Doing the Work: Collecting Practices and Acquisition Strategies

Rina Banerjee, 'In turmeric Yellow, another world apart from ours, bathed in humans as resources, natural riches seated in natures warm throne, golden and delicious, encrusted in sugary plants and rambunctious animals waited, watched when small factories tired in the business of making money could not make me a mango' (2020). Acquired by the Contemporary Art Society for The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.

Part of ‘Doing the Work’, an online CPD workshop series co-produced by the Contemporary Art Society and the Decolonising Arts Institute (University of the Arts London). Read more.

Open to CAS Museum Members and professionals.

This workshop focuses on how anti-racism and decolonisation can be embedded in the collecting practices and acquisition strategies of art museums and galleries. Questions for discussion might include: What can short-term, targeted acquisition strategies achieve in terms of diversifying collections, compared to long-term changes to collections development policies? Is diversifying a collection the same as decolonising a collection? How do racist and colonial modes of thinking and doing manifest in the way art museums and galleries develop and make use of their collections? What does an anti-racist and/or decolonial acquisitions or collections development policy look like? What are the challenges of embedding anti-racism and/or decolonisation in collecting practices and policies, particularly in terms of navigating between ethical imperatives, visitor expectations and the interests of funders/donors/trustees?

To kick start the conversation, Dr David Dibosa (Reader in Museology, University of the Arts London) will moderate a discussion between Dr Nima Poovaya-Smith (former curator at Cartwright Hall Gallery) and Sepake Angiama (Iniva) on the approaches and initiatives they have developed to impact the makeup of collections in public museums and art galleries. Participants will then breakout into small groups for focused conversation on the issues and challenges at hand, as well as strategies to test out back in the workplace.

Click here for participant biographies

Open to CAS Museum Members and professionals. To book your place at this workshop please email Ilaria@contemporaryartsociety.org before 7 May 2021.

Further Reading:

Articles

Dalal-Clayton, Anjalie. Developing more representative art collections could not be more urgent

Online Talks

Curating and Collecting Anti-racism? An Online Conversation

Developing more representative art collections could not be more urgent, by Anjalie Dalal-Clayton

Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? BBC x Black Artists & Modernism project documentary on BBC iPlayer

Christopher Bedford, Director of Baltimore Museum of Art at the CAS’s 2019 annual conference on Creating and Implementing a More Inclusive Museum Vision