Response to the Museums 20:20 paper
The Crafts Council responded to Museums 2020, the Museums Association's initiative to create a new vision for UK museums and their impact through a focus on the difference that museums can make to individuals, communities, society and the environment.
Crafts Council welcome the opportunity to respond to the Museum 2020 discussion paper and are keen to make a contribution to shaping the Museums Association’s vision.
As you know, the Crafts Council is England’s national development agency for contemporary craft. We aim to build a strong economy and infrastructure for contemporary craft, to increase and diversify the audience for contemporary craft and to champion high quality contemporary craft practice nationally and internationally.
As the national development agency for contemporary craft, the Crafts Council works to raise the profile of contemporary craft through critical debate and by building an evidence base that demonstrates the nature and value of craft. We support makers’ professional development, build the market for contemporary craft by running fairs and promoting export, and works to encourage participation and learning, promoting opportunities for interaction and informal engagement with craft.
By way of introduction, I would like to make some general comments, before answering the specific questions you raise in your discussion paper.
First, whilst the Crafts Council is a national development agency, rather than a museum, we play a significant role in promoting access to our own and partners’ collections which facilitates the inspiration, learning and enjoyment characterised by the purpose of museums.
Our response therefore reflects the breadth of our activities and how they contribute to our perspective on your paper.
Our priorities include:
• Promoting excellence in the care of collections by raising standards
• Promoting accessibility through greater public engagement
• Developing education programmes
• Investing in curatorial development
• Developing shared practice and improving partnership
• Promoting critical debate and thinking
• Disseminating good practice through our sector.
Second, our view is informed by the decision we took some years ago to close our gallery space and to extend our reach by presenting the Crafts Council Collection through exhibitions in partnership with major London and regional museums, thus opening up access to a wider range and greatly increased numbers of visitors.
One demonstration of our success is the Power of Making exhibition in partnership with the V&A which attracted 320,000 visitors over 18 weeks in 2011 making it the most popular free exhibition in the V&A’s history. A further example is the Crafts Council touring exhibition Block Party which was installed at the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester from July to September 2012 and which achieved over 50,000 visitors.
In support of our approach, we would welcome the opportunity to seek Arts Council accreditation for the Collection; however, as you will know, the current accreditation rules apply exclusively to venues with facilities for display.
Consultation questions
Q1
Looking back over the past year or so, how has your museum made the greatest difference to individuals, communities, society or the environment?
We would highlight the following:
• Our acquisition programme raises standards, pushing the boundaries and perceptions of what to collect. The Crafts Council Collection is augmented annually by acquisitions that provide a snapshot of the most innovative contemporary craft produced during that year. Our ring-fenced acquisitions budget has enabled us to expand the Collection consistently each year for the past 40 years.
• In addition to augmenting the Crafts Council Collection on a regular basis, we operate a regular touring programme, making a series of innovative exhibitions available for subsidised hire to small and medium sized regional galleries, museums and venues across the UK, mindful of the context of affordability.
The exhibitions showcase contemporary craft through inspiring commissions, loaned works and objects from the Crafts Council Collection.
Under our Fifty:Fifty programme, we work with selected partners to co-curate and deliver partnership exhibitions with larger regional venues. This programme gave rise to the exhibition Lost in Lace which generated 40,000 visitors for Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from October 2011 to February 2012.
• We would also highlight the role of touch which we have promoted through our Handling Collection. Our dynamic and accessible secondary collection offers a rich educational resource for a wide variety of learners. It was started in 1979 to support the gallery education programme in place at the time and now comprises over 600 objects accompanied by sketches, books and background material. Communities are now directly involved in creating the boxes for loan and the collection is increasingly being digitised.
• Crafts Magazine continues as an important resource for the sector, generating critical debate while presenting innovative contemporary craft to the public.
• The Crafts Council Collective portfolio of five CPD programmes for makers throughout their careers is delivered in partnership with HEIs and regional organisations, reaching a wide audience of makers whose work will, in some cases, become the focus of future museum acquisitions.
