, the MFA has needed to expand the number of people within the organi-
sation that are thinking about access. This has not happened through increased hours or new
positions, but rather through a broader acknowledgement of where accessibility intersects
with existing responsibilities; a broader range of staff have been encouraged and supported to
take responsibility for increased accessibility within their own work. Frontline staff training
has also become a priority, with recognition that policies and practices behind the scenes are
wholly undermined if someone is treated inappropriately at the front door.

Dialogue and collaboration

Having specialist staff with expertise in the field of access has enabled many museums, galler-
ies and heritage bodies (including our own) to nurture an organisation-wide commitment to
greater equality of opportunity for all visitors; to facilitate the involvement of disabled people
in decision-making processes; and to push the boundaries of ‘reasonable adjustment’ beyond
a narrow and reductive focus on the details of specific legal requirements. Anti-discrimination
legislation has been an important driver for change, although those changes have been largely
technical in nature – the introduction of access solutions (ramps, handrails, audio guides and so
on). These changes are hugely significant – they permit a greater range of people the oppor-
tunity to participate in cultural activities – but they do not, in themselves, deliver full equality
of opportunity for disabled people. More effective and sustained change, we would argue,
requires a change in organisational culture and individual behaviours and practices to ensure
all staff can develop a genuine understanding of the moral (as well as legal) responsibilities to
enhance access for all. In our experience, this step-change can only be achieved by opening up
dialogue between the institutions and the communities and audiences they aim to serve. This
process of dialogue and engagement nurtures respect for everyone’s life experiences and his-
tories and creates opportunities to share these with others. Working with and engaging people
with lived experience of discrimination breaks down the barriers that lack of knowledge and
understanding can create.
In our own professional experience, the most effective and transformative of initiatives
have come about through co-creative practice (Govier 2009) – when disabled people have
been actively involved in working with staff to identify and dismantle barriers to participation.
In the National Trust, for example, there has been increasing emphasis on working closely
with local communities. As a result of growing recognition amongst senior managers that
there is more work to be done to broaden the Trust’s appeal, a new strategy was launched
in 2010, to improve the knowledge of the work of the Trust amongst diverse constituencies
and to encourage more people to get involved with our activities. When individual sites and
properties have taken this collaborative approach with local groups of disabled people, there
has been a marked difference not only in the quality of provision for disabled visitors but in
the depth of understanding amongst Trust staff of what disabled people expect and want from
cultural organisations.

Conclusion
It is our view that the achievement of equality of access for disabled people in museums should
not be reduced to a response to legal imperatives. If, as many professionals increasingly claim,
museums are important because they promote understanding and respect between diverse
70 H. J. L. Smith et al.

communities then, we would argue, they are well placed to embed a commitment to acces-
sibility and inclusion for disabled people at their core, playing a leading role in identifying
and dismantling physical, intellectual and emotional barriers to culture. Creative responses to
ensuring full access for all visitors and developing a nuanced understanding of the political and
social significance of disability representation, history and culture should come naturally to
organisations that claim a unique role in helping visitors understand their place in the world
around them.
A legal mandate can be used to convince sceptics of the need for change but, in the end,
legislation alone is not enough to foster the comprehensive and sustained change in thinking
and practice that is needed in most cultural institutions. Working collaboratively and on an
equal footing with disabled people is crucial to helping practitioners approach accessibility in
the same creative and knowledgeable way that they tackle other aspects of their work. Estab-
lishing honest dialogue and exploring the potential of this co-creative practice can potentially
transform an organisation – and the experiences it offers to visitors.

Notes
1 These comments were made during a debate in the House of Commons, Friday 26 February 1993,
following the presentation by Alf Morris MP of a petition ‘urging this House to make unjustifiable
discrimination against people with actual or perceived disabilities unlawful’. The full text is avail-
able online: www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199293/cmhansrd/1993-02-26/Debate-2.html
(accessed 13 September 2011).
2 See, for example, Sandell et al. (2010) which discusses examples of newly developed approaches to
re-presenting disability history and culture from countries including Taiwan, Zambia, Canada, the
UK, United States and Norway.

References
Barnes, C., Mercer, G. and Shakespeare, T. (1999) Exploring Disability: A Sociological Introduction, Cam-
bridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Dodd, J., Sandell, R., Jolly, D. and Jones, C. (2008) Rethinking Disability Representation in Museums and
Galleries, Leicester: Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, University of Leicester.
Gartner, A. and Joe, T. (eds) (1987) Images of the Disabled, Disabling Images, New York: Praeger.
Govier, L. (2009) Leaders in Co-creation? Why and How Museums could Develop their Co-creative Practice
with the Public, Building on Ideas from the Performing Arts and Other Non-museum Organisations, Leices-
ter: RCMG. Online. Available at: www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/rcmg/publications
(accessed 15 September 2011).
Hevey, D. (1992) The Creatures That Time Forgot: Photography and Disability Imagery, London:
Routledge.
Kudlick, C. J. (2005) ‘The Local History Museum, So Near and yet so Far’, The Public Historian, 27(2):
75–81.
Lawson, A. (2008) Disability and Equality Law in Britain: The Role of Reasonable Adjustment, Oxford and
Portland: Hart Publishing.
Majewski, J. and Bunch, L. (1998) ‘The Expanding Definition of Diversity: Accessibility and Disability
Culture Issues in Museum Exhibitions’, Curator, 41(3): 153–161.
Oliver, M. (1996) Understanding Disability: From Theory to Practice, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Prideaux, S. (2006) Good Practice for Providing Reasonable Access to the Physical Built Environment for Disabled
People, Leeds: The Disability Press.
Sandell, R., Dodd, J. and Garland-Thomson, R. (eds) (2010) Re-Presenting Disability, Activism and Agency
in the Museum, London and New York: Routledge.
 Beyond compliance? 71

Weisen, M. (2010) ‘Disability Discrimination in Museums is Systemic – the Case for National Strate-
gic Approaches in the UK and Worldwide’, in Papers and Notes from The Margins to the Core, Sackler
Conference for Arts Education, London: Victoria and Albert Museum. Online. Available at: http://
media.vam.ac.uk/media/documents/conferences/2010/margins-to-the-core/v&a-fromthemargin-
stothecore-compiledpapers&notes.pdf (accessed 15 September 2011).
5
MUSEUMS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
Managing organisational change

David Fleming

Creating a cultural organisation that avoids appealing only to a narrow elite is a major task,
one that can take years to complete. There are many pitfalls and a host of pressures that mili-
tate against achieving this. Museums, in particular, are often passive and insular by nature,
and frequently they are hidebound by regressive practices and attitudes that prevent them
from fulfilling an active role in society. In this chapter I will explore how museums can work
to remove obstacles that stand in the way of becoming more inclusive, focusing on such
issues as leadership, mission and vision, governance, organisational personality, staff structures,
finances, programming and promotion.
I will draw principally upon my experiences as a museum director over the past twenty
years in both Tyne and Wear and Liverpool – two areas in the UK that suffer multiple socio-
economic deprivation – and contextualise my arguments, where appropriate, by drawing on
examples of museums around the world. In seeking to create museums that work for social
justice I have encountered prejudice, ignorance, hostility and wilful opposition and, at the
same time, I have also had the benefit of working with supportive colleagues, politicians, trus-
tees, civil servants and others. At the present time in National Museums Liverpool (NML),
just as we are confronted by a massive, damaging squeeze on public finances, we are showing
what can be achieved over a period of time. We are an organisation that has sloughed off
many practices and attitudes that prevented us from moving forwards in a way that includes
rather than excludes; that hindered us in responding to public need in return for our public
funding; that put us at risk of irrelevance and indifference. I intend to analyse how we have
achieved this.
The notion of a museum being active in seeking to fulfil a social justice agenda remains a
radical one. This is despite the very real progress that has been made in recent years in terms
of the museum profession’s growing acceptance of a number of fundamental principles relat-
ing to our role in society.1 The need to define (or redefine) the museum’s social role lies at
the heart of the management challenge in creating museums that seek to achieve wide rel-
evance and public value. What we have to embed is a corporate commitment to a particular
set of roles; roles that are different from those that museums played for most of the twentieth
century. This demands the engagement of all parts of the organisation, most urgently and
 Museums for social justice 73

critically at leadership and governance levels, where the new commitment can be achieved
fairly rapidly, even if it takes longer to persuade everyone else to sign up. It is these levels that
I shall examine first.

Leadership
Without effective leadership, no museum can hope to change into one that is accessible and
democratic, with a broad appeal and a broad impact (Fleming 2002; Janes 2009).
Happily, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find examples of museum leaders who are
anti-democratic, who abide openly by the traditional code that museums are the preserve of
an educated elite. This kind of attitude tends no longer to be tolerated by politicians who are
intimidated by the vested interests that attach themselves to museums; or even by politicians
who, in their nature, are themselves anti-democratic.
There are still, though, examples in most countries – especially in museums that cater
primarily for a tourist market – where the desire for tourist income can take precedence over
a commitment to social justice. And, there are still museums (most commonly, though not
exclusively, art museums, university museums and national museums) run by people who are
genuine throwbacks to an era when the needs of the public were subordinate to the capri-
ciousness of the museum Director. I have visited a number of different countries around the
world and have found a worrying constant: many younger museum people clearly want to
modernise, but they do not carry the authority to do so, and they believe they are being held
back by their Directors. This tends to be a generational issue and, as time goes by, finding
this kind of ‘dinosaur leadership’ will become more difficult. This, at least, is what we have
to hope.
Leadership, of course, is not solely about Directors. Other members of a museum’s senior
team (and, indeed, colleagues at all levels of the organisation) may have a strong influence on
the museum’s values and principles. I have encountered dysfunctional senior teams where a
commitment to access and democracy was a low priority. Equally, it may be that it is the com-
bined strength of purpose of the senior team that brings about change, reform and modernisa-
tion. This was certainly the case at Tyne & Wear Museums (TWM) where, as the new Assistant
Director in 1990, then the Director from 1991, I was under constant pressure from my senior
staff to ensure that reform was undertaken, and not to be too slow in going about it!
It is also true, however, that sometimes dictatorial behaviour is necessary to instigate the
process of change. Anyone who has studied leadership knows about the advantages (and draw-
backs) of dictatorial or ‘heroic’ leadership on the one hand, and consensual and consultative
leadership on the other (Fleming 1999). My own view is that strong, determined leadership at
the outset of a process of major change in museums is likely to be needed, but once the change
process is under way, then the style of leadership can evolve into something more involving
and consensual. In any event, we should not underestimate the capacity for elements within
the organisation to resist democratisation, and therefore underestimate the need for deter-
mined (perhaps uncompromising) leadership, to ensure change continues and is embedded
into the museum’s thinking and practice.
In circumstances where the museum leadership is in favour of democratising reform, then
it needs to lead by example and behaviour and it needs to articulate the organisation’s role and
purpose very clearly; generally through the device of the Strategic Plan which, in turn, will
carry the museum’s mission and statement of values.
74 D. Fleming

Mission, values, vision

Museum missions, values and visions – important elements of a museum’s make up – play a
critical role where change is being introduced. At both TWM and NML, mission, values and
vision were essential devices not only for helping transmit a new sense of purpose and a new
way of doing things, both internally and externally; but for involving different staff and gov-
erning bodies in the process of re-envisioning the organisations. A great deal of effort in both
of these museum services was expended in drafting, redrafting and refining these documents,
over a period of years. The documents evolved as time passed, as the two museum services
generated bigger and more diverse audiences, thus confirming the legitimacy of what we were
doing, reinforcing our confidence and commitment, and confounding sceptics and critics.
At NML in 2003 (National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside as it was then), managers
described the existing Mission Statement as ‘uninspiring’ and ‘pompous’, among other things
and, crucially, criticised it for being ‘more about things than people’. We have just updated
our mission and values at NML and the latest text, still in draft form, reads:

Our mission
We change lives, and enable millions of people, from all backgrounds, to engage with
our world-class museums.
Our values
• We believe that museums are fundamentally educational in purpose.
• We believe that museums are places for ideas and dialogue that use collections to
inspire people.
• We are a democratic museum service and we believe in the concept of social jus-
tice: we are funded by the whole of the public and in return we strive to provide
an excellent service to the whole of the public.
• We believe in the power of museums to help promote good and active citizenship,
and to act as agents of social change.
• We believe in seeking out new opportunities and innovative ways of working, so
as to keep our public offer fresh, relevant, challenging and competitive.

This text is supported by a Strategy Statement that explores the socio-economic context in
which NML works, pointing out that the Liverpool area is the most deprived in the UK, and
stressing the responsibility of NML to deliver first class museums in order to ‘help mitigate the
social consequences of adverse economic conditions’ (National Museums Liverpool 2011).
This explicit concern to take account of – and act upon – social disadvantage is one which
opponents of democratic reform in museums are appalled by (Appleton 2001).
Importantly, the Strategy Statement should use language that motivates staff and trustees,
and effectively convinces them that our mission and values are both genuine and worthy of
passionate, unconditional support.

Governance
The support of the governors of a museum is essential in managing for social justice; if the
governors waiver, the entire process can be undermined.
 Museums for social justice 75

TWM is a local authority museum service where, in the 1990s, the staff had the growing,
enthusiastic support of our elected councillors, who comprised the TWM Joint Museums
Committee, our governing body. Most of the members of this committee were Labour coun-
cillors, who were politically predisposed towards opportunity for cultural activity being avail-
able to everyone in the local community. As the majority political group, they were the ones
the museum staff had to have onside in our drive to be socially inclusive.
This we had achieved, although when a group of left-wing Newcastle councillors began
to exert influence over our Committee in the mid-1990s, we had to persuade them all over
again of TWM’s commitment to social justice, so ingrained was their belief that the cultural
sector at large was run by elitists who had no interest in the needs or wishes of the majority
of the population. One faction styled itself proudly ‘Philistines for Labour’, and demanded to
be persuaded that museums had any relevance whatsoever in a world full of social tensions,
inequality of opportunity and poverty.
It is worth remembering that, at that time, we had a Conservative-run central government
in England, and one that appeared to have little commitment to social inclusion or social jus-
tice. In TWM, and elsewhere in the local authority museum sector, a socially active strategy
was generated entirely without central government encouragement. Contrary to what some
commentators have written, museums working for social justice predated the election of a
Labour government in 1997.2
This is an important point because, despite the demise of the New Labour movement and
the election of a Conservative-led coalition government, there should be no reason to sup-
pose that those museums with a genuine commitment to social justice will lose motivation,
though they may well lose momentum as budget cuts restrict their capacity to pursue socially
inclusive programming.
The real risk, then, is that museums which have merely been paying lip service to social
justice while the political climate was favourable, will go back to their socially regres-
sive ways, especially when the museum sector is facing the reality of severe budget cuts.
This could be manifested in a number of ways, such as the abandonment of education and
outreach programming; the end of the targeting of excluded and marginalised groups; the
recruitment of trustees and directors with elitist views; or the introduction of prohibi-
tive admission fees. Regrettably, we have already seen some signs of this kind of reaction
amongst UK museums, including the targeted withdrawal of funding for socially progressive
initiatives.
In fact, it was a far simpler task to gain the support of the councillors at TWM than it was
to win over the government-appointed trustees at NML. At TWM we were dealing with
politicians, who behave within certain parameters, depending upon which political party they
belong to. Their views and motivations can, to a degree, be predicted. Trustees, on the other
hand, are individuals who hold a very disparate range of beliefs and do not need to keep to a
‘party line’. They have, usually, no declared political allegiance.
What trustees have in common with local authority councillors is that they will tend to
follow the lead of the chairman of the governing body. Councillors of the chairman’s political
party will follow his or her lead quite slavishly, because that’s how politics works; councillors
from a different political party may or may not take their cue from the chairman, but their
views will in any case usually be predictable, and will conform to their own political ideology.
Trustees, however, have no political ideology to constrain them, and there is far more scope
for individual opinions to be expressed.
76 D. Fleming

At NML, in the early days of my tenure as Director, my priority was to revitalise the
organisation. Notwithstanding the many outstanding successes of my predecessor, Sir Richard
Foster, NML in 2001 was in need of modernisation and refreshment. Audiences were low and
in decline, and were not diverse. We had to recognise this as a major failing, and do something
about it. This meant introducing an enormous raft of changes, including a new mission and
values.
Up to a point, the need for radical change was accepted by the trustees; but only up to a
point. After an initial ‘honeymoon period’ for me as the new Director, there grew a lack of
congruence between senior management and trustees, which went through two phases. The
first phase was when the trustee body that was in place when I became Director seemed to
become nervous about a reform programme. This kind of reaction is not uncommon. While
the trustees had signed up to an explicit programme of reform in appointing me, some indi-
viduals became a little sensitive about the way in which the implementation of reform might
be interpreted as critical of their prior performance. There is, of course, quite a complex psy-
chology in play here but it will be familiar to many people who have introduced reform and
modernisation, in any context.
This nervousness and sensitivity was manifested in a number of ways: one trustee declared
that museums were not primarily educational; there was a reluctance to change the name of
the organisation to something shorter and more motivational; a dismissiveness of (and lack of
enthusiasm for) a new mission and values; a tendency to dilute some of our more passionate
language and to be unhelpfully pedantic; a tardiness in accepting major structural change; a
degree of reverence for other national museums which senior staff found craven and pathetic.
At the point where I was described sarcastically by a senior trustee as having ‘arrived on a
white charger to save NMGM’, I knew that I did not have the full support of the trustee body
in my reform programme. Nonetheless, the programme of reform proceeded, through the
sheer determination of the senior staff, and with the support of some trustees (though not as
quickly as they, or I, would have liked).
The second phase was when relations between senior management and the trustee body,
under a new chairman, deteriorated still further to the point where the senior team openly
discussed how we could best manage the organisation in the face of a trustee body which
exhibited some behaviours which we found intolerable. I have no doubt that underlying the
strained relationship between staff and trustees were fundamental differences over the degree
to which NML should act as an agent for social justice. Some of our trustees (though by no
means all) could not have been less interested in building diverse audiences, and considered
our efforts to popularise the museum service as banal. What they seemed to want instead was
a traditional, elitist museum service that was not relevant to the majority of the population.
One example of this was the reaction of one senior trustee to our Annual Review for 2006/7
(NML 2007) which was illustrated throughout with children’s drawings and comments based
on their museum visits. ‘I’m afraid that I find it embarrassing’ he wrote. ‘We are a national
museum and not a primary school’.
This view contrasted markedly with those of senior members of our staff: ‘it’s a qual-
ity publication that does an excellent job of advocating a lively and increasingly successful
museum service to a varied stakeholder base’; ‘it’s colourful and fun. Including visitor com-
ments, especially ones from children, shows we are providing a service our audience wants
and enjoys’; ‘Its energetic feel and inclusion of diverse views give a strong message about the
organisation I hope we are becoming’.
 Museums for social justice 77

NML staff (and many other people) valued our 2006/7 Annual Review because it rec-
ognised that as an organisation we were increasingly in touch with our audiences. Imagine
our reaction when we discovered that the trustee who disliked it was ‘soliciting disapproval’
from other trustees of the Annual Review – typical behaviour, but a campaign that, happily,
achieved little, and was stopped when other trustees voiced their approval of the Review at
a Board meeting.
Today we have a tremendously supportive chairman and Board. They are every bit as
committed as the staff in pursuing a social justice agenda. This removes any fear of failure,
which is so inhibiting when management is trying to reinvent an organisation. It provides a
source of encouragement and validation, which is what you have to have from your governors
if you are to effect all the actions necessary to bring about sustainable change.

Organisational personality and change

Herein lies the essence of managing a museum for social justice. What has to be created is an
organisational culture, or personality, that actively nourishes the social justice agenda. This
involves a great deal of analysis, some of which can be painful.
At TWM in the 1990s we were acutely aware that we were undergoing personality change,
as we set out to shrug off the trappings of elitism that had given us a poor reputation with local
politicians and press. It was reported to me, not long after I arrived at TWM, that the then
Leader of Newcastle City Council, Jeremy Beecham, had recently said that the best thing to
do with TWM was to ‘put a bomb under it’. This was hardly a ringing endorsement, though
Beecham was to become a strong supporter of TWM, once he had seen that we were capable
of providing a quality service to a wide public.
We knew that we had to raise energy levels, become more extrovert and approachable,
demonstrate our capabilities more clearly, show that we cared about what we did. We tracked
these changes in a series of meetings throughout the decade, at which staff continually ana-
lysed our achievements and compared them with former days. This self-analysis is critically
important in bringing about lasting reform (Janes 2009).
For example, at a staff meeting in September 1996 we considered how we had changed
since 1991, concluding that we were now politically strong, with bigger, broader audiences;
that we enjoyed significant private sector support; that our professional reputation had grown,
that partnership with TWM was now something other organisations sought. We knew that we
had changed, and that underlying this change was a culture that today we would say was based
upon a dedication to social justice, but which then we described as being ‘people-oriented’.
By 1998 staff were saying that TWM needed to be ‘witty’, ‘young’, ‘sexy’, ‘friendly’, ‘car-
ing’, ‘visionary’ and ‘honest’. We had become an organisation that the employees thought of
in personality terms.
At NML between 2001–2, we undertook a series of sessions, involving staff and trustees,
to create a personality profile of the organisation. This did not make happy reading. We con-
cluded that we were:

slow-moving, fragmented, bureaucratic, risk averse, traditional, derivative, old fash-

ioned, paranoid, hierarchical, isolated within Liverpool; with low levels of trust, no
shared vision, divided loyalties, power obsessions, a blame culture, no team culture, an
anti-management culture.
78 D. Fleming

Whereas we wanted to be:

exciting, lively, humorous, welcoming, quirky, daring, colourful, extrovert, eccentric,

wicked, generous, glamorous, risqué, inspirational, beautiful, amazing . . . and popular.

The great thing was that we knew we had problems, and that there was a will to resolve them.
The sobering thing is that not everyone could quite find it within themselves to do anything
about it.
At a ‘visioning workshop’ in February 2003, a group of about 30 senior NML managers
concluded that the organisation was still ‘fragmented, bureaucratic, hypocritical, old fash-
ioned, unfocused, hierarchical, secretive, inflexible, territorial, frustrating, tribal, paranoid and
boring’. We undertook a ‘characterisation’ exercise and imagined that, if NML was a person,
who would we be? The answers gave rise to a great deal of hilarity, but in truth they were
rather alarming. We decided that we were like four people: romance novelist Barbara Cartland
(‘seen better days’); politicians John Major (‘risk averse, comfortable, old fashioned, past his
best’) and Iain Duncan Smith (‘safe and respected, but boring and unambitious’); and, worst
of all, long-standing soap opera character Ken Barlow (‘respectable, principled and educated,
but stuffy and staid, with high ideals that are never realised, and a bit embittered’).
A year later, early in 2004, I wrote a paper for trustees entitled ‘Picking up Speed’. In this
paper I wrote:

One of the hardest things to change in a complex organisation is its culture. What I
found when I came to NML was a culture of rivalry and finger pointing, compliance
and deference, with a bureaucratic overlay which made decision-making and prioritisa-
tion difficult . . . I sense widespread support for our new Aims and Beliefs which, while
imperfect, does a decent job for now of outlining what we need to do – and with what
attitude – in order for us to move onward successfully, i.e. to be a people- and service-
minded organisation rather than an insular and procedurally-minded one. We have
gone some way towards freeing up the collective mindset of NML, enabling us to be
less risk averse and more creative, more confident in sharing information, more relaxed,
easier to engage with.

In a meeting of about 20 senior NML managers in March 2011, we revisited the ‘charac-
terisation’ exercise of seven years earlier. The results were encouraging: instead of being like
Ken Barlow, we perceive ourselves to be like Clint Eastwood (‘a maverick with depth and
longevity, who operates successfully in different spheres’). We also see ourselves as ‘someone
heading in the right direction’ like Shami Chakrabarti (‘strong-willed, raw edged, maturing,
with an increasing profile . . . and a bit annoying’). These newer characterisations are clearly
a big improvement on what we had in 2003, and they indicate a change in attitude at NML.
The risk aversion, lack of ambition, stuffiness and bitterness of 2003 have been replaced by
other attributes, ones that have enabled NML to pursue a social justice agenda. This has led to
audiences diversifying and growing by several hundred percent.
It is worth mentioning here that we have developed other behaviours that have
enabled the pursuit of social justice: we have encouraged respect for all disciplines and func-
tions within NML: there are no elites. We have encouraged supportive management styles.
We have introduced free admission to everything we do. We have integrated ourselves as far
 Museums for social justice 79

as possible with communities and interest groups in and around Liverpool that share our belief
in social justice. We have invested in training and development of staff to help ensure they do
not indulge in discriminatory behaviour. We have shown zero tolerance to behaviour such
as racism, or discrimination against people with disabilities. We have given high priority to
initiatives such as our Refugees and Asylum Seekers project, and to the development of the
International Slavery Museum. To me, these actions and approaches create the right condi-
tions for pursuing a social justice agenda.

Staff structures
I am no great believer in there being a single, ideal organisational structure for museums
– circumstances differ too much for there to be a uniform solution to the age-old problem of
structure – but there are certain constants needed for museums to be able to manage for social
justice, and it is possible to create staff structures to help do this.
At TWM in 1990 and at NML in 2001, there were peculiarities embedded within the staff
structures that helped prevent either museum service from achieving its proper role. In both
services, for example, we needed to channel resources into the education function, to give
that function a prominent place within the structure, and to charge our education staff with
leading on social inclusion and diversity initiatives. In both services we needed to create inclu-
sion-minded marketing, and again to give the function sufficient seniority and encouragement
within our structures to be able operate effectively: at NML in 2001 our marketing staff were
line-managed by an accountant, for example, as part of a mélange of ‘central services’. This
was not a sign that marketing was regarded as a creative, dynamic force within NML, crucial
to the achievement of social justice.
Because of the importance of a varied exhibition programme to cater for the diversity of
demand among the public, both TWM and NML needed an empowered exhibitions func-
tion, free from the crippling bureaucracy that plagues many museums, and which can easily
prevent an alignment of programme and policy. At NML in particular, the bureaucracy sur-
rounding the initiation of exhibitions in 2001 was of mythical proportions.
The point is, there needs to be an organisational mindset which embraces the principle
that meeting public needs and expectations is the core purpose of museums. The way that
museums are structured is a powerful indicator of this mindset. Structures which indicate that
functions such as education, marketing and exhibitions are less important than mainstream
collections management functions are likely to be found only in museums that do not take the
achievement of social justice too seriously.
In 2004, when NML commissioned a report on organisational structures, in order to help
identify what reforms were needed, it became clear that some trustees found the report threat-
ening to the status quo. They became defensive to an almost comical degree. Clearly, in their
minds the organisational structure of NML was representative of a particular way of behaving
that they were reluctant to change.

Finances
Like organisational structures, the organisation and allocation of finances need to reflect pri-
orities. If a museum is determined to work to a social justice agenda, this will almost certainly
mean moving money out of some budget headings in order to increase others. There will
80 D. Fleming

always be resistance to this from staff whose budgets are left diminished. Furthermore, restruc-
turing budgets always carries with it risk, because it means allocating resources to areas of work
that have not yet justified the new investment.
But there is no alternative. Over time, the results will ease the pain, as increasing budgets
for education and community work and marketing results in bigger, more diverse audiences.
Clear policy and determined leadership are required to effect changes like this.

Programming
Programming to achieve social justice is varied and accessible, with the needs of the family
paramount. There must always be room for experimentation and programming for niche
audiences, but managing for social justice means prioritising the needs of the many over the
needs of the few, and it means taking our educational responsibilities very seriously.
Our overriding aim is to communicate, not to confuse. Our core audience is the general
public – not our peers, not art critics, not academics, not politicians, not vested interests. It
takes a certain kind of humility to sign up to this aim, and humility has not always been in
great supply in the museum profession. It is only by implementing a range of programmes and
over a period of time that a museum will be able to make a genuine impact. There is little
value in doing one-off events or one-off projects. Working towards social justice takes time
and effort, which is why it requires commitment, determination and belief.
In TWM a successful project, which formed part of a whole raft of actions at the Laing Art
Gallery that were designed to turn it into a family-friendly institution, was the creation of the
Procter & Gamble’s Children’s Gallery. The launch of this new space had the effect of opening
up the Laing to a whole new generation of young users with their families. A similar impact
was had at NML’s Walker Art Gallery, which we used routinely to describe as a ‘child-free
zone’, but whose audience changed remarkably when we opened Big Art for Little Artists, a
children’s art activity area. A gallery in the new Museum of Liverpool – Little Liverpool – is also
designed to ensure that the very young feel as welcome in the museum as older people.
It does not all have to be about children, of course. At the International Slavery Museum
(ISM) we deal with some extremely serious adult issues, though this has not prevented large
numbers of young people from visiting the Museum. We deal with issues such as human
trafficking, domestic slavery, apartheid, racism and other human rights abuses. This has led
NML into all sorts of uncharted territory for a museum service, including active campaign-
ing against human rights abuses. Recently, we have even opened up a Campaign Zone, to
encourage visitors to take up human rights causes. In many ways, our work at ISM is focussed
entirely upon fighting for social justice, but it has required an approach that has broken many
museum taboos.
We have, through ISM, created an international network of museums that fight for human
rights – the Federation of International Human Rights Museums (FIHRM),3 which has
linked together Holocaust museums, genocide museums and a host of others. Most of these
museums exist to advance social justice, and the creation of a global network serves to validate
the work they do.
This leads me to touch upon the ‘stories or objects’ debate. The point is, the FIHRM net-
work is made up of museums that have real collections. It’s just that they choose to use them
in non-traditional ways, and not rely completely on what they have in their collections. In
so doing, they help break the notion that museums can only, or should only, communicate
 Museums for social justice 81

through their collections – an idea that I find so absurd that I am always amazed whenever I
hear someone making this claim; it is rather like listening to someone insisting that the Earth
is flat.
There are two more notions I want to mention in connection with programming for
social justice. One is that the modern museum is more likely to involve the public in creat-
ing museum content than its traditional predecessor and this is itself a socially inclusive device
that helps bring about social justice. This is, of course, most likely to be found in the social
history museum although there are no valid reasons why co-creative practices cannot help to
transform other kinds of museum too (Govier 2009).
Second is the need for museum content to be in a constant state of change and renewal.
Gone are the days when a museum could relax after a capital programme of works has deliv-
ered new displays that need not change for another generation. The modern museum has
to work much harder to cover more ground, so that it may maximise the opportunities for
attracting a diverse audience.

Research and promotion

The museum has to know its audience – and its target audience – so it can identify needs, and
so that it can make contact. For promotion to be effective, the museum must put serious effort
into learning the socio-economic detail of its catchment area. Market research is terrifically
important; how else would we at NML know that the three most popular newspapers among
our existing visitors are the Daily Mail, the Mirror and the Liverpool Echo? Or that our existing
visitors listen mostly to Radio 4, Radio 2 and Radio Merseyside? Or that National Museums
Liverpool operates in a city which remains the most deprived in the UK. Employment rates,
educational attainment and skills levels are well below the national average; the welfare cost
per capita is the highest in the UK (National Museums Liverpool 2011).
How a museum promotes itself to audiences is a key part of managing for social justice.
This includes the language deployed in press releases and publications, print styles, the placing
of advertising and editorial, an attitude that is respectful towards local media, and sceptical of
much of the national media.

The global sector

There is also, of course, a global dimension to managing for social justice. Many of the wor-
ries that some of us have about museums in the UK remaining socially exclusive are shared
in other countries, some more than others. I have found that in countries like Australia and
New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and some north European countries, there is a
growing awareness of the value of museums as agents for social justice. What is common to all
countries, though, is a grip on the sector held by people who think in traditional terms, whose
energies are devoted to museum process rather than outcomes.
There is growing support for the idea that museums should lend their support to a range
of rights-based social issues (Sandell and Dodd 2010; Chapters 14, 16 and 17, this vol-
ume) and, crucially, there are agencies supporting and encouraging museums to take up a
socially responsible role. One of these is INTERCOM, the ICOM international committee
for management, and another is the Federation of International Human Rights Museums
(FIHRM).
82 D. Fleming

INTERCOM held its annual meeting in 2009 in the Mexican city of Torreon. A gather-
ing of 150 delegates from more than 20 nations, mostly young people working in museums,
decided to make a public declaration about the responsibility of museums to promote human
rights:

INTERCOM Declaration of Museum Responsibility to Promote Human Rights:

INTERCOM believes that it is a fundamental responsibility of museums, wherever
possible, to be active in promoting diversity and human rights, respect and equality for
people of all origins, beliefs and background.
International Committee on Management 2009

This is a remarkable statement that advocates a totally new role for museums, one which not
only brings with it a host of responsibilities, but which flies in the face of the prevailing belief
that museums should remain neutral in their work.
FIHRM is an affiliation of museums from around the world that share a belief that muse-
ums which operate within the sphere of human rights will be more effective if they work
together. There are a surprising number of museums of this type, ranging from small institu-
tions in developing countries to large national museums in Western Europe, North America
and Australasia. At FIHRM’s inaugural conference, held in Liverpool in September 2010, I
stated that:

The Federation will enable museums which deal with sensitive and thought provoking
subjects such as transatlantic slavery, the Holocaust and human rights issues to work
together and share new thinking and initiatives in a supportive environment.
The Federation is about sharing and working together, but it is also about being proac-
tive – looking at the ways institutions challenge contemporary forms of racism, dis-
crimination and human rights abuses. We believe that these issues are best confronted
collectively rather than individually.

In a letter to me concerning the FIHRM conference, the President and CEO of the Canadian
Museum for Human Rights, Stuart Murray, wrote: ‘It is our fervent hope, that when we all
work together, we will, indeed, be agents of change throughout the world – laying a foun-
dation of respect for people everywhere through learning, dialogue and, most importantly,
action’. I think this gets to the core of managing for social justice – it is through collaborative
working that museums will make genuine progress.
I conclude with a brief word about motivation. Working towards social justice is a long-
term commitment; it requires determination and bloody-mindedness. It needs to be driven
by passion, by a belief that everyone deserves equal access to what we do in museums and not
just because government (or anyone else) tells us that this is what we should do, but because
it’s the right thing to do.

Notes
1 See, for example, Janes and Conaty 2005; Sandell 2002; Silverman 2010.
2 For more on this issue, see Fleming (2001) and Sandell (2002).
3 For further information, see www.fihrm.org.
 Museums for social justice 83

References
Appleton, J. (ed.) (2001) Museums for ‘The People’: Conversations in Print, London: Institute of Ideas.
Fleming, D. (1999) ‘Leadership’, in K. Moore (ed.) Management in Museums, London and New Bruns-
wick: Athlone: 93–107.
Fleming, D. (2001) ‘The Politics of Social Inclusion’, in J. Dodd and R. Sandell (eds) Including Museums:
Perspectives on Museums, Galleries and Social Inclusion, Leicester: Research Centre for Museums and
Galleries: 16–19.
Fleming, D. (2002) ‘Positioning the Museum for Social Inclusion’, in R. Sandell (ed.) Museums, Society,
Inequality, London and New York: Routledge: 213–224.
Govier, L. (2009) Leaders in Co-creation? Why and How Museums could Develop their Co-creative Practice
with the Public, Building on Ideas from the Performing Arts and other Non-museum Organisations, Leices-
ter: RCMG. Online. Available at: www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/rcmg/publications
(accessed 15 September 2011).
International Committee on Management (2009) ‘INTERCOM Declaration of Museum Responsibil-
ity to Promote Human Rights’. Online. Available at: www.intercom.museum/TorreonDeclaration.
html (accessed 15 September 2011).
Janes, R. R. (2009) Museums in a Troubled World: Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse?, London and New
York: Routledge.
Janes, R. R. and Conaty, G. T. (eds) (2005) Looking Reality in the Eye: Museums and Social Responsibility,
Calgary: University of Calgary Press/Museums Association of Saskatchewan.
National Museums Liverpool (2007) Annual Review, April 2006–March 2007, Liverpool: National
Museums Liverpool.
National Museums Liverpool (2011) Strategic Plan 2011–15, Liverpool: National Museums Liverpool.
Sandell, R. (2002) ‘Museums and the Combating of Social Inequality: Roles, Responsibilities, Resis-
tance’, in R. Sandell (ed.) Museums, Society, Inequality, London and New York: Routledge: 3–23.
Sandell, R. and Dodd, J. (2010) ‘Activist Practice’, in R. Sandell, J. Dodd and R. Garland-Thomson
(eds) Re-Presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum, London and New York: Routledge:
3–22.
Silverman, L. H. (2010) The Social Work of Museums, London and New York: Routledge.
6
FRED WILSON, GOOD WORK AND
THE PHENOMENON OF FREUD’S
MYSTIC WRITING PAD
Janet Marstine

‘What is the long-term impact of your work on museums?’ This question is asked of Fred
Wilson almost every time he lectures on his museum projects (Wilson 2008). It is a line of
inquiry that suggests audiences recognize that Wilson has introduced significant change to the
museum sector – but they want to know ‘what happens next’.
Wilson is widely known for his installations that challenge assumptions about the dynam-
ics of race, ethnicity, class and gender in museums and in hegemonic culture. His formally
stunning and politically revealing juxtapositions of objects help us to envision a more socially
responsible museum and society. But to address ‘what happens next’, we must also consider
Wilson’s collaborative process during his interventions, for which he typically spends months
on site, familiarizing himself with institutional histories, policies, collections and engaging
with a broad range of personnel. What is the long-term impact of this performative process
on individual staff, departments, institutions and the museum sector more broadly? What role
might artists like Wilson play in supporting institutional change and nurturing a more socially
engaged and responsible museum practice?
This chapter explores the ways in which artists, through the language and practice of insti-
tutional critique, can be powerful drivers for change in the museum. By analyzing data from
interviews1 I have conducted with Wilson and with security staff, educators, docents, prepara-
tors, registrars, designers, curators and directors who worked with the artist on two different
projects, I will examine how Wilson’s collaborations have helped a workforce to embrace new
practices in order to transform the core values of institution. The institutions selected as case
studies – The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College,
in Hanover, New Hampshire – provide an opportunity to explore the impact of Wilson’s work
over time; The Museum: Mixed Metaphors opened at SAM in 1993 and SO MUCH TROUBLE
IN THE WORLD – Believe it or Not! was staged at the Hood in 2005. Together, the case studies
demonstrate the potential of the artist’s voice to offer important ethical insights through which
museum policies and practices concerning social inclusion can be evaluated and revised.
As consummate insiders/outsiders at the museum, artists have the potential to take risks and
function as the museum’s conscience. In analyzing the subversive impact of Wilson’s early,
groundbreaking intervention, Mining the Museum, museum evaluator Randi Korn stated,
 Fred Wilson and good work 85

Wilson ‘was able to do it because he is an artist’ (Yellis 2009: 341). Wilson describes his mode
of institutional critique through exhibition making as the ‘trompe l’oeil of curating’ (Wilson and
Berger 2001: 33); he creates illusions of truth that reveal deeper realities than do appearances
themselves.
Miwon Kwon has argued that these kinds of institutional critique ‘can easily become
extensions of the museum’s own self-promotional apparatus’ (Kwon 2000: 47). But whilst
museums do commission Wilson’s projects to diversify audiences and, in the words of Jen-
nifer González, ‘perhaps to assuage some historical guilt’ (González 2008: 100), this does not
preclude their deeply transformative potential. Wilson engages in what might be described
as a compassionate form of institutional critique; one that shows his love of museums and his
belief in their capacity to change. He argues:

I think there are many curators and, interestingly, more and more directors, who on one
level or another want things to change. There are many curators who know there are
problems in their institutions around race, class, and community. And there are many
museum professionals who, for various reasons, want to bring in a different demo-
graphic to their institution. They want their museums to be more sensitive and inclu-
sive. I’m brought in because there’s a genuine desire to self-reflect and even to change
attitudes and policies.
Wilson and Berger 2001: 34

Wilson’s form of institutional critique undoubtedly serves the museum but I would argue that
this does not constitute a weakness; rather Wilson’s installations help make museums more
ethical in ways that benefit a much broader range of constituencies.

