Written by Rebecca Ryan, a Learning Officer on our Schools team
Bradford has a rich and special history. No one who has been to our sites could deny that. As a district, we’ve been shaped by migration, industry, empire, resistance, creativity, and invention. Our galleries celebrate this heritage, and the Schools Team wants young people to feel proud of their city and understand both it and their place in the world, in both local and national contexts. Our museums are continually evolving as new research, perspectives and community voice deepen our understanding of the past.
Part of this is recognising that museums are never neutral. The objects we display, the labels we write, the stories we highlight, and those that have historically been absent or underrepresented, all shape how young people understand the world. Truthfully, if, as the Schools Team, we want young people to see themselves in museum spaces, we need to be willing to ask difficult questions about how our stories are told and who gets to tell them.
Recognising this has led the wider learning team to embark on a journey to consider how we might decolonise our practice. And with support from Manchester and Sheffield Museums, the Schools Team has begun to consider what decolonisation might look like in the workshops and learning resources that we deliver to schools, and the opportunities it might create.
In practice, decolonisation encourages learners to critically engage with what they see in museums, exploring how objects were collected, interpreted, and presented, and whose perspectives may be absent or marginalised. For instance, at Cliffe Castle, the Egyptian Gallery contains an impressive array of objects from Ancient Egypt, including a mummified person. The School’s Team uses this gallery as part of our teaching on Ancient Egypt, one of our most popular workshops. Like many museum services we are updating our ancient Egyptian workshops to ensure they reflect current understanding and inclusive practice. We have reflected on how our mummification activity may unintentionally simplify or misrepresent a deeply significant cultural and spiritual practice.
Decolonising this workshop might involve asking learners about the provenance of the mummified person and the ethics of keeping them on display at Cliffe Castle. We might consider how it is the case that a person who died over a thousand years ago, on a whole other continent, has come to be on display in a Bradford Museum?
We might ask whether this person would have consented to being on display here and consider the role of the British Empire in the acquisition and movement of objects from Ancient Egypt. The updated workshop will remain engaging and interactive, while continuing to meet curriculum requirements and support key skills such as critical thinking, enquiry, and empathy.
Yet, whilst asking difficult questions about the provenance of our galleries is a key tenet of decolonisation, it isn’t the entirety of the strategy. It must also include increasing meaningful engagement with diverse communities. For instance, as part of our Ancient Egyptians workshop, we encourage learners to consider the life of the mummified person on display. We want learners to recognise that this mummified person was once living and breathing. A whole being with their own thoughts, feelings, passions, and dreams. Humanising the past is a key part of what we aim to do. Placing humanity and empathy at the heart of our practice can only ever be a good thing.
The Schools Team has to consider the ethics of our practice as we develop new workshop ideas too. Recently, we’ve developed a workshop on Empire, Partition, and Art, using artworks such as Exodus Lahore on display at Cartwright Hall to offer a human perspective on global events such as the Partition of India and Pakistan, an event which continues to bear relevance to many of our Bradford communities. We’re also developing a new topic box on Bradford’s links to the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans, using The Wanderer by Yinka Shonibare to consider the journey enslaved peoples made from West Africa to the Americas, whilst also acknowledging how Bradford’s wool industry contributed to and profited from the expansion of the Transatlantic Trade. Equally, there is ample evidence that many Bradford communities were passionate supporters of the abolition of slavery. Offering, and often celebrating, the Bradford perspective on these big national and international events is a key part of our practice.
Decolonising museum spaces asks us to recognise that there are no easy or right answers to the questions we pose. There is no binary choice between what is right and what is wrong. At a time when algorithms create false dichotomies, museums must remain places for nuanced thought. For the Schools Team, it is right is that we ask difficult questions with openness and respect. These questions are an opportunity to support our learners in seeing the full history of our fantastic city, appreciating our objects with greater nuance and understanding than ever before.