Thirteenth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

‘Zine but not heard?’ is a collaborative project that uses multimedia ‘Zine’ making to facilitate conversations between museum professionals and young people with experience of foster care and their foster carers. In recent years, there has been an increased emphasis on the importance of the involvement of historically marginalised groups in conversations about museum curation, education, and representation. However, amongst this push for increased accessibility and inclusivity in museums, work concerning children living away from their birth families and their carers has been conspicuously absent. ‘Zine but not heard?’ has utilised the production of zines, non-commercial multi-media magazines, to address this gap. The aim of this workshop is to share lessons from this project, build skill sets and knowledge for museum professionals wishing to engage foster families in museum spaces, and introduce zine-making as a method for starting conversations between museum workers and under-represented groups. The workshop will engage museum stakeholders in a series of activities responding to zine material produced by care-experienced young people and their families and provide an opportunity for attendees to produce their own zine content. By the end of the workshop, we hope to have shared and further co-produced ideas and reflections for museum professionals to use in building confidence, representation, and participation of care-experienced young people and their carers in museum engagement.