Athena Art Foundation

Digital technologies are continually changing the way we engage with and relate to physical objects. In this episode of What Are Museums For?, Fitzwilliam Museum Director Luke Syson and Athena Art Foundation Director Nicola Jennings are joined by Alayo Akinkugbe, Dr Gus Casely-Hayford OBE and Daniel Pett, to discuss the current digital opportunities around museum collections and engagement. What role can virtual exhibitions play in connecting people to collections? How might digital and physical approaches be combined to generate new layers of meaning? How can social media help us to tell different stories and engage younger audiences?

Every object tells a story, and the stories of how objects ended up in museums can be fraught with political and moral complexity, and even violence. In this episode of What Are Museums For?, Fitzwilliam Museum Director Luke Syson and Athena Art Foundation Director Nicola Jennings are joined by Professor Nicholas Thomas and Dr Donna Yates, to consider questions of institutional and community authority in the context of historical collections. Why do debates – and actions – around restitution matter? What responsibility do collectors/collections have to investigate and respond to the histories of the objects in their care? How does the restitution of objects fit with a broader desire to understand all cultures in all parts of the world?

For many individuals and communities, the history of art has been a history of neglect, exclusivity and exclusion. In this episode of What Are Museums For?, Fitzwilliam Museum Director Luke Syson and Athena Art Foundation Director Nicola Jennings are joined by Rebecca Birrell, Jennifer Higgie and Dan Vo, to consider representation in the context of gender, sexuality and sexual politics. Have approaches to the acquisition and display of works by and documenting women and LGBTQ+ lives changed in recent years? How should museums deal with problematic histories and with objectifying or violent imagery from the past? What level of responsibility do museums have to ‘represent’ particular identities or communities?

This podcast is a Fitzwilliam Museum, Colnaghi Foundation and Athena Art Foundation co-production.

There is increasing recognition that enslavement, racial violence and exploitation are an inextricable part of our collective histories. In this episode of What Are Museums For?, Fitzwilliam Museum Director Luke Syson and Athena Art Foundation Director Nicola Jennings are joined by Aindrea Emelife and John Orna-Ornstein, to consider museums’ responses to the legacies of enslavement and colonialism. How can we tell stories about them without repeating the violence and perpetuating racist hierarchies?  How do we make space for multiple truths, for complexity and contradiction? In the face of  multiple truths, where does the authority of museums reside?

Museums have traditionally played an important role in the forging of national identity. In this episode of What Are Museums For? Fitzwilliam Museum Director Luke Syson and Athena Art Foundation Director Nicola Jennings are joined by Sussan Babaie and Gabriele Finaldi, to discuss the relationship between museums and nationhood. How do ideas about national identity impact collections and their presentation? How might we develop less Eurocentric and more inclusive approaches? What roles could or should museums play in imagining the future for our country?

What are museums for? Whose stories do they tell? How do they decide which aspects of the past to preserve and represent? 
Join Luke Syson, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and Nicola Jennings, Director of the Athena Art Foundation, over the next few months for six conversations with curators, museum directors, activists and writers about the role of the museum in the 21st century.

Nicola Jennings talks to Sussan Babaie and Ina Sarikhani about the Epic Iran exhibition at London's V&A and the extremely sophisticated culture that flourished in Central Asia from about 3,000 BCE.  Looking at some of the exhibition highlights, such as gold beakers, cloisonné jewellery and  exquisite paintings in the Shanameh or Book of Kings, they discuss the mix of languages, ethnic groups and religions which coexisted under the Achaemenid Empire (550 BC),  the legacy of the slightly later Sasanian culture, and the transition to Islam.  They also reflect on how the exhibition makes us confront the biaises of art history towards the large format painting and sculpture which developed in Europe as opposed to objects such as books, carpets and ceramics which dominated high-end material culture in Asia.