Sharon Heal, Director of the Museums Association of the United Kingdom, will deliver the Friday AMA Conference 2015 Keynote Address, Leading Change: Why Museums Can't Live in the Past.
In anticipation of her upcoming talk, Lucie Heins, Assistant Curator for Western Canadian History at the Royal Alberta Museum, met with Sharon to discuss her work with “Museums Change Lives”. Click here to read Part One of this interview.
Lucie Heins: Another
principle of Museums Change Lives is “Justice
is at the heart of the impact of museums.” Can you elaborate on this principle?
Sharon Heal: I think there
are lots of ways this principle plays out. One example is equality of access to
the public. This is not just about physical access, although that is very
important, but also about intellectual access and emotional access. It’s about
unlocking stories and giving people a voice, and making sure individual stories
and community stories are respected and given room to breathe. It’s about
access and public engagement, and museums are striving to reach out and be
really inclusive spaces.
We have talked
for a long time in the museum sector about museums as inclusive spaces, but I’m
not sure we have ever fully achieved it across the board in the sector. By
that, I mean a space where everyone feels welcome, where those barriers to
engagement have been removed, whether it is at an intellectual or emotional or
physical level. There are great examples where museums are working towards it
in a really creative way. It can be achieved through display, co-curation,
listening to your audiences, listening to the public, and listening to
non-audiences - understanding the reasons why people don’t come, and respecting
different views and different stories.
It’s about
understanding that museums can play a role in tackling some of the injustice in
society. It’s not just about equality of access, but understanding things, such
as learning outside of the classrooms has been demonstrated to improve literacy
and life chances for young people, and is a great way of enhancing young
people’s future prospects. Museums are delivering that with communities in
terms of creating those opportunities; they’re delivering social justice and
enhancing the chances of people who might have otherwise not had those
opportunities.
LH: The vision
statement explores three ways museums can increase their impact: wellbeing,
better places, and ideas and people. How can museums enhance wellbeing?
SH: Museums
and the cultural sector can, in some cases, be better for people in long term
illnesses than medical interventions. In the UK, museums have a strong track
record working with people who have dementia, and it’s a range of museums.
Again, it’s not the usual suspects. For example, the Scottish Football Museum[i] has worked with
men who have dementia (a group that is quite often neglected in that field)
using with their collection around football memorabilia as an aid to
reminiscence. They’ve rolled that out with other organizations in Scotland so
it has a much broader reach. Weald and Downland Museum[ii] in Sussex
brings in local community groups who may have dementia and organize tea dances
to use them as a community access space. There are some fantastic examples of
where that work is being done. It allows these people to explore the museums at
their own pace and in a way that is suitable for them, and it really does
enhance wellbeing.
LH: Museums are
rooted in places; they help shape and convey a sense of identity. How can
museums create better places?
SH: This
is more than about cultural regeneration. In the UK over the past 20 years,
there has been a big investment in cultural hubs and cultural quarters to make
up for the decline of manufacturing, and revamp city centres when there has
been post-industrial decline. That’s good, and sometimes it works to put an
architecturally designed museum or cultural centre into an area of decline, but
sometimes it doesn’t. Building a new museum and hoping that it will make people
feel better about the area is one thing, but what you need in those cases in
community engagement. We’re talking about conveying a sense of identity and
giving people the confidence and the voice to talk about and explore what
connects them to their local area. This makes them feel a confidence and
awareness of that connection and the history of the place.
There
is a museum in the northeast of England called Bedesworld[iii] in Jarrow that
creates that connection by working with young people and integrating them into
their volunteer workforce, and you can see the transformative effects. They may
have come as reluctant volunteers with a lack of anything else to do in that
very isolated northern town, but now they actively volunteer and want to
continue their work after they are done their project.
Museums
in Yorkshire have been working with local audiences and sharing the experiences
of the cities’ industrial past. This is a very ethnically diverse audience due
to the level of immigration into the UK and Yorkshire and the north west of
England around the manufacturing industry in those areas. They’re using an
industrial museum in Bradford[iv] to connect some
of those communities and look at that industrial past, but also look for the
future. It’s about local stories, so they’re created from a sense of civic
pride. It is about making that connection and reconnecting with communities to
give them a voice again.
LH: “Research into
public attitudes to museums shows people see museums as places of stimulating
ideas, where learning is active.” How can museums inspire people and ideas?
SH: This
is something that I feel quite strongly about: that museums should encourage
debate on contemporary issues that matter to society and communities. I live in
the east end of London and where I live, young girls have left their schools
and travelled to Syria and joined ISIS. They feel some sense of disengagement, disenfranchisement,
disrespect, or something that drives them away from London and their families,
their communities, and their support networks. I think museums in that area -
and in any area where that might be an issue - who have collections that might
resonate really should engage with those communities and those schools to talk
about that issue and why it’s happening. It happens that in my community, there
is the Museum of
Childhood[v]. That museum
should be having dialogue with communities and schools and talk about how they
might engage with young women who are under threat of radicalization.
This
is a very difficult, contemporary, and timely issue. Museums may think it has
nothing to do with them, but it can be everything to do with them if they’re of
that local community and they have collections or subject matter that might
resonate with that community. It’s about being bold and brave, not being afraid
of that discussion. It doesn’t mean you have to take a side or invite a debate
you’re not ready for, but by talking to the community you can unlock some of
those issues opening conversations.
In
the museum, you’re not a neutral space but you’re a trusted space, so you can
foster discussions in a way that might challenge prejudice and assumptions and
might help to provide alternatives to where those young girls ended up.
LH: I know that your
keynote presentation will touch on other ways museums can take action. How will
a museum know they have social impact? What does a museum that changes lives
look like?
SH: In
essence, it should look like any museum because any museum can do it! It
doesn’t matter what the size of the museum is. You could be the Canadian Museum
of Human Rights or a small, local museum in Canada or the British Museum or a
small, local museum in the UK. Any museum can do it if they want to because it
doesn’t matter what your collection is. What you need to do is talk to
communities and see what their issues are. If there are things that those
communities are saying they want your support with, see how you can work with
other organizations that are already in the field to do that work. Evaluation
and measurement are important and we have to have the right tools to
demonstrate these impacts.
Museums
do change lives, but human stories are essential because that’s what people
remember. That’s why we tell stories and that’s why journalists create stories.
It’s about humanizing - it’s about being able to say we changed this person’s
life in this way and that’s how you can replicate this type of work. It’s
conferences, sharing practice across the field, and talking to peers about the
type of work that you’re doing and learning from each other so you’re not
reinventing the wheel, but it’s crucial to go to the community and do needs
assessment and really talk to people.
Check back next week to read the rest of our interview with Saturday`s keynote, Mark Holmgren, CEO, the Bissell Centre.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
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