Jane Henderson

Sharon Heal, the director of the Museums Association, meets Jane Henderson, a professor of conservation at Cardiff University, for our Radical Museums podcast.

Jane is a long-standing activist and has recently campaigned successfully against the closure of the Museum of Cardiff.

Sharon and Jane discuss the power of museums and their collections, the joys of Cardiff, approaches to culture in Wales, tackling racism in Wales, and the challenges of working in museums today, particularly for those looking to enter the sector.

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Music: The Right Direction © 2020 by Shane Ivers, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Transcript

Sharon Heal I'm Sharon Heal, the Director of the Museums Association. We're a campaigning and values led organisation that's been exploring what radical practice and activism means for museums for a number of years now. Our current campaigns include decolonisation, anti racism, Climate justice and well being. And I'm here in Cardiff to interview Jane Henderson, a professor of conservation at Cardiff University, for our Radical Museums podcast.

Jane is a long-standing activist and has recently campaigned successfully against the closure of the Museum of Cardiff. Welcome to the Radical Museum's podcast.

So Jane, can you introduce yourself and describe your role? 

Jane Henderson So I'm Jane Henderson. I live in Cardiff and I teach conservation at Cardiff University. I've been a conservator all my life. I was an obsessed child and wanted to be a conservator since I was tiny. And I'm currently the secretary, secretary general of the International Institute of Conservation.

So, I'm kind of heavily involved in conservation, and although I am a professor at the university, I'm also a member of the Welsh Federation of Museums, and I think in my heart I'm more of a museum person than I am an academic, if truth be told. 

Sharon Heal Great, that's a brilliant introduction, um, and we've just walked up through Cardiff City Centre, which was great, especially starting with the Betty Campbell statue, but for people that don't know Cardiff, Jane, can you tell us a bit about the city and what makes it special?

Jane Henderson So, Cardiff is Europe's youngest capital city. It's a capital city, um, capital of Wales. And as such, you know, we have a lot of sort of benefits and attractive things. You know, we have operas and ballets and things that you might want to do. So it's got an incredible resource, but it's also, as you've, I've just made you walk here.

It's a pretty walkable city. It's not very far from anything. So it's quite an achievable city with a park running through the middle. It's genuinely a nice place to live, where you can feel very welcome, um, where Welsh language is also very visible. But it also has history, which I think we'll touch on.

Going back to the coal, um, to work, to seafarers coming from particularly Somalia and Yemeni. The, there was race rights in Glasgow in 1919 and shortly after in Cardiff. So, also having had this history of multiculturalism, of welcome and rejection, and of tensions and racism and discrimination. But it's a city which I think is attempting to respond to that.

I mean, you know, I'm not sure that we've gone all the way yet, but I do feel that Cardiff and Wales wants to address some of that past and address it head on. Yeah, and I think all the best cities are built on that art of attentions, and also the ones that can reflect and acknowledge those challenges.

And obviously we would say museums are absolutely central to the telling of those stories. So, um, I was just going to go back to what you said about your job role. You know, what, how does your role at the university play out and your wide role in the museum sector? So I teach conservation. Um, mostly at the moment I'm teaching the care of collections, the preventive conservation side.

So, students come from all around the world, um, some part time as well. So it might be more local museum people and yeah, teaching conservation decision making. And so I teach sort of basic science of light or something. So that might be one class. And then another class we might be talking about. The meaning of an object and how that meaning might be brought into the decisions about its care.

And that's something I have pushed a lot recently. It's what I tend to write about. And it's more that conservation in a sense has a reputation of being something that just happens. I hate that expression behind the scenes, but museums have exhibitions and that's the interesting bit. And then there's all these people behind the scenes who do stuff, which is services.

And I I've always kind of rejected that perspective. I think that conservation, I think everyone, is part of what makes the museum a museum. And I think I can evidence that, you know, in boring things like spotlight surveys, where you see that if your conservation standards are high, your access standards are high.

