Why I love The Repair Shop

Bring us your ancient teddy bears, unreliable mantel clocks and 1960s coffee tables with wonky legs, and we will rescue them and prove that what matters is not how much something is worth, but what it means

- Jayne Dowle (The Times, 25.06.2020) on the BBC show, The Repair Shop.

The Repair Shop has been essential viewing for me over the last ten months, I save episodes and immerse myself in them when needed. And I’m not alone, it’s one of the most popular shows on the BBC right now. The show speaks to kindness, remembrance, heritage, DIY, craft, conservation, friendship and family. In short, it provides much needed balm to my shielding and lockdown frazzled soul.

I also find it useful when talking to people about museum objects and collections. The things brought into the Repair Shop often appear humble, or seem unimportant, but once their stories are told the object comes to life. A simple wallet, a musical instrument or a soft toy becomes imbued with the life of the person who owned it and often symbolic of a moment in time. 

What we in museums call ‘collections’ – groups of objects – are also intrinsically about people.  A few years ago when visiting the Holocaust museum, I saw a glass case full of plain looking, often chipped or cracked, bowls and cups, and wondered why they had been put in a case for people to view. When I read the labels, I found personal stories from survivors explaining that if you didn’t have a cup or bowl in the camps, you didn’t get food. Suddenly, the significance of those simple things snapped into focus, because of the human story attached to them;  no longer inanimate objects in a case, but items which had meant the very difference between life and death for those survivors. 

Collections enable us to see the story behind the object and with it, understand a multitude of histories and cultures. Sara Wajid, newly appointed co-CEO of Birmingham Museums Trust, describes museums as ‘three-dimensional story telling machines’ – and if that’s the case, then the stuff in museums are three-dimensional stories.

There’s a lot of talk about collections amongst museum folk right now, as we face the combined impact of the global health, equality and climate emergencies unfolding around us. What does financially and environmentally sustainable collections management mean? How do we assess the significance of objects and, crucially, who decides? Where should objects be stored and shown? Whose stories are being told? If museums are forced to close and collections are at risk, how do we save what’s important for the nation – and again, who decides that? 

At Arts Council England, the national development agency for museums, we support collections work in a number of ways: through the Designation Scheme (just today we’ve announced two more outstanding collections have been recognised), through funding for Subject Specialist Networks, through the Accreditation scheme, through the Government Indemnity Scheme, our investment in Museums in our National Portfolio and through the Museum Development network. As it says in Let’s Create: ‘A dynamic museums sector will be at the heart of this Strategy: over the next 10 years, alongside our statutory functions, we will go on expanding public access to their collections, to ensure that they continue to delight and inspire as many people as possible.’ 

Museums across the country are playing their part in the pandemic, even during lockdown. Those with outdoor spaces are providing much needed solace and space to exercise, many are offering new, immersive digital content, whilst others are collecting pandemic-related stories. Some museums are even acting as vaccine centres, using their spaces for extraordinary purposes during an extraordinary time.

Collections don’t only tell stories about the past, they play an intrinsic part of capturing our human story right now, and into the future. From collecting contemporary political stories, to informing work on climate change and environmental degradation, or providing inspiration for creatives committed to improving lives through good design. 

Like every element of our sector, museums are and will continue to feel the impact of the COVID-19. With no visitors, museums are working hard to tell the stories of their objects in ever more creative ways.  We’re committed to playing our part in helping museums – and the stories they look after – survive, recover and continue as an invaluable part of our creative and cultural infrastructure.