Ethics and good work in the museum

Using the theoretical model of the GoodWork Project at Harvard University, this chapter
explores how Wilson’s process contributes to museum ethics by shaping individual values,
impacting the domain of work and transforming the sector. Most well-known for his 1983
theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner 1983), Howard Gardner is a principal investiga-
tor of the GoodWork Project, along with psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Wil-
liam Damon. Together, they initiated this ambitious undertaking in 1995 to consider how
leaders in diverse professions perform ‘good work’. As Gardner and his associates define it,
ethics is a central component of good work. Through 1,200 interviews in the United States
over a ten-year period with representatives of professions ranging from journalism to genet-
ics to higher education, the project identified three elements that characterize good work:
‘1) It is technically Excellent; 2) It is personally meaningful or Engaging; 3) it is carried out
in an Ethical way’ (GoodWork Project 2010: 5). Whilst the original project did not query
museum professionals, Gardner and Celka Straughn, a former GoodWork researcher, have
subsequently applied their theories to the museum profession (Straughn and Gardner 2011).
Their application of the GoodWork model is a useful tool by which to analyze the long-term
impact of Fred Wilson’s interventions.
The GoodWork Project asserts that good work transpires when four forces align: ‘The
individual beliefs and values of the worker; the domain of work (long standing values of
the profession); the current professional field (comprised of organizations, gatekeepers, etc.);
86 J. Marstine

and the wider societal reward system’ (GoodWork Project 2010: 19). Contextualized for
museums, these forces include, respectively: the value system of an individual staff member;
long-held principles of the sector such as preservation, learning and public good; the particular
museum, professional associations, along with donors and critics; and, finally, current national
and global priorities. What defines good work is continuously negotiated among these arenas
(Straughn and Gardner 2011).
Reflecting these four forces are four elements that shape good work, according to the
Project: ‘Individual standards; cultural controls of a domain (such as mission statements and
strategic plans); social controls (for example, trust and community needs; and external or out-
come controls (or extrinsic benefits)’ (GoodWork Project 2010: 19–22).
According to the model, creating an environment for good work to thrive requires a
strong support system that clearly articulates professional needs and expectations, commu-
nicates effectively to the public the nature of the profession and embraces free expression of
individual values (Gardner 1998: 9). Good work is dependent equally upon a set of core values
such as integrity established by the profession and on the ability to create change (Gardner
2007: 12–13). The project team ascertained that ethical work occurs when:

workers attempt to operate according to the longstanding values of their domain, even
if these values clash with self-interest, and; workers recognize issues of moral complex-
ity, take the time to think them through, seek advice and guidance, and reflect on past
actions and future consequences.
Ibid.: 13

For good work to flourish, typically, all of these forces must be aligned: ‘In alignment, all of
the various interest groups basically call for the same kinds of performance; in contrast, when
a profession is misaligned, the various interest groups emerge as being at cross-purposes with
one another’ (GoodWork Project 2010: 28). The ‘what happens next’ in museums in which
Wilson performs interventions is dependent on these issues of alignment. Wilson recognizes
that the values of the various interest groups that impact museums – individual staff members,
the sector as a whole, particular museums, professional associations and global culture – can
be aligned to address social inclusion. But he also understands that museum practice, steeped
in convention, is often misaligned with these trends. Wilson’s interventions address this mis-
alignment to promote good work (ethical work as the GoodWork Project defines it) and to
embed a concern for diversity and equality at the heart of the institution.
Capturing and assessing the impact of Wilson’s projects is a complex endeavour. Museums
in which he works typically maintain and preserve copious documentation of his finished
projects but little of the all-important process of engagement with staff. The high turnover
rate of staff that museums sustain often amounts to short institutional memory (Updike 1996).
Also, clearly, Wilson is not operating in a vacuum; his projects are among many political,
social and cultural forces that influence museum workers. But whilst there may be many
methodological challenges bound up in analyzing the impact of Wilson’s institutional critique,
there is nevertheless a consensus amongst those with whom he has worked that his projects
have functioned as a catalyst to drive ethics forward. Derrick Cartwright, current director of
the Seattle Art Museum and former director of the Hood when Wilson received his com-
mission there, likened this effect to Freud’s concept of the mystic writing pad (Cartwright
2010), as defined in a 1925 essay. The mystic writing pad is a child’s toy, a wax-covered board
 Fred Wilson and good work 87

over which a thin piece of plastic is laid and upon which one can draw with a sharp instru-
ment. When the plastic sheet is lifted from the surface of the board, the writing disappears,
thus its ‘mystic’ quality. However, a faint trace of the drawing remains on the wax. Freud
saw this process as similar to the way that the psyche itself processes experience into memory.
For Freud, ‘the appearance and disappearance of the writing’ is like ‘the flickering-up and
passing-away of consciousness in the process of perception’ (Freud 1961: 230–231). Though
Wilson’s installations have disappeared, Cartwright sees traces of the artist’s ideas etched deep
in the memory of the institutions where he has worked and the staff that moves on to other
institutions. Barbara Thompson, former Curator of African, Oceanic and Native American
Collections at the Hood, put it this way:

Without sounding too much like a die-hard Wilson devotee, there is not a single project
that I work on that I do not ask myself, ‘how would Fred . . . approach this.’ And while
it is easy for me to think this way, given my collections area (which is full of loaded
and challenging histories), I have seen my colleagues in American and European art do
the same and more often now than ten years ago; we are working together, collaborat-
ing and crossing territories; challenging our tried and true methods for more exciting
avenues. Is this a result of Fred Wilson? Maybe. Is it a result of our changing times and
the breakdown of ivory towers? Yes. Is it a ‘natural’ progression in the development of
museum practice and theory? Probably. In other words, many factors are at play and
Wilson’s work . . . is one of these factors.
Thompson 2010

As Thompson’s comments suggests, the phenomenon of the mystic writing tablet, as applied
to Wilson’s project, implies that some alignment of values and intents at individual, institu-
tional and sectoral level have occurred. Wilson’s institutional critique buoys Thompson’s
individual beliefs as well as values and developments in the museum sector and in society more
broadly, to put theory into practice. To look more deeply at this dynamic between Wilson’s
projects and the good work they inspire we must examine Wilson’s installations, their larger
context and his process for creating the interventions.

The interventions: context and process for good work

Wilson’s projects for SAM and the Hood share certain core values that impact how good
work might be done there. Both are situated in institutions with encyclopedic art collections
and offer new solutions to the problems of exclusivity, hierarchy and canonicity endemic to
the art museum. Both challenge the injustices of racial prejudice in a mode that is simultane-
ously serious and ironic but Wilson’s larger aim at SAM and the Hood is to encourage viewers
to think critically about visual perception. He explains:

I produce projects around the issue of race when the issue jumps out at me. I don’t go
looking for it. If it is not there, as in some foreign or culturally specific museums, other
issues rise to the surface, such as ecological issues, sexual and cultural difference, gender,
class, politics, and even aesthetics. The underlying connection between all the works is
my interest in perception.
Wilson and Berger 2001: 34
88 J. Marstine

Wilson links visual perception in museums to discrimination in a way that taps into his own
personal experience with racism. He recounts:

As a child, I felt misunderstood in all the contexts, outside the family, that I was in. Peo-
ple would see me and make up their own minds about who I was based on what I looked
like. They created a history for me, based solely on my appearance. I relate this to muse-
ums. They are the ultimate environment where people mark objects and make up stories
about them in their own minds, based on how they look. Art museums particularly
privilege the visual above all else. The fact that an object has or had a use is secondary to
how it looks, even if the visual tells you next to nothing about its intrinsic nature.
Ibid.: 37

To that effect, Wilson’s projects at SAM and the Hood are never reductive or rooted in binary
oppositions. He uses juxtaposition as a tool to open up a line of questioning for viewers. He
remarks, ‘If I have two images or objects side by side, a third thought is revealed. It . . . allows
the viewer to enter my thinking a bit, but come up with conclusions for themselves, as well’
(Wilson and Appiah 2006: 9). This eliciting of critical thinking is what led the De Young
Museum director, Harry Parker, to declare, after working with the artist, ‘Once you see one
of his shows you have some Fred Wilson in you’ (Newkirk 2000: 159).
Both Mixed Metaphors and SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE WORLD were commissioned
at auspicious moments when SAM and the Hood were looking introspectively into their past
and future. The Seattle Art Museum invited Wilson to do a project in the first few months
after its new downtown building by Venturi and Rausch had opened. The Hood asked him to
create an installation to mark the twentieth anniversary of its Charles Moore building. In both
cases, the curators who conceived the idea of the commission understood that Wilson’s brand
of institutional critique offered an opportunity to do more than celebrate; it instead opened a
pathway to assess practice and to respond to new conversations in the sector about diversity
and equity. As Hood Associate Director Juliette Bianco remarked:

We spent quite some time thinking about how we wanted to present ourselves on
the occasion of our museum building’s twentieth anniversary . . . While it was a year
for celebration, we did not want it to be purely ‘show and tell’. And that led us to the
idea of Fred Wilson . . . We thought that the opportunity to have Fred interrogate our
collections, present them in a new light, and perhaps critique the institution and our
museological practices, would be a more meaningful way to launch the future.
Bianco 2009

Bianco’s sentiments represent the motivation of individuals and institutions working with
Wilson to align theory and practice in order to have good work flourish.
Wilson’s projects respond not only to internal factors but also to external trends, par-
ticularly those highlighted by post-colonial theory and the call for social inclusion emerging
from critical museum studies and related fields and, from a larger perspective, diversifying
populations and developing globalism. The American Association of Museum’s 1992 report,
Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimensions of Museums (American Association of
Museums 1992), which called for museums to become more responsive to diverse communi-
ties, encapsulates an alignment between the principles of professional associations and national
 Fred Wilson and good work 89

and global priorities towards the kind of good work that Wilson aims to inspire. Wilson refers
to his underlying themes as ‘unspoken, not unknown, things’ (Wilson and Berger 2001: 38).
In both commissions, Wilson and the museum came together to address a situation in which
the environment was changing more rapidly than the cultural institutions within it. Thus,
among many staff members, there was an urgency to create change that aligned with the goals
of Wilson and of these interest groups.
Wilson’s gentle and insightful demeanor facilitated an atmosphere of trust between artist
and staff; as Phil Stoiber, Associate Registrar at SAM, described, ‘Fred’s legacy was modeling
trust, diplomacy, integrity and discretion and the importance of language and communication
to take us through difficult issues’ (Stoiber 2009). This was intentional on Wilson’s part; ‘My
projects are only as good as the relationships I build’, he stated (Wilson and Berger 2001: 34).
Wilson’s non-hierarchical approach to interventions at SAM and the Hood created a climate
in which all staff members had a voice in the project – again, helping to shape an alignment to
make good work happen. Central to Wilson’s working process is that he not only challenges
the ‘high-low’ hierarchies of museum objects, he also questions the traditional organizational
hierarchies of museum employment. Patterson Sims, former Associate Director for Art and
Exhibitions and Curator of Modern Art at SAM, described Wilson’s approach to staff:

He was no less interested in the security staff’s ideas than in the curators’, no less curious
about the responses of the development department than the docents. He was a master
of role-switching, of letting the guard be the docent, of having the artist give the gal-
lery lecture, and having his own functions encompass those of curator and exhibition
designer.
Sims 1993: 10–11

At Seattle, Wilson arranged for security to give public tours of the exhibition; at the Hood the
preparators and exhibition designer became ipso facto co-curators as he solicited their advice on
juxtapositions, Wilson’s all-important language for deconstructing power relationships.

The Seattle Art Museum/The Museum: Mixed Metaphors

Still, the institutions have significant differences that shaped the dynamic of alignment in each
project. The Seattle Art Museum, founded in 1931, is a large public institution in which new-
moneyed elite and progressive thinking built collections with strengths in non-western and
contemporary art. Its mission statement at the time of Wilson’s tenure there stated: ‘Forward-
looking and ambitious, the Seattle Art Museum is dedicated to engaging a broad public in
an open dialogue about the visual arts by collecting, preserving, presenting and interpreting
works of art of the highest quality’.2 But whilst this relatively young institution had no ‘big
secrets’ to be unearthed and professed a commitment to access, it nevertheless maintained
conventional museological practices about canonicity and authority that became the focus of
Wilson’s attention.
This focus on hierarchy of collections provoked a young and somewhat angry Fred Wil-
son, as he later described himself, to declare in a 1994 interview, ‘This museum, like the
Metropolitan, and all museums that have general collections of art from around the world,
have all jumped into saying they’re multicultural. And to me, they’re about as multicultural
as the British Empire’ (Wilson and Buskirk 2009: 352). A lack of transparency in the way the
90 J. Marstine

museum displayed and interpreted artworks prompted Wilson to assert, ‘Museums are not
static institutions, they only seem to be. Their display techniques and vague labeling delib-
erately mask the changes that represent a society in flux’ (Wilson 1996). At Seattle exposing
these museological conventions became his pedagogical imperative.
As one of Wilson’s earliest museum interventions, the Seattle installation was cause for con-
sternation among some staff members. Then Museum Director, Jay Gates, asserted, ‘Making
connections between different cultures and breaking down resistance to accepted hierarchies
and reinterpretation proved challenging to some of us’ (Gates 1993: 1). Gates was referring not
only to his employees but also to himself. In a 2009 interview, he candidly admitted that, sixteen
years before, he did not fully grasp the implications of Wilson’s interventions for museums. In
1993, when Wilson was in residence at SAM, Gates was concerned that Wilson was messing
with the new building and with its state-of-the-art details such as expensive mounts to protect
against potential seismic activity, for which the director had worked so hard to raise funds. Rod
Slemmons, SAM Associate Curator of Photography and Prints at the time, stated, ‘Some of what
Fred did was not particularly appreciated or even condoned by a few of our trustees and staff
members. But the good news is that it was tolerated’ (Slemmons 1993: 44). At a time when Wil-
son’s approach was still so new, tolerance towards his experimentation was, in itself, an attitude
suggesting a degree of alignment; the consensus even among those with reservations was that
Wilson’s agenda would inevitably gather momentum.
SAM commissioned Wilson to integrate his project within the existing permanent collec-
tion displays. Though tags labeled ‘MM’ (for Mixed Metaphors) and a map of Wilson’s work
helped guide audiences through the intervention, viewers really had to look hard to discern
which elements of an exhibit were Wilson’s work and how their interjection transformed the
meanings of the objects around it and the museum itself. A strong element of surprise facili-
tated critical engagement and a self-reflective understanding of perception, for Wilson the key
to combating prejudice.
Support of Mixed Metaphors through the Anne Gerber Fund freed Wilson to make the
political statement he saw fit. Gerber was a community activist who had fought to end segre-
gated housing in Seattle, championed the American Civil Liberties Union and took the initia-
tive to repatriate First Nations materials from her personal art collections (Bouchegnies 2000).
Gerber established the Fund at SAM to support ‘risk taking art that would normally not get
funded’ and her sense of purpose aligned effectively with Wilson’s (Farr 2005).

The Hood Museum of Art/SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE WORLD – Believe it or

Not!
At Dartmouth, which began collecting as early as 1772, the Hood boasts holdings of 65,000
works, twice the size of SAM’s, in a more intimate and elitist setting. Its mission when Wilson
was in residence there (and now) centers on object-based learning. It aims ‘to inspire, educate,
and collaborate with our academic and broader communities about creativity and imagination
through a direct engagement with works of art of historic and cultural significance by making
effective use of our collections and staff’ (Hood Museum of Art, Statement of Purpose). Hav-
ing had the benefit of more than a decade of sector-wide conversations on access and equity,
staff members at the Hood were fully committed to collaborating with Wilson despite, or
perhaps because of, Dartmouth’s long history of exclusivity. In the proposal for SO MUCH
TROUBLE IN THE WORLD, curator Barbara Thompson wrote:
 Fred Wilson and good work 91

It would be the first [Fred Wilson installation] at an Ivy League institution and would
therefore reveal not just the nature of the Hood Museum of Art but would define also
broader issues and problems associated with Ivy League and similar traditionally elitist
institutions that take pride in their historical longevity, the conservation of their heritage
(whose traditions are they conserving? Wilson would surely ask) and in their intellectual
excellence (at whose cost/exclusion, he would continue). As a doubly charged ‘elitist’
institution (Ivy League and an art museum), the Hood Museum of Art would surely
provide an especially rich source for Wilson’s scrutiny and representation.
Thompson 2005

According to Brian Kennedy, director of the Hood from 2005 to 2010, Wilson was the first
African-American artist to do a major project at the museum (Kennedy 2009).
Wilson used the Hood’s temporary exhibition space which he transformed to produce
emotionally saturating environments that comment upon racial tensions in the collections
and the college. In the process he introduced a personal voice common to his more recent
projects, in this case lamenting the trauma of war and violence. Despite the differences in
focus and approach, Wilson’s projects for Seattle and Dartmouth are equally concerned with
issues of diversity and equity.

The interventions: products of good work

At Seattle, The Museum: Mixed Metaphors, as the title suggests, is a refutation of the fetishism
of quality and a means to embrace new conversations among objects, cultures and peoples.
Wilson stated:

While general art museums house and interpret collections from around the globe, I
find the interpretation rather narrowly focused on meanings that support a Western
view of relationships between cultures. I view museums as mixed metaphors and my
installation [as] another way to mix them up.
Wilson 1996

One of his most politically significant sites for these new conversations at SAM was among
the African and Egyptian collections which he juxtaposed to make pertinent connections. For
example, in the ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian gallery, he displayed Somali, Turkana,
Pokot and Tellum wooden headrests radiating around an Egyptian Old Kingdom alabaster
example. Relating to this juxtaposition that was concerned with reclaiming Egypt’s African
identity, Wilson (ibid.) asserted:

Egypt is now and always was on the continent of Africa. Museums have a hard time
placing it in Africa when organizing permanent exhibitions or arranging floor plans. For
museums, Egypt in ancient times was afloat somewhere in the Mediterranean until it
attached itself to North Africa sometime in the nineteenth century.

In the African galleries, Wilson injected elements of contemporary culture into the groupings,
adding objects of little monetary value when it fit his needs. For instance, he inserted a grey
flannel business suit alongside examples of traditional African robes intended to demonstrate
92 J. Marstine

how dress communicates rank. Television monitors with videos of contemporary African
music and soap operas further interrupted associations of Africa with a dead past, as did a
knock-off Rolex watch, borrowed from the director of SAM security, in a display of gold
weights nearby (Plate 6.1). Examples of African architecture, including photographs of a ten-
nis court in Lagos, Nigeria; a tree-lined street in Abidjan, Ivory Coast; a major monument in
Lomé, Togo; and a model of an international-style project by a Nigerian architect, had some
viewers insisting the buildings must be from downtown Seattle or Los Angeles (Sims 1993:
34). A pseudo-taxonomic explanatory panel including an illustration with numerical codes
and an associated list of works, recalled the utter absurdity of conventional taxonomies in
archeological and natural history exhibits.
Wilson mimicked installation techniques commonly used for the display of indigenous
culture in the early twentieth-century Euro-American galleries. On jungle dark blue-green
walls (the same colour as those in the African galleries), Wilson piled early modernist works,
one on top of the other, without the requisite space usually accorded to these objects to create
the so-called ‘transformative’ or liminal experience (Staniszewski 1998). As Wilson described
it, this installation:

was perhaps the most disturbing to visitors, or the most engaging . . . While the cluster-
ing created a visually exciting and frenetic arrangement no one work could be seen by
itself. The individual works seemed to be struggling to breathe. When viewers asked
what the reason for this was, it had to be explained by museum staff that this is the way
African and Native American collections were displayed on the floor below.
Wilson 1996

At Dartmouth, Wilson helped staff to ‘change the habits of the place and make it less risk
averse’, in the words of former director Derrick Cartwright (Cartwright 2010). The first part
of the title, SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE WORLD, comes from a Bob Marley song
which spoke to Wilson of both recent and past political violence and injustice:

When I first came up with the ‘SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE WORLD’ title, the
(July 2005) bombings in London had just happened. So they were on my mind and just
pulled for me the experience of September 11, my experience with bombings when
I was in Egypt, and a coup in Nigeria when I was there, and then my own childhood
experiences with racism.
Wilson et al. 2006: 49

The second part of the title, Believe it or Not!, refers to Robert Ripley who, through a Dart-
mouth connection, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the college when he donated
over 100 objects from his collection of curiosities. Wilson chose not to exhibit anything from
Ripley’s collection except a sign and some photographs as he did not want to perpetuate Rip-
ley’s concept of exploitation for spectacle, as seen in the Ripley’s Believe it or Not! franchises.
But he found useful the tension between truth and fiction brought by introducing Ripley as
a concept into the museum. He explained:

I was really interested in the relationship between real museum and pseudo-museums
like Ripley’s . . . If you look back over time often museums begin to look like Ripley’s
 Fred Wilson and good work 93

Believe it or Not! Although they may be using the best [methods] at that time, they may
have biases and misinformation that they are not aware of.
Thompson 2006: 14

Together the two parts of Wilson’s title blur the boundaries between the real and the fictive.
They convey a sense of incredulity towards both the museological conventions that construct
and reinforce hegemonic power and the horrors of war that this hegemony produce.
Through a display of portraits representing Daniel Webster, Wilson hoped to expose for
staff and visitors the limiting and patriarchal nature of Dartmouth’s collecting habits (Plate
6.2). When Wilson was exploring the Hood’s collections he was surprised to find over a
hundred images of Webster, the nineteenth-century American orator, lawyer, statesman and
Dartmouth graduate. Webster was beloved (and his portraits collected) by Dartmouth alumni
not only because he was a prominent abolitionist but also as he argued successfully before
the Supreme Court in 1818–19 the college’s right to remain a private institution. Wilson,
however, was troubled by Webster’s support of the Compromise of 1850 which supported
stronger legal avenues for the recovery of fugitive slaves in order to pacify southern states to
prevent secession; as Secretary of State from 1850 to 1852, Webster had to oversee enforce-
ment of the Fugitive Slave Act (ibid.: 16). Wilson’s installation problematizes Webster’s image
by displaying over fifty portraits, salon style, in a small area, not unlike his display of early
modernism at SAM. Music from the Mbuti people of the Democratic Republic of Congo
played in the background in a strategy similar to that of his installation of post-war art at Seattle
with its soundtrack of African percussion.
As Wilson gently parodies the legacy of Daniel Webster and his unexamined treatment in
the hands of the Museum, he questions how Dartmouth has appropriated Webster imagery
to ennoble their own cause. He also asks what is missing from Dartmouth’s historical narra-
tive through a sole row of portraits above the Webster display depicting people of color (and
women) associated with the college. Significant historical figures such as Charles Eastman, a
Dakota Sioux who became a physician and attended to the victims at the Massacre of Wounded
Knee, and one of only twenty Native Americans to graduate from Dartmouth in its first 200
years (ibid.: 17), looked down at visitors as if to ask: where is our history represented?
In juxtaposition to the Webster installation is a series of busts, titled The Races of Man, that
Wilson found, chipped from benign neglect, in off-site storage. More than one staff member
became choked with emotion as they recounted to me the groundswell of feeling that Wil-
son’s reifying treatment of these objects inspired. The busts are copies of casts produced by
the American Museum of Natural History for the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 intended to
substantiate theories of racial hierarchy and inequality and to justify colonization. The casts
were taken directly from individuals who were taken to the fair to be put on display as repre-
sentative of the ‘primitive’.
For example, Ota Benga, a member of the Bachichiri people in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo (who have been commonly referred to in the west as Pygmies), was presented as
‘a missing link’ – or an intermediary form of life to illustrate the evolutionary transition from
primate to early humans (Delsahut 2008: 298). He was treated with such disdain that, after the
fair, Ota Benga was transferred by the American Museum of Natural History to the primate
house of the Bronx Zoo where he shared a cage with an orangutan. After the ministers of
several African American churches protested, Ota Benga was sent to a tobacco factory in the
South where he committed suicide (Bradford and Blume 1992).
94 J. Marstine

Wilson was disturbed by the anguished expressions on the faces of the busts. ‘You can
see in their faces that they are not happy with their situation’, he exclaimed (Wilson and
Appiah 2006: 20). In response, he animated the busts, gave them back their dignity, in a way
that requires emotional engagement from viewers (Plate 6.3). He masked with white tulle
the labels inscribed on the casts identifying each by ethnicity. And he created inscriptions of
his own with the sensibility of the language-based interrogation of conceptual art. ‘I have a
name’; ‘I have a purpose’; ‘Someone knows me – but not you’, they whispered through red
lettering barely discernible from the maroon of the walls and pedestals, as if to assert their
identities. Wilson lined up the casts in a row at eye level so that the viewer could not avoid
them. Only Ota Benga, of short stature, is positioned lower than, and aloof from, the others,
re-presenting his sad story. The installation stands in sharp contrast to that of the Daniel Web-
ster grouping; in a historical corrective, the busts now appear as unique individuals whilst the
Webster portraits seem merely types.

Cause and effect: evaluating the impact of Fred Wilson’s

interventions
How has Wilson sparked an alignment between ‘best practice’, what museums do, and the
values of social inclusion that individuals, the sector and global trends espouse? How is Wil-
son a driver for change in the museum to foster the kind of alignment that makes good work
flourish? Do these one-off projects contribute to the shaping of mission statements, do they
inform strategic planning and the approach and activities of staff across institutions? Funda-
mentally, can institutional critique change an organization’s culture and its practices?
Interviews with staff many years after their initial engagement with Wilson suggests that
the artist’s ‘writing’ is still legible on that Freudian mystic tablet of museum memory. Whilst
it is important to recognize that many other factors are at work in effecting transformation at
SAM and the Hood, through my research I found evidence that Wilson’s process influenced
staff across the spectrum of museum activity, helping reshape mission and strategic planning;
and inform approaches to acquisitions, collections management, exhibitions, design, learning
and personnel issues through a heightened concern for greater diversity and equity. Wilson’s
institutional critique is a catalyst for good work by aligning museum theory and practice.

Institutional purpose and direction

Mission statements and strategic plans are key indicators of organizational change and revised
documents at SAM and the Hood evidence new commitment to social engagement and
inclusion after Wilson’s residency. For example, at SAM, a new mission statement, approved
by the Board of Trustees in 2002, prioritizes relevance:

SAM provides a welcoming place for people to connect with art and to consider its rela-
tionship to their lives . . . SAM collects and exhibits objects from across time and across
cultures, exploring the dynamic connections between past and present.3

This new mission, ‘connecting art to life’, as SAM staff refer to it, developed out of a 1999
four-year project, Deepening the Dialogue: Art and Audience, intended to ‘diversify its [SAM’s]
audience and foster a deeper and ongoing community involvement in the daily life of the
 Fred Wilson and good work 95

museum’ (Seattle Art Museum 2004: 3). A key goal of the project, funded by a Wallace
Foundation grant, was to diversify the museum holistically, from staff to volunteers, board to
audiences, in a mode much like Goodwin Willson had envisioned (Goodwin Willson 2005:
44–45). This process has continued.
At the Hood, Director Brian Kennedy’s top priority when he arrived midway through
Wilson’s tenure there was to devise with staff and administrators a new four-year strategic
plan. Wilson’s institutional critique became an important tool to assess the past as the group
considered its future. A primary objective, as a result of Wilson’s project, was to make the
museum more accessible and transparent to diverse campus and community audiences. Asso-
ciate Director Bianco asserted:

It was our twentieth anniversary and our new director was starting. And so we had the
serendipity of a number of significant occasions . . . We had a director who was really
interested in strategic planning, and thinking about how to take an academic museum
and connect it even more with the campus and community . . . The museum had the
opportunity to open up, invite people in, and listen to people, respond to them with
the work that we do, and even create a dialogue . . . The Fred Wilson project sparked
this way of thinking. We invited groups for tours from different departments on campus
that had maybe not spent much time at the Hood. We used Fred’s show as a teaching
opportunity across disciplines . . . to teach people what we do with the museum in addi-
tion to teaching content.
Bianco 2009

In meetings to generate ideas for the new strategic plan, SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE
WORLD was repeatedly upheld to exemplify the potential relevance and commitment to
institutional diversity and equity that the Hood could sustain. In these efforts, administrators
expressed support for risk-taking; for provocative projects with learning at their core.
Strategic planning meetings identified a host of activities to build and diversify audiences.
And so, as Bianco states, ‘That became a part of our strategic plan, this connecting with cam-
pus groups and bringing different groups in for all our exhibitions. And it’s become relatively
routine’ (Bianco 2009). Two key campus groups with which the Hood partnered for the
first time for Fred’s installation but, as a result of the strategic plan, strengthened relations are
OPAL – the Office of Pluralism and Leadership – an umbrella group under which the Afri-
can-American, Asian, Native American, Latino and GLBT student groups organized and ID
and E – the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity (ibid.).

Collections practice
At the Hood, Wilson’s intervention has also impacted acquisitions and the Museum’s position
on deaccessioning. Kennedy aggressively built up the Hood’s Native American and non-
western collections to attract new audiences, in part, as a result of the biases Wilson revealed in
the collections. Kennedy added public art on campus to grow relations with the community
and took on the difficult ethical issue of whether to show or censor some racially insensi-
tive murals on campus that had been hidden from view with moveable panels. After years
of controversy among the campus community without any action taken, Kennedy moved
forward with a committee to articulate a plan in which the murals will be shown only under
96 J. Marstine

specific conditions and after gaps in the Hood collections are addressed to provide context
and counter-narrative to these problematic works. In short, as Dartmouth art historian Mary
Coffey asserted, ‘Kennedy has established trust within factions historically mistrustful of Hood
Museum of Art resources’ (Coffey 2010).
Concerning collections management, the Hood has recently felt pressure from an external
review to deaccession works deemed without aesthetic merit; but as former Hood registrar,
Kellen Haak, remarked, ‘Fred showed us that there is more to the collection than meets the
eye’ (Haak 2009). To Wilson, collections represent the thoughts and ideas of people, insights
into the human condition. ‘Behind objects are people that should be considered’, he later
remarked, when asked about deaccession (Wilson 2009). Through SO MUCH TROUBLE IN
THE WORLD, he exposed the vulnerabilities and expressive power of works created by non-
canonical artists and cultures, laying bare some of the ethical issues inherent in deaccessioning
decisions. Dartmouth Associate Provost, Mary Gorman, made clear that Wilson’s installation
at the Hood, in effect, protected marginalized works from deaccession (Gorman 2010). They
have gained a second life as they told an (inconvenient) story about institutional history.

Display, public programs, education

Wilson likewise has shaped the approaches to exhibitions at SAM and the Hood. At SAM
it is in display choices for the permanent collection that transformation is most evident, par-
ticularly given opportunities for change with a 2007 expansion of the museum. And from the
moment Wilson’s project opened at Seattle, curators recognized that the one-off project car-
ried implications for the display of permanent collections. Rod Slemmons asserted:

When his installations are removed, we will still have permanent collections displayed
according to the Western Tradition of art history and along racial, geographic, and
chronological hierarchies, much like other large museums in the country . . . If his art is
truly successful – and it will be quickly tested when it disappears – we will continue to
explore the questions he has raised.
Slemmons 1993: 44

Slemmons imagined select spaces in the Museum where diverse objects would speak to one
another to make connections across cultures and time, as Wilson had modeled in Mixed Meta-
phors. ‘Following Fred’s lead, we could mount small comparative displays in the galleries, punc-
tuating for a moment the chronological sequence that would place religious, social, economic,
and aesthetic considerations of several works from different cultures side by side’ (ibid.: 43).
SAM, in fact, put these ideas into practice in its expansion. In the 1991 downtown building
the third floor displayed African, Asian and Northwest Coast collections and the fourth floor
exhibited American, European and Ancient Art. The 2007 installation rejects this segrega-
tion of objects into western/non-western binaries. Instead, as Pam McClusky explains, ‘the
revised order of the world is rooted in cultures overlapping – Egypt is next to Africa, Africa
is next to Europe, Native American is adjacent to American’ (McClusky 2010). Also, in the
reinstallation, curators have used transitional or ‘crossroads’ gallery spaces to stage objects from
diverse cultures in complex conversations. These cross-cultural connections, in turn, require
new collaborations among departments. I would argue that they also set an ethical model for
the way people should behave as well.
 Fred Wilson and good work 97

For Pam McClusky, Wilson’s intervention ‘provided artistic license to put directly into
practice ideas that she had long been flirting with’ (Sims 2008). It allowed her the freedom to
take risks by crossing (and transgressing) all kinds of boundaries, from the geographic to the
aesthetic to the chronological; often, like Wilson, including works less ‘valuable’ or canonical,
for example, to express an idea. Wilson’s example also helped her to make the galleries more
performative and to introduce greater transparency through displays that engage viewers in
museological issues.
McClusky’s new African galleries are deeply performative. Visitors emerge from the escala-
tor to a cacophony of mannequins in diverse positions; standing, crouching, seated, enacting
a Nigerian Afikpo masquerade, a clear corrective of the standard technique of exhibiting Afri-
can masks devoid of their function and context and in line with western sculptural traditions.
Masquerade video as well as contemporary African art video, for instance by William Ken-
tridge, further enliven the space, as does a soundsuit by American artist Nick Cave in which
Cave performed and which resembles African ceremonial costume. Sound and movement
create a multisensory theatrical experience for visitors – who are more than just ‘viewers’.
At SAM it was not only curators who rethought their approaches to display. Michael
McCafferty, SAM’s exhibition designer, told me that, as a result of Wilson’s installation of
early modernism with its dark blue-green walls that mimicked those of the African galleries,
he vowed never to paint the walls of galleries exhibiting non-western materials in earth tones
again (McCafferty 2009). McCafferty designed the 2007 African galleries with white walls
and clear transparent shelving so that visitors could not only view all sides of an object and see
from one gallery into the next but also literally and metaphorically experience museological
transparency (Figure 6.1).
The boldness and transparency with which Wilson selected and interpreted objects from
the collections, engaging issues of questionable attribution and provenance, gave McClusky
the license to continue in this direction (McClusky 2010). For example, in The Untold Story,
she selected objects from the permanent collection,

based on the often perplexing manner in which they were collected. Stories that are usu-
ally left behind in object files, as part of the records that the public doesn’t see, became
the focus. Every label was treated as if it were a short story, with a title to match.
McClusky 2011: 306

She included, for instance, a rat trap made by the Giriama people of Kenya with the title
‘Death on Display’. McClusky divulges in the label:

No one here quite knows how this works or if it has ever been used . . . Never on view
at this museum before, whether the trap actually belongs in an art museum is a valid
question that has no absolute answer.

McClusky explains, ‘The Untold Story texts exposed the choices that collectors make, some of
which are not exactly in the realm of professional practice, and how the museum works with
their legacy’ (ibid.: 308).
At the Hood temporary exhibitions since Wilson’s tenure have examined the politics of
representation and other museological issues. These shows include Collectanea: The Museum
as Hunter and Gatherer; No Laughing Matter: Visual Humor in Ideas of Race, Nationality and
FIGURE 6.1 A Noble Tension Gallery. Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA. Photograph, Susan Cole. Courtesy, Seattle Art Museum
 Fred Wilson and good work 99

Ethnicity; and Black Womanhood: Images, Icons and Ideologies of the Black African Body, among
others. And whilst there have been conflicts – for example, students interpreted the Muse-
um’s use of the word ‘Hood’ in publicity as a double entendre also to connote slang for
neighborhood during the Black Womanhood exhibit – a perceived slight for which the
Museum apologized – the institution and its communities are engaged in the kind of sub-
stantive discourse that indicates a growing sensitivity to the concerns of diverse stakeholders
(Bianco 2009).
Fred’s intervention also created changes in the Hood’s educational programming. Whilst
Lesley Wellman, Assistant Director and Curator of Education, had already introduced Hood
docents to discussion-based learning and small group work with audiences in temporary exhi-
bitions, with SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE WORLD she began the process of applying
this dialogic approach to the permanent collection; this now occurs on a regular basis. Also,
inspired by Wilson’s installation, the Hood initiated museologically-based general tours that
engage visitors in the institution’s reflective practice. These tours examine how the museum
works and the value systems behind the choices that it makes (Wellman 2009).

Workplace culture and staff relations

Wilson impacted personnel issues at both institutions by giving support staff key roles that
brandished their skills in critical thinking. Wilson, who had worked as a guard whilst at uni-
versity, was particularly concerned about the status and invisibility of museum security. To
this effect, in 1991, he created Guarded View (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York)
in which four headless mannequins of color, each in a different New York museum security
uniform, stand anonymously before the white walls of a nameless gallery. The only clue to the
races of these gloved figures is their necks, indicated through shades of brown. At SAM, he
developed a friendship with the guards, some of whom were also actors. Wilson had studied
performance himself so they had much in common. Professing faith in their abilities, Wilson
asked security to give tours of the installation. Wilson approached them, as former SAM guard
Paul Klein recounted, by exclaiming, ‘I want you guys to do it. You know what you’re talk-
ing about’ (Klein 2009). Their experience as guides not only gave new confidence to those in
visitor services, it also increased their status at the institution.
Phil Stoiber, Associate Registrar of SAM, explained that Wilson’s modelling of ‘a culture
of inclusivity’ towards museum security compelled him to understand that visitor services
personnel, in their support of risk management, are as critical to object care as are registrars
and conservators; Stoiber states that Wilson’s example continues to inspire him to challenge
the invisibility with which guards are traditionally perceived (Stoiber 2009). Wilson’s recog-
nition and integration of museum security in his projects has played an important role in the
transition from guard to gallery attendant in museums across the United States over the last
fifteen years.4
At the Hood, Wilson gave new voice to the preparators and exhibition designer by tap-
ping their artistic talents to help create his juxtapositions. Typically, ‘our involvement is to
help winnow it [the objects selected] down to what we can actually fit into the gallery’, said
preparator John Reynolds (Reynolds 2009). In contrast, Wilson made them feel like cura-
tors with real decision-making capacity; it changed forever the way the three think about the
collections and the space. In working with the Hood’s images of war, for example, Wilson
sparked in them the responsibility of representation. The three told me that they feel ethically
100 J. Marstine

torn when they hang images of war and disaster now, without a larger context to mitigate the
potential of gazing as spectacle (Dunfey et al. 2009).