But If you look at, say, the information that we collect, if your registrars have thought about, you know, not just who brought it in, but whose stuff it was, if they thought about not only what name was it given by the collector, but what name was it given by the user, then those questions then filter way through the documentation.

So, I'm kind of, slightly obsessed with what that looks like in terms of what we do with the conservation. How do we contribute to the museums? Rethinking what they are, why they have things, and what stories. And I'm completely convinced that conservation can be part of that room. Refreshed museum practice.

And that's really nice. I like that because one of the things that strikes us about the museum sector is it can be quite siloed and very hierarchical. So you've almost got the vertical and the horizontal blocks to intersectionality and cross fertilization of ideas. And we know that radical practice doesn't just come from learning and engagement or one section of the workforce community.

So, it's really great that you're drawing conservation into those, um, into those conversations about radical practice. So how do the students respond to that? Well, my evaluation this year, one of the students wrote to me, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it, but I did learn something. Some students love it. You know, this is one of those courses, it's a little bit marmite, but I, I expect all the students to because I think even if you really want Not even.

There's a perfectly sensible conservation career where you are highly skilled, perhaps a metal crafts person or something like that, but your work and your practice should still be influenced by the meaning of something. There's an incredible Barbara Hepworth statue that's completely ignored in the Cardiff Town Centre, which I just Instagram all the time.

Um, and so we talk about, you know, how you might conserve that. And until you sort of think about what Hepworth was doing and why it's there, you can't make decisions. Now, she called it walk in because she wanted people to get into the sculpture. And if you as a conservator say, well, this is made of copper and I know that copper corrodes in a certain way, and if you put your hands on it, then that's going to change the corrosion.

So that's a bad thing. If you find yourself doing that narrative and ignoring What the artist intended, and she wanted trees and landscape and views and vistas, and to engage. So those, those are interesting things, and I think that every conservator could, could engage with those. And all of the students do, to be fair, even if you're discussing how you might.

Take it away to get it conserved, and you know, where you would even park anything, and how you would do the work. Those questions are all connected to the meaning of something, and I think the younger conservators are so open to that. I'm pretty optimistic about the future of conservation in that respect.

Sharon Heal Oh, that's really lovely to hear. And also that way that we can, you know, really draw out the meaning of objects and collections and, and, you know, bring those stories alive is everybody's job, whether you're front of house or back of house or in any role connected or, you know, even a volunteer or a trustee or work with a variety of different museums.

I think that's really, really important. So we're in Cardiff and The Museum of Cardiff in the city centre, which is a pretty special place, came under threat of closure last year. So, how did you hear about that and what was your response? 

Jane Henderson So, my hearing about it was very prosaic. I'd been on a Women Life Freedom protest and I had to get to a Cardiff City game afterwards, um, and I thought I'd stop at the toilet at the museum.

And on my way out, someone who shall remain nameless said, Oh, do you come here often? And I said, yes I do actually. And she said, they'd been told more or less that they were going. [00:08:00] Um, which rather ruined my January because then I had to sort of say, well I actually helped as, you know, I helped plan this. I, I helped discuss the size of the lifts.

I helped, you know, I was involved at that level of detail back in a previous job. And so, yeah, it was, it was quite frightening because there seemed to be quite a sudden Um, shift in my opinion, and I did say it, an ill thought through, um, proposal to, to move, to pivot to a mobile museum, which, mobile museums, fine, but mobile museums with no base aren't museums.

And not as a replacement for a museum in the city centre. And if you look at all the things that made that museum special, you know, how do people access, it's so multi layered, taking a minivan with some things and stick it on an estate, an estate is not access. And I think I understand completely that the public thought, oh, museum that might come to my community, that would be quite nice.

But it wasn't and it wasn't fought through. So we worked. So we did suddenly find myself in the middle of a huge campaign to save the museum, which was tied to the future of libraries and the St. David's Concert Hall as well. Yeah, and obviously as the Museums Association, you know, you alerted us to the consultation that was taking place and we wanted to work with you and the Federation and many others in Cardiff on that campaign.

