The Emotional Museum: Victimhood and Loss

How do you feel when you step into a museum? It’s rarely a simple answer. 

Through ‘The Emotional Museum’, a team of University of Glasgow researchers untangle the complex and often overlooked feelings evoked by collections and the spaces that hold them. 

Moving beyond the labels and the glass cases, we ask: what do these objects really do to us? 

From joy to exhaustion and from anger to ambivalence, join us as we explore the full spectrum of feelings that museums provoke. 

What do our emotional responses to collections reveal about power, identity and belonging? And how might reckoning with these emotions help us build more honest and accountable museums?

In this episode, Caitlin, Salma and Taylar talk through victimhood and loss.

Transcript

CAITLIN

How do you grapple with those two things of not wanting to traumatise people or force emotions of loss and victimhood? But it's important because people still feel. People are still being oppressed. People are still feeling subjected to that.

ZANDRA

The Emotional Museum is a series of conversations, exploring what we feel when we enter museum spaces. Through intimate conversations, we unpack the emotions that surface among objects, stories and silence. How memory, identity and power shape our experiences of museums and how museums shape us in return. In this episode, Caitlin, Salma and Taylar express views on victimhood and loss.

CAITLIN

Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Emotional Museum Project. Today we're talking about victimhood and loss. I'm Caitlin.

SALMA

I'm Salma.

TAYLAR

And I'm Taylar.

CAITLIN

Great, so will we start off with a bit of a definition?

TAYLAR

Yeah, so the one that I found on Google was, so for victimhood was one that is subjected to oppression, hardship or mistreatment. And then for loss, well there was a loads of different definitions for victimhood and for loss, but for the ones that I picked up, for loss, the acts or fact of being unable to keep or maintain something or someone, which I thought was really interesting to kind of to talk about later.

CAITLIN

The one that really stuck out for me was loss and it was from the Oxford English Dictionary. Being deprived of or the failure to keep a possession, a pertinence, right, quality, faculty or the like, which I thought was quite interesting, the idea of loss as being something, somehow a failure. In what ways can feelings of loss and victimhood express itself within a museum space?

SALMA

It generally starts with the way that narratives are portrayed in a museum space and what, A, what narratives are chosen to be portrayed and then B, how those narratives are portrayed. You know, they say that there's never one side to a story. There's always multiple sides to a story, right? But like if we choose to just focus on one side, that, you know, colonial times where it was used to show colonial superiority, then that naturally lends itself to showing the inferior, quote unquote, group as in a position of victimhood, as losing something because actually in that position of establishing superiority and inferiority and hierarchy, ultimately there needs to be a loser, quote unquote, in that situation. So ultimately someone's always portrayed as having lost something or being the subject of an oppressive system.

CAITLIN

Do you think there's a specific difference between the feeling of victimhood or experience victimhood and feelings or experience and loss within the museum space?

SALMA

I think they go hand in hand. I think it is probably two separate emotions we're talking about, but I do think they go hand in hand, right? Like if you are the victim of something, you're inherently losing something, like losing your sense of power, losing your sense of agency and your ability to speak up for yourself because you're ultimately being subject to an oppressive system, therefore, subjugated by something.

CAITLIN

I think that's a really interesting point and definitely something that we discussed a little bit during one of the earlier episodes of this loss of agency and I can see how they really do tie in together.

TAYLAR

When we're talking about loss, I think going back to the definition of being able to keep or maintain something, when we're talking about this loss, I guess when you're like a loss of culture, it's interesting in terms of what do we mean by loss? Like do you mean the physical, actual, if we're looking at artifacts or we're looking at certain materials, like do we mean the actual loss of that not being within that specific in its, I guess, its home where it needs to be, wherever it is in the world? Or is that a wider representation of, I guess, loss of a culture or loss of the perception of that object, especially when depending on how it's displayed, like what are we, what specifically are we losing, if that makes sense? And I guess that depends on the person that views it. I guess it's just very dependent on, I guess, the audiences that are in the museum space as well.

