How to cite this page Comment citer cette page
Interview of Emma-Kate Lanyon, by Nandini Chatterjee
Interview
- Media metadata | Métadonnées multimédias
- interviewer | interviewer
- Nandini Chatterjee
- interviewee | interviewé
- Emma-Kate Lanyon
- took place on | a eu lieu le
- 30 January 2024
- took place at | a eu lieu dans
- Online
- right held by | droit détenu par
- Emma-Kate Lanyon and Nandini Chatterjee
29 January 2024
This transcript is the downloaded MS Teams automatic transcript which has been tidied up to remove unnecessary time stamps. It has not an accurate verbatim transcription and should not be treated as such. It should not be used for quotation without checking the original recording. It is shared to be used in background research to identify the element of the interview that a researcher might want to listen to gain an accurate understanding of the content of the interview. The time stamp has been left by each interview question to allow for ease of access. Not to be used for direct quotation without referencing the interview for accuracy. The interview can be found at: https://youtu.be/1r2Q8blpC2U.
Nandini Chatterjee: Good morning. I'm Nandini Chatterjee here, conducting an interview for the Cast in Stone Project. Thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed for this project. Will you please tell us your name, your profession and how you came to be interested in the statue of Robert Clive in Shrewsbury?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: I'm Emma-Kate Lanyon. I'm a curator with Shropshire museums. I'm the curator based at Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery. I became interested in the statue because we had been involved in an ongoing project, looking firstly at our own ethnographic collections. We had funding to kind of re-examine that collection and to look at it with the subject specialist. We were very aware as a museum service that this was a collection that we felt we didn't fully understand and we didn't know if there were any implications around that collection with any sensitivities around any particular objects that we needed to kind of be aware of and address. So we brought an ethnographic curator in to look at the collection and then following on from that, we felt that that reappraisal of the collection needed to be reflected in the collections documentation and our interpretation of that collection as well.
So we were thinking about kind of post colonial impact of our collections and their kind of place in that wider story.
And as we went into lockdown and issues started coming out about statues that made us think a little bit further than just purely within the walls of our museum, we were aware that Clive was, uh, a figure of some concern and that that was reflected within items within our collection that related to Clive. But the focus of that then moved out of the museum into the square beyond, where the statue of Lord Clive stands. So as we felt it wasn't part of our museum collection, but it was right on our doorstep.
So we felt that, as kind of subject specialists about looking at our heritage that we were probably the best people placed to kind of get the community involved in looking at the implications of that statue and also we felt that by addressing it, it was saving us some heartache. Because if there were going to be any issues around it, it was going to be right outside the museum. So we were going to be drawn into the debate whether we wanted to or not. So we felt it was best to be upfront an engaged right from the start.
0:3:1.930 --> 0:3:19.40
Nandini Chatterjee: Thank you so much for that full and very clear answer, if I may, for people who don't know the sector quite as well as yourself, can I ask a few supplementary questions just to explain a few things and what you mentioned funding to look at your ethnographic collection. So could you explain a what ethnographic collection means and give us a rough idea of what it consisted of and what was the source of this funding? If you're willing to share that and what date you received it.
0:3:32.490 --> 0:3:33.460
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yeah, that's fine. So our museum collections are are nearly 200 years old now, so our museums were founded kind of right at the beginning of kind of music, provincial museum history. So the early collections within the museum were very much focused not only on the history of Shrewsbury and Shropshire, but also on kind of Shropshire place within the empire and a lot of people were bringing things back and donating it to their local museum. Umm, we reviewed these collections in the 1970s as part of our kind of West Midlands wide approach to kind of historic collections, and the decision was taken then that a lot of the ethnographic material in regional museums in the county, so stuff that kind of reflected kind of worldwide history beyond the West Midlands was best placed within Birmingham Museum where they had curators who are specialists and these kind of ethnographic stories. So a lot of the collections then were then centralized and added to Birmingham's.
We had a kind of a rump of a collection that was left, which was things that weren't picked up at the time or things that were later accepted into the collection that really didn't fit within the collecting criteria. A lot of this material is African. There were a number of local people who had had kind of imperial jobs, mainly working as engineers in Africa, and then there was a few other bits from kind of North America, Asia. But the focus of that collection was kind of North African.
