Curating by Community Consent? An investigation of the civic art gallery's strategies to make collections and displays more "representative"

2020年，“黑人的命也是命”（Black Lives Matter）抗议者拆除了殖民时代雕像的基座，这明显表明，艺术和遗产部门需要为历史上代表性不足的社区开发更公平的展览模式，并“改善可及性和包容性”（博物馆协会2020年）。自20世纪60年代末以来，布拉德福德的卡特赖特大厅艺术画廊一直在寻求多样化的展示，扩大收藏，并发起社区合作伙伴关系，以更好地反映其多元文化，特别是南亚人口统计学。研究人员将与档案馆和策展团队密切合作，对这个主要的公民艺术空间所采用的多样化策略进行批判性、历史性和实践性的调查。该项目将使用多种方法来探索像Cartwright这样的公民艺术机构在历史上如何工作的首要问题，以及今天如何更好地代表不同的选区。学生将从档案研究开始，研究记录这些努力的相关材料，并观察当前的实践。然后，他们将使用来自后殖民、南亚、博物馆和文化研究的重要见解；策展政策与实践；以及社区咨询，创建一个新的跨学科框架，用于背景化和分析与研究问题相关的包容策略。

Black Lives Matter protesters' de-pedestalling of colonial-era statues in 2020 starkly reinforced the need for the arts and heritage sector to develop more equitable modes of exhibition and "improve on accessibility and inclusivity" (Museums Association 2020) for historically under-represented communities. Since the late-1960s, Bradford's Cartwright Hall Art Gallery has sought to diversify displays, expand collections, and initiate community partnerships in ways that better reflect its multicultural, particularly South Asian, demographic. Working closely with its archives and curatorial team, the researcher will produce a critical, historical, and practically-informed investigation of the diversification strategies deployed by this major civic art space.This project will use a combination of methods to explore the overarching question of how civic art institutions like Cartwright have worked historically - and can today work - better to represent diverse constituencies. The student will begin with archival research into relevant material documenting such efforts, and observation of current practice. They will then use critical insights from postcolonial, South Asian, museums, and cultural studies; curatorial policy and practice; and community consultation, to create a new cross-disciplinary framework for contextualising and analysing strategies for inclusion in relation to the research questions.