SALMA

I like what you said there about like, what are we losing? Like the question about what we're losing. And now that made me think about the way we talk about like ancient civilizations and ancient cultures. I don't know if other people experienced this when going into museum spaces, but there's never a connection that's always like, that was a time, a bygone era. We've lost that access to that civilization. We've lost access to that culture.
 
 You know, like talking about Egyptian culture, even talking about like Hellenistic culture, like Rome and Greece, they always feel quite far away from you, and yet that's because it's an ancient civilization, but it's always framed in the context of that it's over and done with. You know what I mean? Like it's no longer part of our history. And actually, when you think about that, do we ever truly lose a culture? Do we ever really truly lose a people or an identity? Because even if it doesn't exist as the way it was thousands of years ago, or practiced thousands of years ago, don't practices just generally evolve and morph and become something new and then turn into different sorts of practice that kind of pass through generations anyway?
 
 Things, stuff like this identity and cultures, they evolve over time. It takes generations, it takes hundreds of years, it takes millennia to actually change into something new, but it doesn't mean that we necessarily lose it. But the way we frame that narrative and focus on the fact that it was an ancient civilization and the way we use language to say the Egyptian peoples or the Romans or the sorts of labels also creates that like distinction of something gone.

TAYLAR

Yeah, and I think that's interesting, especially I guess when people walk into museums, I'm thinking more of the slavery museum as what I, when I last visited it, I'd say like two years ago. for people to, I guess, recognize certain objects, there must be a connection to the now, right? There must be an understanding that, okay, when we're looking at pre, because the slavery museum was split into three sections, now there's a pre-colonial section. And when they look at, say, for example, like kente cloth or drums or certain things that, or even the Adinkra symbols that they had, you would recognize, like certain groups would go in and recognize that and be like, oh, we use that now. We do this, we do that. This is the culture that we still have. So, I guess in that sense, that loss is more of that physical object because the loss of the culture, they still have it. It's just that it's been, you know, the actual physical object is in there.

SALMA

And I think that is an extremely important point to consider in terms of, in two ways. So first you can think about like having a history of loss for the object in the sense that there's, if you consider them as prize of the heroes, of the winners, you know what I mean? Like a physical artifact that represents and reinforces a superior capabilities to be able to take those objects from the cultures of the people or its home and then bring it back and have it displayed in this new colonizers world, right?
 
 That is one way of losing it, but the other part of that is losing its connection to its original culture and then the kind of memory that's imbued with that, right? So, an object, really, in effect, an object is an object. What actually makes that object worth something is the significance it holds for someone. So, when you take it away and you put it in a glass case, it sort of loses that connection to its own life and its own vitality because it no longer has that that significance is just an object in a glass case now. It's reduced to an inanimate object.
 
  And in that case, it's like, it's loss in that case is losing its living memory and its ability to hold that memory, hold that life, hold that connection, hold that spirituality in some sense. Yeah, I like what you guys said there about like the loss of an object itself.

TAYLAR

Yeah, because essentially, it's frozen in time once it's in that glass box - especially when we're looking at, I think we spoke about this in, I think, the Anger and Rage podcast, when we're looking at, for example, clothing that's supposed to be worn, things that are supposed to be used to, for everything in life, that essentially is, that value is taken away from them.
 
 So yeah, that's a very interesting point in terms of like loss of the object. It just, it becomes just an object. Saying you can't win is probably not the best way of saying it. But in terms of what I feel like I'm repeating from like the last podcast.

SALMA

We weren't there. It's a different conversation.

TAYLAR

In terms of how people view a museum, sometimes that that will stick that's as an inherently colonial space. And it's something that will people will go in with that mentality and have that mentality no matter what form of production that was made or what form of care was taken into it. I guess the perception of a museum itself shapes, I don't know, I feel like the perception of museum in the colonial sense for some people is they're just, it's a definition of like loss and victimhood. 
 
