Museum Professionals Group

Synopsis of the seminar

You will have the chance to hear from seven eminent professionals who are working at the forefront of creative projects with various communities. Using real examples, they will describe how they built relationships with community groups, outline the challenges and practicalities of working with... communities, and discuss the benefits and learning that has been gained from their work. Whilst considering some issues that these activities raise, such as how museums value knowledge, they will show how community engagement can be integrated into collecting and exhibition practices so that museums and their collections remain relevant to the communities they serve.


Guest speakers will include:


Ethnie Nightingale (Head of Access, Social Inclusion & Community Development) and Marilyn Greene (Manager of Intercultural programmes, formerly Intercultural/Interfaith Officer), V&A
Ethnie will provide an overview of the social inclusion and community development programmes that the V&A undertakes, including a project that involves refugees. Marilyn will describe the work she undertook in consulting seven faith advisory groups about the significance of the faith collections at the V&A. She will also reveal the resultant lessons and legacies of her work on the Capacity Building and Cultural Ownership project.


Jane Findlay and Michelle Brown (Community Curators), London Transport Museum
Jane and Michelle will describe their work in engaging communities with collections in order to better understand how they are significant and how they can be developed for audiences through contemporary collecting. Two case studies will be highlighted that explore the challenges and benefits of this type of work: ‘Sound Bites: Chinese Voices’ (an audio trail created with the Chinese community) and ‘Community Collectors’ (a co-curation project with communities living along the East London Line).


Lynda Agard (Community Access Officer) and Lucie Fitton (Inclusion Officer), Museum of London
Lynda and Lucie will outline the community and inclusion programmes at the Museum of London, including those projects that are shaping the new permanent Galleries of Modern London (due to open spring 2010). They will also discuss the Women Making History project and the community display area in the London Sugar & Slavery gallery at Museum of London Docklands. Furthermore, Lucie will cover the use of social media in community engagement and the evaluation of the long-term impact of inclusion work.


Joe Carr (Curator), Brent Museum
Joe will describe Brent Museum’s participation in the Reassessing What we Collect Project, which involved two other London museums. As part of this Joe has been working with Brent's Brazilian and Polish Communities, collecting contemporary material, stories and images and thereby increasing the representation of these people within Brent Museum. This presentation will cover the practicalities of the project as well as outlining the problems, challenges and learning that was gained through the process.

MPG seminars also offer a good opportunity to network with other professionals in a friendly environment!

The MPG exists to support all museum professionals and so, in order to make our seminars available to everybody, we strive to provide them at a very affordable price. Due to the generosity of the V&A and the guest speakers, we are able to offer this event at a price that we believe represents exceptional value for money. Please note though that because we don’t want to charge more than we have to, we will not be providing lunch. We think it is fairer to let people buy what they want, or to bring sandwiches if they prefer. There is a rather classy café on site that, according to a famous advertising campaign, has the distinction of being an ace caf with quite a nice museum attached. Read More