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Shared Island Stories Project Website and Instagram

Barbados Museum Guest Lecture Explores Museums, Climate Action and Community Heritage

On 20 May 2026, the Shared Island Stories project, and the Institute for Museums, Heritage and Society (IMHS) at the School of Art History, welcomed Kaye R.N. Hall, Education and Outreach Officer at the Barbados Museum & Historical Society (BMHS), for a guest lecture entitled What Needs Must: The Community of Curatorial Practice, Climate Action and the Development of Critical ICH and Climate Action Work at the Barbados Museum & Historical Society.

Drawing upon her extensive experience at the Barbados Museum & Historical Society, Hall explored how community-led curatorial practice can respond to pressing social and environmental challenges within island contexts. The lecture highlighted the museum’s work in supporting climate action, safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, fostering intergenerational knowledge exchange, and strengthening community resilience.

The event formed part of the ongoing Shared Island Stories collaboration between the University of St Andrews and the Barbados Museum & Historical Society. Through a series of examples and case studies, Hall reflected on the evolving