Inclusive Collections, Inclusive Libraries is an RLUK programme of events that aims to foster conversation around decolonisation and inclusive practice in collecting, describing, presenting, and engaging with content in research library collections. It seeks to raise awareness about the opportunities and challenges of dealing with, contextualising, and engaging with offensive collections while also identifying and sharing examples of good practice.
Multivocality in Museum Collections Interpretation
Thursday 22 January, 14:00 – 15:00 (GMT), 15:00 – 16:00 (CET/SAST), 16:00 – 17:00 (EET), 09:00 – 10:00 (EST), 22:00 – 23:00 (AWST/CST)
This lecture explores decolonial museology through the case study of the Barbados Museum & Historical Society (BMHS), examining how the institution has sought to redistribute interpretive power and reimagine its collections as spaces of community-led knowledge sharing. Tracing the historical frameworks of museology in Barbados from its colonial origins to the shifting paradigms of post-independence and republic status the session situates local practice within global discourses of New Museology, anti-colonial resistance, and decolonial relationality (Mignolo).
Through projects such as Artistic Interventions (2018), LOOKA: Dismantling the Colonial Gaze (2024), and the Transoceanic Visual Exchange (TVE) triennial, the lecture highlights experimental models of democratic co-curatorship that foreground multivocality, accessibility, and community agency. These initiatives reflect a broader methodological framework developed by McGuire known as the Rhizomatic Research Methodology, which emphasises assemblage, relational ecologies, and localised approaches to decolonising knowledge production in museums.
By uncovering hidden narratives, interrogating visual hegemonies, and embracing collective authorship, the BMHS continues to challenge inherited structures of colonial museology. Ultimately, this talk proposes that decolonisation in museums is not a static act but an ongoing, relational process of redistributing institutional authority, amplifying community voices, and reconfiguring museums as living, multivocal ecologies of cultural meaning.
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Barbadian curator and researcher Dr. Natalie McGuire focuses her practice on community-led museology of the global south and its exchanges with the post-empire global north. She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of the West Indies Cave Hill and is the Curator of Social History & Community Engagement at the Barbados Museum & Historical Society, as well as a part-time tutor at the Barbados Community College. She is Vice Chair for ICOM Barbados, a member of the ICOM Working Group Decolonisation, and serves on the executive boards of ICOFOM LAC, the Barbados National Art Gallery, and The Fresh Milk Arts Platform Inc. She is co-founder of the Transoceanic Visual Exchange triennial, and is a Salzburg Global Fellow.