 The museum in itself is that. So, whatever you do inside will automatically, like you said, become that no matter in what process it is. And I think it's complicating definitions of museums, what does it mean, what does this space mean and how the different ways it can, I guess, be presented would play a part, I guess, in changing that. But it's hard, like I say, when we're looking at these things, there's this, because we've spoken about, when we talk about museums, we've spoken about this like colonial thing, but the museums in general are very broad and it can represent a bunch of different things. 
 
 So, I guess how does… what does loss look like in, I don't know, an art museum when it's an expression rather than the actual objects themselves, when it's an expression of art by someone, how does that manifest itself in those type of spaces as well?

CAITLIN

So, we've got a question here. Do museums inherently reflect loss or victimhood or are there ways to minimise them?

SALMA

Kind of goes back to the way we've been discussing this in terms of like how we've created loss, how we've curated loss and how we've displayed loss, right? So, I guess it depends on like what the museum is actively trying to do and sometimes maybe it's not even active, maybe it is passive in the sense that like they've taken a perspective or an approach that embraces loss at some point for some purpose.
 
 It's not necessarily in terms of like creating hierarchy or power. It could just be because it's like the subject matter needs to be loss or they need to work through the idea of loss and emotionality of loss in order because their visitors and their audience actually needs to experience in that space in order to connect with a larger narrative.
 
 I don't know maybe something like the Holocaust museums might want to talk about loss, loss of culture, loss of life, loss of memory and identity, right, as a way to kind of understand the trauma or the significance of that sort of genocide.

CAITLIN

I think that's a really good point and that's kind of just made me think about how museums can evoke or maybe set out specifically to evoke feelings of, and emotions of, loss and victimhood. Specifically to, I guess, engage with the displays or the objects that are being displayed. There are some objects that are hard to look at, hard to see, hard to hear about the histories. And I think sometimes museums can evoke those emotions specifically so that you feel that.

TAYLAR

When we talk about, I guess, other ways to minimise them, sometimes that's not the intention. Sometimes it's also... by accident that they do that.

CAITLIN

Do you think there can be an issue when museums do try to minimise this emotion of victimhood? I'm thinking victimhood specifically for museums that I've been to and some that we went to as a group and specific objects that I've seen. Do you think there is a problem, or maybe not a problem, but if there can be some issue around the negatives of trying to almost diminish those feelings?

TAYLAR

I'm thinking more in relation to like slavery and colonialism, because that's just the thing at the front of my head. When they're writing displays or specific things, sometimes it is based off of, well, majority is based off of like archival research and what is written within the archives about, in this case, enslaved people.
 
 However, how enslaved people are written in those archives are also, they dehumanize them and sometimes they can accidentally reflect, when trying to demonstrate, this is the history, they can speak it too plainly in terms of who actually wrote that specific history rather than, I guess, reading along the grain and presenting them, I guess, really emphasizing their oppression even within those archives.
 
 So, I think there is this issue that can happen even when you are trying to demonstrate, okay, well, this is what happened, this is how they were oppressed. You accidentally reflect the same colonial language that is in the archives while trying to actually present the opposite.

SALMA

When we tried to rely so heavily on the archival documents, and the archival documents are only written from one perspective with one sort of like approach and language, and even if we are acknowledging that these are the gaps in the archive, and actually the archive is quite prejudiced, by focusing on the archival document, we're still reiterating the dominance of those documents, right?
 
 Instead of thinking, okay, well, the archive is written from between two white planters, for example, and they're talking about their assets in such and such a way. Now, we know that happened from that perspective. How do we fill in the gap by giving voice to the subjects in that document? So as opposed to just like saying that this is what the archive or what the process was based on the language in the archive. How can we like flesh out larger narratives of the people who were invisible or silent in those archives, right?
 
 Sort of like, how do we create our own archive as a counter to that or as a balance to that dominance instead of just focusing on what the archive says already, or like the problems of what the archive says. Because even if we talk about the problems and we only focus on those problems, that we're sort of just reiterating actually the problem with it, you know what I mean? Like, you just kind of like, it's like a catch-22 if you do it that way.

