1 00:00:04,320 --> 00:00:11,340 2 00:00:11,340 --> 00:00:21,690 Welcome to the Rivers Museums. Matters of Policy podcast, this is a podcast in which we explore the museum's collections development policy, 3 00:00:21,690 --> 00:00:34,050 speaking with guests from across the globe to delve into the language used and consider what really matters in this policy. 4 00:00:34,050 --> 00:00:37,380 Hi, I'm Jeff, and today I'm joining Alexis. Hi, I'm Alexis. 5 00:00:37,380 --> 00:00:44,160 And today we're talking to Faye Bouncier, the deputy head of collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum. 6 00:00:44,160 --> 00:00:48,690 She works in various roles in the ethnography and anthropology sections and has worked in both 7 00:00:48,690 --> 00:00:54,030 physical and digital collections currently working on writing the Pitt Rivers repatriation policy. 8 00:00:54,030 --> 00:01:01,500 She's here today to talk about her perspectives on the policy and her opinions on ways to move forward. 9 00:01:01,500 --> 00:01:03,930 I guess to start with the first question. 10 00:01:03,930 --> 00:01:11,100 Could you elaborate a little on your work as deputy head of collections and curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, 11 00:01:11,100 --> 00:01:15,840 particularly focussing on your work regarding decolonisation? Sure. 12 00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:20,340 I went to the rivers there for, I think, just over 10 years. 13 00:01:20,340 --> 00:01:24,180 All of my rosary beads have been embedded in the collections department, 14 00:01:24,180 --> 00:01:30,000 so I've always been working on the collection, so I actually have an archaeologist background. 15 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:36,360 I think I've sort of earned my status to follow ethnography as well. 16 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:45,160 My day to day job is quite practical. The practicalities of managing the collection in a really basic things. 17 00:01:45,160 --> 00:01:51,610 So again, with the policy documents, we have to meet these national standards for accreditation. 18 00:01:51,610 --> 00:01:56,100 But a lot of standards guide our practise in terms of what we do. 19 00:01:56,100 --> 00:02:01,290 A lot of what I'm concerned with are the practicalities of knowing where objects are. 20 00:02:01,290 --> 00:02:10,590 So locations management really basic things like cataloguing the collections, you know, ensuring that we have really good recordkeeping of the object, 21 00:02:10,590 --> 00:02:22,470 making the objects assessable to all our public stakeholders that are interested in the fact that you may be to have meaning or for whatever reason, 22 00:02:22,470 --> 00:02:29,850 people want to be able to access the collections, see them be given the information that we have about them. 23 00:02:29,850 --> 00:02:35,140 Things like curating exhibitions and submissions, writing labels, 24 00:02:35,140 --> 00:02:41,620 what kind of registry rows of getting objects ready for two to different exhibitions internationally, 25 00:02:41,620 --> 00:02:48,690 nationally and then the right thing, the kind of policy that guides our practise or should guide our practise. 26 00:02:48,690 --> 00:02:54,900 So this policy in question the questions, the relevant policies of the six is owed the sector. 27 00:02:54,900 --> 00:03:00,420 I think for museums in the past six years, this change really radically. 28 00:03:00,420 --> 00:03:08,490 Six years ago, the term decolonisation is the words have different meanings like colonial highs in terms of what that means with the 29 00:03:08,490 --> 00:03:15,390 colonising museum collections is really developed in the last two years in terms of applying that to everything we do, 30 00:03:15,390 --> 00:03:21,120 including the actual structures in place that gets the very practical levels of collections care. 31 00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:29,610 Our director, Lowry Brookhaven, who's been here, I think, for five, six years in that time in our strategy, everything's changed, Renee. 32 00:03:29,610 --> 00:03:36,900 It's been interesting someone who's been here for 10 years to kind of see that change, be part of it. 33 00:03:36,900 --> 00:03:43,470 In my Washington career as a museum professional, I've always been involved in the Museum of History. 34 00:03:43,470 --> 00:03:47,250 So I posted a conference here at the museum. 