Newcastle University

Faculty Member, International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies

Director of ICCHS and Senior Lecturer in Museum, Gallery and Heritage Studies

About

I am primarily interested in identities and heritage and I understand ‘heritage’ in the broadest sense. For me ‘heritage’ includes museums, galleries and heritage sites but also the many different ways that people and societies define and practice what they understand as ‘heritage’ outside the scope of formal cultural heritage institutions. As part of this, I try to understand how collective and personal memories and identities are interwoven within the physical and symbolic space of the museum. In particular, I am interested in museum displays about the histories of a place (whether regional, national, international or post-national).

I am especially fascinated by national heritages and how museums, in particular, are part of the process by which a given group comes to articulate a sense of collective past, present and future. Often this means I will look at competing discourses and the process by which certain national heritages become legitimsed as opposed to others. My focus on national museums means that my work often involves thinking about the relationships between governments, states, and cultural heritage institutions. However, I am equally interested in how individuals negotiate between what they bring to their encounters with museums and what they find there in terms of collections and displays.

My work is mostly concerned with the European context and the UK. More recently I have been working on ideas of postnationalism and the national museum beyond Europe.

Although my work is rooted in ideas of cultural theory, I aim to draw out the implications for curatorship and wider museum practice. My work seeks to connect theoretical debates with practical concerns; my teaching and research projects frequently involve collaborating with heritage sector professionals.

Previous projects:

"Museums, Nations, Identities: Wales and its National Museums." This research project examined the relationship between museums and nations with specific reference to the National Museum Wales. For more information please see the books section of this page.

"Art on Tyneside". In 2009 I was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) research grant (£345k). My co-researchers on this project were Dr Chris Whitehead and Dr Helen Graham, also of the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies (ICCHS), Newcastle University. Project title: ‘Art on Tyneside: Redeveloping a Permanent Display about Art, Place and Identity at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle.  The gallery reopened in November 2010 and the research project ended in February 2011.

Current Research
"National Museums and Identities". I am the Co-Investigator on one of the work packages of the FP7 project 'Reinterpreting Europe's Cultural Heritage: towards the 21st century library and museum.' (Chris Whitehead is the Principal Investigator). The work package in question examines the historical and contemporary relationships between European museum representations and identity within the contextual structure of place.

"Holding Memories: Dementia, Memory, Objects and Museums". A new area of research interest for me relates to dementia, memory, objects and museums. My interest is in how we might bring together understanding from research into material culture, identity, neurology, memory, gerontology, wellbeing and sensory methodologies with museum practice in object handling and reminiscence, specifically involving people with dementia. With my colleague, Areti Galani, I organised two interdisciplinary workshops in September and November 2010 on this theme. The workshops brought together external academics and practitioners with colleagues from ICCHS and other parts of our University. These workshops were supported through the University's Changing Age programme. To find out more see: http://holdingmemories.wordpress.com/about-2/

Following on from the Art on Tyneside Project, I am involved as Principal Investigator in an AHRC follow-up project to investigate Partnership and Participation: Copyright and Informed Consent in Museum, Gallery and Heritage Participatory Projects’. My co-researchers are Nigel Nayling (School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology, University of Wales, Trinity St David) and Helen Graham (International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Newcastle University). In developing the project, we are working closely with staff from Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums and Newport City Museum and Heritage Service. Find out more at: http://partnershipandparticipation.wordpress.com/

Contact Information