This is the transcript for a Sensational Shorts podcast episode, produced and recorded by The Sensational Museum Postdoc, Dr Sophie Vohra and her guest, Surya Bowyer, a curator, historian and Collaborative Doctoral Award Student with Birkbeck, University of London and the Science Museum
Audio
They discuss the complexities of personal identity, how cultural backgrounds and experiences shape us, and how this can be reflected in and on how we codify, engage with, and record museum collections.
Speaker vocal descriptions
Sophie speaks in a clear and considered way, with a lyrical, soft and lower vocal tone… and occasionally some loud laughs! Putting on her more ‘formal voice’, here she speaks with a ‘non-typical’ north-western accent (aka suspend your disbelief that everyone there sounds like they are from Liverpool, Manchester or Bury), with dropped ‘a’s and stronger enunciation. She often wonders if her different code-switching voices that make up critical parts of her identity (day-to-day, Macclesfield, Yorkshire, academic/telephone, British Indian, Spanish) come through.
Surya speaks in a baritone voice. His Estuary English accent subconsciously skews more informal when chatting with friends. In more official contexts, he finds his accent becomes more formal – with, for example, fewer glottal stops. He discusses this type of code switching during this episode. He has been told that aspects of his Indian ethnicity occasionally come through in his pronunciation of certain words.
Notes on transcript style
- Punctuation is used to indicate the way the content was delivered, rather than necessarily being grammatically correct. Please try and read it with these pauses (or not as the case may be) in mind.
- Words in square brackets and in italics, [like this], indicate delivery types (e.g. softly; animated), audible occurrences (e.g. laugh; sigh), and sound differences (e.g. quieter delivery) in the recording.
- Ellipses (like… this) indicate a short break between sentences.
- Italicised words (like this) indicate emphasis placed more heavily on the words as they are delivered, and bold italicised words (like this), a strong emphasis
- Quotation marks (“like this”) mean we are suggesting this is something someone might have said (e.g., she said, “oh, that was weird”, and I could see why)
- Whereas quotation marks (‘like this’) mean we are emphasising it as a useful term (e.g. ‘the fourth wall’).
Transcript
0:00
[The podcast starts with The Sensational Museum audio logo: A conspiratorial female voice says ‘The Sensational Museum’. Lower in volume, almost distant, people are chattering excitedly in a large, echoey space. A warm, major chord chimes and fades out]
Sophie 00:06
Welcome to this Sensational Shorts podcast on identity. I’m Sophie Vohra, and to discuss the fluidity and complexity of our identity, I have the absolute pleasure of introducing my wonderful guest host, curator and historian Surya Bowyer, with whom, as we will get into, I feel very comfortable having the identity conversation with. Jumping straight into some identity work, we always start with a self-description. So if I may, Surya, I will go first [tone of her voice raises on the word first]. I am a woman in my, early 30s. I have just below the ear length… curly dark brown hair. I’m, wearing metal rimmed glasses today to stop my eyes straining, and, [elongated ‘a’] a, [delivered very choppily] brick red, crinkly textured, sleeveless top, which means you can see, three of my tattoos, including my newest one, which is Indian Paisley-designed mangoes with the mango red, yellow and green colours and Tinga Tinga style leaves incorporated into the design. So Surya, how about you?
Surya 01:17
Mmm. Erm, thanks Sophie. To describe myself, I’m a man in my late 20s, [drawn out words] I’ve got [suddenly speeds up] relatively short, straight, brown hair, hazel eyes. What am I wearing? I’m wearing [slows down again] a dark grey T-shirt, blue jeans, I’m barefoot, because I’m in my house and you can’t see any of my tattoos.
Sophie 01:39
[With a joyful tone] So generic clothing today, then?
Surya 01:41
Very generic, very generic clothing today yes.
