The future of co-curation and participatory methodologies in museums by Clore Leadership Programme

THE FUTURE OF CO-CURATION AND PARTICIPATORY METHODOLOGIES IN MUSEUMS The Expert is Dead, Opinion has lived long, now what?

Peaceful Protest by Greenpeace activists outside the V&A on the opening date of the exhibition The Future Starts Here which has been sponsored by Volkswagen, 9 May 2018

Author: Joyoti Roy Type: Provocation Paper for the Clore Leadership Programme Fellowship 2017/18 Note: The paper presents the views of the author, and these do not necessarily reflect the views of the Clore Leadership Programme or its constituent partners. As a ‘provocation paper’, this piece is a deliberately personal, opinionated article, aimed at stirring up debate and/or discussion. Published Under: Creative Commons

Joyoti Roy (Chevening Fellowship funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Joyoti is committed to making museums and the built heritage more accessible in India and in changing perceptions of museums from “library of objects” to “rich and relevant cultural experiences”. She previously worked as Head of Outreach at the National Museum, New Delhi, and Projects Manager for the National Culture Fund at the Ministry of Culture, including designing a leadership training programme for museum professionals in collaboration with the British Museum. Prior to that she was Chief Archivist and Exhibitions Manager for the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, and Senior Conservator and Research Coordinator for the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. After training in Art Conservation, she undertook a short internship at Tate to study conservation of acrylic paintings. Joyoti is also a performer, and has performed with the amateur theatre company, Jana Natya Manch, in over 20 cities in India. This paper was written as a part of the author’s Fellowship with the Clore Leadership Programme in 2017-18.

The Clore Leadership Programme is a not-for-profit initiative, aimed at developing and strengthening leadership potential across the cultural and creative sectors in the UK. The Programme awards its flagship Clore Fellowships on an annual basis to exceptional individuals drawn from across the UK and beyond, and runs a choice of programmes tailored to leadership needs of arts professionals at different stages of their career. This provocation paper has been produced under the aegis of Clore Leadership Programme. For more information, visit www.cloreleadership.org.

Introduction This provocation is posed in the current environment of co-curation and participatory methodologies in UK, and in particular the new V&A East at Stratford Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, due to open in 2022/23. It explores how a truly participatory museum should look like in the present times. Co-curation and participatory work has been attempted within a wide range of projects in the UK. These have involved people at varying levels from seeking opinion, to participation, consultation, placation, partnership, delegation and even enabling full citizen control of projects. This paper also considers that, in the real world today, the distance between expertise and opinion is rather fuzzy, and it is something beyond opinion or expertise that we should seek in participatory methodologies in museums. Wherever I can, I will include narratives from India which will make my provocation relevant for Indian museum practitioners as well. They might also add flavour to the debate in UK. In India, museums are just about making the transition from being exclusive centres of knowledge to becoming visitor-centric – a transition that museums in the UK made decades ago. The need to engage with the public to enhance visitor numbers, and remain educational and entertaining for children and families, has now been mastered with remarkable achievements in the museums of UK. In India, however, a museumvisit is the most unnatural thing for an Indian to do. First set up during the colonial times, with a view to being ‘temples of knowledge’, today the museum sits precariously amidst temples, mosques, shopping malls, movie theatres and festivals. It is a confused institution and that is why it must be claimed in today’s context. This is also related to the idea of co-curation, to which I will return. A different lens Examining co-curation as a tool for enhancing visitor-ship, participation or engagement is an aspiration of a temporary nature. It would be useful to assess if and why a