We had the funding to kind of review and revise our understanding of those items through the West Midlands Museums Development Program. It has funding for collections that are kind of orphaned collections where there isn't the curatorial expertise within the Museum service to address them, and also about then trying to open those collections up and make them accessible. And we were very aware that we didn't have the skills and the understanding to do that ourselves. So to that funding that is given to the program by the Arts Council allowed us to do that.
0:6:7.980 --> 0:6:9.290
Nandini Chatterjee: That's absolutely wonderful. You mentioned an ethnographic curator who came and visited and assessed your collections as part of this program. It please do say pass if you're not willing to share their name, but would you be willing A to share their name? And perhaps give us a very brief account of what that visit was like; what happened?
0:6:32.200 --> 0:6:33.750
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Umm, yes. So Len Poll is a curator who's worked with museum ethnographic collections, kind of for most of his career, which means that, I mean, he's got a lot of expertise, but he's also kind of part of that network of ethnographic curators in the UK. So him coming in was really useful because he was able to look at that collection. A lot of it. He was able to identify himself where there were items he wasn't completely sure of. He was able to share it with colleagues and get feedback for us so that allowed us to go through most of that collection and either confirm what identification we had for those objects already or to update it or just kind of make our understanding of that a lot more comprehensive.
0:7:27.830 --> 0:7:28.320
Nandini Chatterjee: That's great. Thanks and finally in relation to our big first question, you mentioned that there were some artifacts in which were related to Robert Clive or the Clive family in the museum is what are they?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: I mean the key to objects. Uh, because the a lot of the museum collection has come from the corporation of Shrewsbury as kind of civic objects. We have a loving cup, which is a big silver gilt tankard that was given by Clive to the Corporation of Shrewsbury. Strangely enough, around the time that they made him mayor of the town. So I'm sure there was there was no reason behind that donation at all. Emma-Kate Lanyon
There's also his set of mayoral robes from when he was the mayor of the town, so a lot of these objects are kind of civic objects.
0:8:27.30 --> 0:8:37.320
We also have a large portrait of him that is currently on loan to the Powis Castle Lord Clive Collection there. So a number of kind of civic objects in the collection that are kind of displayed as part of our kind of civic story for the town. But have those those added connotations to them.
Nandini Chatterjee: It's wonderful to have those additional details and in fact for the benefit of our listeners, we might see if we can find at least links to images of those artefacts and put them on the website.
0:9:7.280 --> 0:9:17.950
Let us now move towards the statue itself, which is in the square, and before we go into your museums, work for the reinterpretation of this statue. Can I just step back and invite you to tell us what this statue represents for you, your colleagues? What is your knowledge of the history you mentioned? There were some concerns, but I'm curious how people find out about that. So if you could tell us not just your impressions, but how you and your colleagues actually found out about that, that would be very helpful things.
0:9:43.270 --> 0:9:43.720
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yes. Well, I mean, it's always been a kind of a backdrop to the museum. It sits in the square, which we're one of the sides of that square. Uh, so it's always there in the background, but it's one of those things that has kind of over the years kind of merged into the streetscape and had kind of really been forgotten apart from probably being kind of in the way when they're holding markets in the town square.
But it really came to the forefront again in the kind of the follow up from the issues around statues and particularly what was happening in Bristol is that a lot of people then were considering the implications of that statue and there was an article in the Guardian about Clive and the Shrewsbury statue and that led to a local petition about whether the statue should be there anymore.
0:10:46.610 --> 0:10:59.940
That part, that petition, was to remove the statue in response to that, another petition was set up saying we must keep the statue and then the local authority kind of was trapped in the middle of this. We kind of stepped up at the beginning of kind of this debate saying that we felt that we were probably the people to address this, and we applied again for some funding through the West Midlands Museum's development. And art, the Arts Council to reappraise the statue.
Really. And to kind of lead on this debate.
So we put together a a working group with a specialist in Indian history from the University of Birmingham. We had local interest groups kind of our kind of local ethnic and minority support group and then representatives from both of those questionnaires and together with the local authority cabinet as well, try to come up with wording that we all felt was appropriate to put that statue into context. So it wasn't just sitting there in isolation in the square that there were some words attached to it that acknowledged the history of Clive. The controversy around that history and why that statue was still there.
