How do museums and people in their homes decide what to keep in the face of mass production and consumption?
The Profusion theme addressed the challenge presented by the abundance of material and digital stuff for assembling the future archive. Expanding mass-production and consumption have resulted in more things to potentially save for the future. We have looked at what is and what is not kept for posterity. We do so by investigating two domains in the United Kingdom that face the prolific past and present in particularly acute ways: homes and museums. Taking an anthropological approach using ethnographic methods, we investigated what is selected for long-term keeping and why. What are the complex yet often unacknowledged motivations, emotions, and judgements that shape what makes it into the future? Our research addressed these questions, while facilitating crossover of insights between homes and museums to hopefully produce new understandings of and responses to profusion.
Heritage Futures at the 2018 Association of Critical Heritage Studies Conference
06/09/2018
Members of the Heritage Futures research team will be convening and presenting at seven sessions at the Association for Critical Heritage Studies 2018 conference at Zheijang University in Hangzhou, China from 1st-6th September.
If you’re heading there, come check out (at least) one of our sessions. Or follow our twitter @Future_Heritage and website for updates resulting from these sessions.
Caitlin DeSilvey and Rodney Harrison. 2019. Anticipating loss: rethinking endangerment in heritage futures. International Journal of Heritage Studies 26 Special Issue
09/01/2020
The Human Bower
19/05/2018
Encounters Arts and Heritage Futures invite you to take part in the making of The Human Bower
Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th May, Torre Abbey Gardens 10am-4pm
A creative event asking: What would you keep for the future?
The Human Bower
Heritage Futures at Historic Scotland 'Conservation Ethics and Approaches' event.
12/12/2018 — 12/12/2018
Caitlin DeSilvey delivered a keynote, with Jennie Morgan providing an invited response at Historic Scotland ‘Conservation Ethics and Approaches’ event on 12 December.
What Museums (can) do
27/10/2015
Talk by Sharon Macdonald at ‘Wissensort Museum. Traditionen – Positionen – Perspektiven’ at the University of Gottingen.