member of the public might need to have a say in a museum today? Or do they? Museums are public institutions and, in this way, live contact with people can have many layers and reasons such as people coming to attend programmes, merely visiting the museum, designing programmes in collaboration with the museum, critiquing the museum and standing by to help it in times of crisis. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A) is invested in creating a composite experience in East London at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, called the V&A East1. It will comprise a new museum by the Stratford Waterfront and the Collection Research Centre at the Here East building, which will house the enormous reserve collections of the museum that are currently stored at Blythe House in Hammersmith. There will be a collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution as well, and the two facilities will be part of the larger Cultural and Educational District mooted by the London Legacy Development Corporation. It will be called the East Bank. Tim Reeve, Deputy Director of the V&A, has articulated that “V&A East will be a place for discovery, learning, research, production and exhibition — an international centre for art and culture, which grows out of its distinct location”.2 The ideas of co-curation, a participatory approach and co-creation are some of the methodologies that V&A East could adopt to create displays and programmes in the new facilities. I am excited about co-curation as it is linked inextricably to the relevance of the museum today – something I am thinking about in India as well. Does the neighborhood need the museum or does the museum need the neighborhood? The V&A East, as an experience that must grow out of its distinct location, should establish a key connection with East Londoners, which it is already doing through various immersive projects with communities there. The larger question however is, Why do I need to have a say in the museum? Or do I? More importantly, what will the participatory museums allow me to do? What will I create in there? Will I create something for the world with V&A collections? Will I

extend my expertise to facilitate and participate in programmes that could enrich my present and future? Will I do things with my hands and body? Will I be celebrated as an artist? Will I be inspired by ideas? Will I find stories in the past that can solve my problems today? Will I feel loved? Will I have duties as a co-creator? Will I speak my language? Will I really have something to say? Here are some provocations for the V&A East that can be useful for all of us to think about, for the participatory museum of future. It will be an emotional space All through the history of civilization, we have been taught to dispense with emotional responses. It is astonishing that, while on the one hand the arts are created through emotional encounters, arts institutions and museums rob them of all emotional superlatives and instead present them as ‘preserved specimens’– creatures that cannot move, ask, attack or embrace us. A new and progressive participatory museum should allow for space and opportunity to emote – to weep, laugh and be surprised. In the Indian context, there are the Rasas (literally the juice of every emotion that can be captured in an aesthetic). There are nine of them, also called Navarasas: Shringara (Related to Love), Hasya (Humour), Vibhatsa (Disgust), Raudra (Anger), Karuna (Compassion), Veera (Heroic), Bhayanak (Terrifying), Adbhuta (Marvel). If only the museum would allow for us to openly feel and react to these emotions when we see art. This calls for vulnerable storytelling. We must encourage it in the interest of remaining human. Doing things with our mind and body is what distinguishes us from beasts, so why do we wish to isolate one from the other?

It need not be a neutral space The arts are often political (not necessarily partisan), so why is the museum neutral and apolitical? A wonderful exhibition opened at the V&A in May this year. It is called The Future Starts Here. The exhibition showcased 100 design projects and objects that

suggest how our future will be shaped. Each display was a response to changing the status quo. Themes ranged from diet to religion, amenities, the internet, war, democracy, life and death. The day the show opened, a group of protesters from Greenpeace carried out a peaceful demonstration against Volkswagen, the sponsor of the show. The protesters dismantled a shining red Volkswagen car. There could be nothing more aesthetic, set against the gleaming white Exhibition Road entrance of the V&A. The Director acknowledged the protest and said that he welcomes peaceful demonstrations. What if the protest could be pulled into the museum? Not just on the periphery, but inside? Similarly, were the members of protest given an opportunity to see the show? Did they care to see the show that they were protesting against? Would their reaction have been different? More nuanced perhaps? They would have rebelled against Volkswagen but perhaps not the exhibition itself? This is just one example, but can we really create space for political conversations in museums? To me, the future would really start here if the Greenpeace demonstration could be an art work inside the museum. Yes, it would upset the sponsor temporarily, but it would also offer a very rare opportunity for the sponsor, the museum and the rebels to have a conversation and negotiate on equal terms. Can the museum enable this? It will be fearless You would have noticed that the Indian Navarasas do not have a fearful state. I believe, this is because, in Hindu mythology, fear is mitigated by removing heroes, villains and victims from narratives. And because Hindu culture believed in cyclical time, there was always a contrasting back-story to a heroic, villainous or victimization epsiode. The idea was to escape the time cycle all together, much like an electron shoots out of its orbit. Hindu mythology gives umpteen second chances. This is a very useful thing to do.

