Paper short abstract:

Traditional methods of collecting and keeping objects is increasingly being questioned across museums in the West as a move towards ‘decolonising’ increases. Beyond questioning the absences in historical records, what tools can artists provide to interrogate the role of museums?

Paper long abstract:

Within the growing debates around decolonising collections within museums, a number of scholars, artists and activists are experimenting with participatory-based research methods among other tools in order to build more equitable forms of knowledge exchange and production that embed care into their practice. Could these new ways of working offer a more democratic approach to knowledge production, providing less hierarchical modes of exchange and presentation? What can the absences in historical records provide artists in terms of what Saidiya Hartman describes as ‘critical fabulation’? What role can embodied knowledge play in creating more equitable sites of knowledge exchange and production? What futures can we imagine when the knowledge embedded within our bodies is used to excavate stories and provide new meanings to the spaces that claim to own them?