How do museums and people in their homes decide what to keep in the face of mass production and consumption?
The Profusion theme addresses 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 look 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 investigate 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 addresses 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.
From the Vault to the Archive
Uncertainty
Transformation
Profusion
Diversity
Nuclear Waste Management
Deep Space Messaging
Built Heritage Management
Museums
Biodiversity
Cultural Diversity
Curating museum profusion: looking to ethnography of domestic excess for new collecting futures
04/07/2016
A Berlin Thought Experiment: Heritage Futures Visits CARMaH
26/04/2017 — 28/04/2017
A Heritage Futures Knowledge Exchange Workshop, held in partnership with the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage in Berlin.
Uncertainty
Transformation
Profusion
Diversity
Nuclear Waste Management
Deep Space Messaging
World Heritage Site Management
Natural Heritage Management
Built Heritage Management
Homes
Museums
Biodiversity
Cultural Diversity
Perspectives on Disposal: Decluttering
16/10/2017
A guest blog entry from Sharon Macdonald and Jennie Morgan for the Collections Trust. Based on the Heritage Futures Curating Domestic Profusion workshop.
