Abstract
The paper presents an account of how socio-political crisis, urgency and instability in the public sphere impacts contemporary museology, through a case study of rapid response collecting at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a pioneering acquisition strand that enables the immediate collection and display of contemporary designed objects. The classification of “Rapid Response Collecting” is complex, emphasising a logic of speed, but also disaster management and emergency services. The Covid-19 pandemic has been a catalyst for change, leading to the emergence of rapid response initiatives within other UK museums. This replication has further integrated this type of work, drawing light on key ethical considerations as well. This project uses original interviews and an inductive approach to derive the ethics that propel this emerging practice, and how it fits within long-term collections development and collections management processes. I trace the development of specific rapid response collections from acquisition to display to evaluate the extent to which rapid response collecting is an expression of individual or institutional activism and identify how an accelerated collecting process influence stakeholder engagement. I analyse the connectivity of “rapid response” objects within the catalogue, speculating about how their documentation might influence the long-term visibility of certain narratives within the museum, and link outwards associative network of actors, artefacts, and events. Finally, I present a hypothesis of how rapid response collecting, as practice and policy, produces new museum temporalities, museum ethics and collections development strategies, and consider what this approach offers to the making of Future Museum.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Collecting; Ethics; Community engagement' Crisis; Future Museum