35 00:03:47,250 --> 00:03:52,710 I think maybe it was 2016 and it was cool decolonising the museum and practise. 36 00:03:52,710 --> 00:03:59,190 And I remember at the time there was lots of critique from other people who say, Right, well, you know, what is this what you are using? 37 00:03:59,190 --> 00:03:59,850 And even then, 38 00:03:59,850 --> 00:04:10,890 the whole crux of that conference for me is the museum professionals was the concept that it is a very theoretical level about the colonising, 39 00:04:10,890 --> 00:04:16,110 and the sector was someone whose work is embedded in practise. 40 00:04:16,110 --> 00:04:23,220 I wanted to know what does that mean in practise? Because I feel like I was being spoken about a lot. 41 00:04:23,220 --> 00:04:27,270 But then you can see from the policy document, as I say, it's five years old. 42 00:04:27,270 --> 00:04:34,350 It hasn't changed and it hasn't changed because there is no pressure to change it because it's written. 43 00:04:34,350 --> 00:04:41,340 It was like it would be reviewed in five years time, and we need to be accredited to gain insights on a very public. 44 00:04:41,340 --> 00:04:46,810 It's possible for, I mean, it's on our website. Arguably, it should have been changed a lot longer. 45 00:04:46,810 --> 00:04:50,820 A liberating five years. A lot has changed in five years. 46 00:04:50,820 --> 00:04:58,140 Our practise is definitely ahead of our policy. So whereas is that policy to inform practise, 47 00:04:58,140 --> 00:05:03,780 I think our practise now needs to inform our policy and our policy needs to be rewritten to reflect that practise, 48 00:05:03,780 --> 00:05:08,310 which again, I still think our practise is flawed in many ways, but I think that. 49 00:05:08,310 --> 00:05:13,620 Our policy is not a fair reflection of where we are at in terms of our practise. 50 00:05:13,620 --> 00:05:21,060 It's really great because part of this project is trying to understand how policy and practise relate to each other. 51 00:05:21,060 --> 00:05:28,560 So is the fact that decolonial practise is ahead of policy an issue or to phrase it differently? 52 00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:34,800 How important is that policy message practise or can practise go beyond policy without too much issue? 53 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:39,480 Well, I think it can become an issue when it's the fact that the policies are the things that 54 00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:45,800 we have that are required to meet these standards and these benchmarks in practise. 55 00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:55,860 So I think if the policy is not reflecting that, then arguably how could we say that we are hitting the standard that we should say today, 56 00:05:55,860 --> 00:06:01,530 how often do I look at our policy and go our right to the point where this policy in particular? 57 00:06:01,530 --> 00:06:10,440 I haven't looked to that for a very long well. And I myself was a bit shocked by just how our faces on how problematic it is 58 00:06:10,440 --> 00:06:15,100 really can certainly be the case that your practise kind of overtakes the policy. 59 00:06:15,100 --> 00:06:24,870 You know, you have your mission statement about fits into your strategy, and your policy should reflect best practise at the colonial practise. 60 00:06:24,870 --> 00:06:35,010 Then again, your policy should reflect that, particularly in the cases where policy is used or to uphold or to do something like in, 61 00:06:35,010 --> 00:06:43,110 say, repatriation, be like, you know, we have to. Well, according to the policy or clothing to the right bureaucratic process, 62 00:06:43,110 --> 00:06:48,090 someone can wave a piece of paper in someone's face and say where the policy is 63 00:06:48,090 --> 00:06:53,800 this that can be used as an argument in a not to do something or to do something, 64 00:06:53,800 --> 00:07:02,580 whatever, then yeah, your policy document is pretty important that I think it's OK to acknowledge that our policy is off base, 65 00:07:02,580 --> 00:07:07,920 but that we really do something about it. Yeah, that's what we're trying to get at. 66 00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:15,450 So it's good to hear that. Can you tell us a bit about that work regarding writing the museum's repatriation 67 00:07:15,450 --> 00:07:23,940 policy and how that policy compares to the CDP Section 15 on repatriation? 