Professor David Stirrup, Professor of American Literature and Indigenous Studies in the School of English, has commented on Hasting Museum & Art Gallery’s new Indigenous Engagement Policy for Museums and Heritage News.
Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, which hosts one of the UK’s most important Native American collections, has received approval from the local council for its new Indigenous Engagement Policy, developed in collaboration with the Beyond the Spectacle project at the University of Kent and the University of East Anglia.
David is Principal Investigator of Beyond the Spectacle, an Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded project that brings together an international team of researchers and Native North American people to amplify the stories of Indigenous travellers in the historical record and in the current moment.
Hasting Museum and Arts Gallery’s new policy sets out principles that the institution will follow when Indigenous people visit the museum or request information about its collections.
David says: ‘the conceiving and application of a policy that seeks to place Indigenous-centred ethical relationships at the heart of curatorial practice puts the museum among a small handful of institutions in the UK that are seeking pro-actively to change the way both British public and Indigenous communities understand and interact with their collections’.
Further information about the policy is available on the Museums and Heritage website here:
https://advisor.museumsandheritage.com/news/hastings-museum-art-gallery-takes-significant-step-with-new-indigenous-engagement-policy/