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Museums and the sensation of history
On 26 July 2023, thanks to a connection made by Heather Lomas, MCC Museum Collections Officer, I was invited to join a panel to debate museums, heritage and ‘culture wars’ at Lord’s Cricket Ground, St John’s Wood, London. Cricket? Culture wars and museums? This post will make sense if you read to the end. Skip…
Learning the Biased Languages of Benevolence, Equity and the Machine
Art museums and the organisations that support them frequently use language which promotes their benevolence and their commitment to equity. I will discuss why I have recently begun to experiment with machine learning to better understand how organisational texts like annual reports and policies adopt these biased languages, and how this might inform long-standing and…
Continue Reading Learning the Biased Languages of Benevolence, Equity and the Machine
The time of Stalins and Hitlers is not over: Invasion, occupation and the ethics of international solidarity
How do museums across the world deal with the heritage of imperialism, autocracy, totalitarianism and tyranny? In the words of Arundhati Roy “the project of domination [is] ongoing.” In the midst and in the immediate aftermath of invasion, occupation, and genocide, the focus of museums and heritage will be on rescuing, replacing and healing. But…
Citizen Curators: Diversity as process
We were interested in recruiting people because of their ideas about museums and diverse life experiences, not in spite of them. In the first instalment discussing the findings from Citizen Curators I talked about how this curatorial community was developed. Today I take a closer look at how diverse the cohorts were, and what factors were at…
Philosophy
Curating narrows the gap between creating knowledge and communication. Our philosophy is inspired by the concept of creating collections of things. The act of collecting is about constructing knowledge (information and emotional) through explanation and stories.
Possessing that knowledge bestows a person power. It is the curator’s purpose to share that knowledge (and its power) as widely and equitably as possible through brilliant communication and interpretation.
Read more about my philosophy on curating.