Sophie 01:45
[Small chuckle from Sophie] So [take in a breath as she finished her laugh] today we’re talking about identity, which, maybe on the surface, doesn’t appear to impact how we understand, and, experience, sense, but, our identity is a central part of this as sense is both personally and culturally contingent. It’s [short, distant buzzing in the background from nearby building works] both how we understand ourselves and how others understand us. [Speeds up her delivery] So because we’re asking museum professionals to reflect on their own identity, it seemed important to get into this, so we’re asking them to consider their needs and preferences as well as how they might have multisensory [buzzing starts again again] dialogues with their collections. So [breath in and slows down a little], with that in mind, I, asked Surya to be in conversation with me today, about our identity, more specifically talking about our culture and ethnicity. So I wonder Surya whether we can then start with dissecting our self-description a little bit because, I know that I certainly have steered away from identifying features that are, directly linked [buzzing starts again] to my ethnicity or [drawn out or] my cultural background, which is that I have a white, British mum [drawn out next couple of words] and a Ugandan Asian, so from India, born in Uganda, Dad, and [with a little apprehension in her voice] I am a combination of those two things, which is quite complex, [audio captured oddly, meaning the next sentence sounds a little robotic] So do you want to get into that as well because I noticed that you also didn’t give any indicators about that?
Surya 03:15
Yeah. So. [Starts slowly] I didn’t discuss ethnicity in the self-description, [suddenly speeds up] the visual self-description, mainly because I think, when it comes to my ethnicity, [gradually slows down delivery] it’s not something that reads, very clearly, when people meet me, and, see me. So I’m quite racially indistinct, shall we say. And [drawn out word] so, it didn’t [drawn out word] seem, seem helpful as a as a way of describing myself in visual terms. So I’m, my father is white, British. English, and my mother is from South India. So I’m both English and Indian. But I wouldn’t say I necessarily look like either of them. I get very varied [suddenly speeds up] when people, you know, if I go to the barbers, and, they ask me where I’m from, and I say, guess, [slows down briefly] I get a variety of guesses, [speeds up again] you know, a lot of places in the Mediterranean or the Middle East or eastern, [slows down] central Europe. So I, I suppose, [speeds up again] race or ethnicity, and we can maybe talk about the differences, because race to me is more about visual presentation ethnicity is more about, [questioning tone] groups of people, [questioning tone again] with cultural identity. Ethnicity is quite important to me because, the two sides my family, have two quite different cultural [soft, drawn-out delivery] traditions, and customs, celebrations, whereas race[?], I’m not sure how helpful it is, in my case because I’m quite racially indistinct, shall we say.
Sophie 04:31
[Joyful delivery from relating to the experience] I, love that as a term, and, also, can completely relate [soft chuckle] to basically just being assumed to be [extended ‘s’] something Mediterranean.
Surya 04:41
Yeah somewhere over there.
Sophie 04:43
[Almost shouting and making the audio crackle a little] Yes, correct. So you kind of can just wander round Europe, and nobody will bother you.
Surya 04:48
Although sometimes, you’ll get people speaking to you in, errr, Spanish or Italian, and you’ll be like, huh?
Sophie 04:54
[Almost shouting again, with audio crackle] So actually, [speaking fast, excitedly] that’s the point where you suddenly realise you don’t fit in is it’s actually the language it’s not, the nondescript, visual, identity of what people are seeing, they assume you’re part of that community, because of, as you said, that racially indistinctness. [Less ‘chaotic’ delivery than the last sentence, but still fast] That kind of leads us, I suppose, to a couple of things, first of all, is that sense of fitting in or [extended word] blending in, I guess, which you can do in a, if we’re thinking about this in a visual sense, we can do that, [with a slight slyness to her delivery] I suppose sometimes it’s a bit of a superpower, you can be quite nondescript in in many settings, but also, what would be helpful and maybe this is where you can, delve a little further into that sense of, the culture, of ethnicity, is, [slows down a little] how do we fit in, in what is, certainly for you and I, [speeds up delivery] I am speaking on both of our behalf so please correct me if I’m wrong. [slows down, choppy delivery] It’s very different. It’s very, contextual. It very much, requires you to code switch, certainly for me, depending on, what part of my family I might be with at that time. How about you?
