Seminars

‘Context and Collaboration’ is series of seminars and debate through this website for curators, academics and practitioners. The series will provide a forum for discussion of the role of museums, galleries and HEI’s in developing a framework for identifying needs and determining strategies for collaboration across and between sectors.

The seminar series will take the programming of contemporary textile as a case study; how to enable the presentation or prioritisation of contemporary textile exhibitions. However the discussion and outcome will be transferable to other domains.

There will be four half-day seminars in total; one has already taken place on 9th December 2006 at the University College for the Creative Arts. The next seminar will be at Manchester Art Gallery on 22nd July, the third will take place at the Victoria and Albert Museum on 22nd September, and the final seminar will take place in January 2007, again at the University College for the Creative Arts.

The aim of these seminars is to inform and engage related sectors and facilitate a dialogue that currently does not exist.

To register for one or more of the seminars please complete the online registration form - for any further information please contact the Project Director Lesley Millar on lmillar@ucreative.ac.uk
Or the Project Co-ordinator June Hill on jhill@ucreative.ac.uk

Why are these seminars necessary?

Museums Association Report (2005) ‘Collections for the Future’ notes: “Brokers are often needed to build relationships and encourage joint working…It is not desirable - let alone practical - for a museum to have all the expertise that it requires in-house….. It will be equally if not more important to build close links with external sources of knowledge and expertise…. In general links between museums and higher education are less well developed than they might be. There are reasons for this. The approach taken to particular subjects by museums and by universities may differ significantly… It is clear that museums could do more to ensure that they draw on external sources of knowledge and make it publicly available...”

While these issues are recognised within the museum, HEI’s and professional sectors, the difficulty has been in developing an appropriate framework to enable them to collaborate effectively. (The 2005 Arts Council HE Strategy Consultation Paper highlights this need: “A strategic approach will enable both the arts and higher education sectors to maximise the impact of their investment.”)

Each sector has its particular agenda, leading to a lack of cross-sector understanding, which often means that new and potentially exciting projects are not developed. The focus of practice-based academics in universities may be towards particular research outcomes. Curators who programme public galleries may be offered curated research proposals that demonstrate little understanding of the internal and external programming and financial pressures experienced by museums and galleries. Knowledge, understanding and dissemination of specialist collections would benefit from new opportunities for collaboration between HEI’s and museums. There is an urgent need to bring these different agencies together to create a structure which promotes the framing of appropriate new collaborative proposals.

The framework for the series is one of gathering information from each of the discussions, and taking that information forward to the next seminar. Points that have emerged from the first seminar are:

• What is the museum perception of contemporary textile practice?
• How do museums see the way forward?
• What is the contribution that contemporary textile practice can offer to museums:
  - An engagement with contemporary culture?
  - An opportunity to re-articulate collections and increase their accessibility?
  - An opportunity to develop the role of archives in recording ‘living practice’?
• How can the research activities of Higher Education Institutions facilitate links between contemporary practice and museums.
• How to develop an appropriate language for critical discourse and dissemination to:
  - Confer appropriate value
  - Provide a clarity of discrimination in a positive rather than a pejorative sense

The website Forum will play a key role in the dissemination and gathering of ideas. After seminar number three, the Advisory Group, made up from selected representatives of the different sectors, will draw together all points raised and draft a discussion Paper. This Paper will then be presented to the fourth Seminar for comments which will inform the final version to be published on a this website, on the V&A website, the AHRC website, and through various publications – see Outcomes.

At each seminar invited speakers who reflect the geographical area of the venue and each of the sectors: Museums and Galleries, HEI and practitioners, will provide the starting points for the discussion. The delegate groups will be small, around 40, and we hope that the timing of the presentations and the fact that many of the delegates will be invited as representatives of the sectors will encourage a proper exchange of ideas.