The Foundling Museum - Museums Association

The Foundling Museum

Engaging audiences at the heart of the museum’s story with Shared Stories, Shared Voices

The Foundling Museum was awarded £27,900 from the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund for Shared Stories, Shared Voices, engaging audiences at the heart of the Foundling Museum’s story. The grant was part of the Sustaining Engagement with Collections funding stream in response to the challenges of Covid.

Shared Stories, Shared Voices is an innovative digital experience that democratises the interpretation of museum collections and enables diverse voices to shape and narrate the museum’s historic stories around its collection objects.

When national pandemic closures came into effect in March 2020, the Foundling Museum team found a way to make the museum’s collections available online while staying connected to the people at the core of the museum’s life: former Foundling Hospital pupils; graduates of their care-leaver training programme; and volunteers.

Through a series of workshops led by artists, participants selected an object from the museum’s collection which they felt a personal connection to, and developed their own story about it.

The result is a treasure trove of stories, including a project film, more than 20 emotive individual short films, personal blogs, poems and other unique creative responses, which have been curated into an online exhibition for audiences around the world to enjoy.

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