jo besley, queensland museum
DESCRIPTION
Jo Besley, Senior Curator Social History, Queensland Museum, and Churchill Fellow 2009 presented at the M&GSQ State Conference 2011 on "Closure? Or opening? Museums as ‘crucibles’ for identity, healing and recovery".TRANSCRIPT
Plenary: Agents of Social ChangeHall A, MECCChair: Jo Besley
Jo BesleySenior Curator Social History, Queensland Museum, and Churchill Fellow 2009
Closure? Or opening? Museums as ‘crucibles’ for identity, healing and recovery
“Museums are morphing. Once they were chroniclers or collectors, gathering objects and facts and putting them on display. Now many have become crucibles: places where a cultural identity is hammered out, refined and reshaped”
Ed Rothstein, The New York Times, July 20, 2006
Making space
• Civic spaces: active citizenship
• Safe spaces: social justice
• Community spaces: participation
Opening up, breaking the silence
• Participants and visitors
• Truth recovery
• Public acknowledgement
Re-visit and commemorate
• Tell the story in your own way
• Share the details
• Mourning
• Reflection
• Both participants and visitors
Reconnect and create new narratives
• Reconnect with others - reconciliation, social harmony
• Personal and communal recovery
• Find a mission