Sharon Heal So what happened in the campaign? Explain what happened next. 

Jane Henderson I think the most powerful things that started were people talking about things of theirs in the museum. And that's certainly what the media picked up on. Someone who talked about something of her dad's. And she just gave that story and it was Our strength, our power is so obvious.

You collect amazing things with amazing stories from amazing people. And then when it's under threat, you just, you just unleash those stories. So, you know, it was people talking about what they put in the museum and why. Um, someone, Cassie Barris, I think, Wait, hang on, is this the one where they carded three t shirts on display?

You know, and so suddenly, because that was something to do with her family, she was suddenly, like, engaged and You know, I engaged in a bit of Twitter discussion, even people, you know, probably from outside of my normal political spheres, but I was able to point to Cardi I looked through their timelines, I found Cardi's City Medals, Fred Keener's War Medals, albeit they're replicas, but it's a long story.

You know, I said, well, what do you think about Fred Keener's medals? And if a museum represents their community and there's things there that represent different people, then all of a sudden people go, well, that is important. I do want that to be there. And so that was the That was the groundswell. Then there was basically a lot of people, people, you know, mobilized by the Museums Association, mobilized by various supporting organizations like the Welsh Fed as well.

People who were partners, they then started to write. And you know, again, this is, one of the reasons it's so special is that they have built these partnerships, the various staff have built these partnerships. Since its inception, so people like Cardiff People First and Advocacy Charity Founds for Learning Difficulties, who'd been helped, who'd helped design the museum to make it accessible, they spoke up, and certainly on the protests, they were the most powerful voices.

I know, I remember people saying you could see the sort of scales falling from people's eyes when the representatives from Cardiff People First were making a really impassioned case. And actually I've heard them speak previously at a Fed conference actually to museum sector professionals about the value of museums and that was really powerful advocacy in that setting.

Yeah, and it was just talking about the fact that, you know, one of the speakers talked about, you know, she might, it takes her quite a long time to learn a place, how to find a place. How to access it to feel safe. And she was just saying if you take away the museum, I might never leave the house. You know, she may only be a single visitor number, but she's so much more than just one on a can.

You know, that power of museums to, you know, to be champions in their communities really [00:12:00] came through. So I think a lot of the project partners spoke up. People have found time for exhibitions. And I think that was kind of the second wave. And I think this got attention, the counsellors were listening, and then they did, uh, give them their credit.

They then opened up to professional opinion, they started to listen. And, so I think those were the, the, kind of the three steps. And, this is the work that you do as a museum. Sometimes you forget to do The advocacy for yourself because you feel so busy, but you cannot, you have to assume that in a month's time someone's going to close you and you're going to be judged on the last 12 months of things that you've done, you know, have you put in for the awards because as curator, Victoria had won the Museums Association, Radical Changemakers awards. They were able to show they had the Kids and Museums Awards, all the things that the sector does to protect itself kicked in.

You know, we were able to show how powerful the museum was because of all the different sectoral projects, all the partnerships, all the grant funding, all the clawback clauses on the grant funding. Don't forget your clawback clauses. But it was, it was, it was powerful and the council have listened and they set up a scrutiny committee and that scrutiny committee met very quickly, to be honest with you, in spring and early summer of 23.

And took evidence from, really from everyone who'd campaigned. And wrote a report from, which has gone from the Cultural Security Committee. Um, at this stage I'm not quite sure what's happened to it next, but I know it's been recommended. And that report, you know, could have been a very good essay. On how museums are, you know.

It was an excellent piece of work and it reflected what people said. And it was, and it was nice. So, you know, everything we do. is advocacy for ourselves. We've just got to stand behind that, believe in it, be consistent, but make sure you always take the time to underline it, to do the invites, to thank people, to build those contacts and recognitions because those are the people that will save you if you're under threat.

