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Transforming Collections: Report on the first year

A corridor with both walls covered with artworks and the centre end wall has a digital display.
  • Written byCat Cooper
  • Published date 20 October 2022
A corridor with both walls covered with artworks and the centre end wall has a digital display.
Upper Gallery, Workshop block, London College of Communication, UAL. Photo by Ideal Insight

With an open call for practice research residencies currently underway, the Transforming Collections project team have published their first report, documenting the approach and first year of activity on the Towards a National Collection (TaNC) Discovery Project.

Transforming Collections: Reimagining Art, Nation, Heritage is led by Professor susan pui san lok, Director of the UAL Decolonising Arts Institute in collaboration with UAL Creative Computing Institute, and close partnership with Tate as an Independent Research Organisation. The additional 15 project partners are: Arts Council Collection, Art Fund, Art UK, Birmingham Museums Trust, British Council Collection, Contemporary Art Society, Glasgow Museums, iniva (Institute of International Visual Art), JISC Archives Hub, Manchester Art Gallery, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art(MIMA), National Museums Liverpool, Wellcome Collection, the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, and the Government Art Collection.

Transforming Collections aims to enable digital search across collections, to uncover patterns of bias in collections systems and narratives, to reveal hidden connections, and to open up new interpretative frames and ‘potential histories’ of art, nation and heritage.

The project combines critical art historical and museological research with participatory machine learning (ML) design. The current open call will bring on board a series of artistic research residencies to embed creative activations of ML within the project’s research and public programme. Transforming Collections will culminate in a public programme in autumn 2024.

Current activity

The project is designed around 5 parallel and interweaving work strands:

Strand A: Surfacing Bias Across Collections (critical case studies) 
Strand B: Resurfacing Artists and Artworks Across Collections (critical case studies) 
Strand C: Participatory Design of ML (ideation and refinement workshops) 
Strand D: Interactive ML Technology Development (prototyping and testing) 
Strand E: Public Engagement Programme (in person and online events)

  • Collections case studies and ML development are progressing in tandem, with regular cross-strands meetings to ensure that critical research and design processes are mutually informed and driven.
  • Participatory design and feedback mechanisms are being established across the partnership to embed and sustain collaborative ethical approaches.
  • As the project unfolds, invited workshop participants will include diverse academic researchers, staff and students, as well as representatives from concurrent TaNC programme projects.
  • Proposals for cross-TaNC projects activity on data ethics are also in development.

Year 1 summary

The first year of Transforming Collections has focused on:

  • Extending and expanding the collections audit data from the Black Artists and Modernism project (AHRC 2015-18)
  • Auditing Tate Collection’s Subject Index tags
  • Preparing the digitisation of the unique artists’ archive within the Stuart Hall Library at iniva
  • Developing collaborative interdisciplinary working processes
  • Developing data sharing guidance and ethical working principles
  • Undertaking initial partner workshops
  • Identifying early case studies
  • Gathering diverse datasets from Tate and our various partners and organisations
  • Initial public programme development, including current call for artistic researchers in residence

Read the full report

First Report: Discovery Projects. Transforming Collections: Reimagining Art, Nation and Heritage: October 6 2022

Practice research residencies: apply by 30 October

Up to 8 virtual research residences will start in January 2023 and conclude in March 2024. The call is open to mid-career or established yet institutionally under-represented artists, such as artists who identify as black, brown or people of colour. Artist researchers working in any media can apply, including digital, audiovisual, live art, performance and installation art.

Find out more and apply

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