Engaging with your community is important for any organisation, and it is no different for museums. Telling history in an engaging and informative way is their principal objective, so to exclude the stories and narratives that come directly from the people who visit seems counterproductive. This is why so many museums, including the medical museums are working on constantly improving their community engagement. It is simply not enough to create collections and exhibitions that heritage staff themselves feel is representative, the whole process must involve those it describes, and further beyond this. If you want to accurately represent the history of the region, the best way to do it is to ask the communities of those living there.
It is of great importance to not stick to only one narrative, and instead diversify your exhibitions and projects through listening to, respecting and sharing power with the communities you work with. Involvement in the reviewing, documenting, updating, interpreting, designing and displaying of exhibitions can be incredible ways to involve the community with the museum, making them feel part of what’s displayed. This is key to these establishments to not only ensure they’re representative, but also to garner support locally. If you were to feel as though these exhibitions do not represent you, your family, your way of life, your religion and community, you’re unlikely to engage. Yet when we involve people, artefacts and stories of all vibrant individuals of Worcester, people are more likely to want to visit, and support the medical museums when it’s needed.
This has been shown by other museums across the UK, however Hackney Museum is a particularly good example of how community engagement can help a museum thrive. Their ‘Platform’ space located near the entrance displays four exhibits from local community groups each year, with contributions from schools, rehabilitation centres, young offenders and more.
Moreover, with help from the ‘Our Museum’ initiative, different groups were able to bid to have their projects displayed in the ‘Side by Side: Living in Cazenove’ exhibition. The collection was designed to represent the area’s various flourishing communities and it was ensured they had a large role to play in the process of displaying their work. The exhibition encouraged a large audience of 6,000 to visit, which included those who had never been to the museum before, demonstrating how community engagement can help a museum increase their popularity.
With the ‘Birthing Stories’ project that we are hoping to secure funding for, we aim to engage the community in a similar way. Asking the women who make up Worcester to share with us their personal experiences can help those who may actually visit the museum feel as if they’re not just an audience, but part of the organisation. This is similar to the ‘Hackney@50’ project where people were asked what Hackney meant to them and to share their potentially sensitive stories. The best way for any museum to represent the history of those who make up the region, is to ask those who created this history themselves.
With this being said, the progress that can still be made does not discredit past engagements the medical museums have had with local communities. A great example of how working with local organisations can create powerful connections, is the project with EVERYBODY DANCE dance company. As an organisation that brings together disabled and non-disabled people through an inclusive medium of dance, they were able to create ‘Progress’, involving film and workshop projects. The museum was able to engage with schools and disabled artists, for mutual benefit and education for all parties involved. Watch the short film they created below!
Additionally, the museums were able to engage with local schools through the Worcestershire World War One Hundred project, one of the largest programmes commemorating the First World War across England. Over three months, they worked with Hanley Swan Primary School to teach them of life on the home front and of the VAD detachment previously housed at what is now The Boynes Care Centre, culminating in the students being tasked to recreate an autograph book similar to those of WW1. Furthermore, the programmes got High School students of Tudor Grange Academy involved too, as they trialled a prototype game designed for Key Stage 3 mathematics students. Based off a First World War casualty clearing station, the game utilised museum collections and is still available for free download now.
Community engagement is key for any museum, and there is always room to build upon and expand upon connections already made. Through future projects, the medical museums will strive to reach out to groups not commonly depicted in their past collections, to allow the organisation to accurately reflect the people it represents.