0:12:24.990 --> 0:12:25.720
Nandini Chatterjee: Thank you so much. We will move towards the details of the process that you've just outlined, but before you can do that, I have a bit of a if you like philosophical question, which I'd invite you to reflect on.
0:12:38.870 --> 0:12:56.330
And as in as the heritage professional in particular, how do you view your role and you mentioned about this being an artifact, quite a large artifact in fact in the public square which had blended into the background, but then had suddenly become visible because of the debates. And then as you said, you took the lead you as in the museum, took the lead in the process of reinterpretation.
How how do you? Actually, I just like you to kind of articulate your role if you like, as a heritage professional for our listeners.
0:13:14.230 --> 0:13:22.670
How do you see your role and how do you think the history of an artifact relates to how an artifact ought to be presented?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yeah, I mean, that's always a really kind of difficult one because I mean we feel our role is as interpreters as explaining the past.
0:13:37.610 --> 0:13:43.540
But the past isn't something that is a definite story. It's something that is always going to be shaped by current attitudes and thoughts. So it's about presenting that information in a way that I think allows the reader, whether that's within a museum space or within the the town itself to kind of to be part of that process. So it's about putting that information out there in the context of today, but allowing the reader to have some leeway to think about how they want to view something. So we were very aware that the kind of the attitudes will Clive had changed drastically over the history since it was current.
0:14:36.0 --> 0:14:57.790
Although even at the time he was a very controversial figure and I think that's something that we considered quite a lot in, our interpretation was that even at the time when the statue was being proposed is that there was quite strong opposition to it in the town and there were lobbyists who felt that it wasn't appropriate.
So it's never been a statue that's been there and everyone has felt that it was relevant and right. So we felt that that needed to be reflected in the interpretation, but at the same time it needed to be nuanced enough that we weren't just painting him as a kind of a villain of history is that he still actually contributed a lot to the kind of the civic life of Shrewsbury.
He was both mayor and he was also MP for the town. Now a lot of that influence and his ability to kind of be a patron was based upon the wealth that he had made in India and that needed to be recognised. But it's about making sure that your prejudices personally aren't kind of in there, and that you're not alienating a certain audience by kind of pushing one kind of narrative too hard. It has to be around it.
0:16:2.610 --> 0:16:9.660
Explanation of the past that allows everyone to engage with it and hopefully to learn something from it.
Nandini Chatterjee: So I'm very curious, as a historian myself, because you gave a very full explanation of your role, for which I thank you.
0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:26.800
I'm kind of curious, what do you think is the relationship or what's the difference really between history and heritage?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Ohh yes, I mean I think heritage is a term that I feel is a lot more loaded. My personal thought is when I hear the word heritage, I feel there's a lot more kind of reminiscence.
Kind of it.
0:16:50.520 --> 0:17:3.130
It feels a term that is more loaded in some ways that it's more about kind of looking back and almost creating a narrative out of that history. Ah, whether that's actually true and whether actually history is kind of stripped of all of that kind of interpretation and that kind of trying to build a story that goes from one point to another, I don't think that is as true as perhaps some of us would like to feel that it is, UM, but I always feel when I hear the term heritage, it feels that little bit more loaded, as if it comes with an end point that you're trying to tell the story towards.
Nandini Chatterjee: Very interesting. In that case, do you think it's accurate for us to have described you as a heritage professional?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Ohh no, that is a tricky one. I mean, I am aware that I am constantly trying to fight and between this trying to create a succinct story that is meaningful to the visitor, that kind of gives them an end, gives them a something that they can sort of take away, almost like a sound bite. But at the same time, not kind of distill that down to a point where it's more about the story we want to tell rather than the actual historical facts.
And I think for for my job that is very much part of.
0:18:35.120 --> 0:18:50.530
The role that I play is about trying to balance those two things, and it's about making it engaging and short and snappy, but at the same time, you're not dumbing it down to a level where actually it's not truthful and meaningful.