Surya 05:53
Yeah. I think, what you’re saying about ‘blending in’ when you are visually quite racially indistinct is something that I experience quite a lot because as you say, people don’t know how to classify you, and [extended word] so, you sort of just are this ambiguous blob that kind of blends in, [delivered inquisitively as he thinks over the point] I think fitting in, maybe in my mind not quite the same as blending in because for fitting in, like I’m not, a conventional looking, [slow and drawn out delivery] white English person, in terms of my features. So, I don’t quite fit in, to a stereotype there, I don’t quite fit into, a South Indian, you know, what they look like generally. So, I suppose, blending in is one thing, I think fitting in is something slightly different in my mind, and it demands partly because you feel this, slight disconnect from, the [extended word] two, sides of [extended word] my, cultural identity, in visual terms, I don’t quite look like either sides of my family, it maybe makes the code switching that you talked about more important because you feel like, [inquisitive and smooth delivery] I don’t know, there’s maybe a sense of, of wanting [extended word] to, [extended word] ensure, a level of… [drawn out words] association, trust, er identification, [speeds up delivery] when you’re in different contexts and with different people. And code switching is something that I think, you know, sometimes you do consciously often you don’t do, consciously, you do subconsciously, but you do it in all aspects of life [speeds up again] I think right you, you go to the office, or you go to the gym, or you go to the corner shop, or you go to even if you go to, I don’t know, [slows down a little] Lidl versus, Marks and Spencer’s. [Slows down considerably] Every context I think, determines a slightly different switching of the code[?], and maybe that’s also partly from my experience as someone who’s, multi [disjointed delivery of syllables] ethnic, [speeds up again] if we want to use that term I don’t know of a better term, I don’t really like the term mixed race. So someone with multiple ethnicities, [slows down delivery] I suppose, you’re more well versed in switching between them from a young age, meeting different sides of the family, and so maybe it’s something that you’re more versed in [?] like, I don’t know, I can’t really speak to how often other people code switch I’m sure they do, [speeds up delivery] but it wouldn’t surprise me if maybe it’s something that I do, [slows down again] more or that I’m, maybe more, subconsciously attuned to as a result of my identity.
Sophie 07:59
[Slow and considered delivery as she has mused over what Surya said] That’s [trips over her words a little] honestly [elongated word] so interesting, because, I think there is a very easy way to compartmentalise both you and I, as, a type of person. If we put it back to, let’s say racial identity, [elongated word] and, understanding, the duality of what that is, you could quite easily put us, in fact we are, on certain forms you and I are on the same tick box right, [said as if in quotations read from a form] “white, British and Asian”, [suddenly louder for a couple of words] but I, I’ve known you for a little while now Surya and I know that you and I have, [hear Sophie shuffling in her desk chair] multiple differences, for one, our, [choppy audio on the next word] Asian sides of the family, don’t follow the same religion which, for one then brings a whole heap of different cultural, aspects to our lives on that side of our family, but equally, thinking about, the parent, that is, Asian, I know that, my dad [elongated words] never, taught me Gujarati or, [speeds up delivery] any other languages that he learnt when he was living in Uganda, but I believe Surya you speak, potentially something else?
Surya 08:56
So I speak Marathi, so even though my, my family is, is now in, the south [of India], they migrated, generations back from Maharashtra in the north, so. Yeah, I, I grew up at home with my mom speaking Marathi, I will say it’s probably quite a [elongated word] strange version of Marathi because it’s, several generations removed from Maharashtra, so, it’s the language we speak at home, even though we [elongated word] live, in Karnataka, [speeds up a little] in terms of my Indian side the family where the local language is Kannada, but yeah, it was something that my mum brought me up speaking, even though I was brought up in the UK. [Slows down again] I can’t read it, and I can’t write it, but I can, understand I can speak, which is very helpful when going back, to India and seeing family, because, obviously there are varying levels of English, and so, Marathi, I think people also like it when you speak Marathi because it feels again, it’s talk…, [speeds up a little] if we’re talking about code switching or talking about, providing a sense of association with, kinship groups, if you want to call them that, language is important when you’re blending in, in, the Mediterranean, the language is the thing that, [elongated word] reveals the racial and distinctness of you.
