MEG 50th Anniversary Conference: Help! Care and Support in Museums: Colleagues, Communities, and Collections. 

MEG invites colleagues, researchers, partners, community representatives, critical friends, and caretakers of all forms to explore and share their understandings, experiences, and reflections on the role of help in museums, by museums, and for museums and the people who work with and in them.

In 1965 Liverpool band the Beatles released their fifth album, Help! In 1975 MEG was founded as a type of self-help group. The importance of this role was highlighted by MEG member Ken Teague in his reflection on ten years of MEG. Now, fifty years after our founding, the sector has moved on in many ways, and the need for help and support has become even more central to museum practice. Beneficiary models of help and need have also been radically reframed as we consider who museums are for, and why.

This is a unique opportunity to not only reflect on 50 years of MEG, a major achievement for a Subject Specialist Network, but also to reflect upon how the collections, communities, and colleagues involved have consistently challenged the sector to change and consider what care means. But challenges and changes come with costs – costs to buildings, structures, and ways of working; they can also be personal and emotional. How do we respond to those costs and what support do we need and should be offered to try and mitigate them?

Some of the themes that could be explored could relate to or build upon the following:

• Defining the term – What does help mean in the context of museums, particularly in the context of Global Cultures or ethnographic collections? Why is help something we should or shouldn’t consider in the museum context? Is ‘help’ the right word?
• Who needs help? What needs help? Who is helping whom? Staff, community partners, ourselves…
• How, when, and where should help happen? Where can museums look to for help today? How can we ensure that ‘help’ does not become an extractive, performative, or colonial exercise?
• Practice and Help – Can methodologies and approaches to education, exhibitions, curation and collections care provide help? Or create spaces for providing help?
• Process and Help – How can guidelines, protocols, processes, and ethical guidelines be leveraged to ensure help is central to the work of museums?
• Programs and Help – Can offerings beyond exhibitions and displays become opportunities for care, support, and exchange?

This year, in addition to submissions for 15–20 minute papers or 5–10 minute Work In Progress updates, we would like to introduce the possibility of holding Panel Discussions as a way to allow for more organic conversations. A panel discussion might include 3–4 speakers giving very brief introductions to themselves/their work followed by discussions led by a facilitator for approximately 30–40 mins. A panel could be based around a theme or provocation. Self-selected groups can apply as a panel with a topic. Alternatively, individuals can submit a proposal for a panel or their interest in participating on a panel related to one of the themes above.

We encourage submissions from anyone working with, in or researching any aspect of museums and at any point in their career or studies. Participants wanting to contribute should send a proposal of 250 words, in Word or equivalent, indicating whether you are proposing a paper or participating on a panel. The document should detail how your work or experience will speak to one or more of the conference themes. Please include a short biography and send both to GlobalCultures@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk by 17th January 2025. (NB. If providing a Google Doc, please export your document rather than sharing a link to the document.)

For reference, abstracts from the 2024 conference can be found on the MEG website.

Conference Bursaries:

Two UK bursaries are aimed at people working (paid or voluntary) or wanting to work in UK museums, without institutional support to attend the Conference, with up to £300 each for Conference fee, membership, travel, accommodation, and food. Applications are especially welcome from people who have been historically marginalised, including scholars who are women, BAME, LGBTQI+, disabled or have a long-term health condition, first generation scholars, carers, unemployed etc.

We ask that individuals in receipt of the MEG bursary write up their recollections of the conference in a blog for the MEG website by the end of June 2025.

If you are interested in applying for a bursary, please complete the application form using the link below, and including a statement of up to 500 words by 17th January 2025. Please state why you want to attend the MEG Conference, the title of your paper or panel (if applicable), how attendance will benefit your study/work, and how you will share your learning. Applications will be assessed on the perceived benefits of attending and the fit with MEG’s aspirations.