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EMBEDDING PLACE AND EXPERIENCE IN MUSEUM DISPLAYS

We need only watch the news to see that we live in an age of migrations. Species, humans, peoples, objects, practices and ideas migrate. Migration plays out across international politics, across divided lands and in people’s lives. It fundamentally affects our sense of place and belonging.

THINK?NG THROUGH MIGRATION is a FREE online toolkit developed by academic researchers and museum professionals. It is designed to help museums respond to the phenomenon of migration and its complex contemporary challenges.

FULL TOOLKIT COMING SOON

THINK?NG THROUGH MIGRATION is a work-in-progress resource that will develop further.

We have made it available now, in its unfinished form, because of the critical need for museum engagements with migration in the current fast-changing context.

We hope you will keep coming back to access more of the free resources as they are added.

If you are interested in providing feedback or input then please contact Chris Whitehead

WEBSITE TERMS AND CONDITIONS

ABOUT

We need only watch the news to see that we live in an age of migrations. Species, humans, peoples, objects, practices and ideas migrate. But they always have. And while there is a world that we still recognize, they always will.

Although migration is constant in world history, what does change are its conditions and effects. For example, we see the Refugee Crisis as the catastrophic result of global conflict. Borders are easy to cross for some of us and impassable for others, sometimes leading to humanitarian crisis and despair.

Migration plays out across international politics, across divided lands and in people’s lives. In the confusion and the clamour of voices it can be difficult to hang on to a sense of common humanity, as people feel that their ways of life are threatened.

MISSION

Engagement with migration issues can be embedded throughout museum practice, from your website to the physical points of welcome within the building and through to your outreach and public programmes. Mission helps you to develop a ‘whole-museum’ commitment to engaging with migration.

AUDIENCES

Social opinion on migration is divided. For some it is a benefit to society and a means of enriching the places in which we live, for others it is a threat to existing ways of life and resources. Audiences helps you think about ways to encourage audience understanding and empathy with migration issues.

COLLECTIONS

The collections in your museum probably contain things that have travelled around the world, perhaps collected by people who did the same. Otherwise, they may communicate a profound relation to nearby places that are also made through movements of people, places, ideas and species. It can seem difficult to link all kinds of collections to the theme of migration. Collections helps you to make those links and to think about how they matter.

DISPLAYS

Human migrations can form a difficult and sensitive topic. It is easy to tell a positive story about the benefits to society of multiculturalism, but how can we use display techniques also to deal with tensions and difficult stories? For all migrations, how can we communicate a compelling sense of movement between places and times in our displays? Displays presents technical and conceptual suggestions for designing exhibitions and spaces to address these questions.

OBJECTS

Artefacts migrate with humans and tell different stories of their travels. They can be seen as witnesses of crucial events and moments in people’s lives. They can be bearers of meaning, objects of attachment, comfort, despair or utility that connect to places, identities and experiences. Meanwhile, natural specimens might have travelled more than you, seeking environments in which to thrive. Objects makes suggestions about rethinking the significance of things, not just in themselves, but in understanding where they have been and why.

INTERACTION

One way of engaging visitors actively with the theme of migration is to build interactive elements into displays, whether digital or analogue. This can add dynamic elements to display that help visitors engage on a personal level with migration stories and experiences. Interaction opens up some considerations about user experiences and responses, how they fit within the wider context of displays and what kinds of engagement they offer.

CO-PRODUCTION

A common impulse in engaging with migration is to work with stakeholder communities to ‘co-produce’ displays. Whilst bringing real benefits Co-production can also be an intense and challenging process. Co-production guides you through some of the practical issues you need to consider when planning such activities.

CASE STUDIES

DESTINATION TYNESIDE

COMING SOON

CASE STUDY 2

COMING SOON

NUTSHELLS

Antagonism/Agonism

Assimilation

Belonging

Care

Cosmopolitanism

Cultural bereavement

Displacement

Empathy

Home:

Hospitality

Identity

Inclusivity

Interculturalism

Integration

Coming soon

Home:

Coming soon

Intersectionality

Isolation

Migrating heritage

What is migration?:

Mobility:

Multiculturalism

Place identity

Platform/No-platform

Politics of fear

Racism

Sending/receiving states

Social divisions

Solidarity

Transculturalism

Welcome

VOICES

This section will be populated with transcripts from visitor studies on the theme of migration undertaken in 2013-14 as part of the MeLa European Museums in the Age of Migrations project. Focus groups explored people’s responses to key displays at National Museums of Scotland, the Amsterdam Museum, and the Silesian Museum in Görlitz. Transcripts from this activity will be published here as a free research resource.

COMING SOON

MISSION

VALUES

DISPLAY PRODUCTION

PARAMETERS

CO-PRODUCTION

MISSION

RESOURCES AND DOWNLOADS

COMING SOON

THINK?NG THROUGH MIGRATION is inspired by the EU-funded research project MeLa, European Museums in an Age of Migrations and by the example of the many pioneering museums that members of the MeLa research team at Newcastle University visited and worked with.

Contributors to THINK?NG THROUGH MIGRATION are: Susannah Eckersley, Areti Galani, Campbell Price, Iain Watson, Andrea Witcomb, Emma Coffield, Francesca Lanz and Chris Whitehead.

For more information about THINK?NG THROUGH MIGRATION please contact Chris Whitehead

CONTACT & CREDITS