Sophie 09:59
[Hearty chuckle] And funnily enough, [slow delivery] I actually, know, a lot of Spanish, but I don’t know, [elongated word] any, well, no, that’s a lie, I do know some Gujarati, but you definitely are not going to have a full conversation with me. So I would do [suddenly slows down for emphasis] better at fitting in [hearty chuckle and continues to chuckle while delivering the next few words] in the Mediterranean than I would, with my family, [loudly] well, the ones in the UK and certainly in India as well, so, so, I think again, if we’re pulling this back to what is a, [slows down from here as she muses on her contributions] compartmentalised, very, non-distinct way of thinking, about, race and how people is we miss all of these nuances, that make us, so different which actually, you and I have had wonderful conversations about, but there’s also, a kind of identity and crisis at that point, because people are trying to compartmentalise us, [elongated word] or, that’s, that’s certainly the way that I experience it, [disjointed delivery as she assembles what she’s going to say] it feels like you can’t quite be yourself in this fluid way, or I certainly can’t, and it means that there is a lot of questioning, and certainly when you’re asked to, talk about yourself in a [elongated word] very, concrete way, it can be difficult to figure out who you might be that day, and, I don’t know whether [elongated word] you, have similar feelings about that [tripping over her words] and, and if we maybe just pull it back to the self-description we had, are there things that, [desk chair creaks] maybe you thought about adding in there, but you weren’t, confident in terms, of how you might feel about that – later today, tomorrow, in a year, 10 years?
Surya 11:22
[Slow and considered delivery] I suppose yeah with the self-description I, I shied away [elongated word] from, any visual description, of my skin [elongated word] or any, description of [elongated word] my, ethnicity, in part because I mean it, it’s summer now, in the UK, [suddenly speeds up] even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, depending on how much sun I’m exposed to my skin colour changes quite drastically quite quickly, so it’s this changeable thing, depending on, what season it is and where I’m living, and I suppose also in terms of how, that maybe relates or doesn’t relate, to ethnicity. [Slows down a little] Growing up, I suppose, when you’re, when you’re at secondary school, you’re, when you’re an awkward teenager, one of the key things you’re trying to do often is fit in, and to not stick out, whether it’s how you dress or how you speak or the things you’re interested in. And something I noticed that I did back then was minimise, [elongated word] the, Indian side of my ethnic or cultural identity, because it was simpler growing up in London, although London is a very multicultural place, it seemed easiest to say I’m a Londoner, maybe say I’m, I’m English and to sort of not dwell on, the complexities of, ethnic identity. And it’s [elongated word] only in my 20s that I’ve sort of started to have a reckoning with, [slows to consider words] the sort of nuance of my ethnicity and cultural identity, and to actively reengage with, particularly the Indian side of, my, [speeds up suddenly] identity, and to kind of, make more of an active effort [slows a little with an elongated word] to, think about it to embrace it [elongated word] to, reflect on, [suddenly speeds up again] how it fundamentally has created who I am, like, whether you want to pretend otherwise, fundamentally, you’re brought up in certain ways because of your cultural identity that you can’t avoid, so it’s a basic fact of who I am, and the way I do things, the way I think, things I eat, whatever, like, so many, of our practices and thoughts are shaped by these things, [slows down again] so I think it’s something that, I’m still reflecting on, like, I don’t, often, know who I am today, kind of how you said, and I think, that’s okay, I think it’s something you have to think about every day, it’s, it’s a thing that isn’t fixed. When people say, you know, those tick box forms, where it’s, you know, half white half Asian, or [inferred quotations] “white and Asian mixed”, or however they want to phrase it, it feels very fixed, it feels very clear, it feels very classified. [Speeds up again] And if we’re talking about collections, I mean classification is, the crux of how museums organise their collections, but I think, classification is a tool, it’s not a reality.