• In recent years, we have partnered the Art Fund on ArtFund Collect, a competitive programme to enable curators to bid to acquire objects for public collections from Collect, the Crafts Council’s international art fair for contemporary objects. This increases public access to world-class contemporary craft while offering a professional development opportunity for curators during the selection and bidding process.
Our experience of these initiatives has generated responses from participants which reflect the full breadth of the role which your paper identifies museums can play.
Q2
Over the next few years, how might your museum build on that, and use its reputation and resources to make a greater impact?
The Crafts Council is committed to providing opportunities for the public to engage with contemporary craft through the Crafts Council Collection and through its exhibitions programme. As above, we continue to acquire new work for the Crafts Council Collection and make this available through a range of exhibition and loan opportunities.
It is our ambition to increase the extent to which our collection and accompanying archive materials are available to view online. We have begun to augment our website with material from our archive which contextualises some objects through our 40th anniversary online exhibition 40:40: 40 objects for 40 years. We would like to extend this facility to the full 1600+ objects in our collection and intend to pursue funding opportunities for this.
Q3
Over the next five to 10 years, how can your museum make a greater difference to individuals?
See Q2.
In addition, the Crafts Council will continue (funding permitting) to provide resources, research and professional development opportunities for makers, curators, educators and anyone interested in craft.
We are currently developing the next phase of our public-facing participation and learning programme, based on our experience of the first phase undertaken over the last three years.
Q4
How could you build ideas of happiness, health and wellbeing into what you do in your museum?
As an organisation, our work addresses these issues in the following areas:
• Setting a gold standard for excellence and through this driving increased ambition and aspiration through the sector
• Promoting the opportunity for partnerships, networks, information sharing and dissemination through public engagement
• Promotion of environmentally sustainable practices to address the local: global agenda
• Attention to ethics and integrity
• Opportunities for student placements, interns and volunteers, for example through the intergenerational programme Craft Club
• Equality and diversity promoted through our policies and procedures
• An open call for application to Crafts Council programmes
• Staff training
Our research shows that three out of four craft graduates are satisfied with their overall work situation (in interviews conducted with professionals up to six years after graduation), and that this holds true for those from less affluent and educated families, as well as for those with dyslexia, which is twice as common amongst craft graduates as in the UK population as a whole. It also shows that craft graduates are socially mobile, with more first generation attendees at HE level than from other areas of art and design.
Looking beyond the graduate population, craft can also create new routes to employment for people from more severely disadvantaged backgrounds. Community based craft programmes routinely encourage first steps towards work for people with special education needs or a disability, and who suffer from other forms of disadvantage in the workplace. Our research shows what a real difference these first steps can make to quality of life – building the personal and social confidence that leads to further education and work.
The withdrawal of funding from community based craft programmes – combined with limited formal training opportunities in craft – is a major cause for concern, given there is clear potential for craft to create social mobility in the workplace.
Q5
How can your museum become closer to its communities over the next five to 10 years?
See Q2.
In addition, funding permitting, we aim to include a specific community focus in our work on digitising the Collection archive and to look at ways in which we can more closely integrate our exhibitions and participation programmes to ensure that community participants can gain full value from our exhibition content through allied activities.
Q6
How could you better involve people as participants in your museum’s displays, exhibitions, programmes and decision-making?
See Q5 re public participation including our desire to involve non-professional volunteers in the digitisation of the Collection archive; and the current engagement of volunteers in the development of our Handling Collection (Q1).
In the professional sphere, we have a strong history of engaging makers as decision makers and active participants: as trustees; acquisition advisors; on the Crafts Council Collection selection panel; and on the various Collective selection panels, all with the intention of actively encouraging peer review and feedback.
We encourage public participation through the inclusion of response mechanisms for our partnership, touring and online exhibitions, either online or through a contribution or interaction.
In all or our initiatives and programmes, we actively seek opportunities for consultation and to conduct baseline and summative evaluation.
