We the people: Collecting contemporary political history

Considering how to curate social change in the present tense

We the people: Collecting contemporary political history

Craig Middleton

Craig Middleton

The following research has been informed by a George Alexander Fellowship that I undertook in early 2018. I was awarded the Fellowship by the International Specialised Skills Institute of Australia in 2017, with a goal to investigate the practice of social and political history institutions, exhibitions, and programs in the United States. The Fellowship period was for a modest three weeks, and thus is considered a starting-point for a much larger project.

In this article, I share thoughts on one aspect of the project — contemporary collecting — and propose how it might be employed as a practice to empower audiences and communities, strengthen collections, and diversify the historical record.

A snapshot of Australian democracy

In a recent article published in The Conversation, Mark Triffitt, Lecturer in Public Policy and Political Communications at the University of Melbourne, claimed that ‘Nearly every indicator of a healthy Western democracy is failing globally. Public trust and voter engagement have declined over the past decade in established, core democracies around the world, including in the US, Europe and Australia.’ (Triffitt, 2018).

In fact The Economist’s Intelligence Unit 2017 Democracy Index listed only 19 full democracies in the world. Australia is among the top 19, ranked at 8 th . However, in response to the election of President Trump, the US was downgraded from a full democracy to a ‘flawed democracy’; meanwhile as political participation increased in the wake of Brexit, the UK’s ranking rose (Democracy Index, 2017).

In a globalising world, the Australian Government is continually defining what it means to be Australian. Such discussion is not new — it has been conducted since at least the Federation of Australia in 1901. Australian values as currently defined by the Australian Government are:

• respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual

• equality of men and women

• freedom of religion

• commitment to the rule of law

• parliamentary democracy

• a spirit of egalitarianism that embraces mutual respect, tolerance, fair play, compassion for those in need and pursuit of the public good

• equality of opportunity for individuals, regardless of their race, religion or ethnic background (Department of Home Affairs, Australian Government, 2018)

My interest is how, and if, in a political climate that is seeing the decline of western democratic ideals, these values play out in museum and gallery contexts in Australia. Recasting the question: Do contemporary Australian museums embody these ‘Australian’ values? And in particular, in publicly funded museums, which are arguably, although not expressly, tasked with whole-of-government priorities, such as contributing to the upholding of these values.

Stephen Harrington, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Media and Communication at the Queensland University of Technology, in an article titled ‘Australians couldn’t care less about politics? Really?’, gives us some hope in commenting that ‘Just because people don’t think their vote has much of an effect doesn’t mean that they’re not otherwise engaged with what is going on in the world of politics’ (Harrington, 2016). Fears of disengagement are focused on systems rather than personal commitment to the ideals of democracy. The claim here is that the nature of political participation is changing.

I would argue that as a socially engaged arts and cultural sector we have the potential to recognise and adapt to this changing political landscape.

Museums Change Lives

Museums are well-placed to contribute to a changing political landscape, and as the UK Museums Association’s widely recognised policy document Museums Change Lives asserts, museums ‘enrich the lives of individuals, contribute to strong and resilient communities, and help create a fair and just society’ (Museums Association, 2013).

It is with this in mind, and within the political context presented earlier, that I believe new models of contemporary collecting within museums have the potential to contribute to what Museums Change Lives articulates.

A primary function of museums, historically, has been to collect, document, and interpret cultural material for the education and enjoyment of publics. This is still very much the case today. As a curator of political history I am concerned that much of the material culture related to politics, activism, and social change produced for political events (elections, protests, rallies, and demonstrations) is being lost due to often inflexible structures inherited by museum practice as it relates to collecting policies and procedures — particularly impacting on collecting relating to political events. Others, including artist and curator Jo Derbyshire, agree and have led contemporary collecting projects (Darbyshire, 2018).

Barbara Cohen-Stratyner (2017) claims that collecting by curatorial staff at protest-events does happen; but it is a controversial practice, often limited by the policies and procedures that underpin traditional modes of museum collecting — that is, how and by whom decisions are made, and the kinds of processes and paperwork employed by museums

Campaign material, Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Photo by Craig Middleton.

when collecting. For publicly-funded institutions, having staff attend highly political events can be seen as problematic. Furthermore, the resource implications of sending staff to events are ones that cultural institutions increasingly struggle to absorb, as such activities may divert time from other important functions.