Sharon Heal Absolutely, there's lots of lessons to be learned. Um, and we're recording this in July, Jane, and obviously we're not 100 percent sure what the outcome is, but it looks like there's an extended stay of execution. Tell us what you know. 

Jane Henderson So my understanding is the recommendation is that they're going to have five years to plan and that five years, um, they have understood.

So the report says things like footfall is not the only measure of success, which I'm just so delighted about. You know, it's talked about identifying with the values that the organization serves community. It contributes to wider programs, education and community partnership. And it just seems to have picked up on all those things.

So I'm hoping that over five years, there will be co production. You know, it does help, again, big up to the Lottery, but because the Lottery insists on kind of co productive developments, developments that aren't just sprung on communities, that's definitely got through, so, you know, hopefully in five years time I won't be campaigning against this closure again, but I feel that that's a state of execution, that that is enough time to do what needs to be done.

And, you know, it's not, and that's, that's my goal. You know, it's not my, my, it's not my job to say exactly what location it is, or exactly what funding model they should have. I talk about why the museum is important, and they seem to be getting expert advice on that, and that, to me, is a huge success. And that really is, you know, it's down to.

Sharon Heal The Museums Association, the Welsh Federation of Museums, Cardiff People First, Cardiff Heritage, um, Individuals, Cardiff People's Assembly, um, Cardiff Civic Society, who did so much of the early work with the petition. I forgot, sorry. You know, so many people took the time. And people like you, Jane, because, you know, somebody's got to be central to the campaign.

And I know we relied on your expertise and your knowledge and your ear to the ground and your ability to pull that campaign together. So it's, it's incredible. Actually, I've not seen a campaign like it. And I think there's lots of lessons that we can learn. You've covered some of them we'll be doing as the museums association, a museum conversation later in the year, um, which we'll look at advocacy because you're absolutely right.

We've always. We've got to make the case for the value of our museums, and we've got to activate the other people around us in communities to make that case. Are there any other broader lessons that you draw out? Because there's lots of museums under financial pressure. And as I say, as we've both said, we need to advocate for the sector.

So what are your big, kind of, key take homes? 

Jane Henderson Cardiff I think who can do the advocacy because the moment you're under threat you are locked down. So, normally the staff who have all the information are locked out. So things like the online, um, collections, where you could look at the collections online, that was a great resource for campaigning because I could point people to things that was in the collection.

Knowing, you know, having had their history and things, having got out there, put out there what their achievements were in the past, I could, we could draw on them for messaging. Because, yeah, because you, you, you and your contact list, if you work for the museum, you won't be, it's likely you won't be able to say a word and that's quite weird.

So who's got your back? Who are your partners? That, that was, it was really strange because it's like I, I put a tweet out and it's, I forced myself to do it. But, but it felt really weird. But I put, I am an expert and it was incredible how that resonated. I said, I'm an expert and I can speak on this. And although I felt like a real fraud doing it, it really worked.

It really worked. Saying I have expertise and I know that you can't do this. And other people have a huge sort of said the same sort of thing. So kind of stating your right to say something that's been quite interesting, like, you know, they sort of. You know, in the future, we're just like, maybe we should consult with Professor Jane Henderson.

It's like, who am I anyway? Yeah, just a conservator. No, but, but as we know, you're not just a conservator. And actually, I don't know if there's [00:18:00] a bit of a gendered thing about that as well, that women don't always claim the space, own the space. And you definitely did in this campaign. And also the social media that you It's such an important part of the campaigning now.

Yeah, so just doing all that, and it's, it feels a bit, of course, yes, at times it's a bit embarrassing, you know, being phoned up for interviews and making yourself available for them and, yeah, feeling like a total, um, imposter the whole time. But just doing it, because it, it was what needed to be done. So who are, who's going to speak for us in our museum?

So if you are not going to speak, So the Welsh Federation of Museums is a federation of museums and we have like an officer so they're able to speak, but most of the individual museums can't. And this is quite an interesting question, isn't it? What does the Museums Association stand for on a topic that they've not had a chance to discuss?