68 00:07:23,940 --> 00:07:27,210 And of course, given that you're very involved with that, 69 00:07:27,210 --> 00:07:36,780 do you think that policy know fifteen point one and fifteen point two of the CDP ensures smooth, adequate and morally responsible repatriation? 70 00:07:36,780 --> 00:07:41,880 If not, what is missing? And in your opinion, what should be included? 71 00:07:41,880 --> 00:07:46,050 Actual repatriation is a very bureaucratic process. 72 00:07:46,050 --> 00:07:51,030 Essentially, the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum are the property of the rescue, 73 00:07:51,030 --> 00:07:56,640 and there are problems that right when you think of what the University of Oxford institutionally 74 00:07:56,640 --> 00:08:02,130 kind of represents is there are inadequacies and they're like very short paragraphs. 75 00:08:02,130 --> 00:08:09,780 And the Section 15 regarding population restitution of objects and human remains like two paragraph. 76 00:08:09,780 --> 00:08:16,890 But the repatriation policy, which I think is probably even a few years old in itself now. 77 00:08:16,890 --> 00:08:25,500 It was a really interesting process for me, revised it from the previous time to see again just how much had changed and the difficulties of 78 00:08:25,500 --> 00:08:33,960 working with a collection that is or was collected to be encyclopaedic and cover the entire world. 79 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:39,360 Again, I haven't been back to revisit that repatriation policy recently. 80 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:43,650 Repatriation requests for Australia and I think Hawaii. 81 00:08:43,650 --> 00:08:53,490 We have a couple of ongoing requests that literally take years, and I think that's because it has to be done in a case by case basis. 82 00:08:53,490 --> 00:09:00,030 The fifteen point one says I would take such decisions on a case by case basis within its legal position 83 00:09:00,030 --> 00:09:06,180 and taking into account the ethical implications of available guidance which stage your game is a museum. 84 00:09:06,180 --> 00:09:10,260 I think we have to reflect that bureaucracy is one thing. 85 00:09:10,260 --> 00:09:17,670 But if bureaucracy is just putting up a barrier to someone or a group who perhaps don't 86 00:09:17,670 --> 00:09:23,970 have the toolkit to kind of break down that barrier or that bit of bureaucratic nonsense, 87 00:09:23,970 --> 00:09:32,550 basically this bureaucratic nonsense, then why is it there? Like why you have a need for someone to jump through when actually we should be 88 00:09:32,550 --> 00:09:37,590 thinking about ways where perhaps you can go from the heat of the heat under the heat? 89 00:09:37,590 --> 00:09:43,000 I think again, the trouble with policy is often it's really hard to articulate the grey. 90 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:48,060 It's often quite like white on a game, repatriation and restitution. 91 00:09:48,060 --> 00:09:52,740 It can come across being quite white. And so again, I think as a museum, 92 00:09:52,740 --> 00:10:01,150 our policy needs to accommodate the grey needs to be like a usable document that if a community 93 00:10:01,150 --> 00:10:06,840 agrees to come to us and say we would like this thing back or we'd like it to go to X, 94 00:10:06,840 --> 00:10:15,970 Y or Z, then. We present the repatriation policy, but it needs to be something that they can understand, it needs to be a usable document. 95 00:10:15,970 --> 00:10:21,280 It needs to kind of explain how they would go about getting it back. 96 00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:29,680 We were at the time, like really came to me to explain the whole process like, you know, your your request will come to us. 97 00:10:29,680 --> 00:10:38,650 We will look at the provenance history of the objects from the documentation we have, acknowledging that the documentation may not be very fulsome, 98 00:10:38,650 --> 00:10:49,660 but we will endeavour to research every bit of information we have about how that object came here to assess whether it was came here or not. 99 00:10:49,660 --> 00:10:53,530 Whatever legally or not is a really completed process. 100 00:10:53,530 --> 00:10:58,690 It would go to council, it would go here, we go back and say we'll have the final say. 101 00:10:58,690 --> 00:11:02,200 I'm just to have that whole process trying to spell it out to someone, 102 00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:06,850 whereas I think sometimes it can be really ambiguous, like just in the paragraphs. 