In spite of all this, material culture that is generated as part of political events is largely ephemeral and hard to collect when events are over. Things gets chucked, reused, and forgotten about (Middleton, 2013), and as such they often get erased, albeit unintentionally, from the historical record. Much campaign material (how-to-vote cards, corflutes, campaign flyers, and so on) is increasingly being generated digitally. It could be argued therefore that it is important that we collect as much of the physical material as possible before it becomes a thing of the past. While major parties and political candidates, and large campaigns and movements have extensive resources — or even archives in which to keep such material — smaller parties, independent candidates, and grass-roots movements often lack any real means to conserve the records of their social history. While the idea of collecting everything at a political event, such as an election, might be considered resource-heavy and daunting for museums, there are nevertheless considerations to be given to priority areas based on who has produced such material, and how it might provide significant contributions to the preservation of social history.

The National Museum of American History, a Smithsonian National Institution located in Washington DC, is probably the most well-known institution for its collecting of contemporary political material from political events. The NMAH has, concerning events at least since the American Civil War, made it a priority to be collecting a variety of contemporary objects that represent significant moments in American social history (for example, the 2017 Women's March on Washington). This collecting focus is taken in order not only to represent a particular historical event within the museum, but to capture the sense of a particular social and political moment that might have mobilised a group of people to enact their rights of citizenship. Without preserving the physical material generated by such events (even when it might have been regarded as ephemera), the ability of museums — at least in their current form — to represent such moments in meaningful ways is somewhat limited.

What is significant in how the National Museum of American History approaches contemporary collecting is the process of recording adopted. Curators attend many and various protests, elections, conventions, and so on. They take with them large document bags — capacious enough to stow even placards. At a chosen event they collect as much as possible, as well as things that protesters might leave behind. If negotiations can’t take place at the time in a quick and efficient manner, curators will hand out and collect contact details — noting time contingencies, and that an individual's motivation to attend a political event is not to discuss a potential donation.

Considering how to curate social change in the present tense possible, as well as things that protesters might leave behind. If negotiations can’t take place at the time in a quick and efficient manner, curators will hand out and collect contact details — noting time contingencies, and that an individual's motivation to attend a political event is not to discuss a potential donation.

New York Historical Society women’s march display.

Photo by Craig Middleton.

Poster display, Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Photo by Craig Middleton.

Curators take everything back to the museum afterwards, and they make decisions about what is to be officially accepted and accessioned later. This means that curators won’t lose anything of significance in the trash that might have been gathered; and they won’t lose the interest of the people handing over their placards and signs because of onerous paperwork requirements. For anything important that was unprocessed at the time of gathering, efforts can be made to contact individuals later. Such contingency processes make collecting faster, easier, and more achievable within the context in which curators find themselves at political events.

An important consideration that informs this manner of contemporary collecting is the position of the museum in relation to participants at political events, at least for publicly funded museums. That is, if participants are attending a protest, it is usually an event generated against a decision of government (for example, the treatment of refugees). Why then would a participant (an undocumented migrant, for example) want to supply their name and contact details to a public servant? The NMAH recognises the possible compromising of both donors and staff in this respect, itself being partially funded by the federal government, and it amends collecting practice to safeguard public rights while not excluding important social and political histories from its collection records. Such practice recognises that both policy and procedure must be able to embrace agility in particular settings.

Taking things a step further

Crowd-collecting, as Cohen-Stratyner (2017) explains, is a practice by which museums’ publics collect materials from political events such as protests, rallies, and demonstrations they attend. This kind of practice is modelled on the contemporary practice of crowdsourcing, which is used primarily in the philanthropy and funding sectors, but increasingly being modelled for all sorts of purposes.

This is arguably already happening within the cultural sector to a certain extent — for example, through libraries that collect how-to-vote cards and other ephemera during local, state, and federal elections in Australia. In fact, at the recent South Australian state government election in March 2018, along with the most recent by-election and local government election, I collected material to send to the State Library of South Australia, and also mobilised some of my friends and colleagues to do the same.

In this situation, libraries might receive duplicates and irrelevant material, which can then be sifted through, and finally appropriate material is accessioned into the collection and irrelevant material discarded. Because such items are rarely of any personal value to the donors, there is no need for return, nor for difficult conversations to be had later about why an institution might not accept a donation. Such process is very different from that of usual collecting practices by institutions.