In human lives, we tend to label people as heroes, villains or victims. If we lift these filters, we can achieve a fearless space – because no one needs to remain successful all the time, no one needs to repent their horrible acts forever and no one needs to remain a victim. This allows conversations. Can the museum lift this filter in our society, to make it fearless? Can it tell stories about human failures? Can it tell stories that are derived from different knowledge systems in the world and not just from a particular, majoritarian perspective? Can it give equal weight to the oral as it gives to the written? Can it celebrate the uncertainties of nature without suggesting civilisational remedies? Can it ignore scale and focus on the detail? Can it unabashedly embrace the problem without suggesting a solution? Can it throw its opinion fearlessly without being stereotyped? It must. It will listen more The museum can only have a voice when its ears are bigger than its mouth. Every musician knows that when training her students, she must encourage them to listen carefully. Music starts in the ears, not in the throat. So, if the museum is to be participatory, it must first set up all the apparatus it needs to keep listening to what’s happening around it. Often this may make the museum think that it’s wasting energy, but done strategically, it will bring dividends. It will put the matter over the method World civilisations have often treated art as ‘useless’ (meaning, with no particular use) so the one thing people exercise most freely with art is ‘discretion’. Therefore, it is very difficult to fool them with mediocrity. This also helps good art to remain at the top of its game. Most co-design projects only talk about how they achieved co-design. This shows that

the concept is still developing. When we learn a language, we are most conscious of the grammar and it shows in our conversations. It’s the same state with co-design projects. The listener wants to hear poetry, she doesn’t want to fumble on your grammar. So, whatever the co-design arrangement, if the ‘idea’ is not great, it doesn’t matter who the ‘co’ was.

It will reflect ‘women’s knowledge’ Last year, the Prime Minister of India decided to de-monetise several currency notes in an attempt to catch the beast of corruption unguarded. The move was sparingly useful for just as long as its shock value survived; most big businesses were unscathed. Poor communities, particularly women, were badly affected. They work on daily wages and don’t have bank accounts with huge reserves. Overnight their incomes were rendered useless in the market. Women quickly applied women’s knowledge and started sharing their non-monetary resources – food, spices, daily supplies, and bridged the difficult time that a man’s knowledge of money and power had created. In India, and I suppose across the world, a woman’s knowledge is to do the most fundamental jobs that support life – cooking, caring and nurturing . A man’s knowledge has been used up in claiming power, land and ownership. The museum will truly become participatory when it acknowledges and tells stories of sharing and interdependence. Creating real community (not just digital) is the survival kit for the future, and the world needs to know and understand narratives around this knowledge. Dynastic narratives are quite passé. It will allow diversity to remain

Nature has immense diversity. To best understand this, we need to look at a wild garden that grows on its own. When cash crops were introduced in India in the name of higher returns, most Indian fields lost their natural fertility. Then fertilisers were introduced to improve productivity. In reality, if we would have allowed the various plants and weeds to keep on growing in the same piece of land, it would have been naturally fertile. The strength of one would have supported the weakness of another and vice versa. Each type of plant leaves something useful in the soil and a fertile soil needs all this nourishment. We often enter the diversity discourse like a fertiliser. We need to allow successes of various types in order to maintain diversity. If we continue to look at our museum crop as something that gives us produce of only one kind, all the time, it will kill the fertility of its intellectual space. We don’t just need people of colour in our institutions, we need people of colour to bring with them their own knowledge systems, their ‘coloured thinking’. We definitely don’t need people of colour who can quickly imitate existing systems and adjust to them easily. It is well known that people who are colonised remember the tools of colonisation more vividly than the coloniser. We need minds that can think beyond this relationship, on both sides. So, what the participatory museum needs is narratives of colour. It will take my poverty seriously I am poor and no, it’s not my fault. I don’t have enough money to come to the museum. So please think small when you make your business plan. Think how I will physically get to the museum? How much will it cost me on public transport? How much will I pay in your cafe to buy a meal for my family? Will there be a range of products in your shop that I can buy? Will there be some days when I can see your special exhibitions for free? My poverty has made me very porous and to find creative solutions to my miseries I need huge doses of art. So please take my poverty seriously, it is my ‘distinct location’.

Notes 1. Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park- LLDC Strategy 2015-2020 (LLDC Report, London, October 2016) 2. V&A East Collection Research Centre â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Two Stage Competition Tender Brief (Published Tender Brief, London, 2018) 3. Catherine Ince, Lead Curator, V&A East, Conversations with Author, May 2018