Conclusions
Thus, through a delicate dance, Wilson shapes the overlapping threads of individual and insti-
tutional ethics. By collaborating with Wilson, museum staff learn a new language of practice
from the margins that empowers them to redefine the core. Wilson’s interventions may be
just one of many drivers for change in the museum but, as these case studies attest, this form
of compassionate institutional critique can help provide alignment of museum practice with
individual, sector and global values to foster good work; as Gardner and Straughn define it,
work that has ethics at its heart. Good work is also supported by Wilson’s fostering of free
expression and trust, his ability to demonstrate that staff can indeed effect change and his insist-
ence on moral complexity, as conceptualized by the GoodWork Project; his interventions
present for museum workers rich opportunities to think through practice and its relationship
to theory, to seek from him and from each other advice and guidance, and to reflect on past
actions and future consequences.
Wilson is not the only artist to practice this form of compassionate institutional critique.
One can see similar strategies of aligning practice and theory to create a more socially inclu-
sive institution in the museum performance pieces about mourning and loss by Ernesto Pujol
and about destabilizing space by Anthony Shrag. Clearly, there are many aspects of diversity
and equity that SAM and the Hood have yet to address – this is, of course, an ongoing work
– but Wilson’s engagement with museums provides a useful model of reflexive practice that
continues to be read from the mystic writing pad of museum consciousness.

Notes
1 I am grateful to former and current staff at the Seattle Museum of Art and the Hood Museum of Art,
Dartmouth College, for allowing me to interview them for this project, and to Fred Wilson for his
generosity and trust. I also thank Richard Sandell, Jürgen Heinrichs and Celka Straughn for their
insights at many stages of this research.
2 Information provided by Seattle Art Museum Librarian, Traci Timmons.
3 Approved by the Seattle Art Museum Board of Trustees Executive Committee 11 February 2002;
information provided by SAM Librarian T. Timmons.
4 Nonetheless, security at museums across the United States remain among the most undervalued and
poorly paid staff members, despite attempts to address the issue.

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Wilson, F. and Berger, M. (2001) ‘Collaboration, Museums, and the Politics of Display: Conversation with
Fred Wilson, 25 January 2001’, in M. Berger (ed.) Fred Wilson: Objects and Installations, 1979–2000,
University of Maryland, Baltimore County: ex. cat. Center for Art and Visual Culture, pp. 32–39.
Wilson, F. and Buskirk, M. (2009) ‘Fred Wilson, A Conversation with Martha Buskirk’, in A. Alberro
and B. Stimson (eds) Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings, Cambridge, MA and
London: MIT Press, pp. 350–353, first published in October 70, Fall 1994.
Wilson, F., Lusaka, J. and Strand, J. (2006) ‘Fred Wilson: Learning to Speak Museum: Interview by Jane
Lusaka and John Strand’, Museum News, January/February, pp. 44–50.
Yellis, K. (2009) ‘Fred Wilson, PTSD, and Me: Reflections on the History Wars’, Curator: The Museum
Journal, October: 52 (4), pp. 333–348.
PART II

Connecting/competing equalities
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7
THE MARGINS AND THE MAINSTREAM
Gary Younge

I want to start with a tale of two white girls – Sandra Laing from Mpumulanga in South Africa
and Bliss Broyard who was raised in the blue-blood world of Connecticut’s twee suburbs and
private schools. Broyard’s racial identity was ensconced in the comfort of insular whiteness
that had always known there were ‘others’ but never really considered them. In her book,
One Drop, she confesses:

I’d never had a conversation about race. In the world I was raised in, it was considered
an impolite subject . . . Although I grew up within an hour’s drive of three of the poor-
est black communities in the United States . . . those neighbourhoods seemed as distant
as a foreign country.
2007: 42

But in early adulthood Broyard would discover that, on one level, she had a greater connec-
tion to those neighbourhoods than she imagined, for on his deathbed her father, Anatole,
confessed that he was in fact a black man who had been passing as white throughout most of
his adult life. Initially she was thrilled at the news and wrote: ‘It was as though I’d been read-
ing a fascinating history book and then discovered my own name in the index. I felt like I
mattered in a way that I hadn’t before.’
But then came the heavy lifting. The family her father had left behind, many of whom
lived in the South, and her relationship to those poor black communities that she had known of
but never actually known, forced her to reassess everything she had once thought about herself:
‘I felt unsettled: I’d already experimented with describing myself as black on a few occasions
and it hadn’t gone over well.’
The other white girl, Laing, was born to two white Apartheid-supporting Afrikaaner par-
ents in the small town of Piet Retief near the Swazi border. Her grandparents were also white.
Blood tests proved she was her father’s daughter. Yet Sandra emerged dark-skinned with afro
hair – a black girl. And, under the strict segregationist laws of Apartheid, the fact that she
had two white parents could only mean so much. Sandra was removed from her whites-only
school and reclassified as ‘coloured’.
106 G. Younge

Sandra’s parents fought the reclassification hard as was apparent in her father’s explanation
in the Rand Daily Mail:

Sandra has been brought up as a white. She is darker than we are, but in every way she
has always been a white person. If her appearance is due to some ‘coloured blood’ in
either of us, then it must be very far back among our forebears, and neither of us is aware
of it. If this is, in fact, so, does it make our family any different from so many others in
South Africa?

Eventually Sandra would be reclassified as white. But in a country where segregation was
rigid and nobody accepted her as white, this legalistic change was more than a technicality but
less than an objective reality. Eventually she decided that since black people were prepared to
accept her literally on face value while whites were not, that she would reclassify herself back
to coloured.
Two white girls in two nations founded in no small part on racial classification and segrega-
tion, discover that they are both in different ways black. These might be considered as isolated
cases but both are instructive in that they shine considerable light on how the relationship
between the margins and the core is understood, misunderstood, assumed, accepted and all
too often unacknowledged. There are four specific ways in which this plays out in society in
general.
First, the margins in no small part define the core. They establish the boundaries within
which the core can be understood. Without the margins there can be no core, just as without
borders there can be no nation. The two concepts are not only inextricably linked – they are
logically symbiotic. A lot was riding on Sandra Laing’s classification. Far from being a personal
matter, her race becomes an affair of state. If she’s white who isn’t; if she’s black whose family
could be next? In a system founded on racial separation there has to be some clear distinction
about where one ‘race’ starts and another one ends. Without it the entire social fabric starts to
fray. Those distinctions, by definition, take place at the margins.
The second way in which this is played out is that the categories we are working with,
when we talk about what constitutes the marginal as opposed to the core, are almost never
definite or often even definable. Both of these girls are both white and black. In ordinary con-
versation we assume we know what these terms mean. But since race has no basis in biology,
genealogy, science or performance, this assumption is mistaken. As soon as we start to define
most of the terms we commonly use in identity and culture things fall apart. South Africa’s
Population Registration Act in 1950 defines a white person as: ‘Any person who in appearance
obviously is or who is generally accepted as a white person, other than a person who, although
in appearance obviously a white person, is generally accepted as a coloured person.’
Far from being watertight such categorisations are in fact incredibly porous. So while we
have to work with the categories that exist, we should never be under the illusion that they
are not open to challenge.
The third way in which this scenario plays out is that what is categorised as marginal and
what is understood to be core has, at its root, nothing to do with numbers and everything to
do with power. There is a reason why Bliss Broyard’s father decided to cross the colour line
or why the Laings wanted Sandra to remain on their side of it. The lines in question divided
society into a life with or without resources, privilege and power – decisions are made at the
core, consequences are felt at the margins. So, en route from the margins to the mainstream
 The margins and the mainstream 107

are many gatekeepers – some official, others self-appointed – keen to stamp their imprimatur
of authenticity and exact a price for entry. Often the line is determined in court and somebody
has to draw it. All too often what we insist is marginal has in fact simply been marginalised.
The fourth and final way that this is played out is that the relationship between the margins
and the core is never settled but in constant flux. The categories we work with are not only
not watertight, they are positively fluid. Identities and cultures are in a state of constant evolu-
tion, both within themselves and in relation to other things. They change, not just as a result
of time and tide, but as a result of struggles either within the margins and the core, between
the margins and the core or usually both. In a post-Apartheid South Africa, Sandra Laing
could have harnessed her racial identity for affirmative action; while Anatole Broyard, who
was raised in the segregated South, ran away from his blackness, his daughter, in a post-civil
rights America, could run towards it. What is marginal today could well be core tomorrow
and vice versa.
The manner in which the core is defined by its margins is best illustrated by events in the
last few years in Israel where, with the stroke of a pen, more than 40,000 people were told
they were no longer Jewish. The story starts on the margins. In 2008 a woman known as
‘Rachel’, an immigrant, who had been converted by Rabbi Chaim Drukman, went to file for
divorce. The rabbinical judge asked her a few questions about her conversion and, evidently
unimpressed, then probed her on her observance. Left with the impression that she did not
observe the Sabbath or otherwise meet the standards he believed worthy of a Jewish convert,
he ruled her conversion invalid. This also meant her marriage of the last 15 years had never
been valid and that her children were no longer Jewish in the eyes of the Rabbinate either.
Rachel had been converted by Drukman who became the head of the Israeli conversion
court. When a three-judge panel heard her appeal they decided not only to uphold her dis-
qualification but to disqualify all the conversions performed by Drukman since 1999. In one fell
swoop 40,000 people who thought they were Jewish were told they were no longer Jewish.
This is no small thing. Israel is a Jewish state. That is not just an incidental description but its
deliberate intention. The express aim of its political class and popular culture is to keep it that
way. So the question of who is deemed to be Jewish, by whom and on what basis is central to
the nature of Israel’s existence. Indeed it is an affair of state. And how that question is defined
in turn defines the state and its relationship to international Jewry. That definition takes place
at the margins – the point at which someone may be included or excluded. But it is of the
utmost importance to the core. For what it means to be let inside is shaped to a large degree
by what it takes to be left outside.
The truth is that relatively few Jews would have passed the tests for observance set down by
the Rabbinate. In 2007, a poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute found that only 27 per cent
of Israeli Jews kept the Sabbath, while 53 per cent said they did not keep it at all.
But if the core makes little sense without the margins, also the efforts to definitively estab-
lish where those margins lie all too often produce nonsensical results.
The Rabbinate’s stiffer criteria for recognising conversions and acknowledging Jewish
heritage would, according to one campaigner, exclude 80 per cent of the American Jewish
Federation. So, the overwhelming majority of the pillars of US Jewry, those who run the
religion’s principal philanthropic and cultural organisations, would not qualify. Rabbi Shaul
Farber, whose organisation helps Jews navigate the demands of the Rabbinate, explains: ‘The
problem I have is not proving that people are Jewish. The problem is certifying that they are
Jewish to a certain threshold. The trouble is the threshold keeps changing.’
108 G. Younge

This brings us to the second point that what constitutes inclusion in the margins as opposed
to the core is invariably highly subjective and problematic. The lines we draw to categorise
human difference are never straight and always blurred. Trying to make sense of human dif-
ference is a valiant and important effort. But, as John Berger in Ways of Seeing points out, just
because we find words for things doesn’t necessarily mean we have found meaning for them:
‘The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled . . . The way we see
things is affected by what we know or what we believe’ (1972: 8).
The French government’s efforts to combat Islamic extremism by banning headscarves in
schools were not triggered by girls whose fundamentalist parents made them cover up. They
were triggered instead by a case of two converts to Islam, whose father is a Sephardic Jew,
and who did not want them to wear the veil but respected their right to do so. Even those
categories with which we are most familiar and most comfortable can prove less certain than
most thought. The 800m women’s world champion, South African Caster Semenya, had to
undergo gender verification tests in 2009 to prove she was actually a woman. As Nick Davies
(cited in Kessler 2009), a spokesman for the International Association of Athletics Federations
explained: ‘If it’s a natural thing and the athlete has always thought she’s a woman or been a
woman, it’s not exactly cheating.’
Take Barack Obama. The son of a black immigrant from Kenya and a white woman from
Kansas, raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii, he is commonly acknowledged to be the
first African-American president. But is he? True, his father is from Africa but that would
make him Kenyan American, as others are Italian American or Polish American, with the
notion of their forebears as the descriptor. African-American refers to the ethnicity of people
who were taken from Africa as slaves. The reason they get a continent and everyone else
gets a country – Italian-American, Japanese-American, Irish-American – is because African-
Americans cannot say with any certainty where their ancestors came from. During his 2004
Democratic convention speech that launched him to prominence he said his father came to
America, ‘a magical place’. Few African Americans thought America was magical in 1959.
But he’s black right? Well, it depends who you ask. A poll in 2008 showed that, after being
told his parents’ race and nationality, 75 per cent of whites and 61 per cent of Hispanics clas-
sified Obama as biracial, while 66 per cent of blacks regarded him as black.
And these definitions matter. In the past we have referred to Asian where we meant Mus-
lim, Muslim where we meant Pakistani, urban where we meant black, black where we meant
youth, Western where we meant European, British where we meant European or alternative
where we meant gay – to name but a few.
A few years ago there was an intense debate over the fact that two-thirds of the black stu-
dents admitted to Harvard – some of whom were beneficiaries of affirmative action – were the
descendants of Caribbean or African immigrants as opposed to African-American slaves. Mary
Waters, Harvard sociologist (cited in Rimer and Arenson 2004), identifies the problem:
You need a philosophical discussion about what are the aims of affirmative action. If
it’s about getting black faces at Harvard, then you’re doing fine. If it’s about making up
for 200 to 500 years of slavery in this country and its aftermath, then you’re not doing
well. And if it’s about having diversity that includes African-Americans from the South
or from inner-city high schools, then you’re not doing well, either.
We should also recognise that we have multiple identities. We are many things at once and,
at all times, we are also the same thing – ourselves. A black man, a white woman, a straight
 The margins and the mainstream 109

Sikh, a gay millionaire – in all sorts of ways it is possible for us to occupy the core and the
margins simultaneously.
One of the problems with diversity, as currently understood, is that it can often take pre-
cious little account of economic difference – an omission that leaves the while working class
stranded without a sponsor. In the world of multi-culturalism, as it is often portrayed, they are
assumed to have no culture. They are told their whiteness is a mark of power they have never
felt and a signifier for potential bigotry they may not harbour. Caught in a pincer between
the battle for scarce resources and the battle for equality, the white working class might then
feel concerned – forced to argue not for more resources but against ‘others’ getting their cut.
Under those conditions they experience their race and class not as interlocking identities but
as a besieged grievance which the Right are only too happy to leverage for political gain.
The fact that people have a multitude of affiliations does not mean certain identities might
not come to the fore at certain moments. But any attempt to diminish that multiplicity, or
rank identities into some preordained or definitive hierarchy will inevitably end in distortion.
As wrote the late American novelist Kurt Vonnegut: ‘We are the sum of the things we pretend
to be. So we must be careful what we pretend to be’ (1961: v).
These complexities should neither paralyse nor petrify us, but simply make us aware that
any attempt to categorise the diversity of human experience is inevitably flawed even when
it is necessary.
Two of the many principles that might help navigate this complexity are first that everyone
has the right to call themselves whatever they want and that second, with this right comes at
least one responsibility – that if you want your identity to have any broader relevance beyond
yourself it must at least make sense. In the words of philosopher, Anthony Appiah: ‘It must be
an identity constructed in response to facts outside oneself, things that are beyond one’s own
choices’ (2005: 18).
Far from being neutral, these facts are rooted in material conditions that confer power and
privilege in relation to one another. This brings us to the third point. The means by which
things are categorised as core or marginal is shaped by who has the resources and capacity to
frame that discussion with all the limitations inherent and implied in that state of affairs. What
masquerades as core is all too often simply ‘powerful’. Any push for diversity that refuses to
challenge that power structure is really not worthy of the name. We don’t need institutions
that look different and behave the same. To create them is to mistake ‘equal opportunities’
for ‘photo opportunities’.
There are two main problems with this. First, like most marketing ploys, it leaves many
people cynical and paves the way for a backlash. It exposes the few beneficiaries to charges
of tokenism and its lack of integrity lends succour to those opponents of equal opportunities.
Second, it is of absolutely no use to those who are underrepresented to have the underlying
reasons why some groups are not recruited, promoted or retained, left intact, while a few
identifiable faces are moved to more prominent places. Such institutional cosmetics ill-dis-
guise a social and pervasive mindset in which the margins are subject to relentless examination
while the core coasts by with eternal presumption. Nobody ever asks: ‘when did you first real-
ise you were straight?’ or ‘how do you balance fatherhood and work?’. As the African proverb
states: ‘Only when the lions write history, will the hunters cease to be the heroes.’
The hunters are still out there. Nowhere has this been more evident than in discussions
about the position of Islam and Muslims both in Britain in particular and Europe in general.
In Britain, the emergence of ‘home-grown bombers’ from the Muslim community has been
110 G. Younge

mentioned as though this is a new development, when in fact Britain has been growing its
own bombers for years. Indeed, there is a whole evening dedicated to burning one – it’s called
Guy Fawkes Night. Meanwhile the government has frowned upon Pakistani arranged mar-
riages to foreigners while somehow forgetting that arranged marriage forms the basis for many
British literary classics and that, of the six British monarchs of the last century, five married
foreigners and most of those unions were arranged.
Following rioting by black and French-Arab youth in France in 2007, Jacques Myard, a
nationalist deputy, explained the disturbances thus: ‘The problem is not economic. The reality
is not economic. The reality is that an anti-French ethno-cultural bias from a foreign society
has taken root on French soil’ (cited in Younge 2007: 26).
The French may need to import many things – from trashy popular films to fast food – but
the one thing they have long produced themselves is a culture of riotous assembly. There is
nothing foreign about rioting in France – the country was built on a riot.
All of which is to say that, for better and for worse, Muslims in Europe are far more
European than many of their fellow Europeans care to admit. Given the colonial links, the
prevalence of Western culture in the global arena and the power of the Western economy this
should really come as no surprise. For many it is the only place they know. And yet in Britain
each time a terror cell is found the media gasp at the discovery that the bombers or potential
bombers played cricket, worked in chip shops and supported Manchester United.
So those who exist at the margins have little option but to be aware of their marginality;
those who occupy the centre have the luxury of assuming that if people are not aware of their
experiences, at the very least they should be. As Cady Roth, the protagonist of restricted
growth, from Armistead Maupin’s novel, Maybe the Moon wisely remarks:

When you’re my size and not being tormented by elevator buttons, water fountains
and ATMs you spend your life accommodating the sensibilities of ‘normal’ people. You
learn to bury your own feelings and honour theirs in the hope that they’ll meet you
halfway. It becomes your job, and yours alone, to explain, to ignore, to forgive – over
and over again. There’s no way you can get around this. You do it if you want to have
a life and not spend it being corroded by your own anger. You do it if you want to
belong to the human race.
1992: 111

But all too often those at the core do not see the need to meet people halfway and thereby
fail to recognise that everyone else is doing all the travelling. For them, being at the core is an
objective position in itself. It lends them not a perspective but an orthodoxy in which every
food with which they are unfamiliar is ‘ethnic food’ and every month is their history month.
As noted historian E. H. Carr (1961: 36–37) argued:

Every human being at every stage of history or pre-history is born into a society and
from his earliest years is moulded by that society . . . Both language and environment
help to determine the character of his thought; his earliest ideas come to him from oth-
ers . . . the individual apart from society would be both speechless and mindless.

Denial in this regard raises two crucial problems. First, that those at the core are likely to remain
cripplingly unaware of their bias and second that the inability to recognise and interrogate one’s
 The margins and the mainstream 111

own perspective paves the way for their experiences to be evoked, not as an identity, but as
a grievance. The only political force prepared to talk about whiteness in Britain is the BNP;
similarly it is left to the fox hunters to defend the countryside; and the Daily Mail to talk about
Middle England. Each, in their way, will evoke the threat of marginalisation as a pretext to build
a fortress around the core.
This sense of siege usually demands a bespoke reality. Every victim needs an aggressor;
every aggressor has a tool of oppression. And in the event that these do not exist they must be
invented. In this case the aggressor is usually the ‘liberal establishment’ and their instrument of
social control is ‘political correctness’.
Given the rightward shift in politics and economics over the last 30 years it is difficult to
work out quite where this establishment resides. Finding a working definition of political
correctness is not easy, which gives it the added benefit of meaning anything people want it
to mean.
In the space of one month in 2006 ‘political correctness’ was used in the British press on
average ten times a day – twice as frequently as ‘Islamophobia’, three times as often as ‘homo-
phobia’ and four times as often as ‘sexism’. During that period it referred to the ill-treatment
of rabbits; the teaching of Gaelic; Mozart’s opera, La Clemenza di Tito; a flower show in Paris
and the naming of the Mazda3 MPS.
But what they are generally complaining about are constraints on their rights to be offen-
sive and insensitive without consequence. In the past racially offensive remarks, comments
about your female colleague’s breasts or ‘spastic’ jokes were considered part and parcel of daily
banter both in and outside the workplace. Now they are not. We have abandoned them for
the same reason we no longer burn witches at the stake or stick orphaned children in the poor
house. We have moved on. Values change, societies develop and their language and behav-
iour evolves with them. That’s not political correctness but social and political progress. It was
not imposed by liberal diktat, but established by civic consensus.
This brings me to my final point, that the relationship between the margins and the core
are in constant flux. And while specific changes have to be assessed on their merits, opposi-
tion to the very idea of change is untenable since it would be contingent on peoples’ lives,
capacities and aspirations standing still. As Stuart Hall argues: ‘Cultural identities come from
somewhere, have histories but, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant
transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised past, they are subject to
the continuous play of history, culture and power.’
Precisely when and how these shifts in people and societies happen is often difficult to
fathom. It could be a century, a generation or – if we think about how America changed after
9/11 – a day. But even those single events do not appear out of a clear blue sky. More often
than not, when identities change, they are the product of organic processes that shift the plates
of ingrained prejudice, institutional power, popular presumption, orthodoxy and common
sense over time and at such a glacial pace that we barely notice them until they have changed
form entirely.
While time may facilitate change it cannot do it by itself. The principal reason why the rela-
tionship between the core and the margins changes, is because people make it change. There
will always be those who are resistant to these changes, not on their merits but in principle.
But in order to enforce their worldview they must perform three solipsistic manoeuvres.
First they must distort history. For if something is essentially unchanging then it must be
the same now as it ever was. Second, they must quash all speculation about their future – for if
112 G. Younge

it is essentially unchanging then it can never be different. Both of these stances come together
in arguments against gay marriage. As Andrew Sullivan (2008) argued in The New Republic:

If marriage were the same today as it has been for 2,000 years, it would be possible to
marry a 12-year-old you had never met, to own a wife as property and dispose of her
at will or to imprison a person who married someone of a different race. And it would
be impossible to get a divorce.

Third they must ignore all the other changes that happen around them. One of the reasons
that opinions about gay lifestyles have changed is because views on straight lifestyles have
undergone a radical shift. Between the 1950s and today, divorce rates more than doubled in
the United States and the age at which people got married is now nearer 30 than 20. Mean-
while, between the 1960s and 2005, the percentage of births to unmarried women increased
seven-fold. In a world where people do not stay married, feel the need to get married, to have
children and/or have children when they are married, the link between marriage and procrea-
tion and sanctity and fidelity are at least tenuous and, for the most part, completely broken.
Such is the defence of ‘tradition’; not to make an argument but simply repeat a fact.
So to conclude, there is an inherent tension in the relationship between the margins and
the core. How could there not be? It is a tension, in part, shaped by a battle for definition and,
in part, by a struggle for resources – a strain between who we are and what we need. Power,
resources and opportunity are in play in how we choose to understand (or misunderstand) the
value of ourselves and others.
There is little to be gained by fetishising that tension. First of all, if managed in the right
way, it can be extremely creative. Insensitivity never achieved much. Baiting, ridiculing and
humiliating are poor substitutes for satire, irony and humour although they often masquerade
as such. When they are employed by the powerful against the powerless it is not clever but
cowardly.
But oversensitivity never achieved much either. Not every nuance, challenge, wordplay
and ignorance is a slight; not every slight is worthy of escalating into an incident; not every
provocation need be indulged. Just because someone claims marginality does not mean they
have to be believed or that they cannot also have power at the core. Identity is a crucial place
to start. It is a terrible place to finish.
But there is little to be gained by ignoring the tension either. The relationship between
the two is not only symbiotic but unresolved. Pretending that power relationships are not
there does not make them go away; it simply means a refusal to see them. I have a three-
year-old. When his friends’ parents tell me that their child doesn’t see skin colour I usually
tell them to get their kid’s eyes tested. In all sorts of ways our differences make a difference;
and in any case it is not the difference that is a problem. It’s what people choose to make
of that difference.
The journey between the margins and the core is one that most of humanity makes
every day – be it geographically, culturally, linguistically or politically. Whether it’s a white
middle-class kid listening to hip hop or an immigrant worker coming into central London
to clean offices, the best we can do is travel from A to B safely and intelligently, with due
regard for our fellow passengers, in the knowledge that without A there would be no B
and that neither A nor B will necessarily be in the same place when we come to make the
return trip.
 The margins and the mainstream 113

References
Appiah, K. A. (2005) The Ethics of Identity, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing, London: Penguin.
Broyard, B. (2007) One Drop, New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Carr, E. H. (1961) What is History? New York: Random House.
Kessler, A. (2009) ‘Gold Medal Athlete Caster Semenya Told to Prove She is a Woman’, Guardian, 20
August: 5.
Maupin, A. (1992) Maybe the Moon, New York: HarperCollins.
Rimer, S. and Arenson, K. W. (2004) Editorial, The New York Times, 24 June.
Sullivan, A. (2008) ‘State of the Union’, The New Republic, 28 May.
Vonnegut, K. (1961) Mother Night, New York: Dell Publishing.
Younge, G. (2007) ‘To Believe in a European Utopia before Muslims Arrived is Delusional’,
Guardian: 26.
8
CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Politics, policy and practices. The case of
Tate Encounters

Andrew Dewdney, David Dibosa and Victoria Walsh

Prologue
What happens when politics become policies, which, in turn, become practices in a museum?
Such a question was posed at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in November 2010, in a debate
organised by Third Text and Arts Council England, one of a number that have taken place in
the aftermath of the defeat of the New Labour government in Britain. Indeed, over the past
two years, issues surrounding cultural politics and their relationship to institutional practices
have been articulated as a contestation of the effectiveness of cultural diversity policy in the
arts. In such a contest, one can point to the gains that have been accrued through the trans-
lation of progressivist thinking into cultural equity programmes and social justice agendas.
Legitimate claims, for example, can be made that advances in employment and programming
have taken place. On the other hand, one can point to institutional manoeuvres – contain-
ment strategies – that have ensured that demands for change are neutralised in order to protect
the integrity of long-held views around ‘core mission’ and objects bearing ‘real cultural value’.
Such a framing of the ongoing argument may be a little stark for everyday tastes but politics,
after all, is a messy business. The following account hopes to make some sense of the entan-
gled positions, the disrupted careers, the frustrated hopes and broken visions of professional
stakeholders seeking change by highlighting what has been lost as well as gained in the slippage
from politics to policy and practice.

From the politics of representation to the practices of difference

A focus on the relationship between cultural diversity policy and institutional practice was
a key strand of ‘Tate Encounters’, a three-year research project examining the relationship
between art museum practice and the formation of national identity. The examination was
conducted through the lens of a study of Tate Britain – particularly, its remit to display
the National Collection of British Art from 1500 to the present day. Formally titled, ‘Tate
Encounters: Britishness and Visual Culture’, the project was led by Professor Andrew Dewd-
ney (London South Bank University) in collaboration with Dr Victoria Walsh (Tate Britain)
 Cultural diversity 115

and Dr David Dibosa (University of the Arts London). It was funded by the Arts and Humani-
ties Research Council (AHRC) as part of its first strategic funding programme, ‘Diasporas,
Migration and Identities’. With a team of six researchers and a two-year period of fieldwork,
engaging over thirty-four members of Tate Britain staff as well as more than 600 undergradu-
ate students from London South Bank University, Tate Encounters was a major project. It
produced a range of outputs, including as many as forty recordings of individuals and groups
discussing issues that arose from the research. Much of this material can be accessed on the
project’s archive website.1
Among the material collected on the website is a contribution by the Director of the National
Portrait Gallery in London, Sandy Nairne,2 to a recorded panel discussion on the history of cul-
tural diversity policy in the UK. In this discussion, Nairne presented a series of arguments, out-
lining the development of the political context in the 1980s that brought artists face-to-face with
curators and museum directors in debates around culture, representation, equality and access.
Artists, such as Lubaina Himid, Maud Sulter and Keith Piper, were cited as key participants in
such discussions. One of the main observations Nairne made about their work was the way in
which it foregrounded politics as well as arts practice. Lubaina Himid, for instance, curated a
groundbreaking show, The Thin Black Line (1985), at the ICA London. The exhibition featured,
for one of the first times in Britain, work exclusively by black women artists including Sonia
Boyce (Plate 8.1), Chila Burman and Ingrid Pollard. In her comments about the show, Himid
gave voice to some of the concerns surrounding ‘visibility’ and ‘representation’ that had begun
to characterise various aspects of the cultural politics of the time.

All eleven artists in this exhibition are concerned with the politics and realities of being
Black Women. We will debate upon how and why we differ in our creative expression
of these realities. Our methods vary individually from satire to storytelling, from timely
vengeance to careful analysis, from calls to arms to the smashing of stereotypes. We are
claiming what is ours and making ourselves visible. We are eleven of the hundreds of
creative Black Women in Britain. We are here to stay.
Himid n.d.

The issues at stake in current debates revolve less around black women artists’ interventions
but rather more around the changes in institutional practices as a result of the politics in which
the work of artists and institutions were seen as embedded. If such politics were made mean-
ingful by artists what was the work that institutions had to do to make sense of the politics that
positioned them as institutions that had to change? Tate Encounters addressed such a question
by looking at New Labour’s cultural diversity policy as a re-formulation and re-positioning
of the critique of cultural institutions that had been advanced by cultural practitioners during
Labour’s years in Opposition. By recourse to policy formation, one can address institutional
practice as a response to demands positioned as coming from outside. Through careful atten-
tion to the emerging institutional environment during New Labour’s term in office, one can
see demands for change as being repositioned from political engagement, using terms such as
visibility and representation, to policy engagement, relying on terms like inclusion, increased
cultural engagement and social justice.
This emergence of cultural diversity as a governmental discourse bridging both cultural
and social policy, can be seen in the espousal of cultural diversity policy by David Lammy
MP. In May 2005, Lammy was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Culture,
116 A. Dewdney et al.

Media and Sport under Tessa Jowell’s Secretariat. During a speech titled, ‘Where Now for
Britain’s Shared Heritage?’ given at the British Museum in an event hosted by the National
Lottery Fund on Tuesday 25 October 2005, Lammy underlined the operational implications
for museums of policies focusing on diversity:

If it is to play the role I am articulating for it, as custodians not just of national assets
but of national ideas, then the sector itself must do more to reflect Britain today. Our
cultural institutions have made positive progress in diversifying their audiences, and as
we are in the British Museum, I would give credit to programs like Africa 05 and other
projects, which have had a measurable impact on reaching a wider cross-section of
society. Others are doing likewise – I have seen at first hand the V&A and the National
Portrait Gallery’s commitment to diversity.
Lammy 2005

Diversity became rendered then in terms of aiming to ‘reflect Britain today’. Such a call for
reflection can be seen as a modulation of a more radical position, not so much to ‘reflect’ the
society but to transform it. A politics of visibility and representation, set out by Lubaina Himid
as a ‘call to arms and a smashing of stereotypes’ became re-formulated as cultural diversity
policy. The recognition of a visible difference in institutions through the differentialisation
of power became rendered as recognisable (read ‘auditable’) diversity in staff, exhibitions and
audiences. Blackness as a political position from which to critique power (black as subaltern),
was thereby re-read as blackness as skin-colour. Moves towards promoting the importance
of skin-colour are what Frantz Fanon referred to as ‘epidermalization’ – the reading of iden-
tity through skin-colour (Fanon 1967). It is by such sleights of hand that political visibility
becomes rendered as no more than noting the visible markers of diversity. Such a shift has
been remarked upon by cultural commentator Kobena Mercer as a detachment from the
radicalism of ‘difference’ in order to attain the de-radicalised aims of diversity (Mercer 1994).
Instead of critiques of racialised power structures emerging from groups such as Black Women
artists, policy formulation became based on a problematisation of how far those structures
offered visible markers of diversity. The structures themselves remained firmly intact.
Himid’s statement ‘Black women . . . are here to stay’ could be seen as having been made
meaningful not so much in terms of making a difference to the way that power structures were
organised but much more in terms of a measure of how effective those power structures were in
delivering specified policy aims. As such, the political formulation was turned on its head – not
black women as subjects wielding power but black women as the objects of policy instruments. As
such, the presence of black women, as well as others figured to inhabit the Black Asian Minority
and Ethnic (BAME) category, became reflected in institutional policy development areas.
The case in point in cultural diversity policy is that the classification of people by race
and/or ethnicity through demographic census, when correlated against other behavioural
quantitative measures, such as museum attendance, shifts the problem from the museum to
the targeted group as if something in the culture of the non-attendees stops them valuing the
cultural offer in British institutions. In the most blatant case the problem is assumed to be
something to do with their skin colour. The rendering of race as a problem in societal terms
is then responded to culturally by the development of policies which direct the museum to
target BAME audiences. Such a common-sense view of who is at the centre and the margins
of cultural participation misses out on the all important (analytic and political) stages of who is
 Cultural diversity 117

defining the initial quantitative demographic correlation as a problem, in what terms and for
what purposes. Thus the translation of politics into policies and practices gets short-circuited
by a racialised demographic concealing the real and lived politics of difference and sameness.
In the view of the Tate Encounters research, racialised forms of classification that attempt to
define the life experience of individuals and the social life of associative and interest groups
in terms of the culture of imagined or existing communities have to be viewed with a high
degree of scepticism. From the Tate Encounters point of view, it is more fruitful to begin with
accounts of difference which recognise the subjectively authored view of both the embodied
voice of the museum and that of any potential audience. Such a position, as Raymond Wil-
liams (1965) and Stuart Hall (2006) have acknowledged in their differing ways, is a necessary
but slow process of building new shared descriptions and insisting upon multiple histories
through a process of new offerings, contestations and adjustments.
Cultural diversity policies of the last decade in Britain have notably been translated into
the practice of targeting individuals and groups according to BAME categories in the belief
that this produces a more inclusive and equal society. Targeting, coupled with monitoring
and auditing practices, represents a form of cultural instrumentalism, which was championed
by the British New Labour government (1997–2010) as a means of achieving greater social
cohesion. Whilst the intentions that lie behind such targeting strategies reflected a democratic
impulse – equality in access and participation in culture – the outcomes and effects were
limiting precisely because the policy further reproduced the division between BAME and
everything that it is not. Thus cultural diversity policy, framed within a multicultural view
of society, may produce no lasting transformation of knowledge, imagination or creative
practice within the social body. This policy of targeting had, and continues to have, another
limiting consequence when coupled with the museum’s adoption of commercial marketing
practices reliant on segmentation models of consumption which were, over the same period,
aggressively imported into cultural organisational thinking. The problem with the concept
of a segmented market for culture is that it reduces the relationship of active creative com-
munication to that of product and consumer: the market decides and divides according to
the principle of exchange. Over the last two decades, museums in Britain have experienced
a marked rise in attendance and media popularity, and in relationship to the now eclipsed
New Labour cultural policy emphasis upon social inclusion, the growth in visitor numbers
could be enlisted to support the view that the historical division between elite and popular
culture was being overcome. From the point of view of trying to get closer to understanding
visitor experience and the museum’s engagement with its publics, the consumer-led museum
produces and measures the audience in terms of the segmented market. In the commodified
museum, cultural diversity is primarily understood as the process of achieving greater market
reach at the margins of the market.

Cultural policy and institutional structures

Analytical models from Science and Technology studies, in particular Actor Network The-
ory (Latour 2007), became influential in the final synthesis of the three strands of the Tate
Encounters analysis3 which attempted to describe the movement of cultural diversity from
politics, to policy and to the practices of Tate Britain. In this analytic synthesis the conclusion
was reached that to understand Tate Britain as a single institution, with a transparent organisa-
tional structure, capable of a direct translation of policy into operational practices, would not
118 A. Dewdney et al.

explain the research data and more specifically would not explain Tate’s ‘diversity practices’.
The research had shown that notions of cultural diversity, in politics, in policy and in prac-
tice, were constituted within networks of differing type and reach. Such networks within the
organisation had variable connections between them, both inside and beyond Tate Britain.
It was significant to note that the transmission of cultural diversity ‘messages’, most clearly
those closest to an official political source, travelled very quickly and directly from govern-
ment through to all of Tate Britain’s internal networks, while other translations of diversity
policy in the dedicated practices of gallery education, for example, circulated in smaller, local
and ultimately closed networks. The research framing of organisational operations in terms of
knowledge practices and local networks is, in part, a revised way of talking about conventional
departmental organisation and the ‘normal’ divisions of specialist knowledge and practice.
However, such a framing also opens out the way to thinking about public museums in terms
of both local and distributed networks. It is to think about the museum, in Britain, as others
have (Grenfell and Hardy 2007) as extending beyond its walls to include: the permanent civil
service, art markets, the professional art world, cultural practitioners, dimensions of broadcast
and publishing media and others. In these networks, people and things, such as the objects of
collection, ideas and policies, are all active elements, with varying degrees of agency in deter-
mining what a particular network does and doesn’t do.
The organisational structure of Tate Britain and other museums reflects, and remains largely
based upon, a hierarchy of expertise in taste and viewing, which travels within such networks
as described. At Tate Britain, the main outline of the curatorial network largely remains based
upon the intellectual legacy of European Modernism, although such a position is increasingly
under strain from globalising processes within and beyond art practice and art markets. In the
European-founded version of International Modernism, the established route or flow of value
remains defined by the production of art (the supply side of value), expressed in terms of the
vision of the artist, the intermediaries of gallery owners, dealers and collectors, together with
the authority of public curators and academics. The art museum is, however, part of both
supply and demand, the production and consumption of art, and, because of this, it performs
a complex set of mediation tasks in relaying cultural value. What is demonstrable from the
organisational study are the separations and breaks between the supply and demand sides of
cultural value in which the manufacture of audience through marketing, publicity, media and
education belongs to a subordinate set of network processes. The managed separation of the
museum’s participation in the creation of the value of the work of art, from its participation
in the construction of audience, serves to mask the private exchange value of art through the
naturalisation of the figure of the artist.
Maintaining the myth of the artist remains a puzzle given contemporary interest in the
constructedness and transparency of all things and brings forth the question of why the art
museum does not do more to develop practices which reveal its own part in the construc-
tion of cultural value. In continuing the curatorial dominance of European Modernism,
Tate Britain continues to relay the one-way flow of the cultural message to a recurrent audi-
ence imagined as the universal viewer, whilst at the same time segmenting its audience as
so many consuming social categories such as ‘art lovers’ or ‘mums and children’. In this audi-
ence typology, caught in a contradiction between the market and an older public mission,
those who do not attend the museum as art lovers or consumers are deemed to be in the
margins and this, unfortunately, is where people classified as black, Asian, minority or ethnic
are consigned. This process is so profoundly naturalised, because the majority of museum
 Cultural diversity 119

professionals share the same cultural myth and practice logic of the one-way direction of the
cultural message.