Sophie 13:41
[Slow delivery] I think that’s such a, beautiful reflection on that, because as you said, our systems, [shuffles in her chair] are designed [elongated word] to, categorise, to stock take, to, make sense of, what is actually, under the surface of being a collection item, something far more complex than that, and that is something that we hope, we can, push into, by reconsidering, the sensory aspects, of our collections, and with that, how, we, engage with them, [elongated word] because… [choppy delivery] we give meaning [elongated word] to, the stuff, to the things, to the cultural heritage that we, are, keeping.
Surya 14:19
[Slower delivery, matching Sophie’s pace] When we’re talking about classifying museum collections, there’s lots of, ways you can get at that tool or that problem. I think, [knocking on his desk] probably the most fundamental one, beyond, the rather mundane museum number the object number which, is maybe not the [trips over the word] most interesting to talk about, maybe the next most fundamental thing is, is name. How do you name an object? Sometimes, objects, come, to the collection with names, but very often, in, very different kinds of collections, [slow, elongated words with choppy cut offs] objects don’t have a clear name, that is unavoidably, [Back to regular pace] how it should be listed in the database, and so, the act of naming, is an act [slows down again with elongated words] of distinguishing or deciding [speeds up to regular pace] what is the most important information, about this object, and [gradually speeds up from here] so it’s getting rid of all, other, supposedly extraneous information which may be elsewhere in the catalogue, in the classification, but, you’re making a decision about what’s important, and, it becomes, whether you like it or not, part of that object’s identity like when we talk about artworks, and we give pictures names [starts to slow down after the build-up of speed], that relate [elongated word] to, the country houses that they were stored in for generations, like there’s a portrait of, Richard Arkwright, who was [elongated word] a, cotton mill industrialist, [said very quickly and back to a slower pace after the comma] painted by Joseph Wright of Derby, and it’s called the ‘Belper Arkwright’ to distinguish it from other portraits by [scratching his arm] Arkwright, by Wright. Belper, is a town, but it’s named, after Belper because it was. for many generations [elongated word] in, the country house of, a family that lived near Belper. [Louder and speeds up suddenly] But it becomes the Belper Arkwright, and, and the word Belper loses [slows down], somewhat, the sense of it, referring to the town, and starts to refer to this, picture, starts to accrue an additional new meaning to what was [suddenly speeds up] intended when it was given and I think the same thing happens with their own names, right? [suddenly slows down] My name, Surya Bowyer, firstly, is not my, actual, name. My, first name is Surya Siddhanth. It’s like a two-part first name I’m named after a book. But that’s Sanskrit, and then, my surname Bowyer [pronounced bow – bow and arrow, not bow – bow of a ship], which, interestingly is often mispronounced in the UK, is a British surname, erm originally Norman, I think, but British, but you’ve got this sort of, combination [elongated word] of, [elongated word] two…, sides of my [speeds up next two words] cultural identity, but equally, it becomes, [speeds up] identified with me but also, there’s a question of whether it’s a helpful thing, [slows down] for people, to use, when trying to assess my identity, right? And in the same way, is the name we give to a museum object actually a helpful way of thinking about that object or is it a shortcut to actual thinking about the object and experience of the object. [speeds up] Like when we’re looking at a database and we see the name of the object is that, [slows down] precluding us from having, a more, whether it’s deeper or whether it’s more sensorial experience with the object, because we just say oh I know that is, seen that name before, I know what the object is, move on with my work. It’s a useful shortcut, in terms of getting things done but maybe it precludes a sort of deeper, maybe more sensorial experience with the collection.
