British Museum: Artists urge change for anti-slavery work

On hearing the thoughts of the Voices from the Edge group, Ceredigion Museum’s curator Carrie Canham said: “I absolutely agree with the group.”

She added: “We’re a small museum, we have seven people who work for this museum and one person works full time out of the service.

“There’s massive capacity issues within the sector because everything has shaved down to the bone really in terms of our service and what we can do so project work like this is really shaped by external funding that’s available.”

She said she would like to see museums becoming a statutory service so that they are publicly funded as well as better representation at museums.

Dr Alicia Hughes, Project Curator for the Sloane Lab at the British Museum, said she had been “blown away” by the very, very thoughtful conversations, time and commitment that each member of the group has given to the project, adding: “it is a very, very complex subject, it’s a very emotional subject and it is something that the museum has a responsibility to address”.

She said the “process of listening to the group and what was important to them has been really powerful for myself”.

Dr Hughes said one of the reasons Ceredigion Museum had been selected for the touring exhibition was because in its application it said it wanted to work with Voices from the Edge and that emotional support would be provided within the group.

“So we understood from the beginning of selecting Ceredigion that that was going to be something that was provided for within the project,” she said.

She said she agreed that more funding should be available for projects like this.

A Welsh government spokesperson confirmed it funded the AIM Re:Collections programme which helps museums deliver the goals of its Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan, external, which included establishing the Voices from the Edge group.

It said the group’s work was “invaluable in demonstrating how Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic perspectives and experiences need to be treated as a natural part of the histories that museums document and explore”.