Post-identity practices of viewing

In the first report of the project to the AHRC in January 2008, Tate Encounters acknowledged
that its original thinking about one of the key subject groups in the study had dramatically
changed. After a three-month pilot project the subtitle of the original research application,
‘Black and Asian Identities’, was dropped and the project title shortened to ‘Tate Encoun-
ters: Britishness and Visual Culture’. This did not represent a retreat from an identification
with what has historically been termed black and Asian British cultural politics, nor a change
of heart about investigating migration and Diaspora as a means of understanding Tate Brit-
ain. What it did represent was a direct response to the practical engagement with voluntary
undergraduate participants from London South Bank University (LSBU) who demonstrated a
clear resistance to any engagement with the art museum and the research project based upon
an identification cast in terms of race or ethnicity. This was overwhelmingly borne out in
subsequent sustained participation. The two criteria for voluntary participation had been that
participants or their families had migrated to Britain and that they were the first in their imme-
diate family to enter higher education. The criteria produced a wide set of Diasporic jour-
neys from the twelve students who subsequently sustained a two-year engagement with the
project. This group had family ties and roots in China, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Finland, Latvia,
Ukraine, Poland, Eire, Spain, Nigeria, Ghana, Barbados and St. Lucia. Everything about par-
ticipant engagement in the research indicated that the social categories and thinking that had
been established through patterns of post-war migration to Britain from the Caribbean and
South Asia no longer reflected the present realities of an aspirational student group attending a
university in which over 51 per cent of 22,000 students completing ethnic monitoring forms
on entry identified themselves as non-white (LSBU). Most of LSBU students come from the
Greater London area in which 42 per cent of its population is classified as non-white and from
the published data of 2008, London received 180,000 international migrants amounting to 2
per cent of its population (Greater London Authority 2011).
Both the large surveyed group of students and the smaller group who sustained engage-
ment in the study resisted being ‘hailed’ or ‘interpellated’ by the project on the basis of an
identity characterised by race or ethnicity. This rejection became the reflexive starting point
for the exploration of an alternative to, as well as a re-formulation of, an established cultural
politics of identity based upon the conjunctural moment of post-war and post-colonial British
migration. The evidence from the research data suggested that identity was not the operative
first term of a first encounter with the art museum, but more that identities were entailed
and negotiated through the subject viewing positions on offer. There was a greater sense of
curiosity and interest in the art museum’s practices of the control of viewing than there was
a common response to feelings of exclusion by virtue of any racialised or nationalistic dis-
course. This did not mean that participants did not recognise strong elements of racialised and
nationalistic discourses in the construction of viewing positions, but rather that such positions
did not provoke a counter-racialised or nationalistic set of responses. In short it did not lead
participants to feel they had to reinforce identities based upon, for example, their ‘blackness’
or ‘Irishness’, but more that such markers of identity were as much a part of the constructed-
ness of the subject as of the constructedness of the museum’s own discourse.
120 A. Dewdney et al.

All of the student participants in the study, who sustained an engagement over the two-
year fieldwork period, produced their own responses to their encounter with Tate Britain
in the form of either a photo-text essay or video narrative. A reading across all of these
productions reveals a uniform interest in getting ‘behind the scenes’ at Tate in what can be
understood as the effort to articulate questions of Britishness and identity. These essays are
disinterested from the point of view of art appreciation. The perspectives generated by the
sustained encounter were not aimed at seeking membership of an art community but rather
the opposite, to demonstrate a detachment from the terms of the offer made to them by the
art museum. They did this through an insistence upon the everyday practices of the museum
in relationship to their own lives. One project will serve as an example here. Whirlwind at
Millbank4 is a fifteen-minute video, shot as an improvised fictional story of a Nigerian student’s
part-time job as a catering assistant at Tate Britain, who meets and goes out on a date with a
young female curator.
The script and mise-en-scène of Whirlwind at Millbank is in the style of a Nollywood film, with
its low-budget, single fixed camera and naturalistic, soap-opera story told using non-actors.
The film was written and directed by Adekunle Detokunbo Bello5 and involved members of
the research team and co-researchers. The video develops an upstairs/downstairs narrative of
working at Tate Britain in which the main character’s fear of meeting racism is confirmed
by the white workers in the kitchens, whom he experiences as hostile. In contrast, the white
female curator, played by Louise Donaghy,6 is depicted as sympathetic and tolerant. Her role
hints at romance, in her suggestion that the kitchen worker should join her in a tour of the
galleries at the weekend. In a final scene, Louise Donaghy ad-libs a spontaneous and tongue-
in-cheek performance of an art expert in which the curator ‘explains’ the depiction of a young
black figure in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting, The Beloved (1865–6). The scene serves to
underline the distance between the world of art and the world of everyday life, which the
drama presents and magically resolves in a fairy-tale style ending by the power of love. The
video raises both the issue of racism and representation obliquely by bringing the discourses of
popular film, research and art appreciation together as an encounter with the art museum.

The politics of difference and the practices of audiences

Tate Encounters took the museum’s engagement of audiences as one of its abiding strands,
cutting across the three key themes of cultural policy, the national collection of British art and
visual cultures. Working towards an ever-closer inter-disciplinarity between sociology, visual
cultures and museum practices, sociological methods, such as surveys, offered the research
what might be termed ‘negative evidence’: evidence of refusals to ‘swallow the medicine’ of
increased cultural engagement; indications that the museum’s re-interpretation of inclusive
strategy had turned open-door access into a labyrinth. A survey of over 200 students showed
that, on a surface reading of responses, non-museum attenders (the ‘dis-audience’) found Tate
Britain a place of regulation and control, which prohibited rather than gave permission to
express identity, and they associated it with political discourses of heritage and nationalism,
which the contemporary diluted but did not conceal. Again, such a perspective might be
deemed as painting too stark a picture in order to facilitate a clear framing of counter-debates.
However, the complex terrain of audiences, curators, artists, policy-makers, politicians and
activists can only make sense if it is topographised – brought together by an act of (political)
will. The tracing of relations between these spheres of activity can be given effect through
 Cultural diversity 121

various methods, whether historical, sociological or museological. The question of non-rela-

tion, though, of what can not or, rather, will not be positioned as open to inclusion, remains of
vital interest. One claim for such a body of knowledge might be that it reproduces a reminder
that something must fall out of the solution when one attempts to resolve political difference
through policy with the hope of realising it in practice.
Terms such as ‘dis-audience’ rely on the proposition that there are a range of coherent dis-
courses concerning visual experience among non-museum attenders (the dis-audience knows
what the willing audience does not know). Such a position acts as refusal of both subject clas-
sificatory models and of ‘deficit culture’ thinking. Tate Encounters has largely been an experi-
ence of attempting to generate a new set of understandings about the relationship between
an art museum and its (dis-)audiences in order to glimpse the possibility of moving beyond
the historical stalemate contained by a singular and binary discourse of race and culture. The
analysis of the data from the Tate Encounters research suggests that Tate Britain, like many
other museums, carries within itself a double burden, which on the one hand is shackled to
the need to make manifest art’s transformative potential for the universal individual and on
the other is weighed down by the stubborn fact that its best efforts to transform itself into an
inclusive institution through widening participation programmes have failed by the measures
set by cultural diversity policy. In the concluding phase of the Tate Encounters research, this
double burden was understood as an unrecognised contradiction within the reproduction of
knowledge practices across the academy and the museum.
Public policy minority targeting combined with segmented market targeting should have
produced something for everyone, but, only as separated segments, reproduced according to
the existing social divisions of means and values. There is no coming together here, no new
mingling of cultures, nothing of the social and cultural body is transformed. At Tate Britain,
cultural diversity was rendered across the networks as a problem to be solved. Such problema-
tisation involved an interpretation of diversity as being characterised through visual markers of
racialised difference. Fanon’s term ‘epidermalization’ helps again in the analysis here because
it points towards the ways in which the work of difference becomes confused with variega-
tion of skin colour. In this way, the real work of difference becomes obscured. Differentiating
between the concept of difference and racialised categorisation opens up the potential for
recognising models of power and the institutionally normalised practice which support them
and thus creates the space for revision and innovation. However, such potential gets lost in
the masquerade of what Kobena Mercer has termed ‘multicultural normalisation’: ‘Cultural
difference was acknowledged and made highly visible as the sign of a “progressive” disposi-
tion, but radical difference was gradually detached from the political or moral claims made in
its name’ (Mercer 1999–2000: 54).
Within a cultural organisation on the scale of Tate Britain, it is difficult to pinpoint how
detachment works. What we can suggest is that the separation of the issue of power from that
of cultural difference takes place through the process of substitution of politics for policy and a
naturalisation of difference in terms of the products of multicultural variegation. Thus, in mar-
keting and education, difference becomes redesignated as diversity, in terms of missing BAME
audience numbers. In acquisitions, difference becomes reassigned as cultural diversity in terms
of the problem of the missing artworks by black British artists in the collection. In staff devel-
opment, it becomes seen as the problem of the missing black and minority ethnic employees
in the upper levels of expertise and management. Cultural diversity became a way of avoiding
political discussions about the need to differentialise power or the possibility of changing the
122 A. Dewdney et al.

direction of cultural flow. A discussion of the networks that keep cultural flow moving in one
direction was displaced by ever more complex arguments about the demographics of people
and objects. Viewed in this way, efforts to solve the problem are directed towards getting
‘the right mix’, backed up by statistics; the right numbers of appropriate people in correct
alignment with the right amount and kind of objects to, presumably, produce the picture of
cultural diversity for which everyone has been looking.
Here, the case is once more overstated in order to emphasise the limits of a discourse
relying on a narrow rendition of the representational claims articulated in some versions of
cultural politics. As discussed earlier, the proposition that equality of opportunity might be
demonstrable in action belongs to the discursive transformation from the politics of cultural
difference towards the formulation of cultural diversity policies. In this way of looking at
things, cultural diversity policy in practice at Tate Britain became operationalised as the man-
agement of risk to its central historical purposes.

Cultural value and risk management

Analysing the organisational study carried out at Tate Britain in terms of local and extended
networks led to the overarching conclusion that cultural diversity, as both policy and practice,
became an actor within the networks which manage risk to the institution. Primarily, the
museum’s educational and outreach work with targeted groups met a policy obligation to
engage those defined as socially and culturally excluded. In this respect the museum managed
the risk of doing nothing to meet policy imperatives and potentially risk external criticism
and/or the reduction of public subsidy.
The analysis of cultural diversity in terms of networks is intended to demonstrate that it is
practically possible to avoid the assimilationist closure (multicultural normalisation) and intrin-
sic failure that comes with the moral and reforming museum, just as much as it is possible to
avoid the reproduction of cultural elitism which comes with attempts to shore up aesthetic
modernism. The demonstration of the management of risk does not provide evidence of the
immutability of established networks. Network practices accrue their effects and affects over
time depend upon the conduct of individual practices, which become subject to modification
and change. Modification can move towards a more thorough differentialisation of institu-
tional power and away from the uni-directional flow of the dissemination of cultural value.
Tate Encounters research attempted to illuminate the interactions between politics and
culture as a nexus of lived relationships within one institution, in which an unsettled politics
of cultural diversity was constituted and through which it travelled from policy to practice.
The account of the research given here was prefaced by a discussion of certain cultural and
artistic practices, which directly informed the politics of multiculturalism and subsequently
cultural diversity policies. In the introduction, the first couplet of the movement from politics
to policy to practice was laid out and it was suggested that the direct cultural challenge to the
institutional racism met by black, Asian and ethnic minorities in Britain in the 1980s, expressed
in demands for equality and social justice, was adapted and changed in the formation of New
Labour policy in ways which ultimately reduced the original demands to that of widening
access and, more damagingly, recast those making the demand as a series of minorities seeking
participation in an existing and established culture. In the account of the organisational study
and that of the co-researcher’s encounters with Tate Britain, the second part of the couplet,
from policy to practice, was explored and it was suggested that the research demonstrated
 Cultural diversity 123

how, in detail the politics coded in policy met with an accommodation to the core practices
of the museum and how a ‘felt and lived politics’ became contained. This was achieved by
confining questions of diversity within closed networks of professionals, predominantly in
learning and education, who were tasked with bringing into the museum those counted by
demographic modeling to be not present, those who were deemed by the same typological
reckoning to be culturally different. Difference here was not understood as a relational term,
but by what has already been termed as the fixed markers of difference, of which skin colour is
the paradigm. In this static reduction, people classified as ‘black, Asian, minority ethnic’ were
deemed not to share the cultural values of the museum and hence, from a certain reading of
the politics of inclusion and widening participation, to be in cultural deficit.
In detail, the research shows that Tate Britain was both open to promoting cultural diver-
sity initiatives within its organisation, in welcoming and giving a home to the research for
example, but also and more substantially involved in the management of the risks posed by
cultural diversity imperatives to the core values of the museum. The research shows that risk
was managed precisely through diversity policy in routine practices of experts and departmen-
tal divisions within the overall specialist division of knowledge. More positively, the research
also shows how diversity practices, which address and seek to represent individuals and groups
by virtue of the visual markers of difference and hence cultural deficit, were rejected by
participants who encountered the museum and saw all too clearly the politics of such modes
of address. In contrast, participants sought a disclosure of value systems that operated in the
museum and found greatest relevance when enabled to expand a continuity of the value
systems of the everyday and their life worlds.
The interest in and knowingness towards questions of cultural power, displayed by the
participants of Tate Encounters, is possibly a much more widespread knowledge position
amongst those the museum seeks to target. What is needed here is for museums to shift their
distribution of values – giving more value to the experience of those who come into contact
with them whether through work, study or leisure. A broader range of values can thereby
contribute to the knowledge and experience of highly complex objects assigned the status of
‘art’. Forms of knowledge that emerge from these varied sources, distributed across networks
in and outside the museum, now press for attention and – by taking the possibilities they pose
seriously – the museum could open its networks beyond the existing scholars, experts, educa-
tors and collectors that currently dominate. Publics that the museum has not thought possible
might thereby be recognised as already within its reach.

Notes
1 See Tate (n.d.).
2 Nairne took part in a recorded panel discussion, Art and Politics: Uncertain Practices, the Changing Status
of Difference, with Baroness Lola Young and Munira Mirza. 13 March 2009, Tate Britain.
3 The research investigated cultural policy, viewing experiences and British visual culture in three
parallel studies.
4 Whirlwind at Millbank can be seen at www.tateencounters.org.
5 Adekunle Detokunbo Bello was a co-researcher for Tate Encounters. He studied part-time at Lon-
don South Bank University while also working part-time there as a security assistant.
6 Louise Donaghy was a co-researcher for Tate Encounters and was studying for a BA (Hons) Arts
Management at London South Bank University.
124 A. Dewdney et al.

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uk/media/27535869001 (accessed 11 September 2011).
Himid, L. (n.d.) cited in M. Meskimmon (1996) The Art of Reflection: Women Artists’ Self-portraiture in the
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Williams, R. (1965) The Long Revolution, London and Harmondsworth: Penguin.
9
A QUESTION OF FAITH
The museum as a spiritual or secular space

John Reeve

Contexts: religion in contemporary cultures and museums

‘Religion’ and ‘beliefs’ are complex and revealing strands of diversity in museums and galleries
and now the focus for programmes and research after a strangely long silence. There are, how-
ever, few museums that prioritise presenting and interpreting religions, yet religious beliefs
are now, more than ever, a major area of public discussion, controversy and media attention,
prejudice and misunderstanding. Most museums and galleries have material that relates to
religions and other beliefs, but usually without any consistent approach to it. As a profession,
we are still cautious about entering this particular secret garden.
This chapter asks why this is and what successful practice there is in museums and galleries.
I am grateful to both Atul Shah, founder of Diverse Ethics and author of Celebrating Diversity,
and Irna Qureshi, anthropologist, writer and oral historian specialising in British Asian and
Muslim heritage, whose views have informed this chapter. This chapter also draws on my
own experience as a museum educator, writer and lecturer including as Head of Education at
the British Museum and a growing (but still small) literature and accompanying case studies
including those in the journal, Material Religion.
At the end of Pilgrimage (Coleman and Elsner 1995) there are three images of modern,
secular places of pilgrimage: Lenin’s tomb in Moscow, Elvis’s grave at Graceland, and the Brit-
ish Museum in London. Since the Enlightenment, major museums, and especially art galleries,
have looked and behaved as secular temples with their own high priests expecting worship
and deference from their visitors (Duncan 1995). In many museum cultures this situation has
changed under immense pressure from all quarters. In their role as forum and public ‘neutral’
space or ‘town square’ (Gurian 2005) many museums and galleries have now taken on some
of the functions traditionally served by religious or civic leaders: asking moral questions about
slavery, diversity, scientific and medical ethics, war and violence, the environment, gender
and exploitation. As tools of state policy, in support of the national school curriculum or in
response to public expectation, museums and galleries may now be expected to address diverse
beliefs (and the results of fanaticism) as well as to exhibit and interpret the great art, literature
and thought inspired by faiths.
126 J. Reeve

Considering the central position that ‘religion’ has occupied in civilisations worldwide,
it is strangely neglected in museums (O’Neill 1996; Paine 2000). According to the theolo-
gian, former nun and British Museum trustee Karen Armstrong (2007), this neglect is part
of a wider and longer-term phenomenon. It can be explained as the result of: secularisation
from the Enlightenment onwards; scientific rationalism undermining the literal truthfulness
of events as set out in the Bible, for example; and of scholarship showing the extent to which
sacred texts are not ‘timeless’ but were coloured by the conditions of their times, a potentially
controversial theme in the British Library’s Sacred exhibition catalogue to which Armstrong
contributed the keynote essay. However, despite all this, as Armstrong (2007: 14) points out:

Scripture has . . . made a comeback, and once again the Bible and the Qur’an are in the
news. Terrorists quote the Qur’an to justify their atrocities . . . Jewish fundamental-
ists cite the Hebrew prophets to validate their settlements in the West Bank . . . In the
United States members of the Christian right scour the book of Revelation to sanction
their government’s policies in Israel and the Middle East; they are convinced that the
first chapter of Genesis is a factual account of the origins of life, and campaign for the
school curriculum to include the teaching of what they call Creation Science.

This is a worldwide phenomenon. As Karen Chin reports from Singapore, ‘In Asia, and
even in cosmopolitan Singapore, religion still plays a major role in national affairs as well as
in the everyday lives of many ordinary people’. Yet the Asian Civilisations Museum where
Karen Chin is Head of Education is the first, and so far, the only one in the region, to present
religions holistically and effectively in a wider cultural context and with a strong civic and
educational purpose (Chin 2010: 193).
It has been suggested that the increasing engagement with forms of religion worldwide
is due to a number of reasons including: ‘dissatisfaction with a global, consumerist world
culture; the search for protective frameworks to support different identities and world-
views; and a return to tradition when those world-views are attacked, misunderstood and
misrepresented’ (Reeve, 2006: 6; cf. Ruthven 1989). On the other hand, the humanist
philosopher A. C. Grayling points to what he sees as the dangerous unreason at the heart of
religious faith and claims (in contrast to Karen Armstrong) that what the world is witness-
ing is not a lasting revival of religious sentiment but rather religion’s death throes (Grayling
2007: 57).
Richard Dawkins (evolutionary biologist at Oxford University, prominent atheist and
author of The God Delusion) has commented that before the 11 September 2001 attacks on the
World Trade Center in New York:

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence
but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where’s the harm? Septem-
ber 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally
dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their
own righteousness . . . dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by
a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a
weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let’s now stop
being so damned respectful!
Dawkins 2001
 A question of faith 127

Critics of Dawkins, such as the philosopher John Gray (2007), argue that science has latterly
become a religion substitute and that bigotry also exists among non-believers such as Dawkins.
So, in the context of this larger picture, without any comforting consensus, who do museums
listen to, how much respect should they show to unpalatable views and which expressions of
which faiths (and none) do they represent? By whom are they advised and how much of the
story gets edited out?

What is happening and what works best?

Mark O’Neill, Director of Policy, Research & Development, Culture and Sport
Glasgow, is one of the pioneers of presenting religions in museums, at St Mungo Museum of
Religious Life and Art in Glasgow (Figure 9.1) and at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
(O’Neill 1996; Da Silva 2010). At an international conference, From the Margins to the Core?
Exploring the Shifting Roles and Increasing Significance of Diversity and Equality in Contemporary

FIGURE 9.1 The Gallery of Religious Art, St Mungo Museum. Photograph by kind permission of
Glasgow Museums.
128 J. Reeve

Museum and Heritage Policy and Practice held at the V&A in March 2010, O’Neill proposed four
key issues that beset any publicly funded curator of religious material:

1. Whether to present objects in a cultural or religious context and whether to include the
views of believers in their interpretation.
2. Whether museums could promote mutual understanding and respect amongst people of
all faiths and none in their presentation of religious themes.
3. Whether museums have a duty to present the destructive histories of religions as well as
their positive contributions.
4. How museums might respond to fundamentalist lobby groups who are increasingly turn-
ing to human rights legislation to censor museum work and personnel.

He suggested that debates around these issues went to the core of the meaning of life in a
pluralist society.
These questions, in particular the first three, will provide the framework to explore how
museums should respond to issues of religion and belief in contemporary society.

Presenting, consulting and sharing interpretation

Clearly a major factor in museum reluctance to be involved in presenting and understand-
ing religion is that this is potentially so controversial and divisive that people may be deeply
offended (and would certainly be if Dawkins got his way). Curators and museum educators,
like teachers, may feel ill-equipped to cope, be afraid of ‘getting it wrong’ or being seen as
partisan, inept, prejudiced. Despite all this, the Challenging History Network of museum and
heritage educators believes that we must ‘acknowledge history is complicated and that we
need to take risks in delivering it’ and ‘build our confidence in delivering contentious issues by
creating process, supported by peer review, for sector staff to develop their expertise’ (Chal-
lenging History Network 2010).
This is easier said than done as can be seen in the wider educational world. Teacher anxi-
eties are well expressed in the report Teaching Emotive and Controversial History (T.E.A.C.H.
2007) where, for example, non-Muslim teachers in mainly Muslim areas of Britain express
their concern about teaching topics such as the Crusades or even the Holocaust, to the extent
of avoiding them. Various reports on religious education in the UK criticise its limitations in
understanding faiths as experienced beliefs rather than a collection of externally driven facts.
As Charlene Tan also stresses in the Asian educational context, ‘knowing certain facts about a
religion is not the same as appreciating the religion’ (Tan 2008: 185).1
When it comes to museum anxieties we are beginning to understand more of the inter-
play of curatorial, educational and faith group concerns thanks particularly to work by Eithne
Nightingale and Marilyn Greene at the V&A (Nightingale 2006, 2010; Nightingale and
Greene 2010). They describe the work of the seven faith advisory groups that expressed views
on everything from labels to programmes, new galleries and collecting. Atul Shah, a member
of the Jain advisory group and whose subsequent views have informed this chapter, comments
on the impact of curators’ beliefs or non-beliefs on their practice:

In recruiting curators, I suggest that a lack of faith in their personal life can be a disad-
vantage, and lead to inaccurate interpretation and presentation of objects. The nuances
 A question of faith 129

of faith need to be respected, and where curators do not have the skills, they should
consult with the living communities as to how they use and interpret the objects. Cura-
tors should be made as accountable to the living faith communities as to their peers and
museum bosses. Their work should be assessed not on artistic merit, but on authenticity
of presentation and interpretation.
Shah 2010

He also observes that, ‘unlike the regular visit to temples, Jains rarely make regular visits to
their own objects in these museums. They are felt as alien and not belonging to them, nor
having a spiritual significance’. The Jain focus group as a whole was keen on both greater
interactivity in the gallery and placing the object in its religious and cultural context. The
curator, whilst acknowledging the importance of context, was keen to counterbalance this
with the statement that, ‘the central role of the V&A as an art museum must also be borne in
mind’. In response, Nightingale and Greene (2010: 226) comment:

The boundary between the V&A as a museum of art and design, a secular space rather
than a spiritual space, is often a blurred, and sometimes disputed, issue. There seems to
be a tipping point, often undefined, beyond which the museum will not go in incorpo-
rating the religious or indeed cultural dimensions of the collections.

This suggests the need for negotiation over issues of religion and belief in museums and galler-
ies. As in so many areas of diversity policy and practice museum managers have to be highly
conscious of their responsibility for the scope and sustainability of collections and the interpre-
tation of them on behalf of diverse communities who hold diverse religious beliefs or indeed
hold none. These communities, in turn, may or may not feel that their special connection with,
and significance of these collections, is acknowledged by the museum or gallery or that they in
any sense ‘own’ them. Accordingly the educator or curator may decide that something called
‘neutrality’ or ‘objectivity’ is a safer position to adopt. But ‘academic objectivity’ or institutional
‘neutrality’, as Atul Shah has pointed out, can all too easily be used to shut down more challeng-
ing, less comfortable ways of interacting with faith communities and religious art.
Some years ago a curator queried with me the need for a teachers’ resource on Islam as a
religion for a new gallery of Islamic art with the remark, ‘we are not a mosque’. He considered
it was not the job of the museum to interpret or ask others to help us interpret Islam. I would
argue that, on the contrary, it is the job of the museum; that the curator was letting himself
off the hook and inviting misinterpretation and confusion. More recent galleries such as the
Jameel Gallery of the Islamic Middle East at the V&A (Plate 9.1), in displaying the objects as a
series of safely distanced art forms, suggest similar reservations about presenting Islam as a liv-
ing faith, today and in the past. This is in contrast to the touring exhibition Palace and Mosque
and accompanying exhibition programmes based on the same collection (Stanley 2004). In
2006, for example, Irna Qureshi worked with older Muslim women in Leeds who, as part of
the project Pillars of Light Alive, visited Palace and Mosque in Sheffield and Speaking Art, a cal-
ligraphy exhibition in Cartwright Hall art gallery in Bradford. The latter is notable for Nima
Poovaya-Smith’s work as curator and consultant in first collecting south Asian arts, both
traditional and contemporary, and then integrating these collections with existing European
arts in the collection. Nima has spoken and written inspiringly about this work and its impact
(Merriman and Poovaya-Smith 1996).
130 J. Reeve

What was thought appropriate interpretation and content for a temporary exhibit in Shef-
field or Bradford was perhaps not felt to be appropriate for a permanent gallery in South
Kensington. There appears to be an institutional rationale for this position. The V&A, like
the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris or the Metropolitan Museum in New
York, still uses a broadly neutral, aesthetic and distancing approach to the display of most of
its religious art unlike its presentation of, for example, ceramics, architecture or British art and
design. Strangely, for a museum with a strong contemporary mission and track record in inter-
active and audience-focussed interpretation, the V&A doesn’t include contemporary Islamic
art, much faith context or interactivity for its Jameel Gallery. The absence of contemporary
art or context in the actual gallery space is only partly compensated by the V&A’s excellent
website and by the Jameel Prize awarded to contemporary artists and designers inspired by
Islamic traditions of craft and design (Figure 9.2), the basis for an exhibition which toured the
Middle East in 2010, but which has not been incorporated into the permanent display on a
long-term basis (Stanley 2004).
As museum educators know only too well, and as designers and curators surely should
know by now, if the gallery or exhibit doesn’t do the initial connecting and interpreting for
visitors then they ‘make their own meaning’ and have to rely on previous knowledge, inven-
tion, educational programming (if there is any), guidebooks, audio-guides and websites – or
they just give up. In other words, the Jameel Gallery illustrates the familiar museum problem
of keeping its concepts, structures, contexts and knowledge implicit and assuming visitors
know what questions to ask and where to find the answers. If they don’t know, then clearly
they are the problem and not the museum. For example, the revelatory community voice for
the Jameel Gallery is on the website but not visibly reflected or acknowledged in the display
itself. The participants quoted on this website were asked to select which V&A objects struck
them most, for whatever reason. The first group of objects, not surprisingly, all had a connec-
tion with the Hajj and pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia (Greene 2007a).
The V&A website also includes comments by other faith communities on the personal and
spiritual significance of museum objects. These were contributed through the faith advisory
groups as part of the intercultural strand of a specially funded project, Capacity Building and
Cultural Ownership – Working with Culturally Diverse Communities (Greene 2007b) and were
carried out both after, and separately from, the development of the Jameel Gallery.
The website for the Norwich Castle Museum exhibition, The Art of Faith (Moore and
Thøfner 2010) also includes the chance to see and hear members of local faiths and non-
believers talk about their special objects. The British Museum’s more generic online tour has
comments across faiths, potentially a trickier option. This tour, created by young people over
a week in the Museum, was part of a partnership with the charity Save the Children through
the Diversity and Dialogue initiative to promote dialogue between people of different faiths
(British Museum 2008).
A cross-collection, cross-cultural and contextual approach for other religions and relevant
institutions is suggested by the successful collaboration between European and Middle Eastern
museums and academics, both online and in book publishing, as part of ‘Museum with No
Frontiers’ (Museum with No Frontiers 2004–11). Both the British Museum and V&A have
contributed to this initiative and link to the programme through their respective websites.
Pilgrimage is a popular theme for looking at religious experience, and is accessible to
modern audiences that may go to Santiago de Compostela, Canterbury, Iona, Assisi or other
sacred hubs if only as secular tourists. It is a main thread in the education programmes of
 A question of faith 131

FIGURE 9.2Rachid Koraichi, The Invisible Masters, 2008. Jameel Prize winner 2009, V&A
Museum. Courtesy of October Gallery, photo by Jonathan Greet.

the Singapore Asian Civilisations Museum (Chin 2010: 209–13) where one of the pilgrim
testimonies was from a football pilgrim to Liverpool. The Ashmolean’s admirable cross-faith
pilgrimage exhibit was an important part of an interfaith project (Barnes and Branfoot 2006).
Coleman and Elsner’s wide-ranging pilgrimage book published by British Museum Press has
already been cited above. The British Museum also has a major exhibit on the Hajj in prepa-
ration for 2012.
132 J. Reeve

The issue of relics is another theme that can be explored from a multi-faith perspective. In
summer 2011 the British Museum and the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore co-created Treas-
ures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe. In spring 2011 ceramicist Grayson
Perry made reliquaries working with students as part of a residency at the Foundling Museum
in London. Although relics may appear initially to be of no contemporary relevance or interest
except to the devout, thousands queue every day to view the holy body relics of Communism
in Moscow and Beijing, and others visit the graves of Elvis, Marx or Princess Diana.

Mutual understanding and diverse identities

Mark O’Neill’s second question was ‘Whether museums could promote mutual understand-
ing and respect amongst people of all faiths and none in their presentation of religious themes’.
The museologist and cultural historian Tony Bennett talks of ‘parity of representation for
all groups and cultures’ as one of the ‘distinctive political demands’ on the modern museum
(Bennett 1995: 9). A museum director or educator might well respond to this by asking
‘how far can we realistically meet the needs of so many faiths and versions of faiths (“and
none” as St Mungo aims to)?’. Certain religions appear to be prioritised and integrated into
museum narratives or agendas because of their art (mainstream and historic Buddhist, Chris-
tian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, and sometimes Jain) and, within that prioritisation, certain art
forms are privileged – icons and altarpieces or Indian sculpture for example (Guha-Thakurta
2008). The scale and quality of that representation is dependent often on who is providing
financial sponsorship for the acquisition or display of religious art. Some faiths may be seen
as more ethnographic and less worthy of representation, regardless of how many adherents
there are in the modern world or the local community (e.g. Sikhs, Rastas, evangelical black
churches, Hare Krishna, etc.). Religions or beliefs largely without art or material culture are
usually ignored altogether, such as Quakers or Humanists. Contemporary Druids or various
new kinds of pagans, revealed as a significant minority by recent UK demographic surveys, are
not taken seriously by museums although their ancient equivalents are.
A major problem in creating a thematic and more anthropological gallery of religions
within a comprehensive museum, like the V&A or British Museum, would be such omis-
sions. One reviewer of my Visitor’s Guide to World Religions (Reeve 2006) pointed out that it
didn’t address his own faith, Sikhism, which, as the guide explains, is not featured in British
Museum displays. The British Museum’s organisation collections of Sikh material, unlike the
V&A’s, are minimal. However that doesn’t prevent the British Museum collecting to fill the
gap as many UK museums (Leicester, Ipswich, Bradford, Birmingham, Museum of London,
etc.) have done in recent years in order to reflect the ‘home’ cultures of local populations. In
fact in 2010 the British Museum exhibited an impressive ceremonial Sikh turban and its con-
servation alongside multi-voiced meanings in the experimental exhibition space just by the
main entrance doors. The permanent displays remain unaffected, however, not least because
there is no ethnographic gallery for beliefs outside the main world religions. One exception is
the problematic Living and Dying gallery with its strong emphasis on health and well-being as
dictated by the financial sponsorship. The main Asia gallery has virtually no material after 1900
despite the enormous amount of contemporary collecting in recent years. Who is deciding
these display priorities and who still finds them acceptable?
The main faiths are, of course, not monolithic across time, space, generations, gender and
class. Different sects and groups have different interpretations of faith. This was acknowledged
 A question of faith 133

successfully by the V&A online initiative where every effort was made to involve different
branches of the main religions. It was also acknowledged by the multi-voiced treatment on the
British Library’s Sacred exhibition website where the three featured faiths were represented by dif-
ferent ages and perspectives and discussed by atheist philosopher, Julian Baggini (Reeve 2007).
There have been other successful multi-voiced exhibitions. Displays in the Museum of the
Bible in Amsterdam featured a commentary and selection of significant objects by a range of
young people from different faiths including a Rasta and a Hare Krishna follower (van der
Meer 2010). In 2010 the exhibition Marvellous Miracles showed Bible stories through the eyes
of artists with mental impairments. The Bible Museum is now under the same director as
the remarkable Catholic church that is concealed in the attic of a canalside house, now being
reinterpreted with discreet interactivity for the twenty-first century: Museum Ons’ Lieve Heer
op Solder, Our Lord in the Attic (Kiers 2008).
There is therefore growing evidence of multi-voicing and the varied registers of response
to religious objects. Chin describes beautifully how students respond to the Singapore displays
(Chin 2010: 201–6); Wingfield looks at encounters between adult visitors and the ‘charis-
matic’ Buddha in Birmingham Museum (Wingfield 2010) and sculptor Antony Gormley
responds to the new Buddhist sculpture gallery at the V&A (Gormley 2009); helpfully linked
from the V&A website.
The spiritual and personal significance of religious art to faith communities is clearly
revealed by Irna Qureshi when she describes what happened when she took a group of Mus-
lim women to see exhibitions of Islamic arts in Sheffield and Bradford:

Their negotiation of the spaces they entered as well as their interpretation of the objects
they saw was very revealing. They regarded the museum space as sacred, partly because
they had no other term of reference for dealing with something ‘Islamic’ . . . In antici-
pation, some performed ablutions beforehand, as Muslims would before entering a
mosque or a sacred space. This was their way of showing respect to the space and a way
to prepare themselves for a spiritual connection. They wondered whether to remove
shoes before entering, and kept their heads covered throughout, as they would do in a
mosque.
Although they regarded the space as sacred, the women were not familiar with the
notion of religious objects being on display purely for aesthetic appreciation. Thus, they
imposed their own meaning upon the artefacts and could only appreciate them as func-
tional objects. Perhaps for this reason, the women preferred to focus on familiar objects
whose function they understood – the Quran, astrolabes, pulpit, calligraphy – viewing
them purely in terms of their religious significance and function, and not as works of art
or as works of historical significance.
Qureshi 2010

It is clear that a gallery of Islamic art needs to address different needs and expectations if it is to
connect, not only with its core audiences, but also specifically with Muslims of different genera-
tions, levels of education and often with very limited experience of museum going. Few galler-
ies or exhibitions even begin to do this. The challenge of the under-interpreted gallery is well
illustrated by the Addis Islamic gallery at the British Museum. Before looking at a single object on
the tour of the Islamic gallery the Visitor’s Guide to World Religions asks the visitor to sit and read a
double spread of context that isn’t available in the gallery itself (Reeve 2006: 70–2). This gallery is
134 J. Reeve

still largely collections-led despite recent improvements. These include some visual connections
with contemporary Islamic and Victorian art, with China, and science showing some aspects of
inter-connectedness between cultures, and between the viewer, Islam and Islamic art.
A temporary exhibition in 2010–2011 at the British Museum, Images and Sacred Texts:
Buddhism across Asia, is another classic example of this neutral, object-centred, implicit kind of
display: curatorial in tone and purpose without any context in contemporary religious prac-
tice or any visible effort to engage the visitor except aesthetically. It asks no overt questions
and invites no reactions. Its main purpose appears to show objects that are normally in store.
Although it aims ‘to show the shared heritage and the pan-Asian and trans-national nature of
Buddhism’ the actual work of relating the small sample in this exhibition to the much richer
array of Buddhist art from across Asia in the galleries is left to the visitor and to the public
programme. There is no learning resource or publication and no sustainable afterlife to this
project. So what, might we ask, is the strategic point of mounting this display when there is so
much one could do with religious art in a world class collection (British Museum 2010)?
Elsewhere there is more sense of engagement and of prompting outcomes and responses. At
the Horniman Museum in south London, by contrast to the V&A and British Museum, reli-
gious art is widely defined and presented in different kinds of hybrid cultural contexts, such as in
the African Worlds gallery and as the result of varied consultation (Da Silva 2010; Golding 2009).
Karen Chin from Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum describes good practice in an Asian
context as part of a state strategy for civic education (Chin 2010). The book that accompanies
the south Asian part of this museum (Krishnan 2007) is a model of how such a collection should
be interpreted accessibly and reflects a strong public and educational as well as art historical
purpose, combining art and faith, art history and ethnography, ancient and modern.
Also in Material Religion Indian educator Shobita Punja explains how she created a course
for Hindu sixth formers in Delhi, introducing other faiths including Islam at a time of major
political tension over faith and identity. Central to the development of this initiative was
meeting with representatives of other faiths and accessing resources of both museums and
places of worship (Punja 2010). Indian state museums or government bodies are generally very
wary of presenting or exhibiting Islam.
During the aftermath of 11 September 2001 many more visitors came to the Islamic galleries
of major US and UK museums; extra talks and tours were provided and some adjustments made
to displays. However, long term, have these initiatives made any difference (cf. Cuno 2003: 49)?
In 2011 the Metropolitan Museum in New York opened new galleries for the Arts of the Arab
Lands and the Louvre, a new Islamic wing. Both are likely to follow the usual expensive art treas-
ures approach which is also taken in the Middle East. For example, the new Museum of Islamic
Art in Doha, Qatar also treats sacred artworks as expensive treasures in isolation. I. M. Pei’s
monumental ziggurat replaces an earlier more modest project by a Middle Eastern architect that
grounded Islamic art and culture in the physical contexts and lives of Muslims. The challenge in
all the contexts referenced is how to combine the art and faith aspects of objects and other media
(not necessarily in the same space): the high art and art history with the low art and anthropol-
ogy of religion. Norwich, Amsterdam, Singapore, Glasgow and the Horniman Museum have
probably got as close as anyone. The old ethnography department of the British Museum, the
Museum of Mankind, used to do this as a matter of routine. For example, a simulated altar in the
exhibition Vasna (as part of the 1982 Festival of India) took on a life of its own as south Asians
left offerings. But the Museum of Mankind approach and collections were subsumed long ago
into the aesthetic and ‘world’ meta-narratives of the main British Museum.
 A question of faith 135

Now many museum ethnographers have major reservations about contextual displays in
recreated environments, although these did appear to have major interpretive and educational
advantages. Guha-Thakurta (2008: 157) describes how the Newark New Jersey Museum
(which has one of the world’s greatest Tibetan collections), created a realistic Tibetan altar
which was subsequently blessed by the Dalai Lama. Other Tibetan collections, such as for
example at Itanagar in north-east India, have also been blessed by the Dalai Lama. In the
UK, Burmese priests inaugurated and blessed the newly commissioned throne for the British
Museum’s Burmese Buddha in its main Asian gallery and a group of Chinese Buddhist monks
blessed the Robert H. N. Ho Gallery of Buddhist Sculpture at the V&A (Plate 9.2a). Also at
the V&A religious officials and representatives from diverse Christian and Jewish traditions
participated in the opening of the Sacred Silver and Stained Glass Gallery, many of them hav-
ing advised on different aspects of the content, interpretation and display (Plate 9.2b).
Providing sacred spaces in secular museums for active worshippers is a real challenge. The
British Museum provides such a space for Ethiopian Christians to access some of their sacred
objects. The Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles acknowledges that,
whatever the faith on show in its current exhibition, other faith groups may wish to take advan-
tage of such a ‘sacred’ space in which to meet (Nooter Roberts 2010: 92–5). On a training
course in Bangkok I was told firmly by students that I had omitted a key audience in discussing
audience profiles – monks and other Buddhists, who would want to do homage in front of Bud-
dhist art. A different kind of faith activity in a museum is described by Guha-Thakurta (2008:
158–9): the creation in public in a museum of images for the Durga Puja festival by Bengali
craftspeople, with subsequent ceremonies elsewhere. In the case of the British Museum in 2006,
the images were eventually immersed in the Thames (Matti 2006). Tibetan sand mandalas are
another instance of this kind of sacred ‘performance/installation art’ in museums and galleries.

