Socially-Engaged Museum Practice
When we talk about well-being we are in essence talking about a socially-engaged practice. We take the phrase ‘socially-engaged’ from the term ‘engaged buddhist’ as attributed to the Buddhist teacher Thích Nhất Hạn; in that the aim is to collectively apply the teachings and practices in our lives to undo systems that create suffering and injustice.
We must do these practices in respect to the systems in which we find ourselves, therefore as museum professionals we support the charter laid out by the Social Justice Alliance for Museums (SJAM), and this is our current contribution towards these collective goals.
As we are currently thinking museums in the key of Well-Being; individual and collective, we align our approaches with the elements of the social justice movement that often come under a banner of healing justice. These movements have sought to integrate joy, pleasure, and healing into our understanding of how to create social justice and social change. Facing individual and intergenerational trauma has been central to this work and mindfulness has played an important technical role in this. Much of this work has been conducted by black, brown, working class, and LGBTQ+ folks, and we pay homage to their work. It is our belief that museums, heritage sites, and their collections, offer an excellent environment to further explore personal and collective healing and trauma and the world as it is and could be.
One of the key methodological approaches of healing justice has been termed visionary fiction, by Walidah Imarisha; the telling of stories collectively of our possible futures, in this respect the museum could be a perfect arena for such practices drawing on the collections they hold to envision new realities.
The museum offers us context, and material analysis of trauma/s, and a container to move towards healing collectively and individually. We believe that a mindful museum practice centered on well-being is an important healing tool in this process towards collective well-being.
“Healing Justice is the practice of reimagining wholeness at the intersection of intergenerational trauma, current structures of oppression, and a generative and co-created future. We hold that joy and pleasure create possibility to be in right relationship with ourselves, each other, and the land. We strive to demystify medicine and healing, and to make them accessible for everyone. We believe that each person is an expert of their own experience, body, and needs and that is is necessary to address the roots of trauma and injustice for individual and collective transformation.”
– Allied Media Conference, 2018, Healing Justice Practice Space and Healing Justice Track Coordinators.
