Transforming CollectionsTransforming Collections: Reimagining Art, Nation and Heritage (November 2021 – January 2025)
PI: Professor susan pui san lok, University of the Arts London
Co-Is: University of the Arts London, Tate, National Museums Scotland
Partner organisations: Arts Council Collection, Art Fund, Art UK, Birmingham Museums Trust, British Council Collection, Contemporary Art Society, iniva (Institute of International Visual Art), JISC Archives Hub, Manchester Art Gallery, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, National Museums Liverpool, Van Abbemuseum & Wellcome Collection.
Whose voices, bodies and experiences are centred and privileged in collections? Transforming Collections is underpinned by the belief that a ‘national collection’ cannot be imagined without addressing structural inequalities, contested heritage, and contentious histories embedded in objects. The project aims to uncover patterns of bias in collections systems and narratives, to support digital search across collections, and reveal hidden connections, that open up new interpretative frames and ‘potential histories’ of art, nation and heritage.
Led by UAL in close partnership with Tate among 15 UK and one international partner, the project seeks to surface suppressed histories, amplify marginalised voices, and re-evaluate artists and artworks long ignored or side-lined by dominant narratives and institutional practices.
Our approach brings together academic and artistic research into collections and museum practices with participatory machine learning (ML) development and design. Working with smaller as well as larger collections and archives, and assuming that all data is biased, ‘messy’ and incomplete, the interactive ML development is critically shaped and driven by the research questions. The resultant case studies and lightweight adaptable ML are envisaged as research resources and tools to prompt critical reflexive analyses. Patterns generated through the bespoke creation of dynamic categorisations or tags refined by the user (that would not otherwise be visible through standard search functions within collections’ databases), will encourage the rethinking of habitual formulations, hierarchies and values expressed in collections’ digital records, while surfacing new connections between disparate objects and makers, to shape new research. A series of artistic residencies will also lead to new works that critically and creatively activate the research and ML tools. A public programme with Tate Learning will generate insights and understandings of the ways in which the project’s research into and with museums and machine learning, can enable new stories to be told, with caution.
![[Bookable workshop] Transforming Collections: Critical analysis of collections with interactive Machine Learning](https://img.swapcard.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.swapcard.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe984cf404299442982303f879d0508cd.jpeg&q=0.8&m=fit&h=720)