Telling the whole story?

O’Neill’s third issue was ‘whether museums had a duty to present the destructive histories of
religions as well as their positive contributions’.
As Sandell points out (2007: 1), St Mungo Museum shows commonalities between reli-
gions as well as differences and conflicts. It also doesn’t claim to be objective. The British
Library decided not to present destructive histories in planning the Sacred exhibition on the
texts and objects of Judaism Christianity and Islam. This was partly to encourage a sense of
ownership and ensure sponsorship from all three faiths. The emphasis was on ‘what we share’
(Reeve 2007a). On joining the team as catalogue editor at an advanced stage of the project,
and as a historian, I had problems with this decision initially. Surely omitting the Crusades,
Inquisition or pogroms, let alone contemporary events, would be seen as dishonest, distorting
and self-censoring? As it turned out, the positive public and press reaction suggested that the
British Library’s decision was the right one and particularly in the context of a high profile
national institution (Reeve 2007a).
The exhibition did tackle a number of potentially controversial issues – such as Shia represen-
tation of Muhammad and Jewish images of God, which were included after consultation with
faith focus groups. It also treated faiths not as monoliths through time or as single entities through
multi-voicing (varied ages, genders) on the substantial online resources (British Library 2007).
The exhibition also related objects to religious practice. Video stations illustrating rites
of passage were placed alongside sacred texts and related exhibits, including Jemima Khan’s
136 J. Reeve

wedding dress. Behind the success of this exhibition was a very complex process in which at
least five interest groups could be defined: curators (all but one from the faith group whose
objects they were curating); interpreters (designers, catalogue editor, publishers, learning
department); high level faith representatives and sponsors; faith community focus groups con-
vened by the British Library and British Library senior management. Publishing, interpreta-
tion and programming were all layered to appeal to a very broad range of audiences from
academic to family and community.
While museums may deal with many faiths, art galleries, certainly in the UK, often display
Christian art with minimal focus on its religious contexts. Yet this is now a big challenge given
that many, perhaps most, gallery visitors will need help with Christian subject matter thus
needing, but seldom getting, as much interpretation as Islamic or Buddhist art (cf. O’Neill
1996; Da Silva 2010: 179–85). I was conscious of being highly inconsistent in not explaining
Christian iconography and ideas to the same degree as other faiths in the Visitor’s Guide to
World Religions (Reeve 2006), a book aimed at an international audience visiting the British
Museum. Should not truly ‘universal’ secular museums and galleries explain the Virgin Mary
in as much depth as Tara and Durga?
Contemporary art can be a potent ally in responding to and reconsidering older religious
art. The National Gallery showed this with Seeing Salvation (MacGregor 2000; Howes 2007;
Paine 2000). Other recent examples from across Europe are discussed by Bauduin (2010).
Rowena Loverance (2007) draws on a range of contemporary Christian art in the British
Museum collections, particularly graphic art not on display, and integrates these with historic
displays. Beyond Belief: Modern Art and the Religious Imagination (Crumlin 1998) is the catalogue
of a fascinating Australian exhibition on modern art and ‘the religious imagination’.
But, in line with a familiar looseness of definition and thought in post-modern art, religion
(or spirituality or the sacred) is now also invoked like the environment as an umbrella for work
that may not at first seem closely related:

It’s rather stinky and kind of loud, but an exhibit [Carsten Hoeller’s Soma] that allows
visitors to bed down with 24 golden canaries and a dozen reindeer is one of the most
popular ever at a Berlin museum. While the goal of the unusual installation is to acquaint
the public with spiritual Hinduism, the gallery says the combination of reindeer and the
approaching holidays has many visitors thinking just one thing: Christmas.
artdaily.org 2010

A much tighter focus is in evidence in the exhibition The Art of Faith: 3,500 Years of Art &
Belief in Norfolk which examines the long history of religious diversity in Norfolk. It brings
together rare and beautiful religious objects from the Bronze Age to the present day (Moore
and Thøfner 2010) As the press release explained:

Within the exhibition, historical pieces are set beside contemporary works, revealing
that what was important in the past is still relevant today. One of the most memorable
pieces is John Goto’s Loss of Face, Iconoclasts Zealots and Vandals (2002) – a series of pho-
tographs showing church rood screens attacked by iconoclasts during the Reformation.
The show also features a specially commissioned film by Chris Newby. Working in
collaboration with an interfaith group and as many local communities as possible, Chris
Newby’s film Something Understood focuses on the act of prayer.
Art of Faith 2010
 A question of faith 137

Conclusions
As we have seen, examples of good practice with religion in museums and galleries include:
fruitful but boundaried collaboration with faith focus groups; more open-ended debate within
museums and galleries about the nature of religious interpretation; sustained educational part-
nerships and sponsored programmes in various media; multi-voiced interpretation in displays,
publications, websites and programmes; a responsiveness to public debates while mindful of
the museum’s public role; an engagement with contemporary culture and its responses to
faith; ongoing audience research. An example of the latter is the current research project at
the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society, Birkbeck College, University of London
entitled, Seeing the Sacred in the Museum: Exploring the Significance of Religious and Secular Sub-
jectivities for Visitor Engagement with Religious Objects and developed in collaboration with the
British Museum.
Critics of active museum involvement with current issues and potential controversy appear
to believe that the overriding consideration is to play safe and maintain public trust, especially
in the United States (Cuno 2003: 18–20). Art museums, in this view, should stay true to their
aesthetic and art historical mission because that is all they are competent to do (Appleton
2004; cf. Weil 1988). They should not, it is maintained, be controversial or seen as partial as
this will risk undermining relations with the wider community. One can see why this might
be the case in the United States for example, where faith groups are very successful at closing
down contemporary art exhibitions with religious material they don’t like, or having offend-
ing items removed (Ruthven 1989; Dubin 1999; Cuno 2003: 13; Zongker 2010). This only
serves to highlight the determination of museums in polarised faith communities such as
Scotland and Northern Ireland that have tackled religions head on and met with opposition
(Arthur 2000).
Richard West of the National Museum of the American Indian described it as a ‘safe place
for unsafe ideas’ (Lewis 2007: 3). Ferguson, in her discussion of controversial topics in Aus-
tralian and US museums observes that ‘visitors perceive museums to be “safe” places – per-
haps because they offer comfort or reassurance that society still values certain things, or that
society’s values haven’t changed’ (Ferguson 2006: 32). In optimistic vein Ferguson’s checklist
includes to ‘Emphasize and defend the role of museums as a place to learn about controversial
issues’ (Ferguson 2006: 37). As David Anderson (Chapter 15, this volume) emphasizes:

Museums have an obligation to recognize the legitimacy of many of the claims that faith
groups make upon them, where these do not unreasonably interfere with the cultural
rights of others . . . What museums cannot do (I would argue) is to cede open cultural
space or the interpretation of collections to the control of faith adherents.

At the aspirational meta-level one might end with President Obama’s speech in Cairo to a Mus-
lim audience, On a New Beginning, on 4 June 2009. ‘There must be a sustained effort to listen
to each other. To learn from each other, to respect one another and to seek common ground.’
These are the active aims of an organisation like the St Mungo Museum (O’Neill 1996: 198).
In Singapore, in a newly-created museum, Karen Chin and her fellow museum educators aim
‘to help visitors see religion with new eyes, not as exclusive sets of beliefs but an ecosystem
of diverse ideas bound by rich civilisations that are connected by centuries of trade and cul-
tural exchange’ (Chin 2010: 193). From the V&A case studies, however, we see some of the
138 J. Reeve

tensions when the ‘curatorial’ voice meets the ‘community’ voice (Nightingale and Greene
2010: 235). Atul Shah (2010) advises that:

Museums and curators need to be very humble about their interpretations, especially so
if they do not have faith or if they come from a culture which is significantly different
from the object they are interpreting. This is an inner quality which cannot be pre-
scribed in a recruitment advertisement, but should be a living value for curators.

At whatever level, as Ian Blackwell (2009) observes in his advice on community

consultation:

the process will be intellectually challenging, with evolving definitions of ‘engagement’,

‘community’, ‘authority’ and ‘knowledge’; there will be challenges and the excitement
of negotiation and debate; [and as a result] the organization will find that its collections
are appreciated more and their future is more secure.

A good example of this kind of community work, with a Muslim community education
officer at Cartwright Hall art gallery in Bradford, is provided by Irna Qureshi (2010):

What really impressed them [Muslim women from Leeds] was seeing what they per-
ceived as the prominence and respect given by museums to Islamic objects. The com-
munity group may not have been attuned to current affairs, but coming from Beeston
(home of some of the London bombers) they understood that Islam had taken a very
public battering. The museum visits gave them a sense of pride and raised their self
esteem.

So we ask for and listen to a lot of advice, sometimes conflicting, often critical or inconclu-
sive. We share the role of curator and interpreter so far as we can, but at the end of the day
it is for us, as the museum professionals, to decide what we feel is right for the sustained life
and reputation of the museum and its collections and in the interests of all its community
stakeholders. The best practice described in this chapter acknowledges that a museum is a
secular space for sharing views and experiences of the sacred; ‘a secular guardian of religious
artefacts’ (Chin 2010: 213–15). We have to be sensitive to faith groups, but also thick-
skinned if other pressure groups, religious and political bigots or the media kick up a fuss.
We cannot do what everyone wants and need to be upfront about this and not raise false
expectations. Above all we need to be braver and more consistent about evaluating whether
our cherished projects actually make any difference. Our main task is to bring together
religious objects and concepts with audiences both secular and religious. As Karen Chin
rightly observes, ‘Many people . . . find it difficult to understand religious concepts without
visual aid’ (Chin 2010: 213–15) which is why so many of these objects were created in the
first place.

Note
1 For the challenges of religious education more broadly see also Lenga et al. (2000), Miller (2008) and
Reeve (2010).
 A question of faith 139

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10
A BOOK WITH ITS PAGES
ALWAYS OPEN?
Oliver Winchester

The museum as mirror

Museums keep our cultural heritage safe. Their galleries and store rooms keep objects that
have been selected as historically significant or socially representative secure, hauled up in
elegant stasis and protected from physical decay. Once admitted into the museum, objects are
kept alive on the vast life support of interpretation, narrative and meaning that the museum
machine generates and sustains. Principally organised around a taxonomic categorisation of
knowledge and its material remains, the museum project ‘conjoin[s] multiple experiences of
time and space . . . in order to preserve, order, educate and collate’ (Mills 2008: 46). It is this
drive to order that distinguishes a visit to a museum from a trip to a shopping mall. Visitors to
museums expect to benefit from time spent there (willingly or under duress) and the stories
suggested by the displays define the identity of a museum, in turn contributing to and reflect-
ing our greater sense of individual and collective identity.
However this warm and fuzzy communitarian logic conceals the always present fact that
museums function through exclusion in order to make sense of the material to hand, filtering
ideas out from the chaos of things. A museum’s potential to explain is always based on its abil-
ity to focus on a particular set of relations and meanings between objects. The contemplative
silence of a museum gallery is that of a quiet suppression, where problematic, superfluous or
redundant associations are dismissed in favour of a predetermined script, thus ensuring the
delivery of a singular, coherent and audible, intellectual narrative. Accordingly, these nar-
ratives are always predicated upon exclusions. Unchecked such exclusions may slip into an
authoritarian, exclusive or undeniably dismissive mould, intolerant of atypical ideas or unrep-
resentative stories.
Yet simultaneously, over a long trajectory, museums throng with change as the ideas,
displays and objects that are considered important are modified over time. The growth,
adjustment and significance of museums as self-regulating and relevant places of enlightened
scholarship, where knowledge-as-thing is categorised, is thus wholly dependent upon the
successful navigation between these twin currents of stability and progress, with the institu-
tion charting a steady course through the continual present as it becomes history. Meaningful
 A book with its pages always open? 143

collections interpretation consequently keeps step with society whilst judiciously remaining
outside fashion or politics (Schubert 2000; Barron 1991).1

An inbuilt contradiction
Sexuality and its histories is a relatively new area for examination within the museums sector.2
An area of research currently in its infancy, the telling of such histories and the methods for
so doing are exciting, complex and difficult. A field littered with political, moral and per-
sonal challenges, any foray into this area throws up many questions and provides only partial
answers. Perhaps the most complex issue at stake in any drive for inclusivity based on sexual-
ity, stems from the inherent tension that lies at the centre of the gay liberation movement and
its legacy – the desire to eradicate discrimination whilst enshrining difference (Levin 2010;
Cruikshank 1992; D’Emilio 1983).
Indeed, when sexual identity is discussed with any kind of thoughtful sensitivity beyond
that of a simplistic, restrictive trans-historical essentialism, the museum project hits a problem.
Many recent exhibitions have sought to address the exclusion of same-sex desire from their
collections and displays by presenting a series of ‘discovered’ identities and ‘hidden’ histories,
telling self-consciously bright and optimistic narratives that are built upon a retrospective (and
ethically questionable) outing of notable men and women of the past whose sexual desires
could be described as non-normative (Atkins 1996; McIntyre 2007).3
Yet, as is well documented, the crystallisation of western homosexuality as an identity
rather than a set of activities occurred only towards the end of the nineteenth century and the
simultaneous medicalisation of desire led to the disregard for, and in many cases wilful perse-
cution of, homosexuals (Kosofsky Sedgwick 1990; Terry 1999). How then can museums play
‘catch up’ without producing reductive and overly simplistic stories of gradual transition from
repression to liberation over the course of history, a form of telling that fetishises a breaking
free from the closet? Desire is chaotic and cannot be confined to neat binaries and tidy labels.
How can radical queer, anti-assimilationist desire be translated into the museum without a
tacit acknowledgement of the gaps, disruptions, geographical discrepancies and exceptions
that such desires inflict upon the objective museum system? In other words, to what extent
can the ways in which sexuality is approached by museums be seen as a sincere and pre-
emptive expression of a shifting political base rather than a rear guard reflection of a changing
social superstructure? Just how should museums position themselves in relation to this messier,
confusing and far more chaotic queer reality?4

Getting the ball rolling: V&A Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans & Queer Network
In 2006 the V&A founded the Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans & Queer (LGBTQ) Network, a
cross-museum group of interested individuals who sought to engage with issues of sexual
identity as one of the newly emerging curatorial tools with which museum collections may be
interrogated. The group’s publicly stated intentions were broad and all-encompassing. These
included the drive for an increased understanding of the issues faced by gay and lesbian staff
members; the provision of a sexuality-themed public programme; an investigation of museum
collections to pinpoint how issues of sexuality might best be productively put to use as an
interpretative tool; and the forging of partnerships with academics, artists and designers for
whom such questions posed particular interest. Activities straddled three core areas of museum
144 O. Winchester

business – ongoing personnel management; shorter term front-facing public programming;

and longer term research into collections for the development of expertise.
In order to generate and sustain momentum from the outset, the network opted early on
to generate a series of public events that would increase visitor footfall and broaden collections
interpretation. Starting in 2007, the V&A offered a varied programme of talks each February
as part of LGBT History Month, with discussions ranging from questions of lesbian spectator-
ship and desire in nineteenth-century fine art to the poetic allusions of young male beauty
found on ceramics dating from eleventh-century Kashan (modern-day Iran). Programming
soon expanded to include events such as the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (LLGFF),
delivered with the express aim of offering V&A visitors a fresh, new, personal and vibrant
framework with which to view the collection. Events were closely tied to objects and ideas
that related to gallery displays and temporary exhibitions and were intended to attract new
audiences and to broaden and enrich the experience of existing visitors. For example the
2009 LLGFF screenings were linked to the permanent fashion displays through a series of film
screenings that focused on gay self-fashioning and identity through the lives and clothes of
Leigh Bowery and Quentin Crisp.
Attracting over 3,000 visitors, Friday Late Making a Scene, one of a series of monthly late-
night curated museum events, investigated desire and sexuality and represented a highlight
within the network’s programme. The programme was produced in collaboration with Pride
Legacy Project, the event flyer mischievously stating that ‘from clandestine liaisons to the joy
of serendipity, the art of cruising to radical activism, Friday Late Making a Scene explores gen-
der performance and identity politics’. Content included the presentation of Queer Courtesan,
an installation by artist Qasim Riza Shaheen and a series of intimate one-to-one perform-
ances collectively titled Cruising for Art, curated by academic Brian Lobel, that provocatively
explored the practices of cottaging and personal encounters in public space. In addition, visi-
tors were invited to witness a reinterpretation of Oscar Wilde’s 1883 lecture at the Royal
College of Art by artist Chris Green and to join performer David Hoyle for a life class lesson
which would irreverently deconstruct notions of traditional female beauty. Broad ranging,
entertaining and yet thoughtful, Friday Late Making a Scene attempted to grapple with con-
cepts that, for many visitors, were heavily invested with personal significance.

Only as good as the next curator?

Yet temporary events or talks are only as good as their next curator and, taking place over
hours rather than weeks or years, can merely skim the surface of their subject. Events may be
high profile, thoroughly curated and thought provoking, engaging their audiences in subject
areas that may be familiar or alien, yet in general they cannot be said to have a legacy or weight
comparable to permanent displays or major headline exhibitions. It is the third stated area of
network activity – research and collections analysis – that lies at the core of the V&A’s engage-
ment with sexuality as a serious area of study.
Hence, in March 2009, the network convened a roundtable that sought to interrogate
the possibilities of same-sex desire as a curatorial tool. Bringing together museum curators
and invited academic respondents for a programme of papers that ranged from the sexual
preference of Serge Diaghilev (a paper delivered in anticipation of a major forthcoming V&A
exhibition) to a practical discussion of past LGBTQ inflected displays at different institu-
tions, Sexing the Collections offered the opportunity for knowledge transfer, where curators and
 A book with its pages always open? 145

academics alike were asked to think beyond the boundaries of their respective specialisms
(Winchester 2010).5 Sexing the Collections is the kind of event that the network continues
to favour, supporting, enabling and promoting scholarly investigation into what museums
do, for whom and why. Furthermore, in order to avoid a condescending tenor or acciden-
tal endorsement of potentially offensive attitudes, such work must first deconstruct its own
authorial position. Primary among the reasons for this drive for context is the ambiguous
nature of objects themselves.

Complicated objects
Objects are the life blood of a museum and the word itself is a hallowed museum term. Yet
objects by themselves, divorced from time and place, are often difficult to explain on their
own terms. Objects displayed with only minimal interpretation can rarely speak for themselves
and are easily reduced by visitors to mere remnants, lucky scraps of material culture that have
survived the ravages of history and are all too easily fetishised as such. Likewise, contemporary
and well-known objects, when displayed within the museum environment are often subject
to a heavy weight of sentimental associations drawn from visitors’ own experiences (think of
New Order album artwork for example). These connotations or associations may interfere with
or contradict the intentions set for that object within the display as planned by the curator.
This is not to chastise audiences as lazy, but rather to highlight that objects can frequently sug-
gest only narrowly defined meanings unless the audience can glean something more of their
instrumentality, fathom their function and symbolic value or the ways in which they operated
and circulated as markers of cultural capital.
Yet if such questions flow around all objects, these questions are complicated yet further
in an LGBTQ inflected reading of objects. Gender and sexuality studies have consistently
complicated notions of essential meaning (for example, what does this object mean? Where
does this identity come from?) and suggestions of environmental connotation or conditioning
(What does this context mean for this object? How did interaction and environment generate
this identity?). Perhaps a figure in an object’s history was LGBT or Q or the artist or designer
could be considered gay or transgender? Likewise a collector or curator who crossed paths
with an object may have been a lesbian or bisexual. Yet is an investigation into the biogra-
phy and sexuality of an individual warranted or could such an endeavour be interpreted as
superfluous at best and tokenistic political correctness at worst? What imprint, if any, can such
histories leave on a physical object? Indeed is there such a thing as a queer sensibility and are
contemporary cultural appropriations and queerings as valuable (or durable) as established and
conventional values? (Duberman 1997; Katz and Ward 2010).6
Perhaps the initial impetus for a reappraisal of museum collections comes from a simpler,
less theoretical (and long overdue) position. Whilst many members of LGBTQ communities
within western urban centres now enjoy a vast array of supposed freedoms and the mili-
tancy of early gay liberation has given way to an altogether less easily defined picture, sexual
identity remains a significant and useful construct. Straddling the extremes of separatism
and assimilation, the simple recognition and presentation of LGBTQ histories alongside the
identification of LGBTQ individuals and networks can suggest, however partially or awk-
wardly, that ‘we’ have always existed. Only from such a simple, anchored root point can
the wider complexities and internal contradictions of desire, in all its forms, be adequately
addressed.
146 O. Winchester

Up front and clearly visible: content

Analysis of an object’s content (what it appears to be saying on its surface) is perhaps the sim-
plest form of fact that can frame an LGBTQ inflected reading of an object. Subject matter offers
the curator an opportunity to explicitly and purposefully represent sexuality, especially when it
lies at the core of the work. For example Gran Fury’s poster Kissing Doesn’t Kill (Plate 10.1) was
created to effect political change for which visibility was all important. Invited by the American
Foundation for AIDS Research to contribute to a group show called Art Against AIDS On the
Road, the poster was originally designed to be seen as part of the landscape of the street, on bus
shelters and on the side of buses. It is a vocal and emphatic object, a useful tool for exploring
sexuality for a museum going public. Yet its move from the street to the gallery is not without
issue (Crimp 1988, 1990; Felshin 1995; Griffin 2000; Triechler 1999; Watney 1986).
Co-opting the style of advertising Kissing Doesn’t Kill depicts three interracial couples kiss-
ing, one heterosexual and two gay. A secondary text box reads ‘Corporate Greed, Govern-
ment Inaction, and Public Indifference make AIDS a Political Crisis’. Through the economic
and highly effective use of a pre-existing visual language of commerce, this image communi-
cates a variety of complex ideas, the most striking being the then publicly held misconception
that AIDS could be transferred by social contact or kissing. In so doing the image re-affirms
the validity of queer desire in the face of growing institutionally sanctioned homophobia and
image and text challenge the root cause of the crisis, locating it outside the individual and
calling attention to the larger social forces at work. The image challenges mainstream repre-
sentations and, through the use of the familiar and mundane vocabulary of advertising, AIDS
is brought into close proximity to the viewer without recourse to shock tactics. The success
of the image depends on visual pleasure and the glossy seductiveness of the representation. In
addition, the poster attempts to include a variety of ethnic groups and shows both men and
women. Moreover, the intended mobility of this work, which was to be seen on the side of a
bus, was not rooted in one community, subculture or geographical location. So successful was
this image in fact that it was reproduced in both the mainstream and alternative press, reprinted
several thousand times as a poster and was restaged as a music video broadcast on MTV.
Yet, even within the fine art commissioned context of this travelling show, Gran Fury’s
work provoked controversy. The American Foundation for AIDS Research (AMFAR), an
organisation largely devoted to fundraising and therefore reliant on corporate donations, held
exception to the secondary strap line. Faced with the stark choice of pulling out or accepting
this editing of their work, Gran Fury agreed to remove the offending text, believing that the
visuals were powerful enough to get their message across. Thus in San Francisco, Washington,
DC and Chicago, Kissing Doesn’t Kill was displayed in an incomplete fashion. The results were
confusing for a large number of viewers, some of whom assumed the work was about the
rights of gay men and lesbians to kiss in public. In Chicago this confusion led to City Alder-
man Robert Shaw suggesting that the graphic was ‘directed at children for the purposes of
recruitment’. Shortly before the posters went up in Chicago, the Illinois State Senate passed
a bill outlawing the ‘display of any poster showing or simulating physical contact or embrace
within a homosexual or lesbian context where persons under 21 can view it’. The bill was
later overturned thanks to local and national campaigning and the posters did go on display
but nearly all were defaced by vandals, provoking national press coverage.
Kissing Doesn’t Kill thus speaks of a significant and controversial moment in the history of
gay sexuality. It insists upon the visibility of same-sex desire, both then (as object) and now
 A book with its pages always open? 147

(as image). Yet the preservation of this poster within the museum environment leads to an
inevitable loss of the original urgency, denying the work its political significance and historical
specificity in a manner that unintentionally reinforces the divisions and misconceptions that
the poster originally sought to resist. Kissing Doesn’t Kill loses its immediacy both as a historical
document (much has changed) and as museum object (unable to speak for itself). It thus merely
serves as a grim reminder of a moment of queer despair, reinforcing a simplistic binary of straight
and gay, us and them, negative and positive, healthy and diseased, future and death – assump-
tions that are camouflaged under a patina of history. Objects, on whose surfaces same-sex desire
is so clearly and undeniably written, are thus hostages to fortune in need of contextual explana-
tion and sensitively considered juxtapositions. Such objects mean a great deal to those for whom
they speak but say very little to those for whom their visual language and content is unfamiliar.

The back story: context

However, objects that speak explicitly of sexuality make up a very small percentage of the
V&A collection (Plate 10.2). The personal histories of the men or women associated with
objects offer a broader territory for exploration of queer themes through biography. One such
figure is William Beckford, a voracious art collector of the eighteenth century (Figure 10.1).

FIGURE 10.1 William Beckford at the age of 21, engraved after a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds,
1835. V&A Museum. Museum no. E.2046–1919.
148 O. Winchester

The objects he amassed over his lifetime, which now find themselves spread throughout the
V&A collections, include some of the most significant works held by the museum. The ‘Maz-
arin Chest’, one of the finest pieces of surviving Japanese export lacquer, originally dating from
around 1640, was acquired by Beckford in 1800 (Plate 10.3). Furthermore, the Museum’s
British Galleries contain a dedicated vitrine to the man himself, a figure whose personal life was
as rich and varied as his appetite for beauty (Malcolm 1996).
Born in 1760, aged nine, after the sudden death of his father, the young William inherited
his family’s immense fortune amassed in the sugar plantations of Jamaica. Called ‘England’s
Wealthiest Son’ by Lord Byron, Beckford was a one time pupil of the composer Mozart.
Raised in the famous Fonthill Splendens mansion in Wiltshire, Beckford was educated
at home by a series of teachers, the last of whom was the drawing instructor Alexander
Cozens, with whom Beckford developed a close and sentimental bond, although the depth
of this relationship can only be inferred. In the summer of 1777 Beckford travelled to
Geneva, a favourite destination for English tourists, where he further developed his edu-
cation. The highlight of this first trip abroad was undoubtedly Beckford’s meeting with
Voltaire, the famous French writer and philosopher, author of Candide (1759). However,
letters home to his mother told of another exciting discovery, that of his passion for a
young Genevan boy. Alarmed, Beckford’s mother made the journey to Switzerland to
collect her son.
On his return Beckford’s mother sent her son on a tour of England, first to the West Coun-
try, and a trip to Powderham Castle in Devon, the family home of the Courtenays where
Beckford formed a liking for the young William Courtenay, later Viscount Courtenay and
9th Earl of Devon. Courtenay was then aged eleven and reputed to have been particularly
beautiful. Naming him ‘Kitty’ in his letters, Beckford wrote that ‘of all human creatures male
or female [Courtenay] is the only one that seems to have been cast in my mould’ and that
Courtenay was ‘never so happy as when reclining by my side listening to my wild music or the
strange stories which sprang up in my fancy for his amusement. Those were the most delight-
ful hours of my existence’ (Malcolm 1996: 17).
In June 1780 Beckford embarked on a Grand Tour. Whilst in Venice he formed a liking
for the son of the aristocratic Cornaros family with whom he was staying, but nevertheless
his letters continued to refer to his ‘Kitty’ and we are told that when Beckford heard directly
from Courtenay, he would be thrown into ecstasy and would write back recklessly saying
how he had kissed his letter a thousand times. On his return to England, Beckford moved to
London, where he became involved with his cousin Louisa Beckford and the two of them
plunged themselves enthusiastically into London’s social scene, in time growing romantically
and sexually involved, leading to an increasingly complex love triangle.
In 1872 Beckford began work on his novel Vathek, an extravagant exotic Arabic tale.
Deeming the subject inappropriate, Beckford was sent on another Grand Tour by his mother
and in his absence she arranged for her son to marry. On his return and following the mar-
riage, however, Beckford began writing The Episodes. One of the more unconventional stories
was that of Prince Alaso and Princess Firouzah, described by the historian Malcolm Jack as
‘overtly pederastic and the denouement a thinly disguised attempt to avoid making its homo-
sexual overtone overt’ (Malcolm 1996: 17). Moreover in September 1784, on a visit to Pow-
derham Castle in Devon, Beckford was accused of having been seen in a compromising situ-
ation with the now sixteen-year-old William Courtenay. The accusation was made by Lord
Loughborough, whose family tutor was supposedly woken by a disturbance and witnessed an
 A book with its pages always open? 149

impropriety through the keyhole. Following its reporting in the press Beckford was forced to
flee to Switzerland with his wife in July 1785.
Florid biographical description of this kind, contextualising the remnants of a life lived
queerly, tells us much about the young Beckford’s character, about who he was and what mat-
tered to him. Yet this form of interpretation is dependent on secondary sources and requires a
high degree of participation by visitors in order to project meaning onto mute objects. If the
visitor is engaged, then a layered narrative can be built up around objects, breathing life into
the seemingly inert detritus of another person’s life. However modern sensitivities over any
potential suggestion of paedophilia within Beckford’s biography for example, which chimes
with the unfortunate modern tendency to conflate homosexuality with pederasty, neatly high-
light some of the potential complexities that an uncritical and pedestrian delivery of a single
life story may involve.7 Taken further, this form of interpretation, if performed uncritically,
can imply that homosexuality is a trans-historical category outside designation, a suggestion
that is both curatorially uncomplicated and wildly inaccurate. Yet biographical description is
the most widely employed form of LGBTQ interpretation within museums.

Moving beyond biography

If one merely reads a life through its material remnants, then the objects become mere illustra-
tions to a closed story and lead to an intellectual cul-de-sac. Broadening out beyond biography
to include habits, patterns of living, social interactions between individuals or their collecting
habits may help breach this impasse of analysis. In the case of Beckford we find his interest
in collecting moved well beyond fine and decorative arts. The Bodleian Library holds Beck-
ford’s papers and distributed through these are the contents of scrap books he kept throughout
his life which show a keen interest in molly (pre-modern homosexual) subculture, where
he noted the arrest, prosecution and public disgracing of many homosexual men, including
William Courtenay.8 For example Beckford cut out a report concerning one of his neighbours
in Wiltshire, Mr Seymour. In 1828 he and his servant Mr Macklin were discovered having
sexual relations in the master’s dressing room. The ensuing trial was attended by great num-
bers of the Wiltshire gentry and Mr Seymour claimed that the servants were conspiring against
him. He protested that ‘he had been leaning over Macklin, with one hand upon his shoulder,
looking at a book of accounts’ rather than indulging in any inappropriate behaviour.
Beckford’s collecting and accumulation of such documents moves beyond the desire to
surround oneself with decorous, fine objects and engages with the very meaning of collecting
as an impulse. To quote Michael Camille ‘the history of collecting is not the account of how
groups of already-finished inert things are organized by individuals or institutions, so much as
a process by which these objects are being constantly produced, reconfigured and redefined’
(Camille and Rifkin 2001: 1). Such a shift in emphasis from one man’s collection to one
man’s impulse to collect suggests a space for reading the activity of collecting as pathology and
provides avenues through which the activity of acquisition may itself be read as a significantly
queer activity. After all, collecting engages with themes of accumulation and categorisation
that gesture towards broader notions of inheritance, reproduction and life legacy. Indeed gen-
der and sexuality tend to be understood as ‘things we see in images’ but equally may be seen as
‘inherent in the very structure of relations through which images have been inherited, bought,
sold exchanged and enjoyed’ (ibid.: 1–2). Consequently, collecting is not a homosexual drive
to possess but, as Camille continues, ‘it’s not just that the unmentionable nature of same sex
150 O. Winchester

desire has often meant that the subject had to communicate the secret in a coded language, but
the fact that this language was a system of objects’ (ibid.: 2). What cannot be said, therefore,
may be spoken of through things. Yet the coded language of objects does not remain static
and objects accrete a succession of varying, and at times contradictory, meanings over their
existence. Objects such as the V&A’s plaster copy of Michelangelo’s David gesture towards a
third way for LGBTQ inflected analyses of museum displays, one that puts the museum visitor
firmly at the centre of the encounter.

Meaning is in the eye of the beholder?

The V&A’s plaster copy of David (Figure 10.2) was presented to Queen Victoria in 1856 by
the Grand Duke Ferdinand III of Tuscany as a peace offering after he had vetoed the export
of a painting by Ghirlandaio which the National Gallery had sought to acquire. The Queen
received no advance notification of the gift and the cast was immediately redirected to the
Foreign Office and then on to South Kensington. The cast, a full eighteen feet in height,
was installed in February 1857 in the newly completed ‘Brompton Boilers’ (nicknamed on
account of their appearance), the first permanent buildings on the South Kensington site.
Displayed next to this cast of David is a plaster fig leaf which was hung on David on the
occasion of visits by royal ladies. It was first used in the time for Queen Mary. According to
anecdotal information, on her first encounter with the cast, Queen Victoria was so shocked
by David’s nudity that a correctly proportioned fig leaf was created and stored in readiness for
any visit members of the royal family might make. On these occasions the leaf was hung from
two strategically placed implanted hooks.
As has been well documented elsewhere, in 1532, aged fifty-seven, Michelangelo fell in
love with the adolescent Tommaso Cavalieri. A 2006 exhibition at the British Museum was
one of the first to discuss the artist’s work in relation to his homosexuality. Some reviewers of
the exhibition thought that Michelangelo’s sexuality was reflected in his interest in the male
form. Indeed Michelangelo’s contemporary, Ascanio Condivi, noted in his biography of the
giant of Renaissance art that Michelangelo held the naked male form in particular admiration,
although Condivi went on to stress the chaste nature of this interest. Sculpted from a single
piece of perfectly white marble, the original statue (now housed in the Accademia in Flor-
ence, Italy) depicts a physically mature David holding a slingshot in one hand, his thoughts
focused as he prepares to fight Goliath.
Whilst David was intended as a symbol of Florentine republican spirit (allegorically the
giant represents Tyranny), its colossal, uncompromising nudity and its solid muscular form
have become an icon of male sexual attractiveness, intimately linked with male same-sex
desire (Rocke 1996; Saslow 1986). In 2001, the V&A’s own marketing campaign used an
image of David, with the strap line ‘I’m Free’ in a camp reference to the BBC situation com-
edy Are You Being Served? with its central effeminate character Mr Humphries, played by John
Inman. This advert thereby mischievously played with the associated stereotypes that weigh
down both the statue and catchphrase, each coded as a marker of queerness. Raymond-Jean
Frontain has written on the importance of David in twentieth-century gay culture, noting that
in the book Fully Exposed: The Male Nude in Photography (Cooper 1995) the author prints John
S. Barrington’s Jack Cooper Posing as ‘David’ (c. 1950), thereby ‘presenting the photographer’s
physical ideal in the pose of Michelangelo’s statue’ (Cooper 1995: 106). In Lea Andrews’s
photographic self-portrait as David (1987), the statue’s groin is superimposed over the model
 A book with its pages always open? 151

FIGURE 10.2 Plaster cast of original statue of David, by Michelangelo, Florence, Italy, 1501–4.
V&A Museum. Museum no. REPRO. 1857–161.
152 O. Winchester

in a challenge to the cultural idealisation of erotic reality (Cooper 1995: 106). Both use
Michelangelo’s sculpture to comment upon contemporary social fashioning of masculinity.
Frontain goes on to suggest that, whether transformed into a set of refrigerator magnets that
allow the statue’s naked figure ‘to be dressed in such iconic gay guises as a California surfer
boy, a leather-clad biker, or a jock’ or taken up to advertise everything from health insurance
to amyl nitrate, Michelangelo’s David has become one of Western culture’s most visible sexual
fetishes.9 Indeed, as Frontain points out, when director Franco Zeffirelli commissioned from
Tom of Finland a contemporary reinterpretation of David, the artist produced, in the assess-
ment of biographer F. Valentine Hooven:

a figure with a broader chest, more prominent nipples, and a genital endowment ‘at
least quadruple the size of the one Michelangelo gave him. And . . . instead of wearing
a frown of determination, Tom’s David slyly peeks at the viewer as if to say, “I know
what you’re looking at!”’
Ibid.

