VIRTUAL London Heritages Conference
Abstract
John Urry (1995: 55) argued that engagement with lived experiences on one’s terms can be personal (focused on one’s locality) or collective (focused on a broader shared interest or marker of belonging and identity such as class, gender, generation, and ethnicity). In contexts where lived experiences have been subjected to systemic marginalisation and subordination, John Urry noted further that seeing certain scenes or artefacts relating to those experiential realities functions to reawaken repressed desires and opens up possibilities of reminiscing about what might have been and how events or relationships could have turned out differently — including what that might reveal about the future. This abstract proposes to discuss how an ongoing, progressive, innovative, academic-policy engagement partnership between Leicestershire County Council (LCC) as a local authority and the University of Nottingham (UoN) as a higher-education provider is addressing systemic erasures and gaps in the preservation and interpretation of selected museum collections under LCC’s stewardship. Discussion will focus on how marginalised and hidden artefacts featuring queer narratives are being co-curated, researched, digitised, and made widely accessible to (1) deepen digital heritage engagement with contested and undermined social histories across the county of Leicestershire and beyond, and (2) enhance our understanding of the historical contributions made by queer communities. Discussion will further critique the ‘historical facticity’ (Katriel, 1999: 107) that informed the systemic subjugation and erasure of queer individuals and their narratives in shared heritage while inviting broader expressions of alternative and experiential readings of these within museum collections through digital community co-creation.
Daniel H. Mutibwa is Associate Professor of Creative Industries and Digital Culture in the Department of Cultural, Media and Visual Studies, University of Nottingham, UK. Daniel researches and teaches in the areas of media and communication; creative industries; digital economy; the arts and heritage; and cultural transformations in place-based communities.
Amanda Hanton is the Audience Development Manager for Leicestershire County Council’s Heritage. Libraries, Collections, Learning and Participation teams who form Culture Leicestershire. https://www.cultureleicestershire.co.uk The service is an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation which Amanda leads on. Her expertise is supporting the facilitation of co-created cultural projects with underrepresented communities. Amanda leads on volunteering for the service and wrote the corporate framework for volunteer engagement. She is chair of the East Midlands Heritage Volunteering Group (HVG) and sits on the National HVG Advisory group.
Esther Shaw is part of Culture Leicestershire (CuL)’s participation team and works with communities to promote well-being through connecting and sharing culture and heritage. As part of CuL’s audience development strategy, Esther has worked with faith groups at Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre and Charnwood Museum, co-curating exhibitions and developing meaningful and lasting relationships with underserved audiences. Esther felt inspired to explore LGBTQ+ hidden histories after meeting the curator E J Scott and visiting the Museum of Transology in Brighton. Esther loves visiting museums and is fascinated by the power of objects, pictures and sounds to prompt people’s stories.
Alison Clague – As Senior Curator for Leicestershire County Council’s Museums, I make the collections we care for accessible through research, exhibitions, web content and social media. I love sharing our wonderful objects and the stories they can inspire with our communities. My team works with volunteers, community groups and higher education providers to spark inspiration and promote a sense of place. In the past year I have co-ordinated the redisplay of the Hallaton Helmet and worked on the development of our LGBTQ+ strand.
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Thursday 26th June, 2025