Q7
How can your museum better use and develop its collection and the creation of knowledge to increase its contribution to society and to cultural life?
We would draw attention to our ambition to:
• Promote more extensively the story of contemporary craft in general and, in particular, to set the standard for the collection of non-plinth based work (performative, ephemeral, large-scale)
• Work more smartly to make the connection between our primary and our handling Collections
• Promote a more direct connection between people, such as through our Handling Collection and its use of volunteers (see Q1)
• Extend our digital archive investment (see Q2)
• Extend knowledge of contemporary craft by presenting it in new contexts, such as the British Business Embassy at Lancaster House in summer 2012 where it was seen by national and international business leaders; in regional museums and galleries who have yet to engage with contemporary craft and in other contexts to build on previous and current loans to healthcare, education and other environments
• Further develop our CPD programme for curators.
• Develop an active student placement and volunteer programme.
In addition, we will continue with our series of online exhibitions which allow everyone to delve deeper into the Crafts Council Collection of contemporary craft. With two online showcases per year, our programme offers in-depth information, leads debate on selected works in the Collection, deepens insight into seminal works and invites fresh perspectives on craft. The online format increases public access to this important Collection, enabling a greater understanding of its value, and challenging the perceptions and expectations of craft at large.
Q8
What potential is there for your museum to promote human rights, equality and social justice?
As a national development agency, we will continue to highlight the social and economic value of craft, building on our findings in Making Value: craft and the economic and social contribution of makers ; in Crafting Futures: a study of the early careers of crafts graduates from UK higher education institutions and in Craft and Rural Development.
Q9
How can your museum support the protection of the natural environment, or promote ways of living that are less damaging to the environment?
Contemporary craft makers are working towards a more sustainable future: in our briefing note Craft and Environmental Sustainability we explore how makers are developing their use of recycled and sustainably-sourced materials and pioneering new, low-impact alternatives to craft processes that have detrimental environmental impacts.
Our research report, Craft in an Age of Change, also highlights how 31% of makers had changed their practice in response to environmental concerns. Of those who had done so, more than half were trying to use more environmentally sensitive or sustainable materials, while just under a third had changed their production processes to make them more environmentally sensitive or sustainable. A fifth was using local suppliers in a bid to reduce transport miles.
Q10
How will your museum make a greater difference to individuals, communities, society and the environment? Should there be less emphasis on attracting increasing numbers of visitors to permanent displays?
Our role as an agency outlined above reflects this approach and can be witnessed in our emphasis on:
• Touring exhibitions
• Our online programme
• Our suite of loans schemes for museums and galleries
• The importance we attach to sharing practice and the promotion of partnership working.
Our approach is present in the extent and range of contexts in which we work, from our current triennial partnership programme with the V&A (see the reference in our introductory paragraphs to the Power of Making which featured in this programme) on one hand, and our work with local and regional partners on the other.
Q11
In 2020, if things go well, which two or three impacts should be the main focus of the work of your museum?
• Use of technology
• International collaborations and partnerships
• The promotion of educational opportunities and of greater access to contemporary craft.
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Q12
What could be the main barriers to achieving those impacts? How will people who work for your museum, and its funders, need to think and act differently?
We would highlight the following:
• Funding – the impact of funding cuts on museums and galleries has been harsh, which in turn places pressure on craft
• The potential impact on children’s opportunities to learn about craft – already marginalised under current systems – of the National Curriculum Review of the Key Stage 3 curriculum and of the proposed introduction of the EBacc at Key Stage 4, both of which risk having a knock-on impact on take-up of A level and undergraduate study in craft
• Curation – in spite of the trend towards greater understanding and appreciation of craft, there remains some resistance amongst some gallery curators to a focus on craft based on lack of awareness of what this can encompass
• The capacity of museums and galleries to adapt to digital and environmental change, to the impact of the recession, and to increasing globalisation
• As with all organisations, we will be exploring how to think and act differently to achieve these points listed above.