Sharon Heal When you're a representative body, it is hard to immediately pivot to an opinion on a current affair issue. We can say we support keeping a museum, but the more specifics of things like, should the museum be in this location, you know, those are things that You know, what's the, should it be local authority funded?

Well, some of our members are, some of our members aren't. So we don't have a principled position on those things. And it is, it is interesting who is allowed to speak. That, and I don't think the world is getting better in that respect. I think it is going to become tougher actually, especially for local authority and even like, you know, ex local authority trusts or um, allios as they are in Scotland.

It's still very difficult for staff to speak and I think you're absolutely right, then that's the role for the Federation or the Museums Council or Museums Association or whichever overarching bodies there might be to step into that space and for individuals where they have agency. to be able to do that as well.

I just love the fact that everybody came together and we all coalesced and there was just a an online group and online does give you the opportunity to meet rapidly and to respond quickly. We've been doing tons of reactive advocacy across the UK but Museum of Cardiff is so far the success story and the best practice, but we know we're going to have to keep that going.

And also in the run up to a general election, we need to be advocating at a local level, at a national level, at a UK wide level, um, so we're going to keep up that campaign. But I just wanted to bring us back to Museum of Cardiff because I've asked you to choose an object that exemplifies your brand of activism and museum work.

So what have you chosen and why? 

Jane Henderson So it's a little bit embarrassing, but I couldn't, I cannot think of anything else. So, I'm going to pick something that I actually donated to the museum. Oh dear. Um, but it's a t shirt. It's a t shirt from the Carder 3 campaign. It's one of the things that was discussed, you know, when they were talking about closing, closing the museum.

People from, down from the docks, who are, I think, underrepresented in civic society. I've actually identified that this is the only cultural space outside of the docks that shows anything, you know, there was a really nice portrait thing going on at the time it was closed, being, sorry, being under threat.

So I've picked a t shirt which, I was way back in the early 90s mainly, involved in the Carta 3 campaign. So, tell us a little bit about the Cardiff three. So, it was five people who were tried in the longest criminal trial in the UK history, because the judge died at the very end, so they got tried twice, for the murder of Lynette White.

And Lynette White was, was brutally stabbed in an absolutely horrific murder in Bute Town in Cardiff on Valentine's Day in, I think, 88. The police spent some time looking for someone whose fortific was a single white man, but eventually arrested a large group of young black men. And it felt, all along, that they'd given up on trying to find who really did it and they were just arresting people that they could fit up.

There were some very unreliable testimonials that the people who testified against them withdrew and that they were under pressure. Well, that's the suspicion. Yeah, they were clearly, were they clearly? I don't know if I can actually say that. But we had every suspicion that they'd been pressurized into doing it because they were relatively vulnerable.

And certainly all the investigations. speak to the way that vulnerable people were pressurized in police stations. And after the second trial, two of the five were acquitted and three were jailed. And so for the initial part of the campaign, so it was five people tried, three people found guilty. So then there was a campaign to get those three people out.

And that became the campaign for the Cardiff Three. And the slogan was, Free the Boys. Um, it's just funny now, it sounds quite old, but it sounds better in a Cardiff accent. Um, and there was a first meeting down in Butan, in, um, in, in the community centre, and that's where, you know, Betty Campbell was there, chairing meetings, you know.

I love that connection. So, Betty Campbell that you talked about, that has the statue, as you come out of Cardiff station, just explain a little bit about her, and then her connection to that. So Betty Campbell was a headteacher, first black headteacher in Wales, and ended up as a headteacher at Mount Stewart Square.

She very much pulled herself up by the bootstraps, and just created a wonderful, welcoming community in an area that, you know when people talk about, eh, oh, tough communities and excluded communities, and, oh, oh, You know, they're not, they're just communities who are systematically disadvantaged, but she stayed in her community and fought against that systematic disadvantage and built community spirit.