Even in the process of parodying Michelangelo’s David, Tom of Finland reaffirms the Renais-
sance statue as an erotic, particularly homoerotic ideal (ibid.).10
David, through its accumulation of meaning and layers of association, offers a sophisti-
cated entry point for discussion of concepts including beauty, the body and gender. A work
whose very fame is itself an issue of significance, the issues at stake in the re-appropriation and
reuse of David lead outside the strictly sexual, beyond the limits of a biologically determined
essentialist view of gay or straight, open or closeted, visible or invisible and move towards
a queerer, overall messier and, in the end, perhaps more exciting space beyond inclusion/
exclusion. Indeed the question that confronts the visitor when confronted by the familiar and
heavily loaded figure of David relates less to the sculpture itself than to the context in which
it is viewed. The question is not so much ‘what does that object mean’ or ‘was the artist who
made this homosexual’ as ‘what might this object mean and what does it mean to me when I
see it here?’.
David hints at another form of spectatorship that engages head on with the ways in which
meaning is made through relationships and experiences. It makes clear that the museum, far
from being a static sanctuary, is in fact filled with a conceptual chatter that we as visitors gen-
erate ourselves. It makes clear the contingency of meaning and brings to the fore the arbitrary
nature of what we deem important and what we do not. As Robert Mills has noted, in these
kinds of circumstances queerness is less a state-of-object than a position-as-subject, a

relational concept that comes into view against the backdrop of the normal, the legiti-
mate, the dominant, and the coherent – and it would be precisely the challenge that
queer poses to the normative structures of the museum that constitutes its subversive
potential.
Mills 2008: 48

The museum visitor is thoroughly implicated in the creation of narratives and meaning through
the use of jarring, confusing or ‘provocative juxtapositions’ in a model of active experiential
participation. The meaning of objects and the narratives they suggest are thus shown to be
an always unfinished process where meanings are necessarily provisional, dependent upon
 A book with its pages always open? 153

the freedom of the visitor to bestow significance upon a chaos of things and the subversive
potential of desire. Emphasis is upon the

provisional and partial, the ways in which meaning is made and felt by the visitor . . . a
multiplicity rather than a single authoritative museum narrative, and the ways in which
meaning becomes a process rather than a product, one in which the visitor is wholly
implicated.
Mills 2008: 48

A book with its pages always open

The potential for a broad, inclusive and dizzyingly contingent conception of the museum as
a place of relativism and relationships rather than as a pantheon of facts or the institutional
gatekeeper of the artistic canon, holds within itself the potential to destabilise the museum as
a meaning-making machine itself; it acts as a solvent to the layered and designated links, sig-
nificances and ideologies that the museum project gives visible form to. It is, in other words,
dangerous territory, a field that throws up many questions and provides only partial answers.
Perhaps it is the partial, contingent and truly personal nature of sexuality, as manifested through
material culture, that lies at the core of a form of engagement that can be all too easily simpli-
fied to the realm of inclusion and representation alone.
Henry Cole, founder of the South Kensington Museum, now the V&A, is described as
having said that he wished the museum to be ‘like a book with its pages always open and not
shut’ (Burton 1999). The stories suggested (and those that are not) define the identity of a
museum. Whose values and histories such pages represent depend on how each museum is
managed, how its collection is presented and which narratives seem important at the time.
The key is to ensure that exclusions are considered rather than arbitrary, and meaningful in
their absence, rather than pointed in their denial.

Notes
1 See especially chapter six of The Curator’s Egg (Schubert 2000) which discusses the ill-fated Gug-
genheim Soho.
2 See www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/l/lgbtq-histories-at-the-v-and-a for an introduction to the
V&A LGBTQ Network.
3 For an introduction to the primary curatorial issues surrounding sexuality see Atkins (1996) and
McIntyre (2007). An example of such an exhibition is the National Portrait Gallery’s recent exhibi-
tion Gay Icons (2009).
4 The ideas discussed in this chapter were first outlined in brief form in the online exhibition catalogue
essay ‘Of Chaotic Desire and the Subversive Potential of Things’, published to coincide with the
show Queering the Museum at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2009. See www.bmag.org.
uk/uploads/fck/file/Queeringbrochure-web.pdf.
5 See Winchester (2010).
6 A recent exhibition that investigated same-sex desire through portraiture was Hide/Seek: Difference
and Desire in American Portraiture (2010), a show that provoked an international controversy remi-
niscent of the late 1980s US Culture Wars following the summary removal of A Fire In My Belly
(1986–7), a video by the late, politically inclined New York artist David Wojnarowicz who died of
HIV/AIDS related complications in 1992.
7 Two recent cases where paedophilia and sexuality (both straight and queer) have been closely
intertwined spring to mind here. Both cases resulted in the removal of works from display follow-
ing police intervention. An image of Brooke Shields aged ten by Richard Prince, heavily made up
154 O. Winchester

and scantily clad, was removed from the Tate Modern leg of the touring exhibition Poplife: Art in
a Material World (2009). Likewise a self-portrait aged fifteen taken of the photographer and inhab-
itant of the transgressive New York demimonde of the 1980s, Mark Morrisroe’s Sweet 16, Little
Me as a Child Prostitute (1984) was discretely removed from the 2007 Barbican Art Gallery exhibi-
tion Panic Attack: Art in the Punk Years following internal discussions, despite the work’s status as a
self-portrait.
8 For a discussion of Beckford’s scrapbooks see Norton (1999).
9 See also Gunn (2003).
10 Ibid.

References
Atkins, R. (1996) ‘Goodbye Lesbian/ Gay History, Hello Queer Sensibility’, Art Journal, 55(4): 80–6.
Barron, S. (ed.) (1991) Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, Los Angeles: Los
Angeles County Museum of Art.
Burton, A. (1999) Vision & Accident: The Story of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London: V&A.
Camille, M. and Rifkin, A. (eds) (2001) Other Objects of Desire: Collectors and Collecting Queerly, London:
Blackwell.
Cooper, E. (1995) Fully Exposed: The Male Nude in Photography, London: Unwin Hyman.
Crimp, D. (ed.) (1988) AIDS. Cultural Analysis, Cultural Activism, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Crimp, D. (1990) AIDS Demographics, Seattle: Bay Press.
Cruikshank, D. (1992) The Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movements, London: Routledge.
D’Emilio, J. (1983) Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United
States, 1940–1970, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Duberman, M. (ed.) (1997) Queer Representation. Reading Lives, Reading Cultures, New York: New York
University Press.
Felshin, N. (ed.) (1995) But is it Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism, Seattle: Bay Press.
Griffin, G. (2000) Visibility Blue/s. Representation of HIV and AIDS, Manchester: Manchester University
Press.
Gunn, D. (2003) Covering David: Michelangelo’s David from the Piazza della Signoria to My Refrigerator Door.
Online. Available at: www.gunnzone.org (accessed 9 September 2011).
Katz, J. and Ward, D. C. (2010) Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, Washington, DC:
National Portrait Gallery & Smithsonian Books.
Kosofsky Sedgwick, E. (1990) Epistemology of the Closet, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Levin, A. (ed.) (2010) Gender, Sexuality and Museums, London: Routledge.
McIntyre, D. (2007) ‘What to Collect? Museums and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Collect-
ing’, International Journal of Art and Design Education, 26(1): 48–53.
Malcolm, J. (1996) William Beckford: An English Fidalgo, New York: AMS Press.
Mills, R. (2008) ‘Theorizing the Queer Museum’, in J. Fraser and J. E. Heimlich (eds) Queer is Here,
Museums & Social Issues. A Journal of Reflective Discourse, 3(1): 45–57.
Norton, R. (1999) William Beckford’s Gay Scrapbooks. Online. Available at: www.rictornorton.co.uk/
beckfor2.htm (accessed 9 September 2011).
Rocke, M. (1996) Forbidden Friendships. Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Saslow, J. M. (1986) Ganymede in the Renaissance: Homosexuality in Art and Society, New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Schubert, K. (2000) The Curator’s Egg: The Evolution of the Museum Concept from the French Revolution to
the Present, Santa Monica: One Off Press.
Terry, J. (1999) An American Obsession. Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society, Chicago:
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University Press Books.
 A book with its pages always open? 155

V&A (2007) LGBTQ Histories at the V&A. Online. Available at: www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/l/
lgbtq-histories-at-the-v-and-a (accessed 9 September 2011).
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Russes, London: V&A.
11
UNPACKING GENDER
Creating complex models for gender inclusivity
in museums

Amy K. Levin

In 2010, a major piece of legislation – the Equality Act – was passed in the UK reaffirming the
obligations of public sector bodies – including museums and galleries – to contribute to the
advancement of equality. For such a bill to pass, changes in both social demographics and in pub-
lic institutions themselves had to be underway already and, indeed, museums and galleries have
been increasingly mindful of issues of equality and inclusion in recent decades. In the light of
these developments, this chapter seeks to trace the extent to which museums and galleries have
progressed in their accommodation of gender diversity, not only by increasing the representa-
tion of women in displays and exhibitions, but also by transcending traditional gender binaries
and challenging limited (and limiting) notions of human sexuality and gender expression.
The word museum, with its embedded reference to the Greek muses, implies that the insti-
tution has been gendered since its inception. Despite the word’s suggestion that the museum
might house the nine goddesses, the museum was originally very much man’s home, and often
his castle or palace. The Western museum grew out of the Renaissance cabinet of curiosities1
into the private picture gallery on a nobleman’s estate (think Darcy’s ancestral portraits in
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice). In the nineteenth century, large museums began to manifest
themselves in one of two ways: as incarnations of the power of the state, such as the Louvre,
the repository of treasures Napoleon looted from the rest of Europe (Duncan 1995), or as
proof of industrial barons’ wealth and their passport into higher echelons of society. For the
populace, establishments such as Peale’s Museum in the early American republic served as
places of entertainment rather than edification (Brigham 1995) until they were supplanted
later in the century by institutions with the goal of acculturating the masses.2
Females have long been represented in Western museums as objects of the male gaze,
whether they were odalisques in gilt-framed oil paintings or nudes in a variety of sculptural
forms. But living females were not always welcome in museums, either as staff or visitors. In
the 1853 novel Villette, Charlotte Brontë records the ambiguous social position of her heroine
as she scandalises her mentor (soon to be suitor) by looking at a painting in a gallery that depicts
a scantily clad and curvaceous Cleopatra. In the nineteenth century, women were excluded
from the professional museum workforce because they were unable to obtain the scholarly
credentials to become curators; moreover, they were forbidden to join the male societies that
 Unpacking gender 157

sponsored academies and galleries. In the twentieth century, these restrictions began to yield
as museums emphasised their roles as educational institutions, welcoming mothers and female
teachers with their charges. During the Second World War, women entered the workforce
not only as museum educators, but in some cases as curators replacing men gone to war.3
Nevertheless, as we approach the present, feminist organisations such as the Guerrilla Girls
continue to decry certain representations of females in museums.4 Professional associations note
the under-representation of women in the upper echelons of museum personnel, although,
among the ranks of visitors, women generally constitute an overall majority (taking into
account gendered patterns of visitation, with men preferring military and scientific museums,
and women selecting artistic venues and historic homes).

Feminist and queer theories

Feminist theory provides a framework for discussing current and historical conditions that
have led to the under- and misrepresentation of females in museums. Grounded in the notion
that sex and gender are two distinct forms of categorisation, feminist theory argues that gender
is a social construction, based on cultural and historical traditions. In the United States and
Europe, both sex and gender have regularly been presented as binaries, with men and the
masculine having a hierarchical advantage over women and the female. Other aspects of soci-
ety have similarly been divided in binary fashion into such dualisms as mind/matter, public/
private, science/creativity and subject/object. This gender schema has relegated women and
their contributions to a secondary role in museums, and in Western works of art women have
traditionally been objectified, rendered passive recipients of a male gaze. In contrast, feminist
theorists have demonstrated that Western gender ‘norms’ are based on white middle class
society, and that gender expression is variable across class, race and ethnic lines, as well as time.
Relying on generalised gender schemas distorts history, as when a female African-American
slave is presented as unfeminine because of the necessity for her to work.
The history of Western museums with regard to the LGBT population is more difficult to
trace, largely due to the hidden lives forced upon so many individuals in this group. Neverthe-
less, it seems reasonable to assert that there have been gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
artists longer than museums have existed in their current form, and that gay men and lesbians,
together with bisexuals and transgender individuals, have worked for these institutions for a
long time as well. They have worked in museums and galleries regardless of whether they
have been made welcome (by institutional policies, practices and workplace cultures) and
regardless of whether their artworks or histories were on display there. In the past forty years,
as many Western societies have become more accepting of homosexuality, individuals who
identify as LGBT (as well as the artworks they have created and the collections they have
owned) have become more openly associated with museums.
The year 2003 saw the repeal of Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988 in
England – an infamous piece of legislation which stated that a local authority ‘shall not inten-
tionally promote homosexuality … [or] promote the teaching in any maintained school of
the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. This repeal permitted
institutions to present material relevant to LGBT lives without breaking the law.5 Legisla-
tive changes did not, however, ensure the removal of other constraints. In 2004, Michael
Petry curated an exhibition at the New Art Gallery Walsall – Hidden Histories – exploring
male same-sex lovers in the visual arts. He experienced considerable interference from local
158 A. K. Levin

authorities who ‘insisted on having final approval of each artwork that was to be included
and the label caption that accompanied it’ (Sandell and Frost 2010: 160). More recently in
the United States, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery sparked an international debate
over censorship following the decision to remove a video by David Wojnarowicz from an
exhibition which explored portrayals of same-sex love, Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in
American Portraiture, in response to complaints by the Catholic League. While institutions such
as the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, have quickly comprehended the possi-
bilities for marketing themselves as a social venue for gay and lesbian visitors, most institutions’
family memberships are restricted to ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ with their offspring. Moreover, natural
history museums persevere in presenting ancient hominids and related species in distinctly
heteronormative groupings and individuals who identify as gay or lesbian continue to have
difficulty finding their experiences represented in historic sites.6
Other difficulties persist as well. While depictions of heterosexual relations are ubiquitous
in museum settings, objects and materials related to homosexual relations frequently continue
to be perceived as pornographic or otherwise inappropriate, and LGBT themed displays are
often confined to sites children are unlikely to visit. Moreover, many museums tend to focus
on a narrow range on the spectrum of LGBT experiences. The NAMES project AIDS quilt,
for example, has been criticised for its emphasis on white middle class males.7 The Leather
Museum & Archives in Chicago offers a fresh alternative. This institution, devoted to collect-
ing, preserving and displaying objects pertaining to leather and fetish communities around the
world, including erotic art, publications and memorabilia related to alternative sexual prac-
tices, presents the history and achievements of a subgroup within the LGBT population, so
that public perceptions of the experiences of these individuals gain complexity. Nevertheless,
the controversy over Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture suggests that sectors
of the public are prepared for only sanitised images relating to homosexuality, particularly if
their religions oppose same-sex relations.
Queer theory has provided a means for opening up museum discourse to include the lives
of sexual minorities. ‘Queering’ the museum is not as simple as adding objects related to – or
examples of art by – individuals who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual. We must also be
aware of persistently (and perniciously) presenting these populations as monolithic – as white,
middle class, or adopting a shared set of sexual practices. Arguably, queer theory transcends
dualisms, and particularly the gay–straight binary: ‘the obverse of heterosexual need not be
homosexual, and … the most visible resistance to gender norms can be a universal androgyny,
where male and female meet somewhere in the middle’ (Katz 2010: 27). Dynamism and
energy may be found in recognising ‘otherness’ in the realms of gender and sexual identity.
Thus, when we speak of ‘queering’ the museum, we are estranging ourselves from common
modes of thought. The previously mentioned Leather Museum & Archives surprises many
visitors with its collection of objects related to women – visitors tend to believe that this gay
subculture achieves its expression primarily among males (Ridinger 2010). ‘Queering’ the
museum leads us to question every aspect of the institution, especially the extent to which
the traditional museum is infused not only with masculinity, but also, more generally, with
a simplistic view of sex and gender as coming in only two forms. Such an approach requires
us to seek out and include the stories of transgendered and intersex individuals as well and
to problematise or reject common cultural plots that would have us believe that the path to
recognising gender diversity is as simple as a narrative of progress leading from ‘repression to
liberation’ (Mills 2008: 43).
 Unpacking gender 159

There is a danger of replacing one set of exclusions for another when certain groups
within (or images of) gay and lesbian communities dominate. Queer theory, with its empha-
sis on challenging heteronormativity and traditional gender roles, can help us avoid this
danger. We must ask what unexamined gender assumptions continue to be unpacked every
time we mount an exhibition or greet a visitor in our galleries. More specifically, as women
have become increasingly visible in museums, how have we rendered our thinking about
gender more complex, to encompass not only the experiences of individuals who identify as
gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, but also those who are marginalised within these com-
munities? In an attempt to answer these questions, I discuss the interactions of gender, race,
ethnicity and class in temporary exhibitions at three different institutions in London during
2010; the Saatchi Gallery, the Wellcome Collection and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Cura-
tors have an advantage when creating temporary exhibitions because they are not restricted
to what is in institutions’ permanent collections and have some flexibility in obtaining works
on loan. Therefore, temporary displays like those under discussion are most likely to rep-
resent current thinking on an issue. Moreover, in this case, the displays all involved other
themes related to diversity, such as race, class, nationalism and/or colonialism, rendering
their treatment of gender even more complex. Thus this study yields rich insights into the
role of gender in contemporary museums, as well as to the ways in which museums as public
sites continue to be enmeshed in the expression of powerful and often competing social and
political ideologies.

The Wellcome Collection

While I am primarily concerned with a temporary exhibition at the Wellcome Collection
titled Identity: 8 Rooms, 9 Lives, a brief discussion of the permanent collection is necessary
to contextualise the mission of the institution and the space in which the Identity display
appeared. Two permanent exhibitions are located on the upper floors of the building:
Medicine Now and Medicine Man. Medicine Now is subdivided into five sections: dealing with
malaria, obesity, genomes, the body, and experiencing medical science. In each section, the
museum presents current knowledge on the topic as well as contemporary art works that
speak to or reflect thinking about the subject. A visually stunning example of one of these
art works is a molecule of the HIV virus rendered in blown glass by Luke Jerram (Figure
11.1). The sculpture evokes conflicting emotions for those who have never seen a represen-
tation of the molecule, let alone one so beautiful, and it forces viewers to think about the
virus from unusual perspectives. The piece ‘queers’ the museum not because it is represents
a disease that has been stereotypically associated with gay males, but because it estranges
us from commonplace ways of considering this sexually transmitted disease. The section
on genomes includes droppings and fleece from Dolly, the cloned sheep. These mundane
objects associated with life on farms take on new meaning: at once ordinary and extraordi-
nary, they make cloning banal and familiar.
Medicine Man, the second permanent exhibition, is dedicated to the collections of pharma-
ceutical magnate Henry Wellcome. Instead of presenting a hagiography, the exhibit creators
have focused on objects that might arouse curiosity, humour or historical interest. Juxtaposi-
tions jar visitors out of conventional modes of thinking, as when a Chinese torture chair is
placed close to a birthing seat and a dentist’s chair. Other objects include a leper clapper, a
scrap of Jeremy Bentham’s skin, a guillotine blade, a case of forceps, and seemingly random
FIGURE 11.1 Luke Jerram, Glass sculpture of HIV virus, 2004. Courtesy of Luke Jerram/Wellcome Images.
 Unpacking gender 161

examples of erotica. These fragments and objects create a post-modern montage. Relics of
famous men become fetishes in the exhibitionary space, while items from the far reaches of the
British Empire and beyond reify the privilege of white male industrialists to wander the world
to indulge their curiosity. Nothing, it appears, is excluded from the totalising and acquisitive
gaze of the collector. The exhibition’s title, Medicine Man, gestures at gender, given the way
the expression is used in various contexts to allude to men who are spiritual leaders, healers,
dangerous ‘quacks’ and, in some cultures, transgender. Appropriately, within the exhibition,
all of these aspects of ‘medicine’ come into play – the spiritual, the healing, the dangerous,
and the sexual.
If Medicine Man presents the international pharmaceutical magnate as polymath, the tempo-
rary exhibition Identity: 8 Rooms, 9 Lives created environments for visitors to consider various
aspects of identity, leading to theorising about what makes us ourselves. In each of the eight
rooms, an aspect of identity was ‘introduced by a figurehead [and in one case, twin figure-
heads] – a person whose ideas about, or experience of, identity issues opens up important areas
of debate’ (Wellcome Collection 2010: 1). In the same way that the Medicine Now exhibit
is divided into sections that do not follow parallel categories (the spaces are not all focused
on diseases, for example), so the Identity exhibit presented diverse categories of individuals,
including those who were important for their work on identity, such as Alec Jeffrey, ‘pioneer
of DNA profiling’, and those who were significant in their identities, such as Charlotte and
Emily Hinch, identical twins born three years apart as a result of in vitro fertilisation. Signifi-
cantly, the scientists and students of identity were all male: Samuel Pepys, diarist par excel-
lence; Franz Josef Gall, instigator of phrenology; Alec Jeffrey; and Francis Galton, Darwin’s
first cousin, a proponent of eugenics. The Hinch twins were joined by Fiona Shaw, an actress
who inhabits a range of identities, primarily those of strong and sometimes frightening females
– Electra, Medea, Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter films, and the daunting Miss Jean Brodie.
The other two rooms concentrated on individuals who refused strict binary gender categorisa-
tion – April Ashley and Claude Cahun.
When I visited the exhibition, the room dedicated to the Hinch twins, and more so, the
spaces allocated to Ashley and Cahun, were the most crowded. They took on the quality
of sideshows, spectators clustered several deep in front of images and press clippings, while
passing by more detailed text. April Ashley, born George Jamieson, began her professional
life unhappily as a sailor in the Navy, occupying a typically masculine role, but later made a
career as a female impersonator under the name of Toni April. In 1960, Ashley underwent
one of the first full sex change operations, taking her current name. Her sex change was
exposed by the British tabloid newspaper, The People, after which it was difficult for her to
escape the limelight. Widely photographed and featured as a model in Vogue and other pub-
lications, Ashley has been recognised as a singular beauty. Nevertheless, at many points in her
life she met bullying and prejudice. The room in the Identity exhibit evoked complex issues.
On the one hand, the institution’s open and honest presentation of what happens when an
individual’s bodily sex does not match his or her gender identity was surprising and thought-
provoking. On the other hand, the swimsuit shots seemed designed as much to titillate and
eroticise Ashley’s transformation as to normalise it.
The room devoted to Claude Cahun raised many of the same issues. Cahun, born Lucie
Schwob, (Figure 11.2) was a photographer interned on Jersey during the Second World War,
where she joined the Resistance. Cahun was included in the exhibition for her defiance of
gender norms. Not only did she (here, gendered pronouns are inadequate) take the ambiguous
FIGURE 11.2 Claude Cahun Resident Alien Card. Courtesy of the Jersey Heritage Collections.
 Unpacking gender 163

name, Claude, but she claimed that she was of ‘neuter’ gender, wearing clothes that were
androgynous. Her partner, Suzanne Malherbe, also took an ambiguous name, Marcel Moore.
Their photographic montages explored the seemingly arbitrary nature of gender boundaries
that are so carefully policed by society. Whereas the room dedicated to Ashley focused prima-
rily on her gender identity, the space occupied by Cahun’s memorabilia demonstrated how
her works expressed her ideas about gender. This made her appear less freakish, though her
identity drew considerable attention.
The disjunction between the presentation of male scientists and writers who studied iden-
tity and the presentation of females and individuals of ambiguous gender whose identities
were rendered as spectacles for a voyeuristic audience was somewhat disturbing. This aspect
of the display served to reinforce traditional formulations of strict gender binaries, in contrast
to the Medicine Now exhibition, which ‘queers’ the museum by instigating theorising about
health, the body and gender in unconventional ways. At the same time, the valuable work
achieved by the exhibition in making visible diverse gender expressions – primarily in the
rooms devoted to Cahun and Ashley – illustrates a difficult dilemma in curatorial practice.
The public is so unused to exhibitions featuring individuals who challenge gender norms that
it is almost inevitable that these displays will draw crowds. Too often, the alternative appears
to be maintaining silence and invisibility around the experiences of gender minorities, when
in fact the challenge is to present their experiences with dignity and in a manner that invites
respect.8

The Saatchi Gallery

The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today, an exhibition at London’s Saatchi Gallery in the
spring of 2010, was free and open to the public. It attracted a fashionable, cosmopolitan
crowd, indicating the ways in which certain kinds of post-colonial art have become accepted
by the world of high culture. The exhibition was displayed along with another temporary
exhibition; an installation on the top floor of the gallery by Emily Prince titled American Serv-
icemen and Women Who Have Died in Iraq and Afghanistan (But Not Including the Wounded, Nor
the Iraqis Nor the Afghans). Prince’s work incorporated more than 5,100 drawings of the dead
based on photographs she found on a memorial website. Prince adds drawings regularly; her
sketches are on identical small cards with pencilled inscriptions of the names of the dead, their
ages and the dates of their death. The cards covered three walls of the room. This installation,
reached after seeing the main exhibit, offered a reminder of the proximity of India to conflict
as well as of the continuing presence of individuals of European descent in Asia. As mentioned
with some irony in its title, the installation’s focus on Americans mirrored the manner in
which Westerners tend to view themselves as central in global conflicts.
Even if visitors missed Prince’s installation, it was impossible for them to consider The
Empire Strikes Back in isolation from global capitalism and post-colonialism, in part because its
title referred to Paul Gilroy’s co-edited volume on racism in 1970s Britain (Centre for Con-
temporary Cultural Studies 1982). In addition, the first piece to be encountered in the exhibi-
tion was Jitish Kallat’s wall-sized transcription of Ghandi’s 1930 speech on the salt marsh tax,
which laid down his notions on civil disobedience and nonviolence. In Kallat’s Public Notice 2,
the speech was ‘written’ in 4,500 bone-shaped letters, commemorating the dead on the road
to freedom and independence. Viewers were dominated by the enormous text, which stood
several heads high and crossed multiple panels.
164 A. K. Levin

The exhibition continued to confront viewers with images of racism and oppression, and
gender discrimination was also challenged. Huma Mulji’s constructions used taxidermy speci-
mens of animals to comment on the status of women. In Her Suburban Dream, a water buffalo
had a pipe around her neck, which was elongated by a concrete collar. As a result of its weight,
the cow could not stand; she was in a subservient position with her head and front legs down
and back legs partly elevated. The pipe that carried water to the ‘suburban dream’ seem-
ingly confined the females who lived there and strangled traditional lifestyles. Atul Dodiya’s
Woman from Kabul offered an image of an emaciated woman, virtually a skeleton except for
the black burqa on her head. Rashind Rana’s Veil Series, I, II, & III criticised the hypocrisy
which clothes females in head to floor burqas, even as pornography is widely commercialised.
In Rana’s works, images of women in burqas were revealed to be composed of tiny porno-
graphic photos of women. Chitra Ganesh used her own body in the photographs Twisted and
Hidden to express the way females are distorted and mutilated by violence and the oppression
of traditional roles.
Ganesh and other female artists in the exhibit were not solely occupied with presenting
victims of gender oppression. They used conventional forms and icons in subversive ways to
create works that empowered women. Excerpts from Ganesh’s comic book-like series, Tales
of Amnesia, commented humorously on the role of females in traditional Indian society and
global popular culture, as well as on their function as Western icons. In Secrets, for example,
the image includes references to powerful Hindu goddesses Durga and Kali – a sword, a lotus,
a three-headed figure with multiple arms (significantly, this goddess is mother to the god
Ganesh, whose name the artist bears).
Pushpamala N. and Clare Arni were represented in the exhibition through selections from
their Ethnographic Series, Native Women of South India: Manners & Customs, which re-appropri-
ated the genre of ethnographic photography through pictures of Pushpamala in stylised poses.
The images drew attention to the controlling yet artificial nature of the ethnographic gaze.
These artists challenged gender traditions by inserting images of themselves in their works,
their bodies resisting traditional objectification, reconstructing the spectator’s gaze.
Other works gestured at Indian traditions only: Bharti Kher’s untitled 2008 work at first
appeared to be pop art, but on closer inspection was revealed to be a collage of bindi of mul-
tiple sizes and colours. According to the exhibition guide, ‘the artist is signalling a need for
social change and challenging the role of the women entrenched in tradition, whilst also
commenting on the commoditisation [sic] of the bindi as a fashion accessory’ (Saatchi Gallery
2010: n.p.). The layered bindi took on the appearance of targets, suggesting the vulnerability
of women.
T. Venkanna’s Dream in a Dream focused on male sexuality. A version of Henri Rousseau’s
painting The Dream, it depicted the artist instead of a female nude reclining on a couch in the
jungle, suggesting that male sexuality may be exoticised and objectified, too. The black figure
in the background of Rousseau’s painting was replaced by a brown nude female. On the right
side of the image was a comic-strip version of a jungle resembling a Disney cartoon, with the
nude woman back in place – a comment on the ways certain artistic images have become so
common as to be cartoons of themselves, cultural commodities without depth. A blood red
inscription noted, ‘My dream never comes true but I am not a pessimist’. Despite these rich
examples, the exhibition for the most part limited itself to (re)presenting a fairly narrow range
of gender identities, which perhaps suggested a lack of acceptance for other possibilities within
contemporary, post-colonial Indian culture as well as the global art market.
 Unpacking gender 165

The Whitechapel Art Gallery

Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh was shown
in the Whitechapel Art Gallery in East London in early 2010. Distant from the elegant Kings
Road art galleries in the neighbourhood of the Saatchi, the Whitechapel Art Gallery, founded
in the nineteenth century by middle-class social reformers with the mission of acculturating
London’s working men (and later women),9 is situated in a working-class neighbourhood that
houses many Asian immigrants. The gallery was always intended to address the needs of its com-
munity; in this sense, the photographic exhibition was well placed, though it appeared odd that
of all the exhibitions at the gallery that year, this was the only one with an admission fee. Perhaps
for this reason, Where Three Dreams Cross was less crowded than the other exhibitions.
Many of the photographs in the exhibition tended to be less self-consciously artistic or con-
cerned with Western culture than the works at the Saatchi. This is not to say that the display
existed or could exist in isolation from the West; indeed, its title alluded to Ash Wednesday by
T.S. Eliot (1962: 66):

This is the time of tension between dying and birth

The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks.

Eliot’s lines situated the exhibition in a liminal space and time and at a crossroads – a place
both marginal and central – in much the same way as the subcontinent and its cultures can
be considered with respect to today’s global economy originating in the West. But the title
was also ambiguous. Did the reference to three dreams allude to the artificial national borders
drawn in the creation of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India? Were the dreams the collective
imaginary or individual imaginations leading to the photographs? Did they allude to the spaces
of possibility inherent in every culture?
The images in the exhibition addressed these questions and more. Like the identity display
at the Wellcome Collection, Where Three Dreams Cross was organised by themes that were not
necessarily parallel or easily categorised; in this case, the portrait, the family, the body politic, the
performance, and the street. Reviewers for the Observer and Time Out noted that the topics over-
lapped, rendering the division of the exhibition into thematic sections ‘confusing’ (O’Hagan
2010) and ‘garbled’ (Caplan 2010) respectively. Indeed, the boundaries separating the sections at
times appeared as artificial as those that created the three nations featured in the exhibition.
Moreover, Nina Caplan stated in Time Out that ‘the interesting predilection in both Paki-
stan and India for senior female politicians, despite harsh restrictions on women elsewhere,
remains unexamined’ (ibid.). In fact, Raghu Rai’s ‘Indira Gandhi being escorted by Security
Guards, Delhi’ did examine this issue: his image emphasised Gandhi’s vulnerability and reli-
ance on males by showing her surrounded (and virtually suffocated by) guards and spectators.
Gandhi was virtually invisible behind her sari, which was pulled over her head.
The exhibition presented diverse gender expressions, offering a possibility for a ‘third
dream’ beyond the binaries of male and female identities. Early in the exhibition, hand-
painted studio portraits displayed the wealthy and powerful, posed rigidly in photographs that
emphasised Western norms of masculinity and femininity, as well as individuals in traditional
Indian garb. Within this section, Nony Singh’s image, ‘My sister, Guddi, posing as Scarlett
O’Hara from Gone with the Wind’, subverted the Western icon, for Guddi was posed (and
166 A. K. Levin

poised) in a sari. Scarlett O’Hara is famously shown against the great expanse of the Tara
estate; in contrast, Guddi is in a corner bounded by a brick wall, leaning against a wood fence.
The photographer replaced the icon of Western beauty with her own vision.
Images later in the exhibition increasingly challenged gender roles. Matinee Show, Sreeram-
pore (Best Friend), by Saibal Das, appeared to depict a tiger being managed by its stick-wielding
tamer. Closer examination revealed that the tamer was surrounded by two other tigers. The
photograph was cropped in such a way that the tamer’s head was cut off, further disempower-
ing him. A female lay still under the first tiger, composed and smiling.
Pushpamala N., whose works were also featured in the Saatchi exhibition, was represented
with photos from the Navarasa Suite, part of her Bombay Photo Studio series. These dramatic
gelatine silver prints ‘combine the conventions of classic Bollywood studio portraiture and
types with allusions to characterisations of the nine rasas – essential human emotions found
in traditional Sanskrit literature and drama’.10 Like Matinee Show, these images suggested the
power of female performance.
Variant gender expressions were visible as well. Kriti Arora’s11 Caught in Disarray (2006)
depicted a woman in a burqa examining guns in a case. The photograph gestured at popular
images of women in front of shop windows, but the title suggested that the female was break-
ing out of her traditional role by looking at the forbidden. Her transgression was akin to being
‘caught’ improperly dressed.
The exhibition also included photographs of members of ‘third gender’ or transgender
male-to-female communities in photographs of Karachi ‘Lady Boys’ by Asim Hafeez. Karachi
Lady Boys illustrated the ways in which individuals in these subgroups gather to perform and
celebrate their sexuality through glamorous clothes, make-up and shoes. Bobby was based on
an exhibition and book named Kaaya: Beyond Gender. This photograph referred to cross-
dressing and transgender in Indian society, both of which are severely marginalised. The
self-consciousness of the photographs’ male-to-female subjects echoed the stylised self-perfor-
mances evident in the images of Bollywood.
Although these individuals are often targets of hatred, in this small section of the exhibi-
tion, ‘three dreams’ did cross, as the images captured a space of possibility that was neither
traditionally male nor female. The curators responded to Robert Mills’ ‘concern’ regarding
‘the marginalisation of transgender as an interpretative lens’, so that ‘the T in “LGBT” is often
a fake T’ (Mills 2006: 256). It was unclear, however, whether this space could exist because
the exhibition was less visited or because the representations belonged to cultures that have
often been eroticised by Westerners. Beyond the confines of the gallery, the subjects of the
photographs continue to be treated as outsiders.

Conclusion
Through such examples, the three exhibitions constitute a conversation about visibility and
change in the presentation of sex and gender in museums, crossing cultural and national boundar-
ies. All three exhibitions broke down gender binaries and included images of males and females
in nontraditional roles. The Wellcome Collection presented individuals of ambiguous gender
and persons whose lives were affected by technologies such as artificial insemination or sex reas-
signment surgery, but struggled to negotiate the significant challenge of presenting its subjects
without sensationalising their lives. The Saatchi and Whitechapel exhibitions focused on the
Indian subcontinent; inevitably perhaps, the displays were significant in the ways they treated the
 Unpacking gender 167

intersections of British gender mores with local gender traditions, both before and after colonisa-
tion. The Saatchi Gallery also incorporated the most explicit works on homosexuality, while the
Whitechapel Art Gallery introduced images of male-to-female transgender individuals within
limited spaces of visibility.
Although all three exhibitions were promising in many ways, they ultimately left the unset-
tling conclusion that the task of ‘queering’ the museum is far from accomplished. We con-
tinue to have before us the mission of rendering our institutions ever more inclusive, even as
we continue to encounter resistance from regional and transnational forces that bind together
local gender schema with the so-called ‘norms’ brought by colonising Europeans.

Notes
1 For more on the origins of museums see MacGregor and Impey (1985).
2 See, for example, Koven (1994).
3 On the history of women as museum workers see Taylor (1994); and on women museum workers
in the Second World War, see Schlievert and Steuber (2008).
4 See www.guerrillagirls.com.
5 See Sandell and Frost (2010) for further discussion of the impact of legislation on museum practice.
6 See Vanegas (2002) for further discussion of the challenges of representing lesbian and gay histories
in museums.
7 Christopher Bell was writing on this topic from the perspective of an African-American, HIV-
infected male at the time of his death in December 2009. See Bell (2010).
8 See also Chapter 14, this volume, for discussion of transgender representation.
9 For the gallery’s early history, see Koven who demonstrates how gallery exhibitions functioned as
‘instruments of social control’ (1994: 39), although the ‘working-class East Londoners challenged the
ideological underpinnings of the exhibition’ (ibid.: 44).
10 See comments on these works when they were exhibited in Public Places, Private Spaces, at the
Newark Museum (New Jersey), www.newarkmuseum.org/podcast/india/NewarkMuseumIndia.
xml (accessed 12 December 2010).
11 Kriti Arora’s works were also featured in the Saatchi Gallery show; however, her pieces at the
Saatchi Gallery focused primarily on working-class men and are less relevant to this discussion.

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Press: 22–48.
168 A. K. Levin

MacGregor, A. and Impey, O. (1985) The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and
Seventeenth-Century Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mills, R. (2006) ‘Queer is Here? Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Histories and Public Culture’,
History Workshop Journal, 62(1): 253–63.
Mills, R. (2008) ‘Theorizing the Queer Museum’, Museums & Social Issues 3 (1): 41–52.
O’Hagan, S. (2010) ‘Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh’, The Observer Review, 24 January: 17.
Ridinger, R. (2010) ‘Sister Fire: Representing the Legacies of Leatherwomen’, in A.K. Levin (ed.)
Gender, Sexuality, and Museums: A Routledge Reader, London and New York: Routledge: 172–81.
Saatchi Gallery (2010) The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today. Picture by Picture Guide, London: The
Saatchi Gallery.
Sandell, R. and Frost, S. (2010) ‘A Persistent Prejudice’, in F. Cameron and L. Kelly (eds) Hot Topics,
Public Culture, Museums, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing: 150–75.
Schlievert, C. and Steuber, J. (2008) ‘Collecting Asian Art, Defining Gender Roles’, Journal of the History
of Collections 20 (2): 291–303.
Taylor, K. (1994) ‘Pioneering Efforts of Early Museum Women’, in J. Glaser and A. Zenetou (eds)
Gender Perspectives: Essays on Women in Museums, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press:
11–27.
Vanegas, A. (2002) ‘Representing Lesbians and Gay Men in British Social History Museums’, in
R. Sandell (ed.) Museums, Society, Inequality, London and New York: Routledge: 98–109.
Wellcome Collection (2010) 8 Rooms/9 Lives [booklet], London: Wellcome Collection.
PLATE 1.1 John Everett Millais, The Blind Girl (1856). With permission of Birmingham Museums
& Art Gallery. In 2008 the painting was part of an audio trail throughout the Museum’s fine art
galleries which highlighted artworks with a link to disability and invited disabled artists to interpret
the works and explore their resonance with contemporary lived experience of disability.
PLATE 1.2a Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party (1974–1979). Mixed media: ceramic, porcelain, tex-
tile. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, 2002.10. © Judy Chicago,
Photo © Donald Woodman.

