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

多年来，博物馆和遗产遗址一直在审查其藏品和场所中历史和当代生活的代表性，自2020年“黑人的生命也重要”运动的知名度大幅上升以来，代表性的多样性和差距受到了特别密切的关注。自从弗雷德·威尔逊（Fred Wilson）在马里兰历史学会（Maryland Historical Society）的“挖掘博物馆”（Mining the Museum）（1992年）中对藏品的重新语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，邀请当代艺术家回应博物馆和遗产遗址中困难或不为人所述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和多样化公认的历史叙述。尽管实践激增，但对这些干预措施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制度政策和解释实践的变化。这项研究试图通过提问来解决当前知识中的这一差距：“在制定政策和解释实践中，当代艺术是如何以及以何种效果被用来回应缺失或未被充分代表的历史生活和经验的？”本研究将探讨这一实践的起源，其影响和用途，包括如何衡量，以了解其对机构的意义。正如国民信托基金会2020年关于其财产与殖民主义和历史奴隶制关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向了它们的事件和个人历史，换句话说，就是它们的传记。这项研究通过将国家肖像画廊（NPG）和国民信托基金会（NT）的重点放在人物、人类历史和叙事上来回应。在这些机构中，这些故事是通过策展方式和地点来讲述的。采用案例研究的方法，这个兼职，合作博士将对这些收藏的当代艺术反应（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。虽然最近的注意力集中在奴隶制上，但还有其他几个代表性不足的社区，在博士学位的前3-6个月进行的一项调查将用于加强对特定社区的关注（例如，更广泛的殖民历史，性别，性身份，阶级）。将重点放在一个代表性不足但反应范围广泛的特定社区，将有助于分析不同的解释方法。这将伴随着档案和基于桌面的研究，以及对机构内工作人员（包括艺术家、策展人和解释团队）的采访，以评估影响和任何机构变革。这些发现将被置于其他REACH联盟成员的更广泛背景下，并选择国际例子。当博物馆和遗产遗址的收藏和叙述被有目的地重新评估和呈现时，这项及时的研究将首次探索当代艺术在回应未被充分代表的历史生活中的作用，以及通过他们的收藏、展示和解释开辟更广泛的故事和视角，对机构多样化实践的影响。在这样做的过程中，它谈到了所有四个REACH研究主题，特别是帝国和全球背景下的身份和身份，意识形态和遗产叙事，以及多样性的跨领域主题。

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.