This final session of the conference is about the next generation of curators. I want to think about what we, collectively, need to do to support them and other emerging museum professionals. My starting point is what emerging museum workers have said they want, both for themselves and for the future of museums in general.
Just over a year ago I convened the Future of Museums conference. It was for people within the first six years of an entry-level post, and we had 65 attendees from across the country. The title – Future of Museums – had a deliberate double meaning. The participants are the future of museums, which may sound like a cheesy song title, but in 20 years time they will be the museum directors, CEOs of funding bodies and policy makers. We asked them for their ideas, visions and aspirations for the future of museums in 20 years’ time. Not what they thought might happen, but what they want to happen. Over the course of a day there were provocations and discussions, followed by drafting chapters for a manifesto.
The Manifesto for the Future of Museums (pdf), written entirely by conference participants, was published last year. Topics covered are far ranging, including diversity, access and training, low pay, collections policy, the hierarchy and siloing of job roles in museums, and the ways in which museums should work together. These may sound familiar; what is unusual is that this document presents solutions to the problems that these early career professionals see, particularly around the workforce.
The Manifesto has had a very positive response: over 500 downloads, sent to boards of trustees, handed to heads of HR. It’s great to have such an impact, but of course the question to those present-day trustees, CEOs and HR teams is how are you going to make this happen? And here two of the more surprising reactions to the Manifesto might help: first, participants mentioning how the conference provided a space where they felt safe to air their thoughts; second, a handful of senior professionals saying that all these issues were around when they were starting out.
This latter point is interesting because it raises the question of why nothing has changed. If people who now have power and influence felt like this 20 years ago, why are we still discussing these issues?
I’d like to propose four ideas to enable change. They’re complex, so this is a brief outline.
First, I propose that we stop talking about a museums sector. It gives the impression of homogeneity, with everyone pulling together for the sake of museums. It gives a false sense of cogency, planning and leadership. In fact, we know this isn’t the case. We know there are numerous different types of museum (local authority, national, independent to name but some), different funding models and funding bodies. We know there are different representative organisations, such as NMDC and AIM.
And therefore we know that organisations in the museum ecosystem have different contexts of operation, organisational models, different agendas, aims and objectives. The sooner we acknowledge that everything connected with museums is messy and complicated rather than uniform, the sooner we will be able to address ways to support future curators and workforce development.
My second idea follows on from this. The idea of the museum sector implies a collective leadership. But I would argue there is either a piecemeal approach with different organisations doing their own thing, or an approach that amounts to organisations waiting for someone else to take a lead. It needn’t be like this. We’ve recently seen the outcome of bodies coming together for discussions on disposal. What I’d love to see is larger organsations, such as Museums Association, National Museum Directors Council, Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund, Association of Independent Museums and universities create a series of workshops to examine workforce issues that we all know exist.
My third suggestion will make this more powerful. To support the curators of the future, we need to engage with and empower them! We’re very good at talking about engaging with communities, visitors, schools. So it seems sad and strange that we don’t do that with budding museum workers.
But my final remark is to those future curators. You need to be proactive. Don’t become the future leaders that say “oh, we said that 20 years ago.” When you gain power, use it to improve the lot of those coming up behind you.
In summary, it’s really good to have conferences like this where we hear people’s views. But all talk and not much action won’t help the curators of the future. My first title for this talk was “stop fanning about and do something”, and I hope that will happen.
The Curator of the Future conference was held at The British Museum on 13th April 2015.
Rachel Souhami 