PLATE 1.2b Judy Chicago, Sojourner Truth place setting from The Dinner Party (1974–1979). Mixed
media: ceramic, porcelain, textile. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of The Elizabeth A. Sackler Founda-
tion, 2002.10. © Judy Chicago, Photo © Donald Woodman.
PLATE 1.3 James Tissot (French, 1836–1902). Jesus Ministered to by Angels (Jésus assisté par les anges), 1886–1894. Opaque watercolor
over graphite on gray wove paper, Image: 6 11/16 x 9 3/4 in. (17 x 24.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased by public subscrip-
tion, 00.159.54.
PLATE 1.4 The Singh Twins, EnTwinED (2009), is a commissioned response by the Singh Twins
(Amrit and Rabindra Singh) to the Museum of London’s paintings by Henry Nelson O’Neil,
Eastward Ho! and Home Again, acquired in 2004. These pictures are displayed in the Museum’s
Galleries of Modern London. O’Neil’s canvases, painted in 1857 and 1858, show British soldiers
embarking for the First Indian War of Independence and then disembarking after completing their
tour of duty. The Singh Twins have used this idea of disembarkation to develop an image which
touches upon the experience of the Indian diaspora throughout the British Isles. With permission
of the Museum of London.
PLATE 1.5 Marshall D. Rumbaugh, Rosa Parks, Painted limewood, 1983. With base: 99.1 × 96.5
× 30.5cm (39 × 38 × 12"). Without base: 95 × 88.9 × 18.4cm (37 × 35 × 7 ¼"). Base: 96.5 ×
30.5cm (38 × 12"). National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. NPG.83.163
PLATE 3.1a The Golden Throne made by Hafez Muhammad Multani, Lahore, about 1820–1830.
Sheets of gold worked in repousse, chased and engraved, over a wooden core. Height approximately
93cm. Museum no. 2518(IS). With permission of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

PLATE 3.1b Jain manuscript, The Mortal Realms of the Universe. Painting on cotton. Deshnok,
Rajasthan, dated 1844. V&A 6565(IS). © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
PLATE 6.1 Fred Wilson, The Museum: Mixed Metaphors (detail), 1993. Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA. Courtesy, Seattle Art
Museum.
PLATE 6.2 Fred Wilson, SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE WORLD – Believe it or Not! (detail), 2005 Hood Museum of Art,
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. Courtesy, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755 USA.
PLATE 6.3 Caspar Mayer, American, 1871–1931. Bust of Ota Benga, A Bachichi man, as displayed
by Fred Wilson in the installation SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE WORLD – Believe it or Not!,
2005. 1904. Plaster cast made from a life mask, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hano-
ver, NH. Courtesy, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College.
PLATE 8.1 Sonia Boyce, Mr close-friend-of-the-family pays a visit whilst everyone else is out, 1985. Arts
Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London. With kind permission of Sonia Boyce.
PLATE 9.1 Islamic Middle East: The Jameel Gallery, V&A Museum.
PLATE 9.2a Blessing of the space by Chinese Buddhists at the opening of the Robert H.N. Ho
Buddhist Sculpture Galleries, 28 April 2009, V&A Museum.

PLATE 9.2b The opening of the Sacred Silver & Stained Glass Galleries, 22 November 2005,
V&A Museum. Members of different branches of Christianity and Jewish communities advised on
the development and interpretation of the galleries. With permission of the Victoria and Albert
Museum, London.
PLATE 10.1 Kissing Doesn’t Kill. Greed and Indifference Do. Poster by Gran Fury (designer), ACT UP (publisher). Museum no. E.472-1993. Given by
Shaun Cole. Reproduced courtesy of Gran Fury/Avram Finkelstein.
PLATE 10.2 ‘Lesbians are coming out . . .’ Screenprint by See Red Women’s Workshop. V&A
Museum. Museum number: E.786-2004. Gift of the American Friends of the V&A; Gift to the
American Friends by Leslie, Judith and Gabri Schreyer and Alice Schreyer Batko.
PLATE 10.3 The Mazarin Chest, Japan, about 1640. V&A Museum. Museum no. 412-1882. With
permission of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
PLATE 14.1 David Hockney, We Two Boys Together Clinging, 1961. Oil on Board. 48 x 60”. © David Hockney.
Collection: Arts Council, Southbank Centre, London. Photo Credit: Prudence Cuming Associates.
PLATE 14.2 Sadie Lee, Holly Woodlawn Dressing II. Oil on canvas 2007. With kind permission of
Sadie Lee.
PLATE 14.3 Grayson Perry, Transvestite Looking in Mirror, 2009. Glazed ceramic. 71 × 43.5 × 5
cms, 28 × 17 1/8 × 2 inches. (GP 295). Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery, London.
Copyright Grayson Perry.
PLATE 14.4 Kristiane Taylor, Self-Med Woman, 2009. Courtesy of the artist.
PLATE 16.1Aboriginal Tent Embassy outside Parliament House, Canberra, 1972. Image supplied by National Archives of Australia.
NAA: A7973, INT1205/1.
PLATE 17.1 Deed of lease of indigenous lands issued by Han Chinese officers of the Qing government, late
eighteenth century. Photo courtesy of the National Taiwan Museum.
PLATE 18.1a Interviewing local residents. Photo courtesy of Susan Kamel.

PLATE 18.1b School group during an interview. Photo courtesy of Christine Gerbich.
PLATE 21.1 Chris Ofili, Afro Lunar Lovers, 2003. With permission of the Victoria and Albert
Museum, London.
PLATE 21.2 The West Indian Front Room: Memories and Impressions of Black British Homes. Geffrye Museum, London.
Photographer: John Nelligan.
12
MUSEUMS AND AUTISM
Creating an inclusive community for learning

Susan Davis Baldino

Museums and their academic partner, museum studies, comprise an interdisciplinary group
of professionals and scholars who not only study, care for and exhibit our cultural and natural
heritage, but offer progressive learning solutions and proactively work toward making posi-
tive differences for diverse populations. This chapter discusses how museums can use social
learning theory and practice to provide an inclusive and effective program for learners on the
autism spectrum. The model I describe here is a ‘museum learning community’ and the focus
of my research is a group I established in 2006, known by its members as the ‘Museum Learn-
ers Club’ or MLC.
The development of the Museum Learners Club coincides with three crucial trends:
pressing mandates for museums to be more relevant to society; the increasing prevalence
of autism; and the growing need for accessible and inclusive education. While the museum
learning community I examine cannot ameliorate the condition of autism, it embraces diver-
sity, accommodates differences and offers a viable context for inclusion that is a worthwhile
alternative or enhancement to typical school education. Museums can use it as a vehicle for
learning that affirms the abilities of autistic learners and others like them who may frequently
be labeled as outcasts, be misunderstood or underserved.

From traditional teaching to communal learning

Today’s rapidly changing world demands new educational forms and processes (Gardner
2006a: 9–11). Standard educational institutions persistently rely on didactic methods that
remove learning from everyday cultural, social and economic life. Teaching is often prac-
ticed through a model of linear transmission that posits teachers as experts and students as
passive receivers. In this scenario, only the teacher’s side of the information exchange is active.
Psychologist Jerome Bruner describes it as an impoverished pedagogical tradition whereby
‘a single, presumably omniscient teacher explicitly tells or shows presumably unknowing
learners something they presumably know nothing about’ (1996: 20). Bruner calls for a refor-
mation of this omniscient teaching model, because ‘only a very small part of educating takes
place on such a one-way street—and it is probably one of the least successful parts’ (ibid.: 21).
170 S. Davis Baldino

He asks us to consider whether the human mind is a computational device that processes finite
information or a mind that is informed by our experiences and makes meaning within cultural
and social contexts. If we understand humans as reflective of the societies and culture in which
they live, they cannot be passive receivers. Therefore, we should be skeptical of educational
institutions that extract knowledge from our cultures and present it in a linear, decontextual-
ized manner.
Bruner endorses a cultural-psychological approach to education that reconceives the class-
room as a community of mutual learners. This community is a cultural context where all stu-
dents work together, helping one another learn according to their individual abilities. There
is no teacher in the traditional sense, but rather a guide or coach who enables and encourages
the learning process by providing supportive scaffolding and sharing authority. The pedagogy
of mutuality is carried on by dialogue, discussion and interaction. If we create school cultures
that operate as mutual communities of learners we will better prepare our students to cre-
ate and negotiate meaning and assume workable identities in more complex cultures outside
school (Bruner 1996: 68).
Other scholars, including social anthropologist Jean Lave, learning theorist Etienne Wenger
and learning scientists Brown, Collins and Duguid work in the same vein as Bruner. They
view the combination of communal setting and co-participation as fertile ground for learning.
They understand that cognition is situated in the context and culture in which it occurs and
have investigated the processes of apprenticeships where the phenomenon of situated learning
is readily apparent.
Lave and Wenger’s study of apprenticeships identified ‘legitimate peripheral participation’,
or LPP, as the elemental learning process (1991). LPP occurs when the learner joins the
actual practice of an expert, absorbing and being absorbed in the culture of that practice. The
learner does not acquire a discrete body of facts, but rather the skill to eventually become a
full member of the practice. In the initial stages of LPP, the newcomer’s tasks are short and
simple and responsibility is minimal. As the newcomer moves toward full participation there
is an increased sense of belonging and motivation for learning. With full participation comes
expertise and knowledge of the practice. Learning is thus conceived as a process of becoming
a full participant in a sociocultural practice. Their investigation of this process prompted Lave
and Wenger to devise a social learning framework they term a ‘community of practice’.
Brown and his colleagues developed a similar community model they call the ‘cognitive
apprenticeship’ (1989). The cognitive apprenticeship is collaborative learning that stresses the
enculturated, context-dependent, situated nature of learning. The term apprenticeship anchors
the notion that participatory activity is requisite for learning. Like historical apprenticeships,
it begins with coaching and modeling in situ and continues with a scaffolding process that
supports learners during tasks and includes a gradual withdrawal of support until learners can
manage on their own. The modifier cognitive emphasizes that the apprenticeship techniques go
beyond physical skills to include cognitive skills. To illustrate situated learning in a cognitive
apprenticeship, Brown and his co-authors point to the ease with which we learn the meaning
of words through dialogue, conversation, storytelling and other types of everyday discourse.
This contextual learning is far more effective than reading definitions in dictionaries. Reading
a dictionary, like the didactic teaching of abstract concepts, does not consider how knowledge
and meaning is built through continual situated use across our cultural communities.
Education, as conceived by social learning theorists, is rarely found in our schools that rely
on prescriptive teaching and standardized testing, but it can thrive in museums. Museums
 Museums and autism 171

offer an alternative environment for learning where learners can interact in a more natural
community atmosphere, outside the more artificial classroom environment to which they are
accustomed. It is a place where they can relate to objects and experiences directly, not via
intermediary texts and contrived procedures.

Museum learning theorists and social learning theory

Social learning theory has become increasingly influential for museum studies. The potential
for community learning was introduced to the field by prominent developmental psycholo-
gists and cognitive scientists at the 1994 conference, ‘Public Institutions for Personal Learning:
Understanding the Long-Term Impact of Museums’ (Falk and Dierking 1995). In a confer-
ence ‘background paper’, Matusov and Rogoff contributed a Vygotskian inspired participatory
approach they call a ‘community of learners’ and view the museum as a bridge between such
communities and their practices (1995). In another background paper on interactive learning
environments, Roschelle considered the work of Dewey, Vygotsky, Lave and Wenger, and
Brown, Duguid and Collins to conclude that only part of knowledge exists when we acquire
explicit information; the rest comes from community engagement (1995). As Roschelle states,
‘Growing ability to participate in a community-based culture has precedence over the ability to
know’ (1995: 47).
In their own right, museum theorists have made invaluable contributions to our under-
standing of learning. They recognize that museums are not restricted to didactic practices;
rather they are freer to encompass a variety of learning processes. George Hein advances
the constructivist learning theory, a view of learning as building upon existing knowledge
through learner-centered methods (1998). Since he first began writing about museums and
constructivism, other museologists have further developed constructivist learning theory and
practice. Much of it is based on the social constructivism of Vygotsky who keenly under-
stood that higher mental functions are ‘socially formed and culturally transmitted’ (1978: 126).
Through her study of cultural communications and interpretive communities, Eilean Hooper-
Greenhill develops the idea that meaning is achieved by mutual processes of sharing and par-
ticipating in social and cultural frameworks (1994, 2000). John Falk and Lynn Dierking, like
Matusov and Rogoff, see the museum as the intersection of community learning experiences
(2000). Gaea Leinhardt and Karen Knutson study learning in the museum as ‘conversational
elaboration’, a decidedly sociocultural view (2004). All of these theorists see the museum as
an ideal locus for learning. All deem learning as inherently social, and recognize its communal
aspect and the positive prospects for learning in communities.

Museums as common ground for human diversity

Alongside increasing recognition of the social character of learning in museums can be found
growing interest in the significance and value of more inclusive approaches to museum prac-
tice evidenced, for example, in recent studies by Sandell (2002 and 2007) and Janes (Janes and
Conaty 2005; Janes 2007). As museums break from an elitist and discriminatory past, they are
exercising their exceptional capacity to reach out to existing and potential users who have
suffered segregation and marginalization. Among these marginalized users are people with
exceptional physical, intellectual and emotional differences; people who experience disability
and constitute a large but often overlooked minority (World Health Organization 2011).
172 S. Davis Baldino

People with autism spectrum disorders make up a significant segment of the disabled popu-
lation, one that is growing at an alarming rate. The Centers for Disease Control in the United
States (CDC) cite the incidence of autism as an average of one in 110,1 and regard autism as
an urgent public health concern. The Autistic Society in the United Kingdom measures the
prevalence of autism as one in 100,2 and views it as a lifelong disabling condition that can be
devastating without appropriate supports. Autism has been referred to as a global crisis.3 The
United Nations has designated April 2 as Autism Awareness Day.
Developing inclusive programs for learners on the autism spectrum focuses on a significant
population that has not always experienced full and open access to education and everyday
social activities. The Museum Learners Club invites autistic learners to join others as equals
in motivating environments. It fits into a worldwide movement toward inclusive education
that utilizes learner-centered pedagogies and supports differences (World Health Organization
2011). Inclusion benefits autistic students by eradicating inequities. Perhaps more importantly,
it benefits all students, autistic and non-autistic, by expanding individuals’ experiences of dif-
ference in ways that diminish prejudice.

Autism and learning

Autistic learners present a complex set of physical, intellectual, developmental and behavioral
manifestations that spans a wide-ranging continuum. Autism is therefore known as a spec-
trum disorder. The autism spectrum includes such diagnoses as autistic disorder, Asperger’s
Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder.4 Each person who displays autistic charac-
teristics does so in a uniquely individual way; however, every person with an autism diagnosis
endures debilitating neurologically based information processing difficulties that can result in
mild to severe learning differences and behaviors.
Minshew and Williams explain that regions in the autistic brain are not integrated, do not
work in synchrony or harmony and thus may hinder complex abilities and functions (2008).
Someone whose neural networks are not integrated may experience challenges in receiving
and responding to information from another person. For example, as one person communi-
cates with another, the typical brain simultaneously processes facial expressions, gestures and
postures along with linguistic and contextual information. This wholly integrated process does
not occur in the autistic brain (Gutstein 2009: 9). Inadequate neural integration is not only
revealed in acts of communication but also in perception and motor coordination that can
cause physical unease or irritation.
Students on the autism spectrum can confront barriers in a traditional classroom. They
may find it difficult to relate to teachers and classmates. They may not be able to follow or
elaborate on what they are taught. They may be both distractible and distracting and physi-
cally and emotionally uncomfortable. Even those autistic learners who are easily able to master
curricular subjects and are considered ‘high functioning’ can remain socially and emotionally
isolated.
Table 12.1 encapsulates cognitive, communicative and physical challenges for learners on
the autism spectrum. The chart is based on Greenspan and Wieder’s work that sorts learning
challenges of autism into foundational areas of relating, communicating and thinking (2006)
and includes an additional area that addresses physical comfort. The chart matches learning
fundamentals to behaviors and symptoms of autism, many of which I encountered during my
fieldwork with the Museum Learners Club.
 Museums and autism 173

TABLE 12.1 Classroom learning challenges in school-aged and older learners on the autism spectrum

Fundamentals necessary Indications of Autism Associated Symptoms

for learning in the classroom Spectrum Disorder
COGNITIVE ABILITY
Creative and logical use of ideas: ‘Under-connected thinking’ Illogical and
Ability to express needs, intentions, and an inability to use ideas in inappropriate use
desires, feelings in meaningful meaningful ways; using ideas of ideas, echolalia,
conversation and connect ideas without logical connections; repeating scripted language
logically inconsistent perception
Abstract and reflective thinking: Concrete thinking that is rigid Exaggerated reactions or
Ability to use high level thinking and lacks subtlety; restricted avoidance of social situations
skills; make inferences interests
SOCIAL COMMUNICATION
Attention, engagement, Fleeting, intermittent or no Aimless, random or
emotional interactions: engagement or interaction; self-stimulatory behaviors;
Ability to pleasurably relate to another difficulty regulating arousal; self-absorption or
person and initiate interactions speech delays withdrawal, inattention
Continuous purposeful social Limited or no interaction; Impulsive or repetitive
communication: Ability to little initiative taken toward behaviors (perseveration);
negotiate, play, and read emotional relating aggressive behavior,
intentions of others vulnerability
PHYSICAL COMFORT
Strength to endure classroom Low muscle tone; delayed fine Repetitive motions; shaking
activity: Ability to sit quietly, follow and gross motor functioning; and flapping; avoidance of
directions and conform to class lack of sensory integration noise and touching, need
expectations for frequent breaks

Faced with inabilities to socially integrate and make meaning in typical ways, autistic learn-
ers seem to live and learn in a manner detached from their typical peers. Their world is often
dominated by anomalous perception and literal information that remains disjointed and not
synthesized into meaningful analyses. It can include painful sensitivities and inappropriate
communication styles. Without meaningful analysis, autistic learners often prefer repetition
to novelty and predictability to new situations. With overwhelming sensory input, they may
recede from the tasks at hand. Without the ability to relate in familiar ways, they may be dis-
missed, rejected and bullied.
The autistic population needs education solutions. The number of autistic students who
receive educational services is steadily rising. These students are often isolated with special
education teachers in therapeutic settings with the hope that they will ‘catch up’ with their
peers. In the United States as many as 40 percent of students on the autism spectrum are
outside the classroom for more than 60 percent of the school day (US Department of Educa-
tion 2009). Underlying this statistic is a singular paradigm for learning that does not take into
consideration multiple learning styles and leaves students with special needs feeling excluded
and actually deterred from realizing their potential.
174 S. Davis Baldino

Most research on autism deals with areas other than education. Primary goals are deter-
mining incidence, identifying risk factors and cause, examining brain anatomy, developing
pharmacological treatment, and gauging economic cost. Too little work is applied to quality
of life issues for those who are growing up on the spectrum. There is also an overwhelming
dependence on interventions based on theories of behaviorism that attempt to alter autistic
behaviors with instructional control and induce socially acceptable and school-appropriate
conduct.5 Behaviorism teaches ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, while ignoring subtle, reflective, more
advanced ways of thinking. More acceptable behaviors may be realized; however, there is
growing concern that behavioral approaches aim to correct symptoms rather than address
fundamental differences and generate a brittle type of knowledge that is difficult to generalize.
More research is needed on learning and concomitant social skills that will generate a happier
and more productive existence for autistic students.

Autism and social learning strategies

There is emerging research on social learning for those who have autism spectrum disor-
ders. Diverging from behaviorist methods, these newer approaches utilize social interaction
to increase cognitive ability. They emphasize communicative, relational and problem solving
skills more than the aptitude to produce correct responses. Among them is the SCERTS edu-
cational model that places learning firmly in social contexts and daily routines and measures
learning by degrees of participation and communication (Prizant et al. 2006).
The SCERTS acronym signals its priorities: social communication (SC), emotional regula-
tion (ER) and transactional supports (TS). The social communication domain addresses the
need to relate to others in order to learn. The emotional regulation domain refers to support
that help learners maintain social engagement. The domain of transactional supports specifies
the guiding strategies used across all learning situations at home, in school and in the com-
munity. SCERTS takes into account a broader definition of learning that includes not only
academic skills but communicative, emotional and motor skills. It considers learners as active
participants in their own learning and views inclusion with non-autistic peers as advanta-
geous to all. SCERTS has been implemented in educational settings where its principles are
employed with a ‘semi-structure’ to promote consistent social interaction when needed yet
retain flexibility and learner initiation where appropriate.
The SCERTS approach was designed to be adaptive to different environments and flexible
enough to incorporate into compatible learning designs. Because of its similarities to progres-
sive museum learning, it could be integrated with social learning programs in museums such
as the Museum Learners Club.

Museum learning community research and the MLC

My study of socially mediated learning led me to create an inclusive learning community for
autistic learners. The design is indebted to pathfinders of museum studies who promote the
museum as an important setting for learning and instill the value of theory-based research for
museum practice. Their revelations about constructivist and sociocultural learning remain my
keystone; however, my learning framework is primarily linked with theorists from the fields
of knowledge management and organizational learning science. Derived from notion of the
community of practice, I designed it as a ‘museum learning community’. I organized and
 Museums and autism 175

tested it with young learners who renamed it the ‘Museum Learners Club’ and referred to it
as the ‘MLC’.
Underpinning the framework of the MLC is an essential understanding of the multi-
dimensional nature of knowledge and the process of learning. Knowledge does not solely
consist of independent facts and explicit information. It also involves culturally embedded
personal backgrounds and an indescribable tacit component. Although individuals can ingest
explicit information by singular effort, more balanced and meaningful learning results from
participation – the activity that exposes cultural affinity and unleashes the tacit component of
knowledge.
Organizational scientists in today’s ‘knowledge age’ count knowledge as the most valuable
asset of the firm. They conduct profound studies of knowledge and learning to expand the learn-
ing capacities of their employees. Their research on organizational knowledge creation – the
theory that examines how people learn within the organization – reveals the relative importance
of explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge includes easily expressible data, facts and
information that enterprises can access and use in a straightforward manner. Tacit knowledge,
however, is embedded in individual minds and bodies and remains stubbornly resistant to articu-
lation. As scientist and knowledge philosopher Michael Polanyi wrote, ‘tacit knowing is more
fundamental than explicit knowing: we can know more than we can tell and we can tell nothing
without relying on our awareness of things we may not be able to tell’ (Polanyi 1964: ix). Much
of today’s organizational research is based on Polanyi’s ideas about the tacit dimension. Although
both explicit and tacit knowledge are integral to an organization’s success, it is the harnessing of
tacit knowledge that results in true innovation and increased competitive advantage.
Polanyi believed that tacit knowledge can only be released when we are connected socially
and culturally, as he explains in his seminal work on personal knowledge:

Tacit assent and intellectual passions, the shaping of an idiom and of a cultural heritage,
affiliation to a likeminded community: such are the impulses which shape our vision of
the nature of things on which we rely for our mastery of things. No intelligence, how-
ever critical or original, can operate outside such a fiduciary framework.
Ibid.: 266

To capture and mobilize tacit knowledge, business organizations cultivate social groups dis-
tinct from their structural hierarchies. These groups allow employees to participate in a more
natural context and generate new ideas from the existing personal and tacit knowledge of
group members. I looked at several such groups to build the MLC, and drew particularly on
the concept of microcommunities of knowledge, developed by von Krogh et al. (2000), and
the idea of communities of practice, developed by Wenger (1998).
In both communal constructs, innovations result from active participation. The microcom-
munity comprises five to seven participants who share tacit knowledge through observation,
narration, imitation, experimentation and joint execution to develop a concept. An enabling
system includes ‘knowledge activists’ who initiate dialogue and assure continual participation
through which conversions of knowledge take place: from tacit to explicit and explicit to tacit.
Wenger’s community of practice also involves the communal negotiation of explicit and tacit
knowledge and has been proven effective in numerous case studies. With four interdependent
components, it combines a practice with a coherent community where mutual engagement and
reification generates meaning and enables a transformation of identity.
176 S. Davis Baldino

The foundational aspects of organizational learning communities can be applied in a vari-

ety of settings including museums and schools. Wenger, for example, has used his organi-
zational form of the community of practice to develop a specific design for education.
His educational conception depends on managing the forces of four dualities: participation
and reification; teaching and learning; the local and the global; identification and negotiability.
The design favors participation over reification; privileges learning over teaching; encourages
local engagement to widen its boundaries; and promotes identity development. It is accom-
panied by successive ‘modes of belonging’ or steps in the transformation of learners’ identities
because, as Wenger puts it, ‘Education, in its deepest sense and at whatever age it takes place,
concerns the opening of identities—exploring new ways of being that lie beyond our current
state’ (1998: 263). The three steps in identity transformation are engagement (community
building), imagination (reflection and exploration) and alignment (connecting learning to
broader enterprises outside school) (ibid.: 263–7).
I adapted Wenger’s framework to produce a blueprint for the MLC as seen in Figure
12.1. It reflects most of Wenger’s ideas and those of others who have designed such learn-
ing communities. The quadrants of ‘context’ and ‘adaptive guidance’ provide the frame for
the museum learning practice that occurs in a small inclusive group without teaching as we
typically conceive of it. The areas of ‘participation’ and ‘identification’ denote knowledge
enablers within the frame that encourage interactivity and a sense of belonging. The modes
of engagement, imagination and alignment indicate successive stages of identity transforma-
tion that begin when a community coalesces, grows with members’ exploration of themselves
and others and moves beyond the immediate community as members are exposed to other
communities and practices. The conception represents a new form and process for learning,
as called for by Gardner and Bruner, and is similar in character to the SCERTS approach to
learning with its emphasis on participatory contexts, guidance and individual identities within
a flexible structure.
The interactive participatory MLC, guided by a facilitator and attentive to individual
identities, provides a learning environment situated in everyday activities, away from the
constraints of a classroom and traditional teaching system. It trades traditional pedagogy for
a pedagogy of mutuality. It relies on participation in which meaningful activity supersedes
reified materials such as textbooks, rubrics and standardized tests. It is a place where learning

CONTEXT PARTICIPATION
Community of Practice: Make meaning through sharing and participation
Inclusive group learning in museums not reification
Shared purposes and a balance of local and Incorporate reification that arises naturally within
expanded engagement the context

IDENTIFICATION ADAPTIVE GUIDANCE

Empower meaningful identities Stress the emergent over the designed: less teaching,
Encourage membership more learning
Provide opportunities for each participant to lead Community coordinator assumes facilitative,
guiding role
Engagement Æ Imagination Æ Alignment
Coming together Reflecting and Exploring Crossing boundaries

FIGURE 12.1 Learning architecture and modes of belonging for the Museum Learners Club.
 Museums and autism 177

can be contoured by each individual yet scaffolding is available where needed. Here, learn-
ing is measured by degrees of participation and transformation of identities as participants
are first encouraged to become full and active members (engagement); allowed to reflect
and explore their identities and those of others (imagination); and to move beyond school
walls into the community.

Museum Learners Club in practice

The MLC operates as a microcommunity of practice with six learners: three on the autism
spectrum and three who are neurologically typical. I experimented with the model in a
museum-school collaboration in which the MLC augmented class curriculum by visiting
museums. In my initial test group, the three students with autistic characteristics had dif-
ficulties learning in the classroom.6 Their cognitive abilities, social and communication
skills, and physical manifestations of disability varied. They experienced common autistic
sensory issues such as aversions to loud noise, commotion and touching and responded with
perseveration, repeated movements and self-stimulatory behavior. They exhibited various
physical discomforts, withdrew rather than related to others and were rigid in their concep-
tions and desires. The school considered them disabled, issued them government mandated
Individual Education Plans and segregated them from other students for special education
sessions several times during the week. Three neurologically typical students joined the
MLC. I rounded out the group, not as an authoritative teacher, but as a guiding ‘knowledge
activist’.
To coordinate the MLC, I laid out an elaborate yet flexible scheme for learning in muse-
ums. Our plan roughly followed the social studies curriculum of the school term, but made
allowances for collective and individual exploration and reflection. The MLC left campus to
visit museums for an entire school day once a week and conceived and built a project that
was presented to the class at the end of the term. Our goals mirrored those of the students left
in the classroom who were conducting social studies research in class by using texts, lectures
and online resources for a term-end presentation, but our learning processes were completely
different.
As participant observer during the MLC process, I clearly witnessed growing partici-
pation and identification. Each club member contributed to joint activity with increas-
ing frequency. Each assumed leadership roles and/or new responsibilities at various times.
Attitudes toward involvement changed, especially for those on the autism spectrum who
became more involved with other participants and worked together in spontaneous part-
nerships and group undertakings. Learners on the autism spectrum were also able to negoti-
ate identities within the MLC that were prohibitive in the classroom. They were given the
time and support necessary to shape and communicate their thoughts. For them, the MLC
was a transformative experience. They could assume positions equivalent to those of their
peers and did so with regularity.
The Museum Learners Club also enabled participants’ identities to reach a point where
they imagined themselves in the world around them. Not only learners in a school, they
had become learners in museums and in the surrounding community. They connected to a
broader enterprise that was inhabited by varied institutions, primary resources, historic col-
lections, experiences with professionals and learning activity apart from standardized rubrics.
Their understanding became deeper and wider than the curriculum.
178 S. Davis Baldino

The positive results of the MLC experiment were remarkable. The students not only
learned subject area content but increased social and communication skills. Each student
gained a sense of belonging. Formerly ostracized students became full participants. Passive
learners became active learners as reticence gave way to full participation. Followers became
leaders. There was unprecedented interaction between autistic learners and non-autistic learn-
ers, acceptance of differences and enhanced tolerance. There was an increase in confidence
and friend-making. The joy of being together in a purposeful practice in museums was pal-
pable (Baldino 2010).

Implications for the future

People with autistic spectrum disorders are part of our collective history and integral to our
society. As such they should be part of our collective meaning-making and should not be
intentionally or incidentally excluded or dissuaded from learning. The Museum Learners Club
is a framework for diversity and a place where these people can be heard and respected as equal
partners. Museums can use the Museum Learners Club to engage and affirm the abilities of
autistic learners and others like them who have dealt with discrimination.
In addition to the merits of social inclusion, the successful working out of the MLC proved
to me that humans with varying abilities can work together to solve problems, and correct
misunderstandings. I agree with Howard Gardner who writes:

If we can mobilize the spectrum of human abilities, not only will people feel better
about themselves and more competent; it is even possible that they will also feel more
engaged and better able to join the rest of the world community in working for the
broader good. Perhaps if we can mobilize the full range of human intelligences and ally
them to an ethical sense, we can help increase the likelihood of our survival on this
planet, and perhaps even contribute to our thriving.
2006b: 24

Notes
1 For further information see Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2011).
2 For further information see National Autistic Society (2011).
3 For example, see the May 2011 hearing on global perspectives on autism conducted by C. Smith,
chair of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Africa, Global
Health and Human Rights, www.c-span.org/Events/Hearing-Examines-Global-Perspectives-on-
Autism/10737421894/ (accessed 30 September 2011).
4 Definitions and a guide to diagnosis for autism in the United States are delineated in the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association (www.
psych.org). Other countries follow similar guidelines but may include a somewhat different list of
disorders on the autism spectrum.
5 I do not want to imply that all behaviorist strategies are inappropriate. They may be useful in
some cases – for example, where extreme behaviors such as aggression and tantrums persist. For
the majority of educational settings, however, social or socio-developmental approaches produce
knowledge that is better suited for an integrated life.
6 The students who exhibited autistic characteristics were ‘learning-ready’ and spent much of
their school day in the classroom with typical students. They could generalize skills to independent
settings and were selected for the study because I wanted my work to be remedial not
compensatory.
 Museums and autism 179

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13
MUSEUMS AS INTERCULTURAL SPACES
Simona Bodo

Many museums were founded in order to represent and validate national, local or group
identities and have been understood to function as spaces which have tended to work against
contemporary social and political concerns for cultural diversity and inclusion. Increasingly,
however, museums are being perceived as places which might nurture respect for cultural
differences and foster dialogue between groups (Bodo et al. 2009; Sandell 2007). This chapter
draws on recent European research to examine this trend in museological thinking and prac-
tice and, in particular, looks at contemporary, experimental initiatives from Italy to consider
the role that museums might play in promoting equality and mutual understanding between
communities in multicultural societies.

Heritage, museums and intercultural dialogue:

a problematic relationship
The very notion of ‘heritage’ can be problematic when we begin to consider these issues. For many
it can seem to refer to something that is attained ‘once and for all’ by birthright, rather than devel-
oped by an individual throughout their lifetime (Matarasso 2006); a perception that has informed
the views of many policy-makers and museum professionals but also underpinned broader public
understandings of heritage. As Matarasso has highlighted, it is commonly assumed that:

one can become a cultured person; one can learn to understand and appreciate art,
music, or ballet . . . one can accumulate cultural capital . . . But one cannot acquire a
heritage: it is given, fixed at birth. Heritage claims an essential, and ineradicable, differ-
ence between someone born in a village, or a country, or a faith, and someone who has
chosen to make their life within that social and cultural framework; and that distinction,
paradoxically, disadvantages the person who has freely chosen an identity, making a
conscious commitment to a place, a group or a set of values. In this world, a migrant
can only ever be an honorary member, an affiliate whose status, whether welcomed or
merely tolerated, is always at risk of revocation.
2006: 53–4
182 S. Bodo

For Matarasso, however, heritage should not be ‘mistaken for the neutral remains of the
past, as most heritage bodies imply . . . Rather, it is how people interpret evidence of the
past for present use; and one of those uses is to define themselves’ (ibid.: 53). Building on
this understanding of the constructed nature of heritage, it is possible to determine two main
interpretive paradigms (Besozzi 2007) with radically different implications for museums. The
‘essentialist paradigm’ sees heritage as the ‘neutral remains of the past’: static, consolidated, ‘of
outstanding universal value’1 and, as such, something to be ‘transmitted’ through a linear com-
munication process from the curator (as the only reliable source of authority and expertise)
to the cognitively passive visitor. The ‘dialogical paradigm’, on the other hand, understands
heritage as a set of cultural objects – both material and immaterial – that should not only be
preserved and transmitted, but also renegotiated, reconstructed in their meanings and made
available for all to share in a common space of social interaction.2
In the real world, both paradigms represent legitimate concerns and interests and, in fact,
need not be understood to be entirely in conflict with each other. Whilst in the former, deci-
sions are made on what is worth preserving and transmitting to future generations, in the
latter, this heritage is constantly questioned and rediscovered by individuals who breathe new
life into it. As museum mediator Rita Catarama observes, ‘heritage is not something separate
from life’ (Pecci 2009a: 129).
Tensions emerge, however, since the essentialist paradigm has dominated most institu-
tional policy and practice thereby constraining dialogical notions of heritage, compromising
the accessibility of museums and excluding those who do not possess an ‘adequate’ level of
cultural literacy, let alone a sense of belonging.
In light of this tension between a more traditional, self-referential, and a more inclusive,
participatory way of conceiving heritage, how are museums responding to a political agenda
which is increasingly urging them to play a role in the promotion of intercultural dialogue?
I began to address this question in 2007, through my involvement in a study on European
Union member states’ approaches to intercultural dialogue in different policy domains (cul-
ture, education, youth and sport), carried out by the European Institute for Comparative
Cultural Research (ERICarts Institute) on behalf of the European Commission Directorate
General for Education and Culture (Bodo 2008). My brief within this project was to investi-
gate the different understandings of intercultural dialogue and the resulting policy approaches
to its promotion in museums across Europe.3 In this chapter I provide an indicative selection
of the approaches found in the study and focus on whether and how museums have been
successful in encouraging interaction between different cultural groups.

Understandings of intercultural dialogue

One of the prevailing understandings of a museum’s responsibility to promote intercultural
dialogue has been to encourage increased knowledge and greater recognition and apprecia-
tion of ‘other’ cultures. Although this approach may take very different forms (for example,
by showcasing difference as an educational strategy to inform audiences about cultures which
have traditionally been misrepresented or made invisible in museum spaces; or by exposing
and challenging past and present stereotypes concerning certain cultural traditions), what often
distinguishes these initiatives is not so much a will to encourage attendance and participation
on the part of migrant communities, as to promote a ‘knowledge-oriented multiculturalism’
directed principally at an autochthonous public. Here, the ‘other’ is conceived as an object
 Museums as intercultural spaces 183

of knowledge – rather than an individual with whom we engage in a relationship – and is

constructed from the point of view of a dominant culture; one ‘unmarked by ethnicity in
relation to which the differences of other cultures are to be registered, assessed and tolerated’
(Bennett 2006: 24).
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the promotion of intercultural dialogue has often
been associated with the integration of ‘new citizens’ within mainstream culture, by helping
migrant communities to become familiar with a country’s history, values and traditions. In the
best of cases, these initiatives are rooted in communities’ needs and expectations, rather than
driven by curatorial and institutional interests, or transitory political and social agendas (Bodo
2009b). For example, some museums are actively supporting groups of recent arrivals and
helping them settle into the new country by assisting them with language learning. Others are
encouraging an inclusive mediation of the local heritage by experimenting with a participa-
tory approach to the interpretation of collections. However, some initiatives, typically includ-
ing guided tours to museums and heritage sites targeted at specific groups, have turned out to
be rather more problematic due not only to a lack of consistent outreach policies and limited
direct involvement of participants but, in some cases, to a patronising attitude,4 intended ‘to
make it easier for those who are not yet believers to learn to appreciate what they are missing’
(Matarasso 2004: 493).
A further option which is being increasingly explored by museums across Europe is ‘cultur-
ally specific programming’, for example the development of exhibitions and events drawing
on collections that might hold particular significance for an immigrant community. Along-
side these initiatives, intended to redress the under- or misrepresentation of specific minority
groups, there has been a growing interest in collections or programmes that reflect the cultural
heterogeneity of a region or city’s population and those which explore topics (such as the his-
tory of immigration, colonialism and slavery) that enable diverse cultures to be represented.5
Some communities are actively involved by museums in the interpretation of collections or
assisted with preserving and presenting their own cultural heritage (whether it be material
or immaterial), while other communities are attempting to establish their own museums or
community archives.
The ERICarts survey found that these approaches, as different as they may be, often have
some key features in common (Bodo 2008). First, they tend to utilise a static, essentialist
notion of heritage, which is primarily seen as a ‘received patrimony’ to safeguard and transmit.
Second, they generally target communities exclusively in relation to their own cultures and
collections, while cross-cultural interaction across all audiences is generally avoided. Third, by
keeping ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ cultures and communities apart – and by generally treating
the latter as ‘unified, traditional, unchanging and thereby exotic’ (Bloomfield and Bianchini
2004: 98) – they sometimes operate to reinforce rather than to challenge stereotypes. Fourth,
they are inclined to embrace the rhetoric of ‘diversity as a richness’, rather than acknowledg-
ing and confronting tensions and frictions between communities. Lastly, these approaches are
generally based on an understanding of ‘intercultural dialogue’ as a goal to be attained rather
than as a process, ingrained in a museum’s practice, through which it might promote ‘multiple
visions and interpretations’ (Veini and Kistemaker 2003: 20). In other words, the concept of
multiple and shifting identities – which is so central to intercultural dialogue as it permits a
move beyond the prevailing rationale of cultural representation (including diverse communi-
ties in museum narratives) – may well be widely accepted in theory but, in reality, is very
seldom placed at the heart of a museum’s work.
184 S. Bodo

By highlighting these common features, however, I am not suggesting that these approaches
are to be discredited or abandoned. Indeed they all have an important role to play – not least,
in supporting diverse communities and helping individuals and groups to maintain a vital link
with their cultural traditions – and provide the basis for the promotion of museums as inter-
cultural spaces (Bodo 2009a). Rather, what I wish to contend is the need to work towards
what Young refers to as ‘a more integrative model of diversity, rather than the current model
with its tendency to reify difference and put people into discrete categories without interac-
tion or overlap’ (Young 2005).
This approach will demand an honest, open and comprehensive rethinking on the part of
museums around what it really means to carry out intercultural work. Does such work involve
enhancing the cultural literacy of immigrant communities through familiarity with a country’s
history, art and culture, or ‘compensating’ for the misrepresentation of minorities in cultural
narratives, as many museums and heritage institutions have understood it? Or, might inter-
cultural work be conceived more productively as a bi-directional, dialogical process which is
transformative of all parties (majority as well as minority representatives; those from host as
well as immigrant backgrounds) and in which all are equal participants?