103 00:11:06,850 --> 00:11:13,690 The Council of the University of Oxford. Like, who are these people deciding whether something ships say OK, 104 00:11:13,690 --> 00:11:19,900 acting on the advice of the museum's fisheries softeners governing body or who are the museum like? 105 00:11:19,900 --> 00:11:27,970 Give that advice. You really have to kind of break down all of these things, which can be seen as barriers, I guess. 106 00:11:27,970 --> 00:11:33,670 And I think you do have to have policy and procedure because legally, again, 107 00:11:33,670 --> 00:11:39,640 repatriation, restitution, sometimes institutions, they kind of hold up these arguments. 108 00:11:39,640 --> 00:11:42,400 Well, we send it back as long as you don't destroy it, 109 00:11:42,400 --> 00:11:48,640 as long as it goes to a museum that has appropriate standard in the country in which that museum is. 110 00:11:48,640 --> 00:11:54,820 And I think at the point when something is repaired again, it's not for us to say what happens to it, 111 00:11:54,820 --> 00:12:00,250 what was done with that because it's not ours and it's not legally our property anymore. 112 00:12:00,250 --> 00:12:08,050 So I think those stipulations are really not helpful and shouldn't be there on the repatriation restitution. 113 00:12:08,050 --> 00:12:18,340 It should be like a process of dialogue. We have a level of kind of understanding and I think a kind of approach to 114 00:12:18,340 --> 00:12:25,000 enabling what's morally and ethically correct for a particular object thing. 115 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:32,380 So again, it's complicated in terms of what things go back to where and whom the point of 116 00:12:32,380 --> 00:12:37,480 a policy or procedure should be that it's really transparent is really clear, 117 00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:45,100 and it's a usable document and policy procedure that people can refer to and can be helpful. 118 00:12:45,100 --> 00:12:53,740 Yes. So there seems to be a power imbalance when looking at the choices represented in the document, particularly in Section 5.1 and 5.2. 119 00:12:53,740 --> 00:13:02,710 And this might result in situations you mentioned where power is maintained by boasting all sorts of conditions as part of a restitution process. 120 00:13:02,710 --> 00:13:09,790 Do you think that creating more diversity within the governing body or a professional staff or council for university is the way to go? 121 00:13:09,790 --> 00:13:16,000 Or should be more be focussing on including the voices of local communities in those sections or both. 122 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:20,290 A bit of think it just comes down to transparency, 123 00:13:20,290 --> 00:13:31,060 and I think that the two very short paragraphs and fifteen point one fifty point two aren't enough to express that really sick bay. 124 00:13:31,060 --> 00:13:39,610 But I mean, you guys really articulated well, the problems are the language in this document, and I think the power imbalances do exist, 125 00:13:39,610 --> 00:13:45,640 but we have to kind of acknowledge that we have to change the way that the language that we use and the way that we talk about it. 126 00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:52,480 Thanks for your great insights. Yeah, because you are also working with making collections accessible and you are also working with digitisation. 127 00:13:52,480 --> 00:13:58,100 What role do you envision for digitisation in the decolonisation of museum collections? 128 00:13:58,100 --> 00:14:04,570 The museum database is a very specific and ultimately have to serve a function. 129 00:14:04,570 --> 00:14:09,370 As I mentioned at the beginning, we have to know where everything is, and to do that, 130 00:14:09,370 --> 00:14:13,780 you have to classify information, but you just have to see the mission statement. 131 00:14:13,780 --> 00:14:19,870 And the CBP is off to date. But our current mission statement that leads to the many ways of measuring and 132 00:14:19,870 --> 00:14:24,970 reflecting these many ways of moving into the Western systems and structures. 133 00:14:24,970 --> 00:14:31,390 The museums in the UK Europe were founded on this really difficult we could like just go, 134 00:14:31,390 --> 00:14:36,980 okay, forget it through the database of but that we can actually do our job. 135 00:14:36,980 --> 00:14:42,610 We have an obligation, a duty of care to look after these things. 