Bradford's National Museum: Methods for re-founding 'inter/national' museums translocally

将博物馆指定为“国家”意味着许多事情：地位和意义；对如何将藏品归入学科界限(艺术、历史、科学)的既定观点；与参观者作为公民的某些类型的关系；具体的治理和资金结构形式；以及与公民和国家的概念联系。然而，支撑国家博物馆的政治和认知性解决方案在所有这些方面都面临压力，资金大幅削减，跨学科创新，以及跨越国界的人员、商品、资本和思想的全球流动。布拉德福德的国家博物馆项目所在的城市已经成为众多这类流程的典范，该项目将采用“异地”的概念--这一概念突出了特定地区的人们之间的联系，而不是国家和首府城市之间的联系--作为重新塑造博物馆政治地理的一种方式。布拉德福德国家博物馆项目--与科学博物馆集团(SMG)下属的国家媒体博物馆(NMeM)一起构思--将以三种方式部署“异地”，作为一种研究方法(通过多地点的工作链将布拉德福德与其他地方联系起来)，作为一种方法(在布拉德福德建立社区网络，并通过布拉德福德与其他国家的其他地方，特别是巴基斯坦、印度、孟加拉国、NMEM成立于1983年，当时正值布拉德福德的乐观时刻。然而，在20世纪90年代和21世纪头10年，对这座城市的不同描述变得强硬起来，这是30年来国家媒体和政策言论的影响，这些媒体和政策言论试图代表和解释布拉德福德的问题。NMEM既受到了布拉德福德的这些国家叙事的影响，也是其中的一员。自成立以来，该博物馆经常被认为是旅游和商业搬迁活动中来到布拉德福德的理由。然而，NMEM在其使命中发现，在参与当地事务和在国际摄影、电影和电视同行网络中保持高地位之间存在紧张关系。最近关于NMEM可持续性的公开辩论表明，对布拉德福德拥有国家博物馆所带来的地位的渴望与对地方问责的同样强烈的渴望之间存在着紧张关系。布拉德福德的国家博物馆项目将探索NMEM和更广泛的SMG以及生活在布拉德福德的不同社区的政治地理，以此作为解决国际/国家博物馆在吸引当地观众方面面临的紧张关系的一种手段。该项目将与布拉德福德的理念合作，而不是作为一个“全球城市”，而是作为一个省级和跨地区的联系，并将这一点与NMEM对“声音和视觉技术的科学和文化”的关注进行对话。研究问题将通过系统的行动研究来解决，使我们能够构建NMEM目前扮演的角色的“工作图景”，并利用这一图景来确定实现生产性变化的障碍和途径。在第一阶段，它将使用与当地居民共同制作的跨地区故事，将布拉德福德写进NMEM。在第二阶段，该项目将确定有针对性的干预措施，将NMEM写入布拉德福德，跨地区重新定位NMEM中的“国家”。在第三阶段，该项目将通过与NMEM SMG姊妹博物馆NRM和MOSI合作，通过与国际上的其他博物馆--史密森学会(美国)和Via Beaconhouse National University(巴基斯坦)--建立交流，以及通过从业人员和政策制定者讲习班确定这项研究在英国的影响，从而确保更广泛的适用性。

The designation of a museum as 'national' implies a number of things: status and significance; a settled view of how collections fall within disciplinary boundaries (art, history, science); certain types of relations with visitors as citizens; specific forms of governance and funding structures; and a conceptual affiliation to the civic and the state. Yet the political and epistemic settlement that has underpinned the 'national museum' is under pressure on all of these fronts, with significant funding cuts, trans-disciplinary innovations and global flows of people, goods, capital and ideas that transcend national borders. Based in a city that has come to exemplify so many of these processes, 'Bradford's National Museum' project will deploy ideas of 'translocality' - a concept which foregrounds the connections between people in specific local areas rather than between national states and capital cities - as a way of re-framing the political geographies of museums. The 'Bradford's National Museum' project - conceived with the National Media Museum (NMeM), part of the Science Museum Group (SMG) - will deploy 'translocality' in three ways, as a research method (with strands of work which are multi-sited and link Bradford with other local places), as an approach (of community network building in Bradford and through the connections Bradford has to other local places in other countries specifically Pakistan, Indian, Bangladesh, Commonwealth of Dominica and Poland) and as a concept (to support the development of new readings of inter/national in the context of museums).The NMeM was founded as the National Museum for Photography, Film and Television in 1983, at a moment of optimism for Bradford. However, in the 1990s and 2000s different characterizations of the city hardened, the effect of three decades of national media and policy rhetoric which had sought to represent and account for 'what's wrong with Bradford'. The NMeM has been both affected by, and a player in, these national narratives of Bradford. Since its establishment, the museum has often been cited as a reason to come to Bradford in tourism and business relocation campaigns. Yet the NMeM has found a tension in its mission between being locally-engaged and maintaining a high-status role in international photography, film and television peer networks. Recent public debates concerning the sustainability of the NMeM have made visible a tension between the desire for the status that comes from Bradford having a national museum and an equally strong desire for local accountability. The Bradford's National Museum project will explore the political geographies of the NMeM and wider SMG and of the different communities who live in Bradford as a means of addressing the tensions facing inter/national museums in engaging their local audiences. The project will work with the idea of Bradford not as a 'global city', but as provincial and connected translocally and place this in dialogue with the NMeM's focus on the 'science and culture of sound and vision technologies'. The research questions will be addressed through systemic action research allowing us to build a 'working picture' of the role the NMeM currently plays and use this to identify blocks as well as pathways for productive change. In Phase 1 it will use co-producing translocal stories with people who live locally to 'Write Bradford into the NMeM'. In Phase 2, the project will identify targeted interventions that will 'Write the NMeM into Bradford', refounding the 'national' in the NMeM translocally. In Phase 3, the project will ensure wider applicability through working with the NMeM SMG sister museums NRM and MOSI, by building exchanges with other museums internationally - the Smithsonian Institution (US) and via Beaconhouse National University (Pakistan) - and through identifying the implications of the research in a UK context through practitioner and policy-maker workshops.