Provisional Semantics: Addressing the challenges of representing multiple perspectives within an evolving digitised national collection

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Provisional semantics addresses a fundamental challenge facing the Towards a National Collection programme: how to develop ethical, equitable and transparent readings to support a more diverse public to engage with the digitised national collection. Currently, many subject index terms, catalogue entries and associated captions of artworks, visual media and artefacts have been informed by colonial contexts, attitudes and modes of perception. These can therefore be outdated and/or offensive to present day audiences, not least people of African and Asian descent in the UK, whose diasporic histories are intertwined with Britain's colonial and imperial past. Outdated and offensive language and interpretation deters engagement by the very audiences that collections seek to attract. Many in the heritage sector recognise the need to interrogate and redress problematic language and representations and there is a drive to decolonise - that is to explore and undo fundamental relationships of power and inequity, and to diversify - that is to present multiple perspectives. Yet at present the lack of research examining what is required in terms of ethical methodologies and practical and attitudinal shifts prevents sustainable change from taking place.Provisional semantics seeks to address this challenge by (1) examining what methodological, ethical and practical changes heritage organisations need to make to accommodate the multiple and provisional interpretations necessary for a sustainable digitised national collection to genuinely represent UK Heritage. And (2) testing what methods and approaches that engage intellectually and practically with the decolonial agenda can heritage organisations employ to produce search terms/catalogue entries and interpretations fit for purpose for an evolving digitised national collection. Over 18 months the project will undertake a wide-ranging literature and practice review and utilise three case studies centred on specific collections at The National Trust, Imperial War Museum and Tate that address the histories, representations and artistic practices of people of African and Asian descent. Each case study will test a different approach to collaborating with key stakeholders of each collection whose expertise as people of African and Asian descent can help provide more equitable, multi-perspectival interpretations. This research will be further enhanced by a close reading of sample texts from each collection undertaken by our academic partner, Dr Anjalie Dalal-Clayton, whose research focuses on arts and decolonisation in museums, collections and heritage organisations. In addition to the case studies and close readings, the main output will be a state of the art report that brings together the findings from the research, outlines the key challenges and provides evidence-based recommendations. These recommendations will have been tested with a group of interdisciplinary experts and disseminated to a wider group of heritage organisation professionals, academics and representatives from the standards agencies via 'sense-checking' workshops, events linked to the wider programme, journal articles, social media and through the project webpages that will be maintained on the Tate website. Through piloting methodologies Provisional Semantics will contribute new knowledge and directly support heritage organisations seeking to decolonise and diversify their collections as an embedded strategy towards developing a genuinely representative digitised national collection. The research aims to meet the needs of academics, standards agencies, heritage professionals, policy makers and the wider public. Importantly, Provisional Semantics will have wider benefits in terms of reshaping how key stakeholders of African and Asian descent can actively participate in forming the narratives of UK Heritage.