Nandini Chatterjee: It's a very tricky one. I've learned some of this from my friends who work in museums and to be honest, I sometimes feel that historians are to perhaps write in a more direct way and in a more succinct way. But who knows? There's value in both sorts of approaches.
And just to get into the details, then a little bit of the very valuable work that you did in relation to the statue and and feel free to say you don't remember exact dates. If that's the case, it's me who's obsessed with the dates right now. And so I noticed on the public minutes of Shropshire Council that in July 2020 there was a discussion around those two petitions that you mentioned.
0:19:39.220 --> 0:20:8.20
And there was a there was an important debate in which it was decided not to do anything with the statue as such, and more than a year later, in September 2021, there was a question asked, as in, in relation to what was being done in relation to the statue, as in reinterpreting it, and the record shows that the museum had by that time taken charge and was doing this work.
So do you recall the chronology of this at all? Like, when did you reach out to the Council or for your leadership or services? And how did the group get constituted? And so on.
0:20:21.540 --> 0:20:46.830
Emma-Kate Lanyon: I mean, we reached out and offered it straight away, so as soon as the debate started, we we really wanted to be involved because we felt we felt that we wanted to, to take a lead on it because we were aware with it being on our doorstep that if someone else took a lead, we would still probably be the person that would, that people would come to about it. So if someone was in the square and didn't like what they read, they would come into the museum. So we wanted to actually feel some ownership over that. It was a very long and difficult process because of lockdown and the issues around that. So we applied for funding towards actually producing the interpretation, doing the consultation work and also to produce film about the process as well.
What happened then was, after we had then got the funding and then started the process, various lockdowns then impacted upon that process and it just became impossible to do the film because either we were trying to work around kind of social distancing or people weren't available, people were ill.
0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.530
So unfortunately, the film never happened. There were also a lot of internal delays because we felt very strongly that. The text needed to be shaped by the Community groups that we were working with, then the text was going to the Council. The Council had some concerns about it was coming back to us, so to actually go through all the kind of the hoops and hurdles, kind of expanded out the project. So it took a lot longer than we had anticipated and wanted it too, but there were also a number of kind of legal issues with actually putting the panel up in the square. So highways had to be in on that permissions had to be granted. So it took a lot longer than we'd anticipated to actually get there, but we did have the end to which was the main thing.
Nandini Chatterjee: And congratulations for achieving something so valuable at during a time that was so hard.
And again to nitty gritty is because that's actually valuable for people who don't know the sector.
0:22:52.590 --> 0:22:56.260
So in terms of getting people together, how did you go about it then? You mentioned the ethnic minority groups, the cinema you had put me in touch with a member of whom I've interviewed as well the historian from Birmingham, whom you mentioned. How did you decide? Who made the decisions as to whom to involve? How did you go about involving them? Was it just a matter of writing to them, and how did you do it?
0:23:20.660 --> 0:23:27.110
Emma-Kate Lanyon: This was led by my colleague, Martha, who's our audience Development Officer for the museum service. So she's already kind of kind of engaged in that world. I know she kind of reached out to as many kind of community groups that she felt what had either commented publicly on the debate or that she felt should be included in that debate. The exact I think a lot of it was done remotely because of the timings of it. So I think a lot of it was done with kind of questionnaires with kind of online chats with various people. But as I said, this wasn't an area that I led on. My colleague Martha did so I'm afraid the actual kind of real detail of it, I'm not as aware of as the kind of the interpretation writing side of it.
Nandini Chatterjee: That's absolutely fine, and I'm really grateful to Martha who said that she doesn't have time for an interview, but we'll write some answers for me and this tells me that perhaps I ought to fine tune some of the queries so that she can tell me about this work. OK.
So that was group constitution and do and and again, feel free to say if that's not that wasn't your remit, but you mentioned about the film that unfortunately couldn't get made. That's a loss, but what was the vision there, if I may ask, why did you want to make a film and had the film been made, where would you have? Whom would you have shown it to?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Well, I mean, one of the things I mean this goes back to our discussion about kind of your role as a kind of heritage interpreter. I mean, we felt that the the whole debate around Clive was so complex and that it needed more than 250 words on a panel really to kind of explain the story. And his relevance and also the controversy around him. So we felt that doing a kind of a short film to support the interpretation panel would allow us to kind of address that more broadly. So the idea had been that this film would be a chance for us to talk to Manu, who is the expert at Birmingham, face to face and to to talk around his history.
