Under-represented historical lives: exploring the impact of contemporary art on heritage and collections policy and practice

代表性不足的历史生活：探索当代艺术对遗产和收藏政策与实践的影响

• 批准号: 2597435
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Newcastle University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2597435
• 关键词: Under; represented; historical; lives; exploring

Museums and heritage sites have been reviewing the representation of historical and contemporary lives in their collections and places for a number of years, and since the major upsurge in profile of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, the diversity and gaps in representation have come under particularly close scrutiny. Since Fred Wilson's 'Mining the Museum' (1992) at the Maryland Historical Society where the recontextualization of the collection highlighted the Society's connection to African-American lives rather than presented the typical American white-male view, the practice of inviting contemporary artists to respond to difficult or untold histories in museums and heritage sites has become increasingly prevalent. It is typically used as a tool to challenge and diversify accepted historical narratives across a range of under-represented and marginalised communities. Despite this upsurge in practice, there remains little critical analysis of the impact of these interventions, or evidence as to whether they have influenced changes in institutional policy and interpretative practice. It is this gap in current knowledge that this research seeks to address by asking: 'How and to what effect has contemporary art been used in response to missing or under-represented historical lives and experience in developing policy and interpretive practice?'. The research will explore the origin of this praxis, and its impact and usage, including how it is measured, to understand its significance for institutions. As the National Trust's 2020 report into its properties' connections to colonialism and historic slavery noted, there has been a recent shift in attention from the material culture of historic properties to their events and personal histories, in other words their biography. This research responds by drawing together the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) and National Trust (NT) in their focus on people, human histories, and narratives. Across these institutions these stories are told through curatorial approaches to collections and locations. Adopting a case-study approach, this part-time, collaborative PhD will undertake empirical analysis into contemporary art responses (considering visual arts, writing, performance, dance, music, socially-engaged practice, sound and architecture) to these collections. Although much recent attention has been on slavery, there are several other under-represented communities and a survey undertaken in the first 3-6 months of the PhD will be used to tighten the focus in relation to a specific community (e.g., broader colonial history, gender, sexual identity, class). Focusing on a particular under-represented community but range of responses will allow analysis of differing interpretative approaches to be undertaken. This will accompany archival and desk-based research and interviews with those working within institutions (including artists, curators and interpretation teams) to assess impact and any institutional change. These findings will be placed within a wider context of other REACH consortium members and select international examples.At a time when the collections and narratives at museums and heritage sites are being purposefully reevaluated and represented, this timely study will be the first to explore the role of contemporary art in response to under-represented historical lives and its impact on institutions in diversifying practice by opening up a wider range of stories and perspectives through their collections, displays and interpretation. In so doing, it speaks to all four REACH research themes, in particular Identities in Imperial and Global Contexts and Identities, ideologies and heritage narratives, and also the cross-cutting theme of diversity.

多年来，博物馆和遗产地一直在审查其收藏和地点中历史和当代生活的代表性，自2020年黑人生命也是运动的主要热潮以来，代表性的多样性和差距受到了特别密切的审查。自从弗雷德·威尔逊在马里兰州历史学会的《挖掘博物馆》(1992年)中，对藏品的重新情境化强调了该学会与非裔美国人生活的联系，而不是呈现典型的美国白人-男性观点以来，邀请当代艺术家在博物馆和遗产地回应困难或不为人知的历史的做法变得越来越普遍。它通常被用作一种工具，在一系列代表性不足和边缘化的社区中挑战公认的历史叙事，并使其多样化。尽管在实践中出现了这种热潮，但对这些干预措施的影响的批判性分析仍然很少，也没有证据表明它们是否影响了机构政策和解释性做法的变化。这项研究试图通过以下问题来解决当前知识中的这一差距：在制定政策和解释实践方面，当代艺术是如何以及在多大程度上被用来回应缺失或被低估的历史生活和经验的？这项研究将探索这一实践的起源，以及它的影响和使用，包括它是如何衡量的，以了解它对机构的意义。正如国民信托基金2020年关于其财产与殖民主义和历史奴隶制的联系的报告所指出的那样，最近人们的注意力从历史财产的物质文化转移到它们的事件和个人历史，换句话说，它们的传记。这项研究的回应是将国家肖像美术馆(NPG)和国家信托基金(NT)集中在人物、人类历史和叙事上。在这些机构中，这些故事是通过馆藏和地点的策展方式来讲述的。采用案例研究方法，这位兼职、合作的博士将对当代艺术对这些收藏的反应(考虑视觉艺术、写作、表演、舞蹈、音乐、社会参与实践、声音和建筑)进行实证分析。虽然最近对奴隶制的关注很多，但还有其他几个代表性不足的社区，在博士学位头3-6个月进行的一项调查将被用来加强对特定社区的关注(例如，更广泛的殖民史、性别、性认同、阶级)。将重点放在代表性不足的特定群体，但答复范围广泛，这将使人们能够分析不同的解释办法。这将伴随着基于档案和案头的研究以及与机构内部工作人员(包括艺术家、馆长和口译小组)的面谈，以评估影响和任何机构变化。这些发现将放在REACH联盟其他成员和选定的国际范例的更广泛的背景下。在博物馆和遗址的收藏品和叙事被有目的地重新评估和展示之际，这项适时的研究将首次探索当代艺术在回应被低估的历史生活方面的作用及其对机构在多样化实践中的影响，通过它们的收藏、展示和解释打开更广泛的故事和视角。通过这样做，它涉及所有四个REACH研究主题，特别是帝国和全球背景下的身份和身份、意识形态和遗产叙述，以及多样性这一横向主题。