The South West Fed team were delighted to host our first event for 2024 at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery on 29 February. The last year has seen exciting developments across the heritage sector concerning Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and improving accessibility for disabled curators, project producers and audiences. Three ground-breaking south west initiatives were showcased at this event: the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery exhibition
- Concealed/Reveal: Disabled, D/deaf and neurodivergent artists driving creativity
- The National Trust’s Everywhere and Nowhere research project
- South West Museum Development’s latest EDI programme, Travelling Together: Museum Journeys Towards Inclusion and Collaboration.
The afternoon began with a tour of the Concealed/Reveal exhibition, which was produced by Curating for Change, an organisation which supports disabled curators to bring a new perspective to museum workforces and collections. Ruth Pickersgill, member of the exhibition’s co-production team and Chair of the West of England Centre for Inclusive Living (WECIL), acknowledged in her later presentation that objects in BMAG’s collection which represent disabled creativity are to some extent limited to white men who were disabled by age. Nonetheless, the exhibition shows a wide variety of objects and stories which highlight artists whose disabilities have contributed to their creative ingenuity. The exhibition is well designed with accessible features, from BSL, Braille and audio-described content to sensory interpretation, such as tactile object reproductions.
After the tour, we heard presentations from Ruth Garde (Co-Project Manager from Curating for Change), Ruth Pickersgill (WECIL), Dr Heather Smith (Access & Equality Specialist at the National Trust) and Eleanor Moore and Clare Ferdinando (Project Manager and Cultural Producer for SWMD’s Travelling Together).
Ruth Garde emphasised why disabled curators are needed to shape and re-examine museum collections to properly represent disabled people’s lives and their vital contributions to wider society. Ruth Pickersgill discussed WECIL’s founding principle of the Social Model of Disability, which asserts how people are disabled by society and not by their impairments or differences, advocating for disabled people to have choices, rights and control over their own lives.
Developing these thoughts, Dr Heather Smith discussed the National Trust’s latest project Everywhere and Nowhere in collaboration with the University of Leicester, which involved researching the NT’s collections to identify histories of disability. The project was directed by a steering group of disabled researchers from a range of professional backgrounds. In this way, the project affirmed lived experience of disability and culminated in an online film which was evidence-based and centred disabled expertise.
Finally, Eleanor Moore and Clare Ferdinando explored the inception and development of the Travelling Together programme, which involved eight cohort museums across the South West and included EDI training, grants, mentoring and peer networking sessions. Their presentation provoked many questions and discussions around the importance of embedding EDI early on within projects and organisations, ensuring all staff, trustees, volunteers and other stakeholders are confident with these fundamental practices.
It was a packed and thought-provoking sell-out event – fantastic to welcome so many SWFed members and trustees! Thank you to BMAG for hosting us. One attendee said:
‘A great opportunity to connect with some other orgs and see great examples of inclusion in action. Thank you!’