And I think, you know, we're talking about campaigns. What got the Cardiff Three jail out of, Cardiff Three out of jail as well, was that to do with There was a community who were already there, a community of cohesion, who had identity, who had experience of, of racism, who didn't, I think, believe the police at any point.

I mean, I know that Lynette's family did, but I can understand that, but, um, you know, the support for them was incredible. So the graffiti appeared overnight, Free the Boys. 

Sharon Heal And, so you turn up at the community center in Butte Town, Betty Campbell's there, how does the campaign unfold and how did you get hold of this t shirt?

Jane Henderson Oh, well, um, so there was, you know, the usual, um, symbolic first meetings of community campaigns and it was like, put your hand up if you want to help, so I ended up the secretary of the campaign, um, I think mainly because they, you know, I was a student, they thought I'd do some good, you know, typing. But, so yeah, it was a very, it wasn't formally titled.

We used to meet in, in one of the brother's houses. Um, and yeah, there was a group of us. I didn't do the most by a long, long took many, many people who campaigned. I obviously was completely protected from the consequences in the way that the families were not in terms of the way they were treated by police.

And then when the things that were said and the way that kids were treated and the impact on all of those families was. It's pretty brutal, but the community generally did rally around and there were community leaders like Betty and like Gaynor Legault who, who have a foot in heritage, but have a foot in community, have a foot in justice, and these things are just not separate, they're just not separate, you know, if you want to talk about the culture of Cardiff Bay, Bute Town, the Docks, now Gaynor Legault is very much at the front of that sort of work, but also, you know, people like that, they were around, Everything around all these campaigns.

So yeah, yeah, your community pulls together and they trust each other and they hold each other back and it was quite a strange campaign for me. I was quite new to Cardiff. I was from Scotland. It was all a bit, you know, immersive, immersive. Um, yeah. And, um, and I remember the day they got out of jail kind of a day earlier than we were expecting.

And I was, working with the Council of Museums of Wales at the time and just started screaming when I heard the news and I was like, what's the matter? They got out of jail! Just head down the docks and get to the party, you know, and it was, it was incredible. So it was, you know, one of those moments where I was so proud that we, we did the right thing, sort of.

However, we haven't done the right thing. The police have never been charged. There's never been a proper investigation. Files are mysteriously lost and mysteriously found at convenient moments. And so, you know, it's not over. And the relaunch of the Cardiff Five is happening in July. So that's really interesting, isn't it?

Sharon Heal So that t shirt, you donated it to the Museum of Cardiff. Yeah. Um, and that's the beauty of their collections, actually. As you said earlier, they're from community, they're of community, but that's not just a moment in time from your campaigning and your activism. That resonates today, doesn't it?

Jane Henderson And that's really important, I think. Yeah, because that story is an important story to many people. So, if you look at why it was the museum saved, it was saved because it told the important stories that many people are important. Should the museum be a focus for, you know, Cardiff Five Campaigns? I absolutely think so.

It's not, it's not, I don't run the museum, literally that's it. But yes, I think that the museum should continue to be participating. And they do, you know, they do engage with a whole range of things. As does, I've got the company, as you know, with the Picton and the Kicking the Dust. You know, there's a lot of active work in museums, which I think is partly because we are in a different political situation in Wales than people are in England. 

Sharon Heal Absolutely. I'm glad you've come on to that, Jane, because obviously, uh, culture is a devolved matter, um, and there's a completely different approach in terms of the programme for government here in Wales to the role that culture and museums can play. So, can you describe how that works? 

Jane Henderson Well, so we have various sort of policies and commitments that come from Welsh government that we have to speak to. So the Welsh Federation grants, for example, um, have always addressed the Future Generations Act. So the Future Generations Act asks you to show across various headings how you committed to protecting future generations, which inevitably leads you to being more sustainable, but also to protecting language, culture, identity, sense of place and belonging, and all those things have been required.

