Documenting Diversity

How should museums identify art and artists?

By Frances Lloyd-Baynes

Mia has been collecting art for more than a century, from cultures around the world and across history. We now have more than 90,000 objects in our collection, and, like most museums, we have documented them in a computer database. We have noted what each item is, its history and characteristics, and what we believe makes it interesting or important.

Museums have often been shy about documenting diversity. It can certainly show how un-diverse and lopsided our collections are (mostly fine art by named male artists; lots of indigenous art by unnamed, often-assumed-female artists). More recently, we have been shy both about assuming the “authoritative voice” we were so proud of in the past and in making a social mis-step by saying the wrong thing. This means that when folks want to know how many works by female/black/LGBTQ+/etc. artists we have in the collection, we can’t easily tell them.

The documentation of diversity by museums must be done thoughtfully, as part of a larger process. We need to confront our inherent biases regarding our collections and recognize that the so-called definitive histories we have been sharing are simply one point of view. We need to step aside and let the objects’ creators speak for themselves, which means…

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