Each year, we hand over Museum exhibit labels to a new group of collaborators. Part of the beauty of an object, or a museum collection, lies in its capacity to respond to more than one gaze and to unlock more than one story.
The Ashmolean is committed to hearing and telling as many of those stories as possible. We want to discover what it means to be an Ashmolean for All. A virtual exhibition of all past and present projects is available to view below.
Muslim students from Queen Mary University of London brought their faith and their personal backgrounds to their responses to the collection. Look out for green labels around the Museum. Medical students have also added their own interpretations on pale blue labels to match their surgery scrubs. To find out more, email us at omov ashmus. The personal responses of local young people aged between 16 and 18 shone a new light on our collection. Created by University of Oxford students, these labels — which appear in the Museum galleries — were written from personal experience as well as expertise, with participants considering their ethnicity, gender and sexuality in responding to the collections.
The Ashmolean is a public museum, a museum for Oxford, a national and a global museum. Over time we want to include and amplify more and more diverse voices, hear other stories and learn new ways of looking. Get in touch with feedback and suggestions to omov ashmus. The aim was to amplify a range of diverse voices from amongst those with a stake in the university collections. A group of 24 students from the University of Oxford, who answered a call seeking collaborators, were chosen to participate in workshops over the course of the spring term.
We know that objects can bear many stories and convey a range of meanings; mute items become eloquent and resonate with varied perspectives. We also know that museums are not neutral: the stories that are told, the objects that have been collected are a product of choices and privileges, sometimes made over centuries. This can affect who feels welcome in a space, who can see themselves reflected back in the exhibits.