136 00:14:42,610 --> 00:14:52,270 However, they don't have that here and they are in our institution and they are for us to make sure that they are motivated, 137 00:14:52,270 --> 00:14:57,100 whatever it is that we care for them at a very basic level. 138 00:14:57,100 --> 00:15:03,080 And to do that, we have to have policy procedure. I think it's not that we can't change it. 139 00:15:03,080 --> 00:15:08,750 It is like a structural change to how could you do this needs to start to get. 140 00:15:08,750 --> 00:15:17,790 And I think it's really difficult to do that, say in 10 years, say lots of change in the last five years. 141 00:15:17,790 --> 00:15:25,550 I think there's been lots of talk, but a philosophical theoretical level in there about decolonisation. 142 00:15:25,550 --> 00:15:33,770 What does it mean? But on a practical level, the practise is not reflected in our policy. 143 00:15:33,770 --> 00:15:36,500 We are, I think, the revisionism. 144 00:15:36,500 --> 00:15:47,300 We are doing, we're practising what we're talking about, but we're still falling short of the ideal of what we should be striving to achieve. 145 00:15:47,300 --> 00:15:51,890 And I just don't know how much of it is actually achievable. 146 00:15:51,890 --> 00:16:01,220 I'd say it's quite early days in terms of actual, meaningful change because as someone who sat with him for a long time ago, 147 00:16:01,220 --> 00:16:05,780 my day to day hasn't changed a lot in terms of my practise. 148 00:16:05,780 --> 00:16:12,830 The way that I manage in consultations, I guess what has changed has been like a decent centric. 149 00:16:12,830 --> 00:16:17,630 See, this is you read people's policies as they are starting to rewrite them, 150 00:16:17,630 --> 00:16:24,560 that the focus becomes more on people and less about the objects and less about anything less 151 00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:31,250 about these political offices you connected you to which our policy was rife with what, 152 00:16:31,250 --> 00:16:38,090 if you like, elicit the colonial officers and think the fact is that that's what we do about our collections. 153 00:16:38,090 --> 00:16:48,470 We know who they came from, but we don't know who made them the people who took them or collected legitimately or illegitimately. 154 00:16:48,470 --> 00:16:58,670 We all know that these things were taken on very unfair grounds, even if they were taken technically. 155 00:16:58,670 --> 00:17:06,080 Legally, it was under clear rules that those people they didn't record the names of the people who made them 156 00:17:06,080 --> 00:17:10,640 the names of the people they took them from the names of even the villages they took them from. 157 00:17:10,640 --> 00:17:19,550 And in some cases they did like meals and patterns, and there was nothing collected and not alarmed and which is northeast of here. 158 00:17:19,550 --> 00:17:27,260 And they practised at the time what was seen as a technological practise of political field. 159 00:17:27,260 --> 00:17:32,330 And they they did record a lot of that information that I say is there. 160 00:17:32,330 --> 00:17:39,680 But you know, it's still the focus very much on those collections and about the fact the reason 161 00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:43,640 they're celebrated and the facts about them is that they were classified museum them. 162 00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:51,020 So, you know, even when we have that information, it's not the information that's been privileged in terms of the historic records. 163 00:17:51,020 --> 00:18:00,020 I guess the kind of processes the rancour, the unit and the collecting fund that is we collect today, 164 00:18:00,020 --> 00:18:04,640 these things are changing the focus away from the collector. 165 00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:12,510 But even now, we get literally swathes of people offering donating things to us. 166 00:18:12,510 --> 00:18:17,780 Often, you know, the older generation and these things were collected by relatives, 167 00:18:17,780 --> 00:18:25,280 parents, grandparents, Cuba, colonial officers, even to their 1950s 60s in Africa. 168 00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:34,220 Or what? That even after these places, these countries are independent and it's really hard, I think, because it's an ethnographic collection. 