Conference by the V&A and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum on how nineteenth- and twentieth-century national collections shaped and reflected national identities.
Collecting to Shape and Reflect the Nation runs from Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 October at the V&A South Kensington, with a live stream for those who can't make it in person. It's a joint production between the V&A and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, two institutions that both opened their doors in 1852. The conference takes a comparative look at the entangled Anglo-German museum history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and asks how national collections were assembled and how they shape and reflect national identities.
The whole thing draws on museums founded or reshaped during the political and historical transformations of those two centuries. An international group of scholars and museum professionals will consider how these institutions have shaped, and been shaped by, changing ideas of nationhood, identity, empire and public responsibility, and how they can foster social cohesion in increasingly diverse twenty-first-century societies. The V&A and GNM are using the event to critically assess their own pasts and inform their present-day self-understanding, widening the discussion to other large-scale memory institutions across Europe. A second instalment is planned for Nuremberg in October 2027.
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Across the three days, there are five panels chaired by museum figures, including Richard Espley from the V&A and Diana Unterhitzenberger from the GNM. Sessions run from 10:00 to 18:30 daily. Tickets are £25 for the online live stream and between £35 and £45 for those attending in person at South Kensington.