CAITLIN

How do you challenge that? How do you, how do, if you work in museums, if you're visiting museums, how can you challenge that, singular narrative, whatever it is? But I'm thinking specifically of maybe of oppression, of, you know, representation, representing people as victims. How do you open up that narrative so that you can hear, I guess, their voice, a different narrative, a different emotion, a different feeling.

TAYLAR

I think it's now transforming, I guess, what we define as a museum, I think, a good example - I keep on going back to ISM because that's all I know, especially because they're going through this massive transformation. And you can see in the embryonic stages, before they shut down, how they were trying to be more of like an evaluative museum, from the tour that I've heard that you, what had happened, what you guys did, it was more of like, how do we make this better? How do we look at certain objects and how do we define certain objects?
 
 They had a display, not ISM, I think it was the World Museum in Liverpool, where they present a specific, maybe it's a slave Bible, I can't remember. But they put a specific object up and it was on the glass, there were these questions in terms of, okay, well, what's the main narrative? How does this present X, Y, and Z? And how do we tell this story? 
 
 So, I think it's a very interesting topic to talk about and understand that museums are also political spaces and they have this opportunity to then say, okay, where are we standing? What is our narrative? But then to also let their audiences decide that for themselves and how they display and how they write about specific objects. So, it's interesting. You can see these stages starting to happen in specifically Liverpool that I've seen, but there's probably way more to kind of to deal with that. How do you write about these narratives? But then also understanding that what we say isn't the be all and end all in the museum. Like that is what our little note on our little tag said, that's not everything. Sometimes we don't know. And I think that's very important, I guess, this transparency in helping shape these narratives or trying to minimize how it actively, like I guess, enforces victimhood without realising it.

CAITLIN

I think I'm going to jump straight in there from what you said about the ISM. I was one of the, I was lucky enough to go along to Liverpool with the group and there were a lot of things that stuck out to me and yeah, we were lucky enough to see this, just the International Slavery Museum as it was going through this refurbishment. Yet the one thing that really sticks out to me and stuck out to me at the point when I was viewing it and the sudden, just the rush of emotions that I felt looking at this one object and it was, if I'm remembering correctly, I'm pretty sure what it used to be.
 
 I think they used to have the actual KKK outfit. You'll know, yeah, they used to have it. I think they used to have it up towering above people. I think that they then changed it. I think it's now in, it's like in a box or if it's in the container that it came in. And I don't know if I, think that I hadn't expected to see it. I just, I had, it wasn't even like a rush of questions, which I, looking back, I would have assumed that I would see that and be like, oh, why have they got that there, what's it doing? But I'll be honest, the minute I saw what it was, it was a rush of fear. It was fear and feeling like a victim because as a person of colour, that is just what I, I felt like a victim at that moment because seeing that image is just ingrained into me. That's dangerous. You should be scared of that. How do you curate an object like that? How do staff deal with an object like that? How should audience members, how do you deal with emotions if that's, you know, you're in a public space?
 
 I was lucky enough that, you know, there weren't many people around, but I was in a safe space where I then was able to talk about those feelings. But if you're not, how can you even, how do you go around even dealing with those feelings and how does the museum deal with an object like that? And it needs to be dealt with in a certain way so that audience members know how to deal with this object. That's the kind of object I don't think you should minimise what it means and the emotions it brings. But in the same way, I'm glad that it wasn't a towering, that they changed it, because I can only imagine, if that's what I felt, seeing a tiny bit of it in a box, what I would have felt if it was towering above me.

TAYLAR

I was going to say I was an intern while, because I didn't know it was in the box. When I was doing my internship there, it was towering over and that was something that I didn't know was there. And it was just like a, it was shocking. And especially because even me, like I'm 5'10, so I'm quite tall, but that, it was, it was really, really, it was really in your face. And it's, a hard thing to deal with, I think, especially talking with the workers when they have to go and give tours, and especially in ISM, where the majority of the staff are black or people of colour, like that's the majority of them having to constantly walk in that space and have this feeling of victimhood.
 