169 00:18:34,220 --> 00:18:40,790 I do feel like it's quite problematic to not collect. Griffey is from that particular era. 170 00:18:40,790 --> 00:18:45,420 So I think it's quite a difficult thing to kind of navigate that. 171 00:18:45,420 --> 00:18:49,250 Yeah, it's something that I see either things are changing, 172 00:18:49,250 --> 00:18:57,050 and it's kind of interesting to be here now at this point where someone described it as, you know, Scouse. 173 00:18:57,050 --> 00:19:00,710 And finally, this is a kind of tipping the other way. 174 00:19:00,710 --> 00:19:06,050 The question I was going to ask about how the policy, even the mission statement, 175 00:19:06,050 --> 00:19:12,320 the one that's in the CDP has changed from when the CDP that we have now that's accessible 176 00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:17,360 to the public was written to the mission statement that is used and is on the website, 177 00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:24,800 the more modern mission statement. So the old one that's in the CDP talks about the best university museum. 178 00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:28,670 So I think I was going to ask which I think you kind of already answered. 179 00:19:28,670 --> 00:19:38,840 How has that shifted from when that was written to now, which I think you already answered about the sort of decentralisation and all of that. 180 00:19:38,840 --> 00:19:48,140 So to know if you want to just summarise that again, a bit more simply, it was like, what does it mean or what did it mean to be the best? 181 00:19:48,140 --> 00:19:51,770 How are they defining best? I don't know. Like what? 182 00:19:51,770 --> 00:19:56,030 What it used to be the best in terms of when that was written, 183 00:19:56,030 --> 00:20:02,330 and it talks about being a inspirational forum for the sharing of cultural knowledge of the widest possible public. 184 00:20:02,330 --> 00:20:07,880 I think our current mission statement a similar thing. Yeah, inspire. 185 00:20:07,880 --> 00:20:16,640 Knowledge, which I think is that we should be to be the best kind of about good practise about, 186 00:20:16,640 --> 00:20:23,000 you know, changing our practise and evolving our practise to reflect that. 187 00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:26,160 Museums are changing. 188 00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:38,060 Others say to acknowledge the hugely problematic past the Powell collections were quiet here, and I think we're kind of getting that. 189 00:20:38,060 --> 00:20:41,330 But like I say, it's still work to be done. 190 00:20:41,330 --> 00:20:51,940 I think we are now focussing a bit on the shift in the mission statement from emphasising preservation of objects to centralising a care of people. 191 00:20:51,940 --> 00:20:58,240 Does this influence the way we define what counts as developments, so in rewriting the CTP? 192 00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:03,280 What changes in the way we understand and conceptualise this notion development? 193 00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:16,870 So again, this is where I have maybe just a bit of the chair, but we'd like a concept of what you can apply, what you can do in actual practise. 194 00:21:16,870 --> 00:21:23,410 I would say where I feel like I gave this. This is a concept as a theory, as a philosophy. 195 00:21:23,410 --> 00:21:31,690 We've been talking about the museum spaces for it, so it's like a really long time. 196 00:21:31,690 --> 00:21:37,940 But we haven't been doing it and we've been talking about it for a really long time. 197 00:21:37,940 --> 00:21:44,020 It's actually doing it or going about the business of decolonising for like a really short time. 198 00:21:44,020 --> 00:21:48,220 And we still don't really know what it means to do it. 199 00:21:48,220 --> 00:21:54,430 But I think to do it, it means that we do need to conceptually include. 200 00:21:54,430 --> 00:21:59,560 So we talk about a plurality of knowledge, different ways of doing that. 201 00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:05,530 That's reflected in the way the language of the way that the documents are written, the policies are written. 