Extinction Silences
Commissioned by
2022-Ongoing
YEAR
Consultancy: Decolonisation, Co-design, Community Engagement, Organisational Change
TAGS
Young Creatives
Iman Sultan West
Parys Gardener
Valentina Huxley
Carlo Hornilla
Gabriela Sobriera
Leeza Awojobi
Workshop photography by Mercedes Polo Portillo
As part of this Extinction Silences project, we recruited and supported a cohort of young consultants to work with Bristol Museum and Art Gallery as part of a project funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation on deconstructing the colonial legacy of their World Wildlife Gallery and Collection.
Over two years the consultants have worked with the Senior Curator for Natural Sciences, Isla Gladstone, and the wider team at Bristol Museum and Wildlife Gallery to offer meaningful recommendations and actions to support the museum to engage with the colonial legacies of the collection, the role of the museum in challenging some of these narratives and interrogating how this is experienced by audiences and visitors.
impact
Through this project, we have been able to support young creatives to step into consultancy roles, offering their unique perspectives as artists and young people living in Bristol to help Bristol Museum and Gallery make meaningful changes for their visitors and staff.
Through the wider storytelling and documentation of this Extinction Silence project, we have been using this work to model how effective co-design and meaningful power sharing with communities can support cultural organisations such as museums and heritage sites to introduce radical interventions to better engage audiences, support their staff and fulfil their civic duties.