CHANGES IN MUSEUM PRACTICE
New Media, Refugees and Participation
Edited by Hanne-Lovise Skartveit and Katherine Goodnow

How can museums move beyond simply raising awareness and establish a dialogue both within and across communities and cultural boundaries? By examining the ways in which museums can involve refugees and asylum seekers this volume explores this key question. Leading artists, curators, and academics come together to outline different levels of participation by audiences and communities and explore a range of topics from video games to role-play and theatre; and from photography to participatory video and digital storytelling. Case studies are used throughout to highlight the various ways that different participatory approaches can be used successfully.

Chapter 1: Anthony Haughey ‘Dislocations: Participatory Media with Refugees in Malta and Ireland’, published in Changes in Museum Practice New Media, Refugees and Participation (eds.) Hanne – Lovise Skartveit and Katherine Goodnow, New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books (2010) pp. 1-16.

In this chapter I describe and critically frame several strategies and collaborative working methods I adopted with migrant co collaborators in Malta and Ireland. From the beginning of each project I consider my co-collaborators as agents of change, not as passive victims. Together we were engaged in a dialogical and transformative process. The production of cultural artefacts is viewed as living and contingent. Participation is central to this process, beginning with periods of intensive engagement with refugees in Malta, and asylum seekers, refugees and migrant workers in Ireland. Audiences are also considered to be participants when they engage with completed projects in various public contexts both inside and outside of museum and gallery settings.