202 00:22:05,530 --> 00:22:12,850 So I think we do need to include, I hate this term, the other voices because of that. 203 00:22:12,850 --> 00:22:16,390 Okay, what are you saying that basically not our voices, 204 00:22:16,390 --> 00:22:27,850 not be as white female museum curator like is not my place to necessarily say or be kind of be the dominant voice at the policy documents? 205 00:22:27,850 --> 00:22:32,890 So I think that that for me, we're talking about it in regards to repatriation that you would like. 206 00:22:32,890 --> 00:22:39,040 What is it like? What do we change to incorporate? I hope, is that transparency? 207 00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:42,520 Like, how can it appear again, it being treated? 208 00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:51,940 It's really important to not just talk about techniques, but do things that we say, not just do things if we don't know what we're doing, 209 00:22:51,940 --> 00:22:56,890 but to ask the people the material culture that we have here, 210 00:22:56,890 --> 00:23:04,840 ask them how should be included, represented by us and then what we're doing in our policy. 211 00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:11,800 But we say that again, it's really difficult because as the White Museum professional is not up to us, 212 00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:15,430 the game to put the onus back on the community here. 213 00:23:15,430 --> 00:23:18,380 This stuff came from. It has to be a real dialogue. 214 00:23:18,380 --> 00:23:27,520 It has to be a real kind of sharing in a reciprocal universe of who the museum should not have any obligation 215 00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:36,670 to get anything back like we do deserve anything that we we need to be giving our views to be very open, 216 00:23:36,670 --> 00:23:45,100 honest dialogue, I guess. Yeah, it's very interesting to get your perspective, not only unlike the sort of practical aspects of your work, 217 00:23:45,100 --> 00:23:49,210 but also on your perspectives on how things can move forward. 218 00:23:49,210 --> 00:23:56,890 Because the things you emphasised are often what other people in other interviews that we've held have also emphasised. 219 00:23:56,890 --> 00:24:07,630 I think as a sort of final closing question, I think we've established that your practise sort of goes beyond the policy. 220 00:24:07,630 --> 00:24:12,430 You know, the policy is outdated in terms of what the museum is practising. 221 00:24:12,430 --> 00:24:20,650 But we've also, I think, established that policy is important not only because it's open to the public and therefore represents the museum, 222 00:24:20,650 --> 00:24:29,440 but also because of the ability that it has to sort of smooth in the repatriation process for those who are looking at it. 223 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:31,180 So on that note? 224 00:24:31,180 --> 00:24:38,620 Are there any parts of the policy, any sort of suggestions, any sort of final thoughts on it that you may have had that you would like to voice now? 225 00:24:38,620 --> 00:24:44,800 I need the policy will be started the game. Basically, that's what's going to happen with this particular policy. 226 00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,980 If you start to the game will be looking across the museum, 227 00:24:47,980 --> 00:24:56,680 the other policies review to get out of issues that our strategy like implementation planning and what we do going forward. 228 00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:06,280 Can you see it at our website that some of the things that we practise in the public sphere, the very light language that we use, 229 00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:14,920 the way that we speak about things, about the collection is changing and that will be the kind of language that we use. 230 00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:25,510 But we I think the policy is to support the centring of that kind of shift the focus around from like objects, 231 00:25:25,510 --> 00:25:32,230 the history of the objects to the people, the people that made the objects, the people, that the objects were used by the people, 232 00:25:32,230 --> 00:25:40,820 that the objects are for the people that have the objects need things today and like the contemporary of the future for it, 233 00:25:40,820 --> 00:25:49,060 say, yeah, there's lots of food for thought it would be a really good exercise to rewrite this policy. 