And then much more recently, we've had the Anti Racist Wales Action Plan, and it's good to hear those words anti racist. We don't just We're not neutral. Museums are not neutral. It's not a neutral position. And interestingly as well, it's not just equality, equity, diversity and inclusion. It's specifically anti racism, which is qualitatively different to other nations of the UK, let's say.

Yes, so museums gave to show, well, museums have been tasked to show what they've done in terms of anti racism. So if you look at the actual policy, you can go through it and you can see what different organizations have been tasked to do. And it is interesting because it starts, you know, by looking at yourself.

Diversify who you are, change who's there, change who's having a say, look at your trustees. And, you know. I think we all like to think, well, how do we all like to think? I don't know. Most people I know in museums like to think of themselves as anti racist, but when you look at the challenges, have we finished?

We clearly haven't. You know, museums are still not matching the profile of the communities in which they sit in terms of employment, for example. So, you know, there is, there is no doubt there's a gauntlet there [00:29:00] and there's work to be done, but it does, it does mean that you are speaking to government priorities.

so that it's likely to be funding for projects and for project work and for partnerships and likely to be support. So I think that does create an environment in Wales that is a privilege for us to work in, let's say. 

Sharon Heal Absolutely, it always feels like in terms of the Museums Association priorities, anti racism, climate justice, decolonization, well being for workforce and communities, anti ableism, you're pushing at an open door with Welsh government and Scottish government, I would say, um, whereas it's obviously a different political context in England.

But I think it's really important to regardless of the political superstructure and priorities to, to work in an inclusive way and to look at some of the big issues in society and, and that's definitely one of the things that's happening in Wales. So just in terms of horizon scanning, kind of where do you see the sector going over the next few years?

Jane Henderson I think the big crisis for me is, is precarity and, and the employment and stuff and I, I, you know, I do teach and I don't just spend my life campaigning for museums. But you do see the job market now. I entered the job market as we think we've established in the 80s, the late 80s. But even then I worked on contracts.

I worked on contracts and even then I remember being exhausted and working on contracts. And, you know. Having to understand national insurance when I was practically too young to and and it hasn't got better. It's got worse So, you know, there are conservation jobs and I tell people and I'm always conflicted But basically what is the chance of you getting a full time job on graduation?

I think very little do you have to volunteer pretty much? Yes, you know, so is that right? I feel that's a little Tregaskes has done a lot of good work around that So we just explain who Will is Yes, he's an MA person too, isn't he? 

Sharon Heal He's one of our reps at the moment for Wales, yeah. But he also works for Arts and Business Wales, doesn't he?

Jane Henderson Yeah, and he was once one of my students. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes, didn't you? Yeah, yeah. Perfect circle. Oh, yeah, everyone. Everyone in Wales does tend to know each other a bit. We are quite a small country. But yeah, so, so Wiltro Gaskis did something called Mercenary Volunteering, which I still share with the students, and I still try and invite him in to talk, so that, you know, at least you get something from it, you know, front of house, um, work.

But I think that You can't, if your, the entrance to your sector is effectively a life of near poverty, of constant moving, then how would someone who's had kids young, who have, you know, different needs that need to be assessed by their local authority provider, how do they move from place to place to get these jobs?

How do people survive in London on some of the salaries? that are advertised for jobs in London. And the answer is that all that comes down to wealth and privilege. And so for me, in terms of the horizon gazing, that is my biggest concern, is that the input to the sector, I think it's probably closing.

It's probably closing. When I was a student, and this shows you how old I was, you got grants if you weren't working, so my volunteer work, I didn't get benefits over the summer, I was very angry about it, so I was completely impoverished. But now nobody gets benefits over the summer, so they probably all live off porridge like I did.

But, you know, I still got benefits in the Christmas holidays, you know, I was, I wasn't working all the hours when I was a student, and so many of them are now, and, you know, you've got students who are fortunate enough that their parents can afford everything for them. And you've got students who, for whatever reason, are, you know, connected to their families, or are independent, or care leavers, and they have a tough time to survive.