And then to do kind of a vox pops with a number of local people about their kind of feelings about it. We were going to work with students who are on the heritage courses at the university in Shrewsbury and they were going to kind of lead on that voxpop side. So it was an opportunity for them to get some experience around kind of public consultation and debates at this sort as well. So it was a real missed opportunity. The idea was that there would be kind of QR codes on both the paneled next to the statue and also within the museum as well, to kind of lead people to it. And it would also sit within our website. We have discussed whether we could do a kind of a cut down version of this at some point. It's kind of on our list of things we would love to do films about, but umm, that's a very long list of eight.
0:26:57.530 --> 0:26:59.210
Nandini Chatterjee: There's always such challenges. Does isn't there? There's so many good things one can do. If you did make it, I'm, I mean, I should not actually the make you feel that you are committing to anything which you are not. If you were to have made it in that past moment, which unfortunately is now in the past, would you have hired a filmmaker to make it? What was the vision there?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yes, we've got a filmmaker that we've worked with on a number of projects previously. So the that, that grant money was to fund for him to come in and manage that process for us because we wanted it to be a good quality piece of work.
One of the other things that I forgot was we also worked with our colleagues in archives, so they were going to also present some of the documentation within archives about the a actual commissioning of the statue and what papers they are to kind of support both sides of the argument about Clive. Although we didn't get to do the film, archives have produced a kind of a resource about Clive, which is on their website, so that some of that research work that they did in preparation is now publicly available. So there's something did come out of it.
0:28:22.750 --> 0:28:23.520
Nandini Chatterjee: That's excellent. I think that I was. I had been guided by that resource, which is in a very nicely constructed web page which gives links to documents and that helped me in doing my own research in the archives. In fact, so I can confirm that that exists.
I was wondering actually about the writing of the text itself. I have group return texts with a lot of people. Sometimes, and I know it's a very challenging process. So I'm curious again about the exact details. For example, my history department wrote a statement in 2020 as many departments did as to what we were about in terms of teaching history and in relation to demands for decolonising the curriculum and so on. And we had very divergent views on this and it was about finding a common goal. And making a statement together. So 20 of us wrote it together. We actually we created a shared document, Google document and then we edited it together, leaving comments for each other, having often long debates in the comments and so on.So I wonder how you went about it in terms of arriving at the text that you did finally arrive at.
0:29:43.700 --> 0:29:46.30
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yeah, it was a similar approach. I drafted the first initial text which went through several iterations until I felt that it was, uh, I was happy with it. Then that was shared with the wider team. They all commented on it. It was kind of significantly changed from that. And then once we as a team felt happy about it, then it was shared with our stakeholder group. Then their comments fed into that and there was a process of kind of two and fro with those kind of the two kind of main stakeholder groups for each of those petitions. As you can imagine, there was a lot of bouncing between those two and nobody was completely happy at the end of it. But we we got something that everyone was willing to to sign up to. Then that went to council cabinet and they had some comments that came back. Some of those we had to push back against quite hard because we felt we'd already had those conversations with the stakeholder groups and that we felt that it was almost pushing the process backwards. So maybe we should have brought cabinet in a little bit earlier, but we did reach something in the end that everyone was willing up to sign up to both as a longer statement for the actual interpretation panel text, but also for a shorter kind of plaque statement. So the idea was that that shorter statement would be put permanently in the as a kind of a metal plaque in the ground next to the statue. And then the longer interpretation text was on an interpretation panel that may in 20 years time not be there anymore.
But we wanted to make sure that there was something that was as permanent as the statue attached to it.
Nandini Chatterjee: That's very interesting. In that case, actually I need two photographs to go with the statue, which you've never alerted me to. The metal plaque is now embedded onto the plinth. Is that how it is?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: No, unfortunately cause the plinth was listed to the because of the listing of the statue that any change to that was gonna be difficult. So there was a metal plaque that was designed to actually go in the paving in front of the statue.
0:32:23.540 --> 0:32:24.220
Nandini Chatterjee: And it's there now.