234 00:25:49,060 --> 00:25:51,140 Thanks so much for your great insights. And also. 235 00:25:51,140 --> 00:25:58,370 It's really interesting for us to get like a window into the worlds of curator and the work you've been doing. 236 00:25:58,370 --> 00:26:06,830 I just want to say like, I'm very excited just because like I think sort of everyone that we've interviewed has sort of emphasised the same thing, 237 00:26:06,830 --> 00:26:13,070 which is an emphasis on relationships between people and and cultivating those relationships. 238 00:26:13,070 --> 00:26:20,960 So it's really good to see that people on both ends are sort of thinking the same thing and emphasising the same thing. 239 00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:24,620 Yeah, I think Randy, where they're like getting it right, 240 00:26:24,620 --> 00:26:35,680 having the magic formula for like writing a policy that is is too good to be stands up to what we believe of what like this is favoured. 241 00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:41,930 So so I think it's still there, still quite a lot to be done at the same rate that you guys are excited. 242 00:26:41,930 --> 00:26:51,170 I kind of felt slight driven fear. But it is, as I hear you say, yeah, be interesting to see what happens next. 243 00:26:51,170 --> 00:26:55,110 He is. And I'm wondering, like with the dreads, unfair, whatever it is, 244 00:26:55,110 --> 00:27:03,050 that at some point the museum definition will change so much that it doesn't really seem like a museum institution is the way we know is or. 245 00:27:03,050 --> 00:27:05,840 But it could also be at the moment. 246 00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:12,560 I'm still very hopeful that it sort of naturally change into a different kind of institution with a different purpose. 247 00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:20,090 But perhaps people feel so closely connected to museums as we know it that it's not really a transition that's doable. 248 00:27:20,090 --> 00:27:24,890 I still feel really positive about an organic transition. 249 00:27:24,890 --> 00:27:30,320 Yeah, I think it would be really sad to have a future with the zooms because like, you know, 250 00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:35,930 the purpose of museums becomes redundant because I think that it's just a case of, 251 00:27:35,930 --> 00:27:48,770 like you say, transitioning like having a New York City museum because know the future of collecting doesn't have to be the pass. 252 00:27:48,770 --> 00:27:52,790 The collecting pass, you know, like it can be, it can be different. 253 00:27:52,790 --> 00:28:01,010 That could be an equitable collecting practise. I think I really exciting collecting practise where visitors are filled with things 254 00:28:01,010 --> 00:28:06,090 because I still I don't think it's like a bad thing that things are in the museum. 255 00:28:06,090 --> 00:28:11,130 But like you say, the relationships you build, collect these things while you collect them. 256 00:28:11,130 --> 00:28:14,960 What are they saying? What's the purpose of what are they serving? 257 00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:22,040 Because having these difficult conversations in museums are actually a really unique place where we can talk about 258 00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:29,870 these things because we are part of the problems with access to talk about it right to life and being comfortable. 259 00:28:29,870 --> 00:28:37,700 It particularly matters the really big believer of this in terms of services being a place of activism and a place to 260 00:28:37,700 --> 00:28:48,050 store some of these contemporary issues that are affecting people like really relevant things like purgatory precarity. 261 00:28:48,050 --> 00:28:56,810 I might be up for the big issues that I think is fit a fairly unique place to your app to engage in. 262 00:28:56,810 --> 00:29:01,610 So thank you for you for coming on and your insight. Oh, you're welcome. 263 00:29:01,610 --> 00:29:10,850 Good luck. Thank you so much. That was the Rivers Museum's Matters of Policy podcast produced by Bessie Woodhouse, 264 00:29:10,850 --> 00:29:18,080 yet bomb maker man Alexis Barriere and Global Sound Music by Jack Forcett, 265 00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:30,640 voiceover by who led a special thank you to Muranga Thomas from Oslo and the Knowledge Exchange.