And they are carrying a double burden, a triple burden, if their parents Absolutely. I've got a friend who works in a food bank in the north of England who said that, um, 20 to 30 percent of the people who come to the food bank are current students. And I was really shocked by that. And lots of them are child students as well.

Sharon Heal So what can we do about that? Because I agree with you. The entry to the sector is narrowing, not widening, which we want it to do. Obviously, we have the Museums Association salary research and recommendations, but they're not mandatory. I was quite interested, actually, to, to understand in Wales that they have the fair work commitment, which now Museums Gallery Scotland, um, as a sponsored body from Scottish government, has to, in any of its grant giving, insist that the museums pay the fair work rate.

Although then the conundrum for smaller independent museums is how do they make that add up? I suppose I would say you make it add up by not just having the last thing in the budget being the staff line, um, and organizing your budget accordingly. But, but anyway, what do you think in terms of what change needs to come?

Jane Henderson Oh, I mean, it's so difficult. And this is where you sort of move from standing outside the Museum of Cardiff with a nice glitter banner to doing the detailed work. That's the more boring side of being radical, if you know what I mean. So, the Welsh Federation Grant Programme, which is supported by the Welsh Government, allows for effectively 100 percent funding, if you use your volunteer as matching labour.

So you can get up to 3, 000 for a project where there's no cash contribution. So it's that kind of like Entry level, allowing the smallest museums to get access to the money. I have quite strong views about designation, which is a bit personal, but I am very, very concerned about schemes which point to elite collections, and to collections that are more important than other collections, because it's not been my experience that we ever, you know.

That you look back on the stories that were important a hundred years ago and think yeah, those are the stories we want to be telling now. So my view is that we should be protecting, you know, if we've decided to collect it into the museum, and certainly let's embrace disposal as a pathway, but if we've decided to commit to keeping it, then I don't like seeing These are category A.

They'll get good boxes. These are category C. They'll get, you know, crates out of the bag. Because I just don't know that that's the stories that we'll end up using. That's not the objects that we'll end up using. That's not my experience. So I think we have to do the little things like the grants, like the support, like the funded placements to conferences.

So in IIC, we pivoted to lockdown to online conferences. It's free to members to come. When you say IC, Institute of Conservation. International Institute of Conservation. That I'm a part of. We pivoted to the online conference. Any member could come for free. But we also did grant monies, very much kindly supported by the Getty, to provide people with the resources to even attend.

So computers and access to the internet to pay for those things. So that you're actually addressing. The systematic discrimination that's not necessarily about somebody having a nice holiday off in Italy, but people in their museum practice having access to those resources. It's quite basic stuff, isn't [00:36:00] it?

It is, but it's so hard, you know, you start looking at access to publications, open access. You know, if people don't even have equal access to the internet, it's so much work. So, you then end up, you know, just about this morning, writing some guidance about properly acknowledging authorship. And the detail, the detail work that you have to do with that.

There's 38, 000 iterations of the document and the consultation and all that work. And that all kind of comes behind the campaigning, doesn't it? You have to do all that. You have to build fairness in, you have to look for fairness in the things that you do and to, to carry your share of the work. If you're organizing a conference, then think about, you know, not premium tickets for the reception, but the first ones to book for the reception, so the students have an equal chance of getting to the reception as the, as the, do you know what I mean?

Sharon Heal Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that's a really important point to draw out, and we are going to have to conclude this amazing conversation. Do not apologize, but I think my take home is, it's not just about the glittery banners, but it's about the attention to detail as well, and mobilizing our communities, and every bit of work that you do is advocacy.

So, thanks Jane, that's just been a brilliant conversation, and there's lots of learning for us as the Museums Association, and hopefully for the wider museum sector.

You've been listening to the Museums Association's Radical Museums podcast. This episode was presented by me, Sharon Heal. Other episodes of our Radical Museums podcast can be found on all the usual podcast channels. We'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts about this podcast and what museum activism means to you.

You can find out more about us and all our campaigns through our website www. museumsassociation. org. Thank you for listening.