Sophie 17:13
[In awe of what Surya said] I think you’ve just blown my mind a little bit and maybe have changed some of what I want to have embedded in the system and, and how we test this, [leans back away from the microphone and shuffles some paper] because that does make so much sense, you know you and I have talked about [moves closer to the microphone again] names before and actually, my name, to me means, things to me that I don’t think people can understand. That dual identity’s something that I don’t ever want to give up particularly, as a woman, and there is, a traditional sense of giving up half of, one’s name, but for me that half makes sense as a whole, [Surya: heaty ‘mmm’] [Sophie chuckles] with my full name.
Surya 17:44
No certainly. Like a very recent experience in that vein for me is I’ve just got married, and, the question of what to do with names, as much as my name is arbitrary like Bowyer refers to, the, originally, the Norman, invaders of Britain in 1066, it was the people in the group who were making the bows. So Bowyers made the bows, Fletchers made the arrows, Archers used them, on the battlefield. [speeds up a little] Totally arbitrary, has no relation to me as a person, have I ever made a bow, no, have I shot a bow [pauses to think for half a second]… yes once, on maybe my stag do, but like, do I normally shoot bows, no. So, completely arbitrary, signifier, shall we say, in terms of what the name, meant back then, and where it derives its original meaning from. But my name, Surya, or Surya Siddhanth Bowyer, for me, it’s become a thing, a sort, of anchor. When we’ve talked about, cultural identity being fluid and shifting, whether you’re in different, contexts and seeing different people and code switching or whether you’re just kind of reflecting on it day to day and feeling, different emphases, on it at least your name is a sort of anchor, and so, the question of kind of changing one’s name, perhaps, you know marriage is the most, obvious time that that happens in cultural life, it becomes sort of, in my mind, slightly…, [pauses and slows down from here] you feel a bit unmoored, and I think so, when talking about whether, if it’s a heterosexual, marriage, whether the woman is expected to take the surname of the [scratches arm], man, it’s always struck me as very odd, if I tried to imagine, what that would feel like, it does make me quite anxious [nervous chuckle] to just give away this half of the name that’s been such an important anchor to your identity for, your life up until this point, and it’s the same with, and I mean, museum objects are occasionally renamed. [Slows down a little] Some, fields, in, collection databases have two name fields. So you might have, name, [speeds up] which is the thing that’s shown, at the top of the record, that if there’s an online platform it would be the thing, first next to the picture, if there’s a picture. But then you might have another field, that might be called ‘given name’, and you see this a lot with archives, you see this sometimes, I mean the Science Museum also do similar thing, but the given name, is the name that it had been, given, contemporaneously with when it was made, or at some point prior to the current moment, so it’s a name that was important, back then, [speeds up more] but for whatever reason the name that we use to refer to it now, or, or disseminate it now as a museum [short pause], is a different name, I think that’s very interesting and it maybe speaks to what we’re talking about with this [slows down considerably] name change through time [immediately speeds up] in with the wedding example, [slows down again] but museums [elongated word] do, change, the identity of the objects, through the naming of it, and also, more broadly, [speeds up] through the classification of it, and I think the creation of meaning of the object is something that sometimes we maybe don’t talk about enough in museums, because [elongated word] the, tacet point of view that many museum workers that I’ve come into contact with have, is that, the meaning is in the object already, and that’s why we love objects, and that’s why we collect them. The museum’s adding meaning all the time, it’s changing meanings, and names are one very clear and, I think, recognisable way that they do that.
Sophie 20:43
[Slow and considered as she has muses on Surya’s points] What then happens when somebody brings their own identity and [buzzing lightly in the background] sensory imprint into a conversation with a thing that has its own identity and sensory imprint?