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Umm, I will check it should be. It was definitely on the list of, but yeah, I will check and I'll send you a photo of that.
Nandini Chatterjee: That that'll be very good. I feel very silly about this actually, because I visited, as you know and I took pictures and I took several pictures of what, maybe and I hope it's not because it's a valuable piece of work, the less permanent, bigger interpretation, which is on the side of the statue.
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Umm yeah.
Nandini Chatterjee: But perhaps I wasn't expecting it, hence I did not see the plaque on the paving, which might indeed be there.
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yes.
Nandini Chatterjee: And for our listeners, if you send me the image, I'd be very grateful and we shall put it put it on there as well.
Nandini Chatterjee: So two pieces of output, in fact coming out coming out of that I had, I heard from some people and I wonder whether you could To some light on this, was there actually a temporary, a board or something like that that was installed next to the statue when this complex work was ongoing, and if so, what did it say?
0:33:37.720 --> 0:33:38.350
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yes. So the original text that we have drafted, so the draft that had been agreed by the Museum service was put on a panel actually in the entrance to the museum. So just opposite and then that gave us the opportunity that people could comment on it, write comment cards at the museum and just drop those actually in to us so that we could take that into consideration. Also, some of the university students then did kind of stop questionnaires with visitors coming in and out of the museum and just ask them to to have a look and to say whether they were aware that the statue was in the square. How did they feel about it, and what were their kind of views on the text? So that way we kind of got a kind of a wider evaluation of that text as well.
0:34:37.500 --> 0:34:44.730
Nandini Chatterjee: This is so wonderful and you would you be willing to share an image of that temporary text with me? So I can see they would.
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yes, yeah, yeah, I'll have the graphic artwork somewhere so I can send that to you.
Nandini Chatterjee: That would be great and I suppose the question is another data cards, et cetera those, would they be open to research or those are data protected for some reason? I mean, it doesn't reveal any names.
Emma-Kate Lanyon: No, it shouldn't be named. Martha would be the person to ask for that because she led on that side of things.
Nandini Chatterjee: Excellent. Thank you, because that seems to me like a really interesting people's archive of opinion at the at the time, doesn't it?
OK so finally I … oh no there are a couple more things if I may.
0:35:24.870 --> 0:35:31.10
So in this process, where did where, if at all, did Powis Castle fit in? Did you have any conversations with them?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yes, I mean like we contacted the team there but again because of all the issues around lockdown, all their staff were on furlough. So that meant that we couldn't actually work with the National Trust then. I have been in touch with them since. We have had discussions about the labeling. I don't think there's any labeling at the moment for the Lord Clive painting that we have on loan to them, so we have said that we would like there to be some labeling and that we would like to have some input into that. I think again, they've had staff changes reasonably recently as well. So we haven't actually managed to progress that to date, but we are kind of completely open to working with them.
Nandini Chatterjee: Thank you. Again, that is really a question about like different organizational structures as well, isn't it? So I've got a a set of rapid fire questions if you like, which are all all about organization in one way or the other.
0:36:40.660 --> 0:36:59.360
So one of my questions is really about any national, regional or other frameworks from monument conservation or any institutional directives that you may have had, because the story you told us was very different and actually led from work with artifacts within the museum. And your awareness. But were there any such frameworks in relation to what's now being called contested heritage, etcetera, that you were working with at the time?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Umm, no. I mean, we are aware of the national picture I and what was happening nationally, but I think because we were all it was already part of a kind of an ongoing process within the museum where we were kind of we picked up on the kind of decolonial lising collections and and reassessing ethnographic collections and that. So we were already rolling with that for our own collections and then we just kind of extended what we were doing to to include the statue. So I think we will coming at it from a slightly different direction.
0:37:49.930 --> 0:37:58.860
Nandini Chatterjee: Since you brought up the Physiology of decolonizing, is there any sort of like museum sector guidelines that you work with? I know it's all in flux perhaps, but I wanted to hear from you. Is there any kind of guidelines in relation to conversations about decolonizing collections?