Museum collecting policies are seemingly stricter, and for many good reasons — limited storage space, finite capacity of staff to support ongoing care of works, and so on. Additionally, to avoid museums becoming burdened by numerous unprovenanced objects, policies around collecting have tightened up necessarily in recent years. Yet how will museums remain relevant if their collections do not represent a broad and diverse citizenship? Arguably the core functions and ways of working within museums need to evolve as funding diminishes, while increasing pressure is put on institutions to deliver more social outcomes. This is where I believe crowd-collecting can have an impact, albeit a modest one.

I would argue that through re-imagining how we collect, and what we collect, we can inspire and empower active citizenship. The act of collecting is after all a political act, and the decisions we make as individuals represent particular worldviews. However, by mobilising groups of people to collect actively, on behalf of museums, what is most meaningful to them can help to ensure that museums remain relevant to people’s lives.

A model of crowd-collecting could invite participants to become associated with a museum on a long-term basis, while also producing mutually beneficial outcomes. On the one hand, the participants would be supporting the collecting activity of a museum, one of its core duties, and thus feel meaningfully involved in advancing the work of the museum. On the other hand, individuals attend events that are meaningful to them, and are able to share their passion, participation, and world-view with the museum afterwards. What this enables is a productive collaboration between public and museum. It presents opportunities for a much more democratic model of collecting, and inevitably the results of such activities would be reflected in the collection itself, which in turn would support the development of diverse exhibitions and programs that could encompass broader world-views.

Crowd-collecting, in my opinion, is an act of participatory citizenship, an act of engaging in the life of a museum, and an activity able to have an ultimate impact on decision-making about our shared histories, and what does and does not end up on the historical record.

While radical change takes time, disruption of traditional practices and expansion of engagementpossibilities can open up space for meaningful change to occur. It seems to me that a niche area of contemporary collecting, such as at political events, could be a good place to start such experimentation. []

Craig Middleton is Curator of the Centre of Democracy, South Australia, and a National Councillor for Museums Galleries Australia. In January 2018 he undertook a George Alexander Foundation Fellowship with the International Specialised Skills Institute of Australia, to explore political history and museum practice in the United States.

Text citation: Craig Middleton, ‘We the people: Collecting contemporary political history’, Museums and Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol. 27(1), Museums Galleries Australia, Canberra, Summer 2018, pp. 52 –57.

References

1. Cohen-Stratyner, Barbara (2017). ‘What democracy looks like: crowd-collecting protest materials’, in Museums and Social Issues, 12:2, pp. 83-91.

2. Department of Home Affairs, Australian Government. Australian Values Statement, accessed 21/8/2018.

3. Economist Intelligence Unit (2017). Democracy Index 2017: Free speech under attack, , accessed 21/8/2018.

4. Harrington, Stephen (2016). ‘Australians couldn’t care less about politics? Really?’, The Conversation, <https://theconversation.com/ australians-couldnt-care-lessabout-politics-really-53875>, accessed 21/8/2018.

5. Middleton, Craig (2015). ‘One Man’s Trash is another Man’s Treasure’, in Museums Australia Magazine, 23(1), Summer, Canberra, ACT. 6. Middleton, Craig (2018). Political history and museum practice: Collecting, engaging, exhibiting, http:// www.issinstitute.org.au/wp-content/ media/2018/06/Middleton- Final.pdf accessed 21/8/2018

7. Museums Association, UK (2013). Museums Change Lives <https:// www.museumsassociation. org/download?id=1001738>, accessed 21/8/2018.

8. Triffit, Mark (2018). ‘A growing mistrust in democracy is causing extremism and strongman politics to flourish’, The Conversation, <https://theconversation. com/a-growing-mistrust-indemocracy-is-causing-extremismand-strongman-politics-toflourish-98621>, accessed 21/8/2018.

9. Jo Darbyshire, ‘How it really was – Collecting the story of the Roe 8 protest in WA’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol. 26(2), Museums Galleries Australia, Canberra, Autumn– Winter 2018, pp. 34–37.

More on collecting political ephemera can be found in previous magazines:

Craig Middleton, ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure: Australian political ephemera’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.23 (1&2), Museums Australia, Canberra, Spring & Summer 2014, pp.29—30.

Jo Darbyshire, ‘How it really was – Collecting the story of the Roe 8 protest in WA’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol. 26(2), Museums Galleries Australia, Canberra, Autumn–Winter 2018, pp. 34–37.