Surya 20:55
So I’ve talked quite a lot about museums attaching meaning to objects, and I suppose, thinking about sensorial experiences of objects, sometimes we might think about the knowledge we hold, about these objects as being, something not sensorial. So the information that’s preserved in the catalogue or passed down through, the documentation practices of the museum are seen as intellectual, knowledge, which is distinct from how, for example, how a toddler might engage with the object in a very sensorially-based way. This dichotomy between, intellectual knowledge [elongated word] and, [delivered slowly] dumb, sensorial, experience, [speeds up again] I actually think that’s a dichotomy that doesn’t really stand up, because, the [elongated word and slowing down] conventional curatorial, voice of authority in, in, the museum catalogue and the way that, historically, and, to this day, in some places and with some people, survives, is, a connoisseur interacting with an object that they have expertise, about. But the way the connoisseur interacts with the object is primarily sensorially, so they hold the objects, they look at the object, they look for what they might call witness marks, which are, physical, traces, on the object, that they can [rubbing fingers over his palm on one hand, when he says ‘feel’] feel or they can see, that tell them or reveal things about the objects use or history. That’s a very sensorial experience, right? Whether we then, digest that sensorial experience, into a summary that focuses [elongated word] on, conclusions that were drawn from the experience, through this act of connoisseurship, the experience upon which that knowledge is based is still sensorial. And so I think the key point for me is that, people interacting with collections in a sensorial way is the cornerstone of how we make sense of these objects that we have and has been for a long time. And at the same time, that sensorial experience, for example, in the case of connoisseurship, is so reliant on the person’s identity, and the person themselves, right? The whole point of being a connoisseur, is that, you have expertise that not many people have, and so the sensorial experience that you can have with the objects is not the same experience that most people can have. So one’s identity, [slows down] one’s, personhood, bears, an incredible, impact on, the sensorial experience with the, objects and with the collections more widely, but then also, as a result, with the knowledge we have of those collections. And more widely then if you’re going to, bring that away from just a pure connoisseur which, by now is an old school idea, although still kind of persists in, in many areas of the museum world, but if you want to move it away from that, the wider point is that, people’s, own, identities, personhood, past experiences, the way that they interact with the world, which is, shaped by all these things, that’s going to have a bearing on how they, apprehend, how they, come into contact with these, objects these things these collections, and so the types of understandings, and eventually knowledge that one can, get from[?] or attach to[?] these objects, is going to be, prescribed, by, them. And so I think focusing more on, identities of the people who are, actually encountering these objects and producing this information, that is then spread by the museum to a wider public, thinking more critically about that process of information creation, and how identity, and people actually doing the work, is important to the types of knowledge that’s created I think thinking critically about that and having conversations about that, is important, because it just makes the process, of, how we know the things we know about these objects, more transparent, and more, open.
Sophie 24:31
Pulling on from that as well, our dream with this is that [elongated word] we, push it past [elongated word] the, as, I love the word you use, the connoisseur, and pull this into a bigger experience of the stuff in museums, where expertise is not based on how much you have learnt, but how you, have encountered something and for that to be valid, [elongated word] and, I think this is where it becomes really important to think about all of this in an intersectional way, because even though we are approaching this [elongated word] from, the concepts of, disability, and disability equity, and in particular, [shuffles in chair], moving through this, radical model of what disability is where we bring people, into the conversation, recognising that they’re a complex mix, and ask them, how do you experience this, how do you understand it, will hopefully bring, a bigger system of equity, into, a, [more cheery delivery] repository of these encounters, I mean, that’s a lot to be asking of a piece of software, but, whether that’s something that we can, foster, and I think you’re completely right, the more we talk about it, the more we acknowledge that this is happening, the more we can understand why we’ve got to where we have.
Thank you so much, Surya, for giving so much to such an important conversation with me today. [Said as she smiles] Largely, this was for us to just have a more open conversation about this, because it is so complicated. As I said right at the beginning, it matters that I can have a conversation about identity with somebody that I feel comfortable having a conversation about identity with.
Surya 26:04
It’s been a pleasure.
Sophie 26:06
I’ve been Sophie Vohra.
Surya 26:08
And I’ve been Surya Bowyer, and thank you for tuning into this Sensational Shorts episode of The Sensational Museum podcast.
26:09
[The podcast ends with The Sensational Museum audio logo. A conspiratorial female voice says ‘The Sensational Museum’. Lower in volume, almost distant, people are chattering excitedly in a large, echoey space. A warm, major chord chimes and fades out]