 I think this goes back to what we talk about how did the staff feel like when they're dealing with these things, when they realise, I guess, the importance of acknowledging these stories and these histories, but then having to deal with how that makes you feel in that very moment. The same way I understand the importance of having a slavery museum, the understanding of making sure that history is very much not hidden. But then how does that make me feel every time I walk in?
 
 Like, how does that, do you take away those feelings or how, like, how do you kind of grapple with this feeling of like oppression and victimhood when you know that it's an important history to display? However, that also takes... It's interesting because important for who? I guess, when we're looking into these forms of victimhood because someone else can walk in and be like, oh my gosh, and then. I guess it won't resonate with them as much as it would with other people. Yeah, it's a very, it's a very interesting dynamic that you feel, especially in those spaces.

SALMA

In thinking of that KKK cloak is that - should these spaces, we need them in order to understand those powers and those hierarchies and those systems that actually were designed specifically for the purpose of oppression and subjugation. Like let's call it that. That's exactly what it was, right? Like colonialism flourished because it perpetuated oppression and it could only flourish if it continued to uphold hierarchies. 
 
 So, we need a space to understand that victimhood is actually a reality. It's not just like, it's not just something that we make up in our heads or it's not just like a perspective. There are processes that are focused specifically on creating victims or oppressing people in a system in order to thrive and to be a benefit to someone at the top. So, in terms of like these spaces and something like the KKK cloak, could those spaces and those objects be used to reclaim the narrative? If the people who were initially made out to be the victims or meant to be the victims in those systems, if we reclaim those spaces and make those spaces twofold, show that the processes happened, use them as a space to explore and confront those histories, but also as a way to reclaim those histories as well.
 
 So, for example, not have it mounted, have it somewhere in the museum, but in a space where it's not minimised, but intentionally minimised. So not hidden away, but put in a space, in a place that reduces its significance. Purposefully reduces its significance. Does that make sense?

CAITLIN

I mean, I don't know the exact ins and outs. I wasn't there. I think that maybe it was part of the reason why they maybe took it down from it, being the towering cloak, the outfit, whatever it is, to take away some of that power.
 
 Because having it, having something like that, which already has almost like inherent power for what it represents to so many people, how do you take that power away? While still, I guess, acknowledging that it is such an important object because it still is a form of oppression for so many people. I'm thinking of, I guess I'm thinking of America really, of where you see it in the, you see pictures of people wearing, still wearing the outfit, of still wearing that cloak.

TAYLAR

I think, yeah, I think it's interesting. That's why I think I have the utmost respect for the curators now at ISM grappling with that, being able to taking all of the criticism that's been going on, because this was, this is going to be the third renovation because it was in the underground in like 2007 when it opened up and they changed it again and then they're doing it again.
 
 So, I have utmost respect because it is really something, it's very difficult to kind of grapple with. My question was, I guess when we're looking at empathy for victims and empathy for victimhood in terms of curation, how do you think it could, the best way this could be this could be done? So, for example, there's, I guess there's this, there's this big issue in terms of role play, right? And how in the one of the museums, I think in the first reiteration of ISM, there was also this ship and for a lot of children, yeah.

CAITLIN

Oh, we were, yeah, we were talked through where you, I think they went in and they had like voices and there was a video and you were basically made to experience like the middle passage, I think.

TAYLAR

Yeah, so that was, so there was two versions, I think there was it in the first reiteration, I don't think which any of us have attended to when it was in the very like basement of the Maritime Museum, I think they had like a scale ship that you could go into. And then for this, for the new one that they had is that big thing in the middle, there was that circle which they, of the middle passage.
 
 And it's interesting because it was, okay, for people who don't automatically are feeling the legacies of victimhood from that. How do you, if you should, I guess, curate this sort of empathy in terms of for them to understand, I guess, the extent of victimhood, which you can't, not in this, not in this context, but how can that, how can that be done without traumatising people and without doing it any injustice or how, like, how does this, how does this work?

