Read on Twitter
Probably not saying anything new or profound here, but it occurs to me that those of us trying to change and challenge museums for the better are doing so because they're a microcosm of what's wrong with... everything. Inequality, growing corporatism, exploitation etc.
If we are actually embroiled in a "culture war", even a manufactured one, then museums are battlegrounds, because they shape & reflect cultural contexts. Things like decolonisation or poorly paid curator jobs might seem like a niche issue, but they are symptomatic of much bigger
(I'm not saying that decolonisation or low pay *are* niche issues, or that they don't matter; simply that to people outside the museum sector they may not feel like pressing issues)
Like the tension that exists in some institutions over how to display/interpret objects, the sense that there's a binary choice between 'engaging' and 'scholarly' - there's a big overlap with how news cycles are manufactured and the clash between headlines and detailed reporting
Or the increased emphasis on income generation to close funding gap, the development of corporate internal hierarchies, the move to put workers on private/commercial rather than civil service contracts: isn't this just what we're seeing in most public sector & non-profit jobs?
What I think I'm trying to say is, you can't change museums in isolation, without broader social/economic change. We like to think of ourselves as voices of cultural authority, but we're affected by (and perpetuate) the same structural inequities that exist everywhere.
current mood:
to clarify this: I'm starting to shift my viewpoint from 'change museums to make society better', to 'museums can't change until society does' - it feels naive to think of ourselves as having that much influence, but maybe I'm just being cynical? https://twitter.com/Danielle_J_Thom/status/1304474089017544709?s=19
