Bridging Binaries: reflections on the pilot
In December 2018, the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) launched a pilot series of volunteer-led LGBTQ+ tours: Bridging Binaries. Forty tours, four museums and a lot of press coverage later, it’s time to look back on the pilot and plot the next steps. The project saw a team of dedicated volunteers develop their own LGBTQ+ tours in the Museum of…
The Museum Remix
The University of Cambridge’s historic collections reveal centuries of scholarship and discovery; artistic and technological excellence. They also evidence darker, far more challenging histories: histories of exploitation, colonialism and systematic power imbalances. Museums are not neutral. Historically, and in the present day, who makes decisions impacts upon which narratives are privileged in our spaces and which are silenced; who is represented…
Untold Histories Museum Tours: stories of collecting through colonialism and conflict
In October 2018, a new museum tour launched at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Untold Histories tours “tell you what the labels won’t.” The tours explore the difficult histories of how objects came to be in the museum. We discuss collecting, curating, and representation, and ask the question: ‘if objects tell many stories, which ones are on the labels…
