Materiality in the Socially Engaged Museum: The role of collections within socially purposeful museum practice at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

The project aims to analyse the role of collections in socially engaged practice, exploring how material culture is used and perceived in the context of museum projects that, in different ways, seek to address contemporary social inequalities.

As museums move towards non-neutral and socially, politically and morally charged positions, their role is changing. Visitor-centred practices in the cultural sector have aimed to promote greater understanding, respect and empathy for difference. Exhibitions, programmes and learning activities designed to foster support for equality and diversity have become increasingly present. However, while many of these projects make use of objects (alongside text and other media) to convey their message, research on the specific role of material culture in this socially engaged and purposeful practice has been scarce.

The project is based on fieldwork conducted at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, involving visitor research at three major exhibitions: The Past is Now: Birmingham and the British Empire, Faith in Birmingham and Collecting Birmingham: The Extraordinary Lives of Everyday People. This research seeks to address the gap in knowledge between material culture studies and socially engaged practice. It examines current museum practice from a material culture perspective, considering artefacts as critical actors in the museum’s endeavours to promote inclusion, tolerance and empathy.