Listen to Lisa Power, a trustee of Queer Britain and co-founder of LGBT rights charity, Stonewall, talking about museums and representation in relation to LGBTQ histories. Lisa was a guest speaker at the Cumberland Lodge conference on 'Difficult Histories & Positive Identities' on 25-26 February 2019.
She outlined plans for the new Queer Britain museum in London, on LGBTQ histories, and she addressed the following questions:
- As politicians and others issue calls for new shared narratives and unity, how might museums balance demands for a more critical engagement with the past, on the one hand, with their responsibility to craft shared histories and identity, on the other?
- How can museums position themselves as shapers of national and local identities in a contested and divided historical landscape?
- Is it possible to celebrate and represent historically marginalised communities in mainstream museums?
- To create cohesive identities, what does society need from 21st-century museums?
