This Diversifying the Museum Voice case study follows the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences Refresh, Rebrand & Re-present project, focusing on the Museum’s Community Cabinet. It provides an example of one approach to putting the Diversifying the Museum Voice Principles framework into action.

About the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences

 The Sedgwick Museum is the Earth Sciences museum of the University of Cambridge. It is part of the University’s Department of Earth Sciences and the oldest of the eight museums of the University of Cambridge Museums consortium. The Museum houses a collection of around two million rocksminerals and fossils of international importance that span a period of 4.5 billion years. Highlights include the Iguanodon, marine reptiles collected by Mary Anning, meteorites and Charles Darwin’s geological collection.

Why the Refresh, Rebrand & Re-present project?

The Community Cabinet project aims to enhance and broaden the Sedgwick Museum’s relevance and in doing so its inclusivity and active audience base. The project begun several years ago and is now ready for its next iteration. The Refresh, Rebrand and Re-present project is framing this next stage and has at its core an investment in quality: quality invitations to contribute, quality in the presentation and quality in the interpretation of contributors’ ‘geological treasures’. Sitting behind this are additional investment in the approach needed for collaboration to be effective reaching beyond the University and the academic community.

What’s happened so far?

  • New Museum Exhibition policy developed which formally articulates the Museum’s commitment to working collaboratively with audiences.
  • Community Cabinet projects now recognised as a key part of the Museum’s exhibition offer, with high profile in the gallery and core budgets allocated accordingly.
  • Consortium-wide initiatives such as Museum Remix and Bridging Binaries have brought both new voices and new approaches to delivering interpretation into the Museum, providing a vital test-bed for future interpretation projects
  • Planning underway for the development of a community group/network through which the Museum can build deeper dialogue with audiences

Creating engaging, quality exhibitions and displays is one of many things the Museum knows how to do well. As such, it would be easy to do just that with the Community Cabinet – depth of engagement aside. To ensure that the team shun tokenism and find the integrity they are looking for in this project, and to have credibility with the contributors and the community, they have opted to undertake the work incrementally, starting with the formation of a community group initially centred around people who have previous collaborated with the Museum in the production of Community Cabinet displays.

To be effective and authentic, this initiative needs widespread buy-in and commitment from across the Museum team, so a key part of this work will be internal consultation and discussion with colleagues, and the development of a set of agreed terms of reference. The aim is that, together, the Museum team and community group will grow an understanding of where and how power and curatorial authority can be shared over and critically where this has meaning and value and to whom.

The Museum knows that privilege can be an issue within the university sector and specifically those who have a long heritage; unpacking, understanding and ultimately responding to this is important to the Sedgwick team.

“This project is about embedding authentic, collaborative practice across the Museum’s public engagement work, enabling us to put new and different voices in the heart of the Museum.”

Liz Hide, Director, Sedgwick Museum

What difference is the project making?

With the mantra of ‘start where you are, use what you have, do what you can’ the Museum is laying the groundwork for change, through the Exhibitions Policy and an internal consultation process.  Currently this is being expressed on a meta level with aspirations such to ‘collaborate, consult & co-produce’ on a wider scale in the future. However, to make this real – to make it possible – the team are very aware that they need to gain traction by breaking this down and starting the process with tangible outcomes to help get people on board and start to grow the confidence critical here for this community curating initiative to fulfil its transformative potential, amplifying the voices of ‘others’ and making the Museum the representative and democratic institution it aims to be.

Using the Diversifying the Museum Voice Principles to plan, do and review

Devised through a process of action learning with teams across the UCM, these six interconnecting principles provide a flexible framework for teams to plan, manage and review collaborative activity, providing ideas and provocations that support people in coming together to discuss, participate in dialogue and make change.

Which Principles are important to the project? How and why?

For the Sedgwick Museum, the following three Principles have emerged as being the most important to the project’s success. Reflecting on these and using them as a point of reference for discussion and dialogue with both collaborators and the museum team has enabled the following thinking to take place.

Pursue Authenticity and Share Authorship

The Museum has been asking why people would want to collaborate with them? To what extent might people want to take ownership? If looking to identify the qualities of a positive, impactful collaborator, what might these be? For instance, does a collaborator need to have an enthusiasm for the Museum or the subject matter, do they need to be willing and open? And when do they need to make a firm commitment to justify the investment?

Design Inclusively

As a part of the Museum’s offer and experience, the Cabinet needs to have high production values. What does this mean if the display and interpretation is co-curated? What is the invite that is being made to collaborators, and how is this being given the status needed to truly generate social value and in turn expand the museum’s audience?

Measure what Matters

Here the Museum team has been exploring how they can tell the project story – activity and impact – both internally and externally – to support activity and if relevant advocate for and galvanise change. What tools can be employed to measure response and how can these work for other inclusion initiatives, such as Museum Remix?

 

Top tips for peers and colleagues

  • Know what your capacity is and plan just beyond this – but not too far!
  • Don’t set your challenge to high in response to each of the Principles when planning. Know which are the most important and which the most difficult and see how you can create balance.
  • Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.

 

You can find more resources and case studies on the Diversifying the Museum Voice main page.