- The Activist Museum Award
- Addressing the museum attendance and benefit gap
- Articulate
- Birmingham Museum Trust Vision
- Books connect 2
- Building inclusive museums
- Buried in the footnotes
- Cabinet of Curiosities
- A Catalyst for Change
- The Cinematic Musée Imaginaire of spatial cultural differences [CineMuseSpace]
- Contested Desires Constructive Dialogues
- Cultural activity within historic houses
- Developing learning advocates in the East Midlands
- Developing learning advocates in the North West
- Developing new audiences and promoting social inclusion
- Disorder, dissent and disruption
- Encountering the Unexpected
- Engage, learn, achieve
- Engaging archives with Inspiring Learning for All
- Engaging the City
- Cultural value of engaging with museums
- Cultural value of engaging with museums
- EuNaMus
- Evaluating Creativity
- Everyone Welcome 2019-2021
- Everywhere and Nowhere
- Exceptional & Extraordinary
- EXILE at Kingston Lacy
- Generic learning outcomes
- girl.boy.child
- Growing social role of botanic gardens
- HumanKind
- Impact of generic learning outcomes
- Imperial War Museum North
- Including Museums
- Inspiration, identity, learning: the value of museums
- Inspiration, identity, learning: the value of museums, second study
- Leaders in Co-creation?
- Learning impact research project
- Learning through Culture
- The Madonna of the pinks
- Making Meaning in Art Museums 1
- Making Meaning in Art Museums 2
- Mapping the change phase 2
- Mindful Museum
- Mirror
- Museu do Samba, Brazil
- Museums and an ageing population
- Museums and social inclusion: the GLLAM report
- Museums health and wellbeing
- Co-production Framework at National Museums Liverpool
- New Walk Museum vision
- Not for the likes of you
- Open House
- Open minds
- Participatory practices at the Science Museum
- Permissible Beauty
- Prejudice & Pride: exploring LGBTQ lives at the National Trust
- Prisoners, Punishment and Torture
- Redefining the Role of Botanic Gardens
- Research network to advance museum ethics
- Researching Learning in Museums and Galleries 1990-1999
- Rethinking Disability Representation
- shOUT
- Small museums and social inclusion
- Stories of a Different Kind
- Supporting Decolonial Futures
- Talking statues
- TCS project
- The Museum as a Space of Social Care
- The Queer Heritage and Collections Network
- Their Past Your Future 2
- Seeing the museum through the visitors’ eyes
- Trans-Inclusive Culture
- Museums and the Transgender Tipping Point
- Unfinished portrait at Felbrigg Hall
- “In the past we would just be invisible”
- What did you learn at the museum today?
- What did you learn at the museum today? Second study
- Return to the start of the menu
- Home
- RCMG
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Research archive
- The Activist Museum Award
- Addressing the museum attendance and benefit gap
- Articulate
- Birmingham Museum Trust Vision
- Books connect 2
- Building inclusive museums
- Buried in the footnotes
- Cabinet of Curiosities
- A Catalyst for Change
- The Cinematic Musée Imaginaire of spatial cultural differences [CineMuseSpace]
- Contested Desires Constructive Dialogues
- Cultural activity within historic houses
- Developing learning advocates in the East Midlands
- Developing learning advocates in the North West
- Developing new audiences and promoting social inclusion
- Disorder, dissent and disruption
- Encountering the Unexpected
- Engage, learn, achieve
- Engaging archives with Inspiring Learning for All
- Engaging the City
- Cultural value of engaging with museums
- Cultural value of engaging with museums
- EuNaMus
- Evaluating Creativity
- Everyone Welcome 2019-2021
- Everywhere and Nowhere
- Exceptional & Extraordinary
- EXILE at Kingston Lacy
- Generic learning outcomes
- girl.boy.child
- Growing social role of botanic gardens
- HumanKind
- Impact of generic learning outcomes
- Imperial War Museum North
- Including Museums
- Inspiration, identity, learning: the value of museums
- Inspiration, identity, learning: the value of museums, second study
- Leaders in Co-creation?
- Learning impact research project
- Learning through Culture
- The Madonna of the pinks
- Making Meaning in Art Museums 1
- Making Meaning in Art Museums 2
- Mapping the change phase 2
- Mindful Museum
- Mirror
- Museu do Samba, Brazil
- Museums and an ageing population
- Museums and social inclusion: the GLLAM report
- Museums health and wellbeing
- Co-production Framework at National Museums Liverpool
- New Walk Museum vision
- Not for the likes of you
- Open House
- Open minds
- Participatory practices at the Science Museum
- Permissible Beauty
- Prejudice & Pride: exploring LGBTQ lives at the National Trust
- Prisoners, Punishment and Torture
- Redefining the Role of Botanic Gardens
- Research network to advance museum ethics
- Researching Learning in Museums and Galleries 1990-1999
- Rethinking Disability Representation
- shOUT
- Small museums and social inclusion
- Stories of a Different Kind
- Supporting Decolonial Futures
- Talking statues
- TCS project
- The Museum as a Space of Social Care
- The Queer Heritage and Collections Network
- Their Past Your Future 2
- Seeing the museum through the visitors’ eyes
- Trans-Inclusive Culture
- Museums and the Transgender Tipping Point
- Unfinished portrait at Felbrigg Hall
- “In the past we would just be invisible”
- What did you learn at the museum today?
- What did you learn at the museum today? Second study
Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG)
Contested Desires Constructive Dialogues
Contested Desires: Constructive Dialogues (CDCD) is a three-year arts and heritage programme, co-funded by the EU Creative Europe, engaging artists to examine European colonialism’s legacy in museums and heritage sites. CDCD aims to challenge the destabilising and divisive impact of the current political landscapes of Europe and beyond, through a deep recognition of the potential of museums and heritage to become sites where complex questions of culture and identity can be hosted, framed and explored in ways that are inclusive, accessible and productive. 22 artists from 11 countries will work with heritage partners and local communities to respond to specific contentious collections and sites and generate new artworks, exhibitions, workshops and events, alongside a series of knowledge exchange workshops and seminars. CDCD has, at its heart, an ambition to be a driver of innovation and change, generating new interpretations and relationships and driving inclusive transformation in both the partner heritage organisations and amongst participating groups and communities. As project lead ECCOM (2024) sets out: ‘The most important outcome of the project will be to provide heritage professionals with methods, resources and – above all – the confidence to use contested heritage as a focus for constructive, democratic dialogue that reflects the best of European values and contributes to reconciliation across the divisions of the past’.
As part of the programme, RCMG was commissioned to provide background research of direct use to the CDCD consortium. The final RCMG report provides background research on:
- key terminology and the conceptual framings of ‘decolonising’ and ‘decoloniality’ in European museums;
- the role of art and artists in generating meaningful dialogue amongst visitors and stakeholders related to contested collections, histories and identities;
- wide-ranging examples of arts-led and arts-centred decolonising practices focused on collections and from a range of lineages of socially engaged art;
- RCMG’s work on ethical frameworks and how this method could support CDCD collaborations;
- RCMG’s work on evaluation and the ways that an emphasis on decoloniality and collaboration will impact what is evaluated and why.
You can download the report (PDF 1.45MB) here.