Transforming Collections: Reimagining Art, Nation and Heritage is a 3-year project led by Dr susan pui san lok, UAL Professor of Contemporary Art and Director of the Decolonising Arts Institute. Running from November 2021 to January 2025, the work is being carried out by an interdisciplinary team of colleagues from UAL Decolonising Arts Institute and UAL Creative Computing Institute, working closely with Tate and a further 15 national and international collection and archive partners.
Transforming Collections is 1 of 5 ‘Discovery Projects’ and part of the 5-year Towards a National Collection (TaNC) programme. Funded by UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, Towards a National Collection is supporting research that seeks to address the barriers that exist within and between the UK’s cultural heritage collections, with the aim of opening them up to new research opportunities and encouraging the public to explore them in new ways.
Summary
Transforming Collections is underpinned by the belief that a ‘national collection’ cannot be imagined without addressing structural inequalities and systemic biases in the arts. It sets out to engage with the contentious histories imbued in collection objects and their interpretative material and collection data, to reveal the sometimes uncomfortable stories that collections tell.
The project combines critical art historical and museological research with participatory interactive machine learning design to surface suppressed histories, amplify marginalised voices and re-evaluate artists and artworks ignored or sidelined by dominant narratives.
Looking at a range of public art collections and archives, a diverse team of art historians and museum professionals are working closely with creative computing technologists to develop a usable, adaptable interactive machine learning (IML) tool to support critical analyses of collections. This collaborative iterative process aims to ensure the technology is shaped to serve the research needed to challenge, complicate and enrich existing collections data.
The project will deliver:
- Partial digitisation of iniva’s artists archive, towards an eventual public research resource
- An international conference in partnership with Van Abbemuseum, NL
- Novel adaptable interactive ML software for dissemination across partners and the GLAM sector
- Critical and interdisciplinary case studies (conference papers, journal articles, book chapters)
- An edited publication showcasing the project and research
- Artwork commissions developed by four artists undertaking practice research residencies
- Selected artists and artworks showcased online with Art UK
- A week-long public programme curated with Tate Learning
Read the news stories so far at the links below for more information on the research.
Project team
Principal Investigator
Co-Investigators
- Professor Sonia Boyce
- Professor Rebecca Fiebrink
- Professor Mick Grierson
- Dr Anjalie Dalal-Clayton
- Dr Peaks Krafft
- Dr Athanasios Velios
- Christopher Griffin (Tate)
- Dr Hannah Barton (National Museums Scotland)
- Mark Miller (Tate)
- Liam Darbon (Tate)
- Hilary Knight (Tate)
Researchers
- Dr Tiffany Boyle
- Kit Bower-Morris
- Dr Alice Correia
- Dr Andrew Cummings
- Dr Jon Gillick
- Dr Tehmina Goskar
- Dr Ireti Olowe
- Veera Jussila
- Ananda Rutherford
- Dr Ian Sergeant
- Dr Charlotte Webb
AI Software Development Engineers
- Kathryn Webb
- Polo Sologub
Practice Researchers in Residence
- Evan Ifekoya
- Christina Peake
- Erika Tan
- Yu-Chen Wang
iniva Archivist
- Kaitlene Koranteng
Public Programme Coordinator
- Ariel Haviland
Project and Partnerships Manager
Project Administrator
You can contact us at ContactTransformingCollections@arts.ac.uk
Project partners and collaborating organisations
Stories
-
Yu-Chen Wang, 2020-2022, 'If there is a place I haven't been to', installation view at Le lieu unique, Nantes (2022) and MoCA Taipei (2020).
Announcing the Practice Researchers in Residence
Four artist researchers have been selected to undertake a 15-month virtual practice-based research residency as part of the Transforming Collections: Reimagining Art, Nation and Heritage project.
-
Stephanie Dinkins, On Love and Data (installation view), Stamps Gallery. Michigan, 2021
Transforming Collections, Rewinding Internationalism at the Van Abbemuseum
The Transforming Collections, Rewinding Internationalism conference aims to bring artistic, curatorial, art historical and museological practices into critical dialogue with machine learning development.
-
Upper Gallery, Workshop block, London College of Communication, UAL. Photo by Ideal Insight
Initial Project Report
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.