SALMA

I don't have an answer to that question. just, I just, from what I'm getting from this conversation, it's just, that's such a great question - actually, we should leave that in here because it's something worth considering and worth thinking about, right?
 
 We are entering an era of museum practice where we're very aware that things can be triggering, things can be traumatising. And, you know, we're trying different approaches. We're putting disclaimers about language, disclaimers about, about things that somebody might encounter in the space if they proceed to enter, right? So, we're starting to think about it. But there is no right or wrong answer yet. And actually, it probably is going to be a process. And in the meantime, all you can really do is show up and try your best and try different techniques.

CAITLIN

I think that feeling, being kind and all the different emotions that we've been discussing brings me to a question which has kind of been circling around in my head when I'm considering sort of victimhood and loss as specific emotions. How do museums make space for vulnerability?
 
 Because I think that those emotions, I don't say vulnerability is a negative, I'm just saying that it is something that you can experience while feeling these emotions and how museums, I guess I wonder how museums navigate that space. Navigate creating space for people to feel like that, to feel emotions like victimhood, like loss, if we consider loss as an emotion in itself, how can that be done safely with care for not just the audience members but the staff as well?
 
 We've talked a lot about caring for the staff who have different backgrounds, who have different histories, different experiences. How could museums even begin to do that?

SALMA

I think something that we probably should say explicitly in these sessions, right? Because we've divided our sessions into very specific emotions, but even within our sessions, we're sort of cross-referencing conversations that came out of different emotional podcasts, right? And that sort of is the point, is that in a museum space, we can't just focus on one emotion. No person or no experience is just experience of loss. 
 
 There's always things to counter that. There's always celebration. There's always moments of empowerment that reaffirm someone's agency. So, actually, like, if we want to make sure that people are allowed to be vulnerable. We need to reward vulnerability with the ability to actually allow people to be empowered as well in that space and to celebrate as well.
 
 If we say to you, yes, this exhibit or this object could trigger certain hurtful or painful memories or painful emotions, how are we just going to let people like wallow and then walk out of space feeling unsettled? No, actually now it's your responsibility as a museum space to provision or buffer those feelings of pain and loss by giving the opposite of that, which is joy and empowerment and agency, right? Like I think we can't just think about emotionality as singular categories, it needs to be a holistic experience.

CAITLIN

That is such an important point because all of these emotions that we are discussing throughout these podcasts and all these different episodes, is that they're not siloed. These emotions, you can feel them all, you can feel various ones, they can be opposing, they can also be like similar, but yeah, like what you just said there really struck a chord is how do you experience these, some difficult emotions, and not just feel like you're being kind of left outside to then just sort of figure it out on your own?

TAYLAR

I mean, I understand, I understand the, I guess, the portrayal of all these different emotions in these museum spaces, but I think also, yeah, victimhood and loss shouldn't be sidelined, right?
 
 That's what we have, we still have, I guess, these exhibitions that have sometimes have this intention to demonstrate the suppression of certain peoples. Yeah, I also think you should, if you want to, be allowed to wallow in it and to truly feel it. Like, we spoke about this in the anger and rage podcast and, sometimes when you go into a space and you're angry and the museums are now, or are now have been about creating more spaces to, yeah, to express joy, like you sit and you colour and you have your space to whatever. And I think Zaki spoke about, I also want the space to express my rage. And I also want the space to, in this case, express my victim I want to express this loss that I truly feel when you come across an object that is similar, either similar to you or your own cultures, knowing how it's supposed to be used and presented or knowing actually what it's for, but it's not written on that.
 
 How can museums then, I guess, hold that, allow you to hold that space for you as well, rather than, I guess, giving you a say, well, you know, this is a joyful piece and you don't want to minimize that feeling because it's something that we should all feel? Like regardless of our backgrounds, there is this sense of loss and mistreatment. And you have like, do you want to hold on to that for a bit to truly feel what you need to feel? So, it's just, I don't know where, how would, what would that space look like rather than I guess giving it, like getting, not getting rid of it, but providing an alternate emotion rather than allowing you to sit in one?

