POWER AND VOICES: ECHOES OF EMPIRES

National Museums Liverpool is hosting FIHRM’s (Federation of International Human Rights) annual conference which goes online for the first time from 14-16 October 2020.

International online conference marks 10 years of FIHRM

National Museums Liverpool is hosting FIHRM’s (Federation of International Human Rights) annual conference which goes online for the first time from 14-16 October 2020.

Through a series of live panels, Power and Voices: Echoes of Empires brings together an international cohort of speakers and organisations to focus on the dynamic between ‘power and voices’ in museums. The free sessions will cover a range of topics, but will each be driven by the following questions:

· Who holds the power when we share stories?

· Whose voice is absent, silenced or forgotten?

· What about voices for those without a material culture?

· How do museums promote equality and human rights? For a full list of panels and to book your free place: www.fihrm.org

Laura Pye, Director of National Museums Liverpool said: “Hosting the 10th anniversary of FIHRM is really important to National Museums Liverpool. Now more than ever museums have a role and responsibility to be active, not passive, and we welcome the opportunity to hear from an international collective of speakers and contributors who share these values.

“From Black Lives Matter to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 to specific groups and communities, it is a critical time to address the realities of inequality and discrimination. Through international dialogue, cooperation and understanding, Power and Voices seeks to give voice to the stories that have been unheard or unseen for too long.”

This year’s conference will mark the 10th anniversary since FIHRM’s foundation at the International Slavery Museum in 2010. The collective is underpinned with the understanding that all types of museums, regardless of size or resources, share similar challenges in dealing with these difficult, often politically loaded, controversial subjects.

Over the past decade the conference has travelled around the world, including Brazil, Argentina, Italy, New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan, and has confronted some of the most pressing questions and challenges facing human-rights museums.