Museums for 'The People'?
Museums for 'The People'? by Josie Appleton: £5 (Original out of print, photocopy available)
Call +44 (0) 20 7269 9220, or send a cheque made payable to Academy of Ideas Ltd to the address at the bottom of the screen.
Call +44 (0) 20 7269 9220, or send a cheque made payable to Academy of Ideas Ltd to the address at the bottom of the screen.
'A new political agenda now dominates museum policy and has begun to create a new type of museum. The rallying cry of this new political agenda is that museums should find their rationale, not in their collections, but in 'The People'. But 'The People' that museums are so anxious to follow is a pure projection hatched withink the establishment - for the service of establishment interests.'
Josie Appleton
Institute of Ideas
Appleton's essay is published along with responses from
- Robert Anderson
- British Museum
- Charles Saumarez Smith
- National Portrait Gallery
- Professor David Lowenthal
- University College London
- Timothy Mason
- cultural consultant
- David Barrie
- National Art Collections Fund
- Sue Millar
- Greenwich University
- François Matarasso
- Comedia
- Ian Walker
- Horsham Museum
- Richard Fortey
- Natural History Museum
- Maurice Davies
- Museums Association
'The real culprits are the politicians, who, having failed to grasp that museums are valuable in themselves have insisted that in return for state funding they must help deliver political goals like social inclusion or urban renewal.'
David Barrie
National Art Collections Fund
'Museums have indeed 'put perceived needs of people at the heart of their work' and in doing so have placed themselves and their collections firmly in the 21st century.'
Timothy Mason
cultural consultant
'I truly don't know how much I love The People, but I do know that I very much want The People to love trilobites.'
Richard Fortey
Natural History Museum