Conference: Challenging History

The programme and registration for this year’s Challenging History conference, jointly hosted by Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museums Wales and Cardiff University, 29-30 June, has now been announced. For details click here.

This conference, jointly hosted by Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales and Cardiff University, will explore how cultural practitioners are working in innovative and responsive ways with difficult and sensitive heritages/themes. This is a time of unprecedented change, pressure and evolution for museums and their continued investment of resources in this area is not assured. The conference will directly address these contexts, and suggest imaginative responses to them, helping delegates to explore why and how challenging histories maintain their relevance.

The conference programme includes keynotes from:

Samantha Heywood, Director, Museum of World War II, Boston on ‘The challenges of challenging history in the ‘real’ world’

Stephen Bourne, Scholar and Writer, on ‘Black Poppies’

David Gunn, The Incidental, on ‘Museums of Lies and Secrets’

It also includes a performance from electro-funk stoytellers ‘Harp and A Monkey’, a performance of ‘Graveyard Voices’, a number of off-site sessions and tours, two drinks receptions, and a three-course meal at Cardiff Prison. There are a range of high quality papers, panels and workshops, and the oportunity to network and exchange in a number of ‘campfire sessions’. It will be a thought-provoking and lively few days so come and join us!

Questions we will be exploring include…

* Is it appropriate to re-imagine the role of museums and museum professionals as activists or as civil society mediators?
* How does our understanding of ‘impact’ in museums (and Universities also) frame what kind of work with challenging history is deemed viable?
* Do museums’ current methodologies need re-imagining?
* How are online-only museums free to imagine their work with challenging histories differently?
* Is there a role for gaming, play and mischief-making in work with difficult and sensitive subject matters?
* What is the role of academic research in re-imagining well-known challenging topics?
* How does all of this link into wider discussions about museums’ survival in 2016 and beyond?

Registration is now open, visit Eventbrite