0:38:8.800 --> 0:38:20.310
Emma-Kate Lanyon: It's certainly a really ongoing debate, and I mean there are kind of a advice and examples and case studies that are kind of shared through the museums association. So it's something that is certainly kind of very high up on the museum's agenda at the moment. There are training courses that are run by the museum's development program, for example, so there are those discussions going on which we will kind of part of that was kind of helping us shape what we were doing.
Nandini Chatterjee: Thank you for that. If it weren't an extra burden on you, it would be really useful, I think for myself and my readers, to see some of these guidelines, especially the ones that you do think may have informed your, you know, your work, even if you're actually.
Emma-Kate Lanyon: No, that's fine. I'll also share with you … we've done a little just we do brief fact sheets about some of the issues with our museum collections. So there is one about our ethnographic collections and how we approach those. So I'll share that with you as well.
Nandini Chatterjee: Thank you so much. And so the next question is really about legal frameworks.
0:39:29.730 --> 0:39:42.260
And I wanted to know whether any legal frameworks you've actually touched upon some in relation to the statue being listed about highways needing to be contacted, et cetera. Could you explain a little bit more to our readers? Like what legal frameworks, institutional frameworks actually shaped unconstrained your work.How you negotiated that?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: I mean the first the issue was with the statue being listed, so that was going to narrow our options because you would need listed monument consent to do anything physically to the statue, so we decided that trying to actually put a new plaque actually on the plinth or anything was going to slow the whole process down because of those extra issues that we're going to have to be agreed by Historic England. So we decided that probably the most sensible option was to do an interpretation panel that stood alongside it. I'm not just needed us to get highways permission because the square is kind of is open to traffic. So anything, any changes that are physically done within that space has to go through highways and would actually be implemented by the Council's highways team. So we had to get permissions and agreements with them to take that forward.
The situation was complicated slightly further by the fact that there was a whole program of developing a new kind of signage style right across the center of Shrewsbury. So we didn't want this to end up kind of sticking out as a sore thumb against a whole new vision for the Town Center. So again, we had to slow things down slightly so that there could be an agreement on what style of signage was going to be used. And then make sure that they interpretation panel that we dropped in fitted in with that streetscape. So that was the other kind of issue for us, but the the only real kind of legal framework you thing was was that highways permissions?
Nandini Chatterjee: Thank you very much. About the new signage program I found this online when I was researching the statue. That's a firm called CityID, isn't it? From Bristol, who did the signage for the new round. Did they have any any input into the text at all? Or was it just about the shape, size, color, et cetera?
Emma-Kate Lanyon: No, no. All it was was was what style of signage was gonna be used across the whole of the Town Center. So there were going to be interpretation and orientation signage around the town and we just wanted to make sure that this was part of that overall vision and rather than being separate from it.
Nandini Chatterjee: Thank you. And one perhaps step backwards, but also in relation to the legal and institutional frameworks question. If our listeners will remember how you told the story of reaching out to the Council almost immediately after the petitions went live and and offering your services, who was it from the Council? That was the authority that accepted your proposal. Was it the cabinet or some other part of it? Do you remember?
0:43:16.190 --> 0:43:16.850
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Well, I mean, a Council is a great modeler. So what tends to happen is we we kind of just decided we were gonna get all that different to be completely honest. So our team and the the senior managers within the Council who sit above our team were aware that we were doing this and then once it got to debates at cabinet, those senior officers were then saying, well, the museums team are all over this, they they know what they're doing, just kind of let them go along with it. So kind of it was we kind of pushed it up from the bottom towards the top really. But again, because of the Council being so large, it means that there are various steps these things have got to go to to get to the top and then to feed back down again. So again, that was at times a bit of a buffer, and it's kind of slow us down, but we felt that it was important. It needed to be done and it needed to be done right and we just felt that by pushing ahead with it that we could kind of be slightly more sure that that would would happen.
Nandini Chatterjee: Thank you very much. There is a culture portfolio holder in the Council, isn't there? And who is kind of ex-officio head of all the museum services in a sense, if I don't didn't get that wrong.
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yes. Yeah. So to Leslie, who is the leader of the Council in a previous life, was the head of the culture team for Shrewsbury and Action Borough Council. So she understands the debate very well. She is very supportive of the museum service and had every confidence in us that that the right decisions are going to be made, so I that possibly led to to a little bit more freedom because she knew us she and was confident that what we were going to do would be right. So.