CAITLIN

Yeah, I can see, I actually think that in a way ties in with empathy, what you discussed is feeling that you can, I guess it depends on how each individual person expresses their feelings, whether or not it is they want to sit and they just want to feel it quietly, or if they want to do something artistic, or if they just want to have a discussion.
 
 And I think knowing that, for me personally, it's sometimes I just like to talk about it, but it's important the person that I'm talking to that I know that they are feeling empathy, that I know that they can be empathetic and that they won't just diminish what I'm saying because they haven't experienced it. And this ties in with this feeling where a feeling of loss, of almost a loss of innocence or childhood when you can be experiencing, or yeah, when you're experiencing different museums, different exhibitions, and I'm thinking specifically to ones that can have quite difficult objects.
 
 And for me it was specifically a feeling of loss of an innocence, of being reminded of a racism that I'd felt as a child that the person that I was then talking to about this hadn't, but to have that empathy towards these emotions is just so important.

SALMA

I absolutely agree with what you both was saying. Like I do think that museums should make space and allow us to hold those emotions, and I think that goes back to what you were saying too about like about vulnerability. Like we need to be allowed to feel what we feel and respond in our true feelings in museum spaces. Not saying that shouldn't happen. I'm just saying that also as part of that experience, as part of the care for that experience, we should also like counter, give people the opportunity to counter those emotions with an alternative emotion before walking out of that space. 
 
 So, if they want to stay in that feeling and hold that feeling for a bit longer and leave with that feeling, that's fine, but not have that be the only option, not have that be the only thing they come out with. And I actually think like the difficult emotions are important to hold space for because actually like if someone doesn't understand your sense of loss or a sense of disempowerment, of being victimised, then how do we advocate for practices or processes to counter systems that inflict loss and victimhood?

TAYLAR

So, in practical terms then, how would this, what would this look like? Would there be more stuff on, what do you call it, like the floor that I guess are trained in certain ways to do, like how would this work, you know? That's a big question, but how would, what's the materialised, how could this be done?

SALMA

When you first started talking about this, I actually had the image of just like post-its all around, like an exhibit or something, you know what I mean? Just to like capture people's initial and raw reaction to something that it was a word or like a drawing or something that just sort of captured what they initially felt as they were encountering an exhibition that initiated feelings of victimhood and loss. Like having space to voice those reactions without having to talk to someone.
 
 Because sometimes actually having to talk to someone in the museum, like having to talk to museum staff can be quite daunting. Like it's a bit of a barrier, right? Because if the museum space is actually inflicting that or is actually inflicting like rage or anger, the last person you want to talk to is someone who's affiliated with that institution. So being able to like respond to it in an authentic and unfiltered and uncensored way could be quite empowering for people as well.
 
 And actually that's the point then that you're saying to you that this is meant to have you experience what it feels to be victimised, what it feels, what loss feels like. So, what is your reaction to those feelings?

CAITLIN

Museums being open to the individual, that everybody wants to, like you said, not everybody wants to talk about this. Not everybody wants to talk about their experiences, not everybody wants to talk about how they're feeling in that moment, but having almost a way to kind of output that, like you said, on Post-it Notes, which I think is a brilliant idea, doing something like that. But also having that option that if there are people that do want to talk, you know, that they can. But I guess feeling like it depends on each person, but opening up that space to be like... this is for you, what would help for you?

SALMA

And also sometimes it doesn't even need to be like, as you were just saying that I was thinking like, I'm thinking too much now. I have too many ideas. Like not even like having the museum staff to speak to, but like maybe like a recording device where you just go and be like, I thought so and so. Or like you say a few words or you just sort of like let loose on that recording. Like just to capture. That's also such a great way to sort of capture history of the museum as well. You know what I mean? In terms of like capturing the process of how a museum develops as well.

ZANDRA

Thanks for listening to the Emotional Museum podcast. This episode was brought to you by the Emotional Museum with the Hunterian at University of Glasgow.