My current Doctoral research responds to the interpretation of decolonisation as ‘diversification’ in many museums in the UK, which while seemingly positive on the surface risks perpetuating colonial dynamics and providing a cover for whiteness. My research asks the overarching question: To what extent can shifting the gaze onto whiteness and ‘race’ contribute to decolonisation in museums, and to what extent can this create more racially inclusive spaces?  

In addition, this research asks two sub-questions:  

1. What happens when white ‘sees’ white? In shifting the white gaze onto itself, and by changing the subject-object dynamic, can new ways of seeing be created?  

2. What artistic and curatorial methods can be adopted to reduce the harm of white museum spaces, avoiding the perpetuation of ‘Othering’ in the white space?

In order to answer these questions my research has three phases:

1.UNPACKING EXPERIENCES:

The aim of UNPACKING EXPERIENCES is to examine the personal experience of visiting exhibitions on ‘race’ and racialised history in white museum spaces, and to explore patterns and themes of artistic and curatorial methods that replicate racial dynamics and those that do not. This phase has already been completed as preliminary field work throughout 2023-2025. The data collected to date consists of a literature review of existing visitor feedback to ‘Race Are We So Different?’ Illinois Holocaust Museum, USA, in comparison to exhibitions from the 2007 Biennial to the abolition of slavery in the UK; as well as autoethnographic reflections and exhibition analysis from a series of exhibition visits in both the UK and USA: ‘Casta The Origins of Caste’ and ‘Heart of the Nation: Migration and the Making of the NHS’, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, UK (2023); ‘Genetic Automata’ and ‘The Cult of Beauty’, The Wellcome Collection, London, UK (2024); ‘Race Are We So Different?’ The Science Museum of Minnesota, USA (2024);‘Re-framing Picton’, Cardiff Museum, Wales (2024); and ‘What have we here?’, The British Museum, UK (2025). These exhibition visits have been instrumental in leading to the formation of an analytical framework, identifying emerging themes of harm and reducing harm in the white museum space: Unmarking, The Colonial Gaze; The Black Spectacle; and The Colonial Conversation - which will be researched further in phases two and three.

2.UNPACKING ARTISTIC AND CURATORIAL PRAXIS 

Phase two explores artistic and curatorial approaches, as well as artists and curators’ experiences of working with white museums in exhibiting selected exhibitions: ‘Heart of the Nation: Migration and the Making of the NHS’, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery; ‘Genetic Automata’, The Wellcome Collection, London; and What have we here?, The British Museum. I have selected these exhibitions because they were rare exhibitions which exposed whiteness, included people but did not feel they re-objectified people in the white space.   

In order to explore artistic and curatorial praxis further, I will have in depth conversations in person or online with artists, curators and professionals involved in the selected exhibitions.  

3. UNPACKING THE MIRRORED APPROACH 

The final phase of my Doctoral research, UNPACKING THE MIRRORED APPROACH, aims to delve deeper into examining emerging themes with expert participants, extending the usual methods of participatory research by using art to guide interaction and offer visual non-verbal ways of communicating themes and ideas. Participants will be experts in the field of ‘race’, whiteness, and decolonisation from a variety of professional backgrounds, such as artists, curators, educators, historians, sociologists to name a few, adding insight and critique to my research. Themes of exploration include the themes I have identified in my initial research: Unmarking, The Colonial Gaze; The Black Spectacle; and The Colonial Conversation - which I am calling, The ‘Mirrored’ approach. The ‘Mirrored’ approach considers exhibiting in ways that decentre the fantasy of whiteness and destabilises the fantasy of ‘Otherness’ in white socialisation.