0:45:28.670 --> 0:45:29.300
Nandini Chatterjee: Excellent. Thank you. I'm so now just stepping away from your work and briefly looking around the country and perhaps around the world.
0:45:39.810 --> 0:45:49.440
Are there any other such reinterpretation projects in relation to other statues that you think are inspiring have been done well? Feel free to say no if that's not the case.
0:45:53.840 --> 0:46:11.450
Emma-Kate Lanyon: I think I think we were more aware of where it had gone wrong and I think one of the reasons that we were very keen to jump on it and move it forward worse because the the one that was in the front of everyone's minds at that time was Bristol. Also, I was very aware of things that had happened in Edinburgh where people had kind of taken decisions so slowly and the decisions have been kind of half taken and never then finalised. Thi we were very aware how frustrating that was for people and how that was almost fuel to the fire that was happening in Bristol at the time and we felt the issues being raised. We know that he's a contentious person. We know that this is not necessarily going to go away, so let's just try and find a solution as quickly as possible. Uh, because we felt that that way we would give people confidence that actually their concerns were being taken seriously.
Nandini Chatterjee: Excellent. Thank you.
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Yes.
Nandini Chatterjee: And that's a reference to the Melville Monument in perhaps isn't it?
Thank you so much for bringing that up as well.
0:47:12.210 --> 0:47:32.390
Nandini Chatterjee: As somebody who looks at artwork and curates artifacts of various kinds, how would how would you suggest evaluating the value if you like, of memorials such as these as in Clive statue? Should it be evaluated? What is its value? Is it to be evaluated for its historic significance or for its artistic value? Or any other reason as in we well you have put in so much work into it. All your energy, which means resources which makes it even more valuable. But what is it that makes that artefact valuable, you'd say?
0:47:57.700 --> 0:48:5.270
Emma-Kate Lanyon: I mean, I think it gives you a window onto what was important at a particular time. And I think it almost is kind of these two projects kind of bookshelf that story is that they were both at times when Clive was being kind of re-evaluated. And at the time the statue went up, there were a lot of people who word furiously debating whether it was a positive or a negative impact. I and I think the creation of the statue really was about that kind of positive impact group, really trying to push their agenda and to get kind of a physical confirmation of of their view. So I think it reflects quite well on the debate that's happening now about kind of revisiting that debate and thinking about him again, umm, I think. it's a very difficult one because everyone has their own kind of way of seeing the world and opinion and and all of those are relevant. For me personally, I feel that keeping the statue there and making people think about it actually means that we don't forget these stories, and in some ways removing it and putting it in the back of a museum store doesn't solve that history. And also it's just almost a way of kind of hiding it rather than facing it and addressing it. So I think having that statue there and perhaps revisiting this debate in another 100 years time is really relevant.
Nandini Chatterjee: That's a really future looking vision. Thank you for that suggestion.
0:49:59.840 --> 0:50:2.70
So you satisfied with your work? Have you had good or bad feedback in relation to it? What's the what's the takeaway from all of this?
0:50:12.120 --> 0:50:21.130
Emma-Kate Lanyon: I mean, I think I think we were disappointed that we weren't able to kind of do the whole project and that the film didn't happen. We felt that that was a real opportunity to kind of dig deeper into the story. I'm we've had, we've had very little feedback actually and in some ways we've been surprised because we thought that there may be more that actually the arrival of the panel then that some of those people who were very strongly in one camp or another might have felt that it was kind of too much in the middle. So we were expecting more feedback than we've had. So I don't know if it is that that moment has passed and it's kind of it's shrunk back into the streetscape and people aren't seeing it again. I don't know, but I mean it's something that we continue to kind of revisit in the museum galleries through kind of our displays and our labeling of objects. So it's something that we're not being actively asked about anymore, but it's something that we will keep kind of looking at.
0:51:34.200 --> 0:51:35.440
Nandini Chatterjee: Thank you so much. So thank you so much for your time and for the really interesting stories that you've told us about this process. And with that, we close this interview for today.
Thank you.
Emma-Kate Lanyon: Thank you.