When Museum Dialogues was initially conceived it was with several aims in mind.
- To foster dialogue through establishing a transnational community of curators, keepers, scholars, photography practitioners, and artists who will engage in knowledge exchange about practices of collecting and exhibiting photography;
- To understand international shifts in professional museum practices and their impact on global photography cultures;
- To investigate current and innovative methodologies and new tools for curating and collecting photography;
- To consider the integration of digital and user-generated photography in museum collections;
- To explore how museums can use photography as a “democratic” tool for public engagement to consider wider social and political issues and processes.
It was believed that with the establishment of an online international network that crosses disciplinary and geographical boundaries and aims to open the channels of communication between academia, museums, and creative communities, it would be possible to create opportunities for participation, knowledge and skills exchange, and collaboration which would potentially lead to changes in institutional practices.
Three networking events have taken part online, each attracting an average of 40 attendees who have taken part in breakouts and discussions with a wide and diverse range of guest speakers and attendees from more than 20 countries.[1] Some individuals have attended all three events and, importantly, attendees have been a mixture of scholars, curators, artists, photographers, museum professionals, and archivists. A conference is to take place on 22-24 November 2024 in Sunderland which will build on the events to date and share learning and practice over an intensive three days of papers, presentations, and discussion.
I was invited by the organisers to support the evaluation of the impact of Museum Dialogues. As an experienced evaluator, I understand how complex it is to evaluate the impact of a network and yet how crucial it is to generate learning and help guide the evolution of the network. Impact will largely depend on the ways in which taking part in knowledge exchange activities and the dissemination of best practice might influence the professional practice of individual network members. In turn, being part of a community that focusses on exchanging knowledge and sharing best practice might lead in the longer term to changes in institutional practices. We will hopefully be in a stronger position to assess whether this is happening after the conference in November but by asking participants what they are taking with them from the workshops or what they might implement we are already seeing some indications that taking part is impacting practice.
“I’m thinking differently about how I can capture intangible information related to practice and whether that can be an archived object.”
“I’m going to work out how to record the story of the festival.”
“More forethought into how co-authored projects are collected and shared and spending more time where possible with that process.”
The first workshop Problems and Definitions sought to foster dialogue regarding various definitions and understandings of “photography” and its cultural significance within and beyond museum settings. It aimed to explore diverse institutional perspectives, policies, practices, and challenges related to the collection, exhibition, and interpretation of photographic images. Dr Briony Carlin produced a report on this can be accessed HERE
The second workshop Building Photography Collections for the Future built on the discussions and themes that developed during the initial workshop, focussing on collecting strategies from planning and acquisition to documentation, collection management, and conservation. The impact of evolving photographic technologies on collecting and preservation practices had been highlighted as a significant concern for creators, curators, keepers, and conservators alike. Equally, contemporary digital practices involving crowd-sourced content and social photography as well as algorithmic photography and AI raised questions about ethics, authorship, and ownership. Dr Michael Pritchard captured the workshop workings HERE.
The third workshop Rethinking Programming examined issues of access, inclusion, and diversity and the impact of approaches to this on both curatorial interpretation and the visitor experience. There is a danger inherent in this area of work within the cultural sector that the language we use might not accurately reflect the actual intention behind initiatives. For example, when we talk about ‘active public engagement’, we need to be clear about what we mean. We need to be clear which forms of engagement are ‘active’ as opposed to ‘passive.’ Strategies were suggested, including more collaboration between artists, curators, and communities, working in unexpected spaces beyond the museum or gallery, simple communication and non-academic language in interpretation and activities that bring photographers closer to the audience generating two-way communication. But, the question arises, do these approaches to working generate greater equality, greater inclusion, or better access? You can read an article by Lucia Halder and Lasse Branding about this workshop HERE.
The question that kept coming into my head as I observed these sessions was ‘Why’? What is the intention and motivation behind institutional initiatives that set out to address these interconnected challenges?