Museums as ‘intercultural spaces’: exploring new paradigms

Based on an overview of the most recent developments in Italian museums’ thinking and
working practices,6 I wish to argue here that alongside the more established policy responses
to the growing diversity of museum audiences – and ideally as their culmination – there is a
pressing need for strategies and programmes aimed at creating ‘third spaces’, where individu-
als are permitted to cross the boundaries of belonging (Bodo 2008) and are offered genuine
opportunities for self-representation.
To explore the ways in which Italian museums are responding to this need for ‘third spaces’
I wish to highlight three significant strands of experimental practice. First, some museums are
taking on the training of immigrant cultural mediators7 with a view to exploring a more dia-
logical, multi-vocal interpretation of collections. Second, some institutions are actively engag-
ing mixed groups in the development of new, shared narratives around collections through
storytelling, theatre techniques and other mediation methodologies, starting from the premise
that project participants can provide a significant contribution to the knowledge, understand-
ing and interpretation of museum objects. Third, some museums are facilitating interaction
with contemporary artists in order to develop new perspectives on the notions of heritage or
identity, and to experiment with unconventional communication and relational methodolo-
gies, mediated through contemporary art languages.8
The potential of the first area of experimentation – cultural mediators as ‘new interpreters’
of the museum’s heritage – is evident in a project called Tongue to Tongue: A Collaborative Exhi-
bition, jointly promoted by the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the University
of Turin and the Centre for African Studies (Pecci and Mangiapane 2010; Pecci 2009b; Bodo
et al. 2009).
Tongue to Tongue was based on a participatory approach to the interpretation and display
of collections, involving mediators,9 the museum’s staff and an architect/exhibition planner
(playing the threefold role of exhibition designer, facilitator and ‘translator’ of the mediators’
knowledge and expertise) in the planning and mounting of a multi-vocal exhibition. The
voice or ‘tongue’ of the museum – institutional, scientific, didactic – engaged in dialogue
 Museums as intercultural spaces 185

with the mediators’ voices – autobiographical, evocative, emotional – hence the title of the
exhibition. At the heart of the project was a training course primarily conceived as a process of
cultural empowerment, providing ‘first and second generation migrants and cultural mediators
with genuine opportunities for self-representation and cultural re-appropriation of tangible
and intangible heritages’ (Pecci 2009b).
During the course – which developed participants’ skills in a range of areas from the use
of storytelling as a heritage mediation tool to youth engagement – each mediator freely
selected from the museum’s ethnographic collections one or more objects, not necessarily
directly related to their own cultural backgrounds, but nevertheless ‘holding a particular
significance for them, as they revealed sometimes unexpected links with their personal
history, past and present, or with their knowledge systems and memories’ (Bodo et al. 2009:
36). The selection of objects from the collection was followed by the planning of ‘narra-
tive routes’ for visitors, developed in close cooperation with the museum’s staff. Finally,
the objects were displayed in showcases alongside the ‘subjective heritage’ of mediators
(souvenirs, pictures, books, clothes and so on), thereby creating an impressive range of
autobiographical installations. Through this project: ‘Museum objects . . . revealed their
capacity to evade the classifications and narratives into which they had been institutionally
inscribed and to be re-presented into a new, more connective display’ (Pecci and Mangia-
pane 2010: 149).
The visit to the exhibition, mainly addressed to local students attending the last two years
of secondary school, but also to the general public of the Museum and to under-represented
audiences (in particular, young people and immigrant communities), consisted of dialogical
‘narrative routes’ resulting from the interaction and exchange of knowledge and perspectives
between a museum educator and a mediator.

The [museum educator] gave an account of the ‘journeys’, both geographical and
museological, of the displayed object; through storytelling, the [mediator] helped the
educator and the audience put the objects in context, by highlighting their history, their
functions and interpretations, and sometimes their ideological use. The autobiographi-
cal approach also allowed mediators to incorporate their individual (and migratory)
stories in the displayed objects and exhibition spaces.
Pecci 2009b

A key achievement of Tongue to Tongue is the reciprocity it encouraged between the museum
and mediators, by bringing into dialogue their different perspectives, experiences and knowl-
edge bases, and incorporating them not only in interpretation (the development of the ‘nar-
rative routes’), but also in display (the planning and mounting of a multi-vocal exhibition).
Overall, the project demonstrates that:

the potential role of museums as agents of social change lies in their contribution to the
recognition as well as to the reflective deconstruction of the cultural identity of indi-
viduals and groups. But in order for this to be achieved, the museum’s areas of work
must be conceived as processes, rather than as tightly defined ‘mechanical’ functions such
as conservation, exhibition and education.
Pecci 2009a: 15
186 S. Bodo

The second strand of experimental practice I would like to explore – the engagement of mixed
groups in the development of new, shared narratives around collections – found an ideal test-
ing ground in the Guatelli Museum. The history of this most peculiar museum is closely con-
nected with the personal story of its creator, Ettore Guatelli, a primary school teacher born
in 1921. Interested in objects as evidence of the history of mankind, Guatelli was particularly
fascinated by the narratives they embody and unfold. The collection reflects daily life through
the poetry of objects (utensils from rural culture and everyday objects such as boxes, toys,
shoes and pottery), evocatively displayed on the museum walls. In trying to initiate intercultu-
ral dynamics and participation patterns in the local community’s life, the project Plural Stories
(Turci 2009; Bodo et al. 2009) drew inspiration from the museum founder’s vision, in that it
aimed at collecting histories and experiences of participants in some way connected with the
collections. As Mario Turci, director of the Guatelli Museum, observes, ‘women became part
of a “provisional community” interested in developing new interpretations of the relationship
between personal biographies and the biographies of objects’ (Turci 2009: 65).
Project participants (ten native and migrant women, aged between 18 and 60) were iden-
tified outside formal learning contexts through contacts with local associations and with the
support of two neighbouring local authorities. One of the key aims of Plural Stories was to help
participants ‘recognise, interpret and conceptualise tangible and intangible elements acquiring
a heritage value with respect to both their original culture and the culture of the place where
they have settled’ (Bodo et al. 2009: 52).
The initial intention to invite participants to describe objects in written form was subsequently
revised due to significant differences in literacy levels amongst the women. The project team
opted instead for a theatre workshop (run by FestinaLente Teatro, one of the museum’s partners
in this project), where women were free to express themselves through verbal and non-verbal
language (Figure 13.1). In fact, the use of theatre techniques helped overcome linguistic bar-
riers and enabled a strong interaction between project participants. This was achieved through
the shared recovery of ‘gestural memories’ drawing inspiration from the museum’s spaces and
objects (for example, the gesture of washing clothes, of lighting a fire and so on), as well as
through storytelling and the exchange of narratives triggered by the participants’ own objects (a
sort of ‘personal museum’), and connected with their respective life experiences and contexts
of origin. Through Plural Stories, ‘The past embodied in objects was conceived and explored
as a “foreign country”, which helped define a “third space” where participants could share the
development of new knowledge systems, skills and experiences’ (Bodo et al. 2009: 53).
The project ended with an itinerant theatre performance held across the museum’s spaces,
in which women gave life to their stories through spoken and body language. The title of the
performance, Plural Stories: From Hand to Hand, reflects the belief that heritage, conceived in
its dialogical dimension, is constantly re-created and enriched by being passed on from one
individual to the other, from one generation to another.
A third strand of practice with which Italian museums are increasingly engaging is the
interaction with artists with a view to visualising intercultural dynamics through contempo-
rary art languages.
The City Telling project, launched by the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation in Turin
(Bodo et al. 2009; Pereira et al. 2010), offers an interesting example of how this can be achieved.
The underlying goal of the project was to increase the opportunities for cultural participation of
young immigrants (students of a local centre for adult education and training), as well as to build
a common ground of cultural, linguistic and aesthetic interaction, by helping participants to
FIGURE 13.1 Rehearsal of the final theatre performance in the exhibition spaces of the Guatelli Museum.
188 S. Bodo

‘develop a critical understanding of the reality surrounding them; increase their ability to analyse
and communicate their own experience of the world; acquire the necessary skills to carry out
personal inquiry and re-discover the urban territory where they live’ (Bodo et al. 2009: 34).
City Telling started with the setting up of a team composed by the education staff of the
Foundation, teachers from the Drovetti Centre for Adult Education and Training, artist-
director Gianluca De Serio and photographer Anna Largaiolli, who exchanged views and
expertise with respect to the methodological approach as well as to their respective knowledge
of the territory to explore during the project. For six months, the group of young students
were actively involved in discovering their local urban space. The project began by enabling
the students to share their geo-cultural origins through storytelling and the use of objects,
photographs, postcards and web technologies. In the following phase of the project, De Serio
and Largaiolli guided the students in two parallel itineraries respectively devoted to video and
photographic storytelling, a methodology with which the education staff of the Foundation
was very familiar. The two working groups developed a personal route across urban space, by
identifying significant spots in the city (schools, museums, libraries, private homes, gardens,
places of worship, urban installations, services and meeting spaces) and collecting their mani-
fold impressions in a journal made of photographs, observations and audiovisual creations. A
key strength of the project was the chance for participants to work at leisure in the Founda-
tion’s exhibition spaces, where the artworks provided opportunities for reflection, writing and
the production of audiovisual materials.10
One of the photographic series produced by City Telling project participants drew inspira-
tion from an artwork in the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation’s permanent collections
– A-Z Living Unit, by Californian artist Andrea Zittel – which is concerned with travelling
through different cultural contexts and discovering what is essential for living. Dina and Belen,
the two young participants who produced their own photography inspired by this piece, spent
a lot of time in the room where A-Z Living Unit was exhibited, as they knew the idea of ‘being
here and somewhere else at the same time’ was central to their own story. The series opens
with the parallel awakening of Dina and Belen in two different parts of the city; both feel
an initial sense of being at home, before their dreaming gives way to reality. Walking around
Turin, across different kinds of spaces (changing spaces, empty spaces, spaces full of memory,
spaces of desire), Dina and Belen talk about their past, present and future, how they see and
don’t see themselves, the trace they want to leave in the city.

Conclusions
Whilst these three projects involved different groups, heritage institutions and working prac-
tices, they can nevertheless be understood to have grown out of a shared assumption: that the
rethinking of heritage from a participatory, dialogical, intercultural perspective is an important
pursuit, one which holds the potential to impact all citizens. Museums as intercultural spaces
can function to not only promote the cultural rights of migrant communities but also to nur-
ture in all individuals (‘natives’ and ‘migrants’), those attitudes, behaviours and skills (including
cognitive mobility; the ability to question one’s own points of view and to challenge stere-
otypes; the awareness of one’s own multiple identities) which are indispensable in a world of
increasing contact and interaction between culturally different groups.
The exploratory and experimental projects discussed in this chapter show a willingness on
the part of some museum professionals to go beyond policies targeting individuals and groups
 Museums as intercultural spaces 189

according to their racial origin and ethnicity; initiatives which are often based on the over-
simplistic assumption that a ‘community’ will be interested exclusively in objects and issues
that are specifically and directly related to its cultural background. As Pecci and Mangiapane
(2010: 147) argue, ‘Migrants are not representatives of the cultures they come from, but inter-
preters or witnesses who, instead of wearing the uniform of culture, creatively escape from its
essentialist definition of a bounded and confined unity’. In other words, these projects work
on identity as ‘the start rather than the end of the conversation’ (Khan 2010), and work with a
notion of the museum as a space for generating new (inclusive and liberatory) meanings (Pecci
and Mangiapane 2010; Sandell 2007). Moreover, they highlight methodological issues which
are key to the development of ‘third spaces’. In such spaces, the use of a thematic approach to
the presentation of collections is not simply an alternative way of transmitting content or spe-
cialist knowledge but rather it is aimed at helping participants develop a critical understanding
of the reality surrounding them and increasing their ability to analyse and communicate their
own experience of the world. Similarly, autobiographical storytelling is explored, not simply
as a one-off chance for self-expression but instead as an opportunity to facilitate an ongoing
reflection on the role of the museum and to lay down foundations for continued dialogue and
cooperation. Finally, such spaces emphasise the evocative and emotional power of objects,
not only to strengthen group allegiances but also to disengage objects and audiences from the
prevailing rationale of cultural representation (Bodo 2009b).
Museums’ increasing concern to function as spaces for intercultural dialogue represents
a significant international trend in museological thinking and practice. Underpinning such
efforts is the recognition that this work can promote more diverse and less stereotypical images
of communities by providing participants with the opportunity for self-representation; it can
create shared spaces where meaningful, interactive communication takes place and all partici-
pants are recognised as being equal. At the same time, the experiences of museums working
in this field highlight how hard it still is, even for the most forward-looking institutions, to
break the dichotomy between curatorship as a core function (carried out by museum experts)
and education, outreach and community engagement as an activity which takes place in the
margins, where project ownership and the active involvement of participants are more easily
tolerated, precisely because they do not seem to threaten the authority and expertise of cura-
tors and scientific staff.
Further challenges for the museum sector, therefore, lie in ensuring that the outcomes of
programmes and activities aimed at promoting cross-cultural interaction between different
audiences are more clearly visible and easily retrievable, whether in the museum’s collections
documentation system or permanent displays; and, perhaps most importantly, in a rethinking
of all the fundamental functions of a museum (from collections management and conservation
to exhibition strategies) through an intercultural perspective, so that this is built into its insti-
tutional fabric. As the museum anthropologist Christina Kreps observes, ‘achieving intercul-
turality is a step by step process that may help, with every project and every action, to not only
transform our societies, but also our museums and the nature of public culture’ (2009: 4).

Notes
1 See article 1 of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention (1972: 2).
2 See article 2 of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003: 2),
which acknowledges heritage as being ‘constantly recreated by communities and groups in response
to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history’.
190 S. Bodo

3 A growing body of research around good practice in intercultural dialogue in museums across
Europe and beyond is available, arising from a number of surveys and action-research projects: see
for example Bodo et al. (2009); Gibbs et al. (2007); CLMG – Campaign for Learning through Muse-
ums and Galleries (2006).
4 In Italy, this attitude is best exemplified by initiatives aimed at ‘explaining Italian art to non-EU
citizens’.
5 Sandell (2004) offers a useful categorisation of museum initiatives such as these and their underpin-
ning motivations and potential social effects and consequences.
6 In 2007, Milan-based Fondazione Ismu (Initiatives and Studies on Multiethnicity) launched Patri-
monio e Intercultura (http://fondazione.ismu.org/patrimonioeintercultura, English version available),
an online resource exclusively devoted to heritage education in an intercultural perspective, which
regularly monitors projects carried out in Italian museums. For an overview of the Italian museum
sector in terms of cultural diversity and intercultural policies see also Bodo and Mascheroni (2009).
7 As the term ‘mediator’ is interpreted differently across the museum sector in Europe, it is worth
clarifying that, in the Italian context, the expression ‘cultural/linguistic mediator’ is mainly used
to describe professionals with an immigrant background acting as ‘bridges’ with their respective
communities in sectors such as formal education and the healthcare system. Only recently has this
profession started to be developed in a museum/heritage context.
8 The three case studies presented in this section of the chapter were all carried out in the framework
of the European project, MAP for ID – Museums as Places for Intercultural Dialogue (www.mapforid.it;
see also Bodo et al. 2009), funded by the European Commission as part of the Grundtvig Lifelong
Learning Programme.
9 Trained mediators’ countries of origin ranged from Chad, Congo and Senegal to Italy, Morocco and
Romania.
10 The short films and photographic series produced through this project can be viewed in the ‘Videos’
section of the website Patrimonio e Intercultura.

References
Bennett, T. (2006) ‘Cultura e differenza: teorie e pratiche politiche’, in S. Bodo and M. R. Cifarelli
(eds) Quando la Cultura Fa la Differenza. Patrimonio, Arti e Media nella Società Multiculturale, Roma:
Meltemi: 21–37.
Besozzi, E. (2007) ‘Culture in gioco e patrimoni culturali’, in S. Bodo, S. Cantù and S. Mascheroni (eds)
Progettare Insieme per un Patrimonio Interculturale, Quaderni Ismu 1/2007, Milan: Fondazione Ismu:
19–28.
Bloomfield, J. and Bianchini, F. (2004) Planning for the Intercultural City, Stroud: Comedia.
Bodo, S. (2008) ‘From “heritage education with intercultural goals” to “intercultural heritage educa-
tion”: conceptual framework and policy approaches in museums across Europe’, in ERICarts Insti-
tute (ed.) Sharing Diversity. National Approaches to Intercultural Dialogue in Europe, final report of a study
carried out on behalf of the European Commission – Directorate General for Education and Culture.
Online. Available at: www.interculturaldialogue.eu (accessed 25 August 2011).
Bodo, S. (2009a), ‘The challenge of creating “third spaces”: guidelines for MAP for ID pilot projects’, in
S. Bodo, K. Gibbs and M. Sani (eds) Museums as Places for Intercultural Dialogue: Selected Practices from
Europe, Dublin: MAP for ID Group: 22–4.
Bodo, S. (2009b) ‘Introduction to pilot projects’, in S. Bodo, K. Gibbs and M. Sani (eds) Museums as
Places for Intercultural Dialogue: Selected Practices from Europe, Dublin: MAP for ID Group: 26–30.
Bodo, S. and Mascheroni, S. (2009) ‘Il patrimonio culturale, nuova frontiera per l’integrazione’, in
Fondazione Ismu, Quattordicesimo Rapporto sulle Migrazioni 2008, Milan: FrancoAngeli: 253–61.
Bodo, S., Gibbs, K. and Sani, M. (eds) (2009) Museums as Places for Intercultural Dialogue: Selected Practices
from Europe, Dublin: MAP for ID Group.
Campaign for Learning through Museums and Galleries (2006) Culture Shock: Tolerance, Respect, Under-
standing . . . and Museums, London: Home Office.
Fondazione Ismu (Initiatives and Studies on Multiethnicity) (2007) Patrimonio e Intercultura. Online.
Available at: http://fondazione.ismu.org/patrimonioeintercultura (accessed 25 August 2011).
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Gibbs, K., Sani, M. and Thompson, J. (eds) (2007) Lifelong Learning in Museums. A European Handbook,
Ferrara: Edisai.
Khan, N. (2010) The Artist as Translator, paper delivered at the seminar ‘Super Diversity – Who Par-
ticipates Now? Discussion on the Phenomenon of “Super Diversity” in the Visual Arts’, Institute of
International Visual Arts, London, 2 February.
Kreps, C. (2009) ‘Foreword’, in S. Bodo, K. Gibbs and M. Sani (eds) Museums as Places for Intercultural
Dialogue: Selected Practices from Europe, Dublin: MAP for ID Group: 4–5.
Matarasso, F. (2004) ‘L’Etat, c’est nous: arte, sussidi e stato nei regimi democratici’, Economia della Cultura,
Journal of the Italian Association for Cultural Economics (themed issue edited by S. Bodo and C. Da
Milano on Culture and Social Inclusion), 4: 491–8.
Matarasso, F. (2006) ‘La storia sfigurata: la creazione del patrimonio culturale nell’Europa contempora-
nea’, in S. Bodo and M. R. Cifarelli (eds) Quando la Cultura Fa la Differenza. Patrimonio, Arti e Media
nella Società Multiculturale, Rome: Meltemi: 50–62.
Pecci, A. M. (ed.) (2009a) Patrimoni in Migrazione. Accessibilità, Partecipazione, Mediazione nei Musei,
Milan: FrancoAngeli.
Pecci, A. M. (2009b) ‘Tongue to Tongue’, in ‘Projects’, Patrimonio e Intercultura. Online. Available at:
http://fondazione.ismu.org/patrimonioeintercultura/index.php (accessed 24 August 2011).
Pecci, A. M. and Mangiapane, G. (2010) ‘Expographic storytelling: the Museum of Anthropology and
Ethnography of the University of Turin as a field of dialogic representation’, The International Journal
of the Inclusive Museum, 3 (1): 141–53.
Pereira, M., Salvi, A., Sani, M. and Villa, L. (2010) MAP for ID. Esperienze, Sviluppi e Riflessioni, Bolo-
gna: Istituto per i Beni Artistici Culturali e Naturali della Regione Emilia-Romagna.
Sandell, R. (2004) ‘Strategie espositive nei musei e promozione dell’uguaglianza’, Economia della Cultura,
Journal of the Italian Association for Cultural Economics (themed issue edited by S. Bodo and C. Da
Milano on Culture and Social Inclusion), 4: 539–46.
Sandell, R. (2007) Museums, Prejudice and the Reframing of Difference, London and New York:
Routledge.
Turci, M. (2009) ‘Dell’impossibilità che il dialogo possa essere interculturale’, in Antropologia Museale,
Journal of the Italian Society for Demoethnoanthropologic Heritage and Museography (themed issue
edited by V. Lattanzi on Heritage, Museums and Collaborative Practices), 20/21: 64–5.
UNESCO (1972) Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage: Adopted
by the General Conference at its Seventeenth Session, Paris, 16 November 1972, Paris: United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Paris: United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Veini, E. and Kistemaker, R. (2003) ‘Dancing with diversity’, Muse, XXI (4), Canada Museums
Association: 20–3.
Young, L. (2005) Our Lives, Our Histories, Our Collections, paper commissioned by the Museum of
London. Online. Available at: www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Collections-Research/Research/
Your-Research/RWWC/Essays/Essay2 (accessed 25 August 2011).
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PART III

Museums and the good society

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14
MUSEUMS AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS
FRAME
Richard Sandell

The idea of human rights – as a set of values, norms and beliefs, as a moral framework and
an ideal standard through which social equality and fairness might be achieved – is one that
enjoys considerable support worldwide, capable of generating an extraordinary level of con-
sensus amongst diverse social groups, institutions and governments, and across national and
cultural boundaries (Donnelly 2003). Despite this widespread, global appeal, attempts to apply
rights at the local level, to redraw the boundaries that distinguish those who enjoy rights from
those who are denied them, rarely proceed uncontested. Indeed, such attempts frequently
reveal conflicting moral positions and mobilise opposing parties to deny or seek to undermine
rights claims, resulting in fiercely fought and highly visible battles. This chapter explores
how and why museums, typically risk-averse institutions that prefer to avoid controversy, are
increasingly taking up human rights as an interpretive frame through which to address, and
engage visitors in debating, diverse contemporary social concerns.
Despite a remarkable proliferation in the number and type of museum and gallery projects
internationally that have, over the last decade, taken up the language and idea of human rights
to frame their approach to wide ranging subjects, very little research has yet been carried out
to empirically investigate this phenomenon and its implications for museums, audiences and
those agencies and social groups actively engaged in human rights struggles. Whilst a growing
body of literature over the past twenty years has significantly developed our understanding of
museums as sites in which political struggles over issues of identity, belonging and citizenship
are played out (Karp and Lavine 1991; Hooper-Greenhill 2000) and recent studies have begun
to consider the implications of museums’ engagement with controversial and morally charged
topics (Macdonald 2008; Sandell and Dodd 2010; Cameron and Kelly 2010), little is known
about the social and political effects and consequences of museums’ increasing engagement
with human rights. How are museum staff negotiating the ethical dilemmas bound up in their
human rights work? How are visitors responding to the moral standpoints they encounter?
And how are museums viewed and utilised by those actively involved in contemporary strug-
gles to secure human rights?
This chapter develops an interdisciplinary analysis that combines theoretical perspec-
tives from social anthropology, social movement studies, and museum and cultural studies
196 R. Sandell

to address this under-researched area. Responding to calls within social anthropology for
in-depth empirical investigation of rights processes within specific settings, I take a single case
study to examine how a rights project is constructed through negotiation between local agen-
das and interests on the one hand and, on the other, a global rights discourse that transcends
local and national boundaries (Cowan et al. 2001). Furthermore, I explore the ways in which
this particular articulation of rights is perceived, taken up, appropriated and resisted by diverse
constituencies.
The approach and methods proposed and described below are designed to generate ‘thick
descriptions’ of the setting under investigation; ones which are rich, nuanced and drawn from
multiple perspectives. Social anthropologist, Richard A. Wilson, argues that such methods are
helpful for countering the legalistic and mechanistic approaches which have predominated in
human rights studies, for capturing the complexity of rights talk and processes and ‘the rich-
ness of subjectivities immersed in complex fields of social relations which legalistic accounts of
human rights often omit’ (1997: 170).
The Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow (GoMA) offers a rich and highly pertinent site
for this investigation. From 9 April to 1 November 2009, GoMA presented the fourth in a
biennial series of programmes that used contemporary art as a platform for public and com-
munity engagement around diverse social justice-related themes. Building on the success of
earlier programmes – that examined the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees, violence against
women, and religious sectarianism – the fourth programme, entitled sh[OUT], focused on
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex rights. During this time the Gallery attracted
more than 320,000 visitors but, at the same time, generated a political and media storm
unprecedented in the institution’s history.
This chapter examines the ways in which a particular regime of rights came to be inscribed
through sh[OUT] and traces the social effects and consequences of this project from a number
of different perspectives. First, I consider how particular notions of gender and sexual diversity
came to be produced and explore the ways in which ideas about the rights of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender – and, ultimately, intersex – communities were constructed by Gallery
staff through negotiation with intersecting local, national and transnational agendas. I then
consider key moments in the media controversy sparked by particular aspects of the sh[OUT]
programme before focusing in greater depth on audiences and, through quantitative and
qualitative analyses of visitor responses, examine how individuals perceived, negotiated and
made use of the moral standpoints and ethical narratives they encountered in the gallery. My
purpose here is to consider how – if at all – public understandings of rights-related issues are
informed or reconfigured by visitors’ engagement with museum and gallery projects. Lastly, I
explore the potential role and agency of museums in addressing rights issues from the perspec-
tive of those communities engaged in the struggle for equal rights. Drawing on focus groups
and interviews with transgender activists and artists, I explore how members of this minority
group – at a critical moment in their long-standing struggle for rights – viewed the Gallery of
Modern Art as a vehicle for advancing their cause. Taken together, these diverse perspectives
aim to shed light on a broader set of questions museums in many parts of the world increas-
ingly face. How might practitioners begin to negotiate the multiple moral positions they
encounter and select which, of various competing visions of the good society, will be privi-
leged in their interpretations? How do museums interpret and respond to situations in which
the rights of one group are perceived to impinge on those of another? Ultimately, I argue that
controversy – generated by activities and stated moral positions that frequently challenge nor-
 Museums and the human rights frame 197

mative conceptions of fairness and equality – might usefully be seen as an inevitable, indeed
necessary, part of the human rights work that museums do. Anticipating and managing this
controversy in productive ways is likely to become increasingly important for museums that
purposefully seek to shape a more equitable and fair moral order.

The human rights project

Over the past few decades, human rights thought and practices have been taken up in wide
ranging global contexts and appropriated by myriad causes, social movements, institutions
and governments. Human rights, it is increasingly recognised, has become ‘one of the most
globalised political values of our times’ (Wilson 1997: 1).
The growing influence of rights discourse can be seen in international museum rhetoric,
policy and practice, particularly over the last two decades and in the emergence of a growing
number of museums whose primary purposes and rationales are concerned with the promo-
tion of equal rights and the promulgation of humanitarian values (Duffy 2001; Sandell 2007).1
Whilst these museums address diverse topics and historic events it is nevertheless possible
to discern commonalities amongst them, both in terms of the language they each deploy to
frame their interpretive approach and, more fundamentally, in a shared belief that the capac-
ity for museums to function as ‘sites of persuasion’ (Morphy 2006) can be harnessed to build
public and political support for equity, fairness and justice. These specialised institutions have
emerged against a backdrop of increasingly ubiquitous concern, in museums of all kinds, to
represent cultural differences in more respectful ways (Bennett 2006; Sandell 2007). In recent
years, museums have become more confident in proclaiming their value as agents of progres-
sive social change and, in particular, articulating their capacity to function as fora in which
the rights, interests and viewpoints of diverse communities can be represented and debated.
Indeed, exhibitions and displays purposefully designed to engage audiences in debates around
rights-related issues (especially pertaining to women, indigenous and minority ethnic com-
munities but also those linked to faith groups, disabled people and sexual minorities) have
appeared in museums in many parts of the world.

Universalism and relativism

The ubiquity of human rights – and the capacity they hold to engender relatively consensual
support across cultures – owes much to what Donnelly terms their ‘moral universality’ (2003);
the notion that a common set of universal rights are naturally held by all human beings regardless
of the circumstances in which they live and the institutional structures (legal, political and social)
which may govern their daily lived experience. Whilst claims regarding the moral universality
of rights have been enormously influential they have also given rise to fierce debate amongst
human rights researchers, especially within social anthropology where considerable support for a
cultural relativist position has been deployed to critique the universal human rights project. For
much of the second half of the twentieth century, anthropological thought and practice favoured
a relativist standpoint which valued respect for cultural differences and rejected the very notion
of universal norms of justice. Indeed, supporters of anthropological relativism argued that the
universal human rights project could more accurately be read as an attempt by the West to claim
– as natural and morally superior – a highly particular set of values and to impose them onto
other cultures (Rapport and Overing 2000; Wilson and Mitchell 2003).
198 R. Sandell

Over the last two decades however, in the face of growing concerns for notions of global
justice and high profile instances of rights violations in many parts of the world, there has been
increasing support for the view that a relativist standpoint is untenable and that anthropologists
can no longer avoid making moral and ethical judgements on the cultural and social practices
they encounter and seek to understand (ibid.). It is only in the last decade that progress has
been made to move beyond the impasse created by the idea that universalism and relativism
are inherently irreconcilable and instead to view the tension between them ‘as part of the
continuous process of negotiating ever-changing and interrelated global and local norms’
(Cowan et al. 2001: 6).

Evolving rights regimes

What the long-standing debate between universalists and relativists serves to highlight is the
situated, highly contingent and dynamic character of human rights discourse. Whilst the idea
of rights as held universally by all human beings across space and time represents an ideal to
which many would subscribe, any concrete attempt to inscribe rights is necessarily histori-
cally, culturally and geographically situated, shaped by an interplay between local normative
conceptions of fairness and a global rights discourse that, despite the rhetoric of universalism
and immutability is, in fact, shifting and dynamic. Although, for many, human rights stands
for emancipation, inclusion and fairness, specific rights regimes (and the policies, laws, insti-
tutional structures and resource priorities they inform) invariably involve ongoing forms of
exclusion and oppression. As Donnelly (2003: 228) illustrates:

women and nonwhites were until well into [the twentieth] century widely seen as
irreparably deficient in their rational or moral capacities and thus incapable of exercising
the full range of human rights. These racial and gender distinctions, however, were in
principle subject to moral and empirical counterarguments. Over the past several dec-
ades dominant political ideas and practices in Western and non-Western societies alike
have been transformed by national and international movements to end slavery and,
later, colonialism; to grant women and racial minorities the vote; and to end discrimina-
tion based on race, ethnicity, and gender. A similar tale can be told in the case of Jews,
non-conformist Christian sects, atheists, and other religious minorities.
In each case, a logic of full and equal humanity has overcome claims of group inferi-
ority, bringing (at least formally) equal membership in society through explicitly guar-
anteed protections against discrimination.

Whilst it would be inaccurate to assume from Donnelly’s account that all regimes proceed
smoothly along an ever more progressive and inclusive linear trajectory, his analysis is nev-
ertheless helpful for highlighting the fluidity and permeability of the constantly contested
boundaries that distinguish between those who can claim the rights that accompany full and
equal membership of societies, and those from whom rights are withheld. His analysis turns
the spotlight on the social and political struggles that – at any given moment – are seeking to
extend or reconfigure the boundaries inscribed by (formal) regimes to confer rights upon pre-
viously disenfranchised groups. At the same time, however, as Donnelly highlights, a focus on
the formal instruments and processes through which rights are conferred (such as national and
international law) potentially overlooks the everyday experience of social groups for whom
 Museums and the human rights frame 199

formal recognition constitutes only a part of the struggle for equal rights. Whilst rights regimes
at a supra-national level and in many states have evolved to encompass, for example, women,
indigenous groups and minority ethnic and religious groups, such formal recognition does
not, of course, preclude discrimination and a denial of opportunities to exercise the full range
of rights at the level of lived experience. In other words, whilst discrimination on the grounds
of race, for example, might be outlawed by equality laws and other formal mechanisms, such
instruments do not necessarily eliminate racism.

Museums and human rights

Given this understanding of the human rights landscape as continually shifting in relation to
political struggles, new social movements and changing norms of justice, what role might
museums play – both in terms of the reconfiguring of boundaries through which formal rights
are inscribed and the nurturing of more cosmopolitan social norms that shape the lived expe-
riences of marginalised groups? To what extent can museums negotiate the difficult territory
between globally framed (often more inclusive and cosmopolitan) normative understandings
of justice and locally inscribed (frequently more exclusive and conservative) rights regimes?
To examine these issues, I turn now to Glasgow, Scotland and the Gallery of Modern Art to
consider the ways in which both local moral norms and conventions and globalised concep-
tions of human rights inspired and constrained the construction of rights.2

A new direction for GoMA

Around 2001, Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art began to develop a programme of biennial
exhibitions, public events, and education and community outreach activities which sought
to deploy contemporary and modern art to directly and explicitly engage visitors in debates
pertaining to different human rights issues.3 The ‘social justice programme’ emerged out
of what Mark O’Neill, then Head of Museums and Galleries, describes as a ‘combination
of opportunism and principle’ (Sandell, Dodd and Jones 2010: 14). Glasgow City Council
(of which GoMA was then part)4 had recently agreed to take around 10,000 asylum-seekers
as part of the UK government’s dispersal programme to relieve pressure on the south-east of
England (Bruce and Hollows 2007: 8), a controversial decision which led to criticism of the
way in which new arrivals were integrated into areas of already high deprivation. Growing
political concern over social unrest and negative perceptions of asylum-seekers in both local
media and amongst Glasgow’s communities reached a peak following the high profile murder
of a young Turkish refugee, Firsat Yildiz, in the Sighthill area of Glasgow. The City Council
subsequently asked its various departments, including Culture and Leisure Services of which
Glasgow Museums was part, to consider how they might both develop services targeted at
new arrivals to the city and address negative public attitudes towards these groups (ibid.). At
around the same time, Glasgow Museums was approached by Amnesty International about
the possibility of an exhibition linked to their activities and discussions began around the pos-
sibilities of partnership. These events fitted well with the ethos and practice of Glasgow Muse-
ums that had, for many years, pioneered museum developments that sought to extend access
to new audiences and to address social issues but posed particular problems for the Gallery. For
many years, GoMA had had a difficult relationship with the thriving Glasgow art scene and
had come to be viewed, by both local artists and the art world more broadly, as populist and
200 R. Sandell

lacking credibility as a venue for showing quality work. So, despite a framework of institu-
tional commitment and prior experience within Glasgow Museums as a whole, the idea of an
exhibition that explicitly addressed political and social concerns represented an entirely new
direction for GoMA’s practice and one of which staff were initially very wary. As Victoria
Hollows, Museum Manager, explained:

We had been suffering in the early years at GoMA in terms of its reputation and credibil-
ity as an art gallery. To be absolutely honest, when we were first asked to do something
about asylum seekers and refugees we thought ‘do we have to?’ We were just starting
to get support in the arts community and we thought it would be perceived completely
wrong. We didn’t want this to be the final nail in the coffin. I think it’s fair to say that
the staff had a very strong belief that we can have good quality art and embrace current
contemporary practice and we can still have strong audience support. So this was our
moment to prove that can happen. It was a huge gamble in some respects.

The project nevertheless gained momentum and a philosophy of practice emerged which cen-
tred on the use of art as a platform for engaging audiences in debate and dialogue around a
series of human rights related topics – a philosophy maintained through all four biennial pro-
grammes. The first programme to be launched in 2003 entitled Sanctuary: Contemporary Art and
Human Rights sought to raise awareness of the plight of asylum-seekers and refugees world-
wide and to redress negative media portrayals and local public perceptions. It featured work
by 34 artists from 15 different countries including established names such as Bill Viola, Louise
Bourgeois, Leon Golub and Hans Haacke (Bruce and Hollows 2007). Since Sanctuary, three
further programmes have been delivered, each with the same strapline, ‘Contemporary art and
human rights’. The second programme, Rule of Thumb (2005), explored the issue of violence
against women with a range of activities based around a solo exhibition of work by American
artist Barbara Kruger. The third programme, Blind Faith (2007), explored the sensitive issue
of sectarianism, again through a range of outreach and education projects and a public events
programme built around a high profile exhibition, this time of specially commissioned work
by Glasgow-based artist, Roderick Buchanan. The fourth programme – sh[OUT] – opened
in 2009 and explored rights issues pertaining to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex
communities. In common with the previous three programmes, sh[OUT] was presented in
partnership with Amnesty International and developed through collaboration with an advisory
group comprised of representatives of a range of community based agencies in Scotland.5
At the heart of the programme was an exhibition featuring work by 18 artists including
Patricia Cronin,6 Robert Mapplethorpe (Figures 14.1 and 14.2) David Hockney, Nan Goldin,
Sadie Lee and Grayson Perry (Plates 14.1, 14.2 and 14.3) and, in a small adjoining gallery,
visitors could find out more about the struggle for LGBT rights and examples of rights viola-
tions from around the world through a documentary exhibition developed by Amnesty Inter-
national. In a further space, a resource area (with books, leaflets, oral history material and so
on) featured a wall on which visitors were invited to share their responses to the programme
through comments cards. Accompanying the main exhibition was a series of smaller, changing
exhibitions including work produced by participants in LGBT community groups (developed
with support from professional artists and gallery staff). A series of striking posters, featuring
quotations related to the programme’s central concerns and selected by the advisory group,
were used to promote the programme across the city (Figure 14.3).
 Museums and the human rights frame 201

FIGURE 14.1 Patricia Cronin, Memorial to a Marriage, 2002. Bronze, 17 × 26.5 × 52 inches. Collec-
tion of Glasgow City Council. With kind permission of the artist and Glasgow Museums.