Breakout Sessions 2
Please register for the individual session you would like to attend using the Inkpath registration links listed below. Don't forget that you must have registered to attend the whole Congress on Eventbrite first, before signing up for individual sessions on Inkpath.
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When you are at the Congress, please register your attendance at each session you attend by scanning or entering the Inkpath code, which you will find on the door of each room. If you have any trouble using Inkpath, please come and speak to the Techne Team at the Congress reception desk during the breaks and we will be happy to help.
How intersectional are you? PGR narratives
15:45 - 16:45
Cornwall Suite
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This interactive workshop will showcase sketch videos developed by research students across Techne universities, addressing different facets of intersectionality. The session will use these short, two-minute videos to stimulate discussion of participants' experiences. We will encourage participants to develop their own intersectional narrative in collaboration with others. The session will also invite congress delegates to co-design follow-on activities from the videos which could generate further reflection on intersectional issues.
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Professor Ted Vallance is Director of Research and Doctoral Study at the University of Roehampton and institutional lead for techne. He has led the techne diversity hub project (www.technediversity.co.uk) in collaboration with our racial justice fellows. He is a historian of early-modern England and is currently researching and writing a new history of the trial and execution of Charles I.
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Dr Melissa Jogie is the Institutional Research Culture Lead on university-wide initiatives to develop the knowledge exchange culture and citizenship of academic staff and postgraduate students across all research Centres. She is a Trinidadian-Australian who completed her PhD at the Australian National University in 2017. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach to education, social justice and human flourishing. She engages with contemporary theories across these domains, looking towards shaping a concept of 'sanctuary for social wellbeing'.
Untold Stories: Listening to Unheard Voices
15:45 - 16:45
Cambridge Room
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In this session our Technecast podcast team will facilitate a discussion about the medium of podcasts as a place of social engagement for minority voices. This will involve discussions around the tensions between academia and activism, decolonising the curriculum and how research production, communication and assessment fits within EDI considerations.
Olivia Aarons – Techne student (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Felix Clutson – Techne student (University of Surrey)
Eva Dieteren - Techne student (Kingston University)
Chiara Muzzi - Techne student (Loughborough University London)
Pragya Sharma - Techne student (University of Brighton)
Isabel Sykes – Techne student (Brunel University)
Otherness and whiteness in the Art/Museum Sector
15:45 - 16:45
Derby Room
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This practical and discursive session uses porcelain to facilitate conversations on the decolonisation of whiteness in the museum and art worlds. We approach this from the varying positions of maker, curator and educator. We invite participants to join us in making collaborative clay artworks that embody the subject of ‘othering’ whiteness. What does this mean? Is it possible? What could it entail? Come prepared to engage in potentially difficult discussions on racism, colonialism, whiteness and oppression. We ask that you bring a willingness to listen, learn and contribute, while maintaining a respect for other participants at all times.
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This session will include discussions on racism, colonialism, whiteness and historic and present oppression and inequality. Participants will be encouraged and expected to share their personal experiences. Therefore, we aim to provide a welcoming, inclusive and ‘safe’ experience for all involved, but advise that participants only sign up if they are prepared to share and contribute. Racism, discrimination, harassment, bullying, intimidation and xenophobia will not be tolerated in any form. This workshop prioritises marginalised people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort.
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Victoria Burgher’s interdisciplinary, practice-based research explores the potency of porcelain, a colonial commodity laden with symbolic value, as a sculptural material to counter hegemonic whiteness and challenge the precariously fragile and white view of colonial history. Her research questions whether using porcelain as part of an activist art practice can avoid further centring whiteness and instead work effectively in the service of collective anti-racist action?
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Laharee Mitra’s research explores how ‘decolonisation’ is conceptualised within UK-based ethnographic museums, focusing on the work of learning and engagement staff. She explores how decolonisation, as a praxis formed by people who were oppressed by colonialism, may be used in the UK with its history of empire and migration.
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Morag Thomas’s work provides a prehistory to recent highly publicised discussions of museum decolonisation, studying white Victorian collectors of ethnographic material on the North West Coast of Canada and their use of physical and epistemic violence in constructing museum collections and displays. In doing so, she argues, white Victorians constructed a specific racial identity for themselves, of which violence was a cornerstone.
An Introduction to the Trans Inclusive Culture Guidance
15:45 - 16:45
Oxford Room
Sign up for this session here.
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In the context of growing uncertainty and anxiety surrounding trans-inclusive practice in the cultural sector, the University of Leicester’s Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) – working with a team of legal scholars and experts in inclusion, equality and ethics – has developed comprehensive guidance on advancing trans inclusion for museums, galleries, archives and heritage organisations. The development of the guidance was funded via the Economic and Social Research Council.
The guidance, intended primarily for anyone working with or in museums, galleries, archives and heritage, sets out an ethical framework to support cultural organisations to advance trans inclusion. It explains key components of UK law, as well as some of the limitations and complexities of the law.
In this session, three of the authors (Richard Sandell, Suzanne MacLeod and E-J Scott) will discuss the guidance and provide further information about how to foster trans-inclusive practice.
The Guidance document is available here.
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