- Is the driver to generate agency and ownership through active involvement in the processes of curation, collecting, and interpreting? As one speaker expressed this “seeking to involve people in the life of the museum.”
- Is it to increase the diversity of our audiences by reaching new or hard-to-reach audiences?
- Is it to generate a non-exclusive audience—a “new elite”?
- Is it to simply build audiences and attract them to the gallery or museum?
- Is it to educate audiences and generate what was defined by one speaker as “shifts in levels of knowledge about photography”?
- Or is it about creating a pipeline through raising new generations of artists perhaps using more open and inclusive selection processes for commissions?
All of these are perfectly valid reasons for institutional initiatives but maybe there is a need to clarify what it is we are actually seeking to engage the public in? Is it as curators selecting work for exhibition, as participants and subjects whose work or portraits might enter collections, as viewers encountering work and discussing it, or maybe all of these? The level of agency and ownership being offered will differ and the role of the institution will also differ.
An underlying question throughout the three events seemed to me to be about the role of the institution in the changing world that we live in. What is the relationship between its social and cultural value? Is it a filter trying to make sense of images for audiences, a way to guide people to what they might think about, a way to invite different forms of engagement from audiences with the medium an interpreter and a means of quality control, or is it simply a formalised space that has cultural value and that validates the work it contains because it is curated, edited, and narrated?
This links to issues surrounding the notions of ‘elitism’ and ‘relevance’ that were also recurring themes in this workshop. For curators, academics, and artists there is a body of knowledge and expertise that informs language and communication. A system of professionalisation that creates privilege can exclude and alienate. How does an institution break this down? To whom is the work ‘relevant’? And who decides what is relevant and what is not?
When working beyond the walls of the institution, does it matter if people encounter art in a public space but don’t then visit the gallery? The public presentation of work in the public domain will attract people passing by in an accidental way. The value of working in non-traditional spaces and working beyond the museum or gallery might actually be enough in reaching the people it reaches in those public spaces and any crossover back to the gallery or museum might be irrelevant.
‘Access’ then is also a complex issue. Are we talking about access to the institution, to the work, to the artists, or to the medium? Photography is an accessible medium and is used by many different disciplines for different reasons. It is therefore perhaps important to start to think about it differently. To think beyond the art world to the social value of a form that is ubiquitous and to which everyone has access through a phone and social media.
Perhaps more than the first two workshops, this one raised yet more questions than it generated answers. But this is the potency of networking.
Ultimately the power of a network lies in catalysing systemic change. We are facing challenges in the cultural sector that no one individual or organisation can solve on its own. We cannot navigate the challenges alone, or answer the questions we need to answer as we exist in an ecology that is interdependent—artists need curators who need buildings and spaces. Collaboration and coordinated action are therefore essential.
One of the original aims of the Museum Dialogues Network was to achieve a sustainable network beyond the project’s duration which would enable members to feel part of a community, exchanging knowledge and sharing best practice and in turn potentially lead to changes in institutional practices.
When asked about this in one of the breakout groups, there were recurring themes:
- The need for a network to bring people and institutions together
- Sustaining practice and sharing problems and challenges
- Sharing practices and strategies and testing these at different scales
- Thinking outside the museum
- Reimagining and rebuilding
- The power of international connections—a “network of networks”
- “Circular exchange”— putting in as well as taking out.
After one presentation when the presenter spoke about the difficulty of balancing the needs of running a small independent photography organisation alone an attendee posted a message:
“We all empathise with your fatigue about logistics and finances. You do so much. Remember your work is invaluable and beneficial to your communities, the pipeline of talent you are nurturing, and the knowledge you are generating and sharing with the wider field.”
Maybe at the end of the day, it is this that sits at the heart of a successful network, mutual support and care for one another, feeling less alone and isolated and more connected to others who share our challenges and issues. In a competitive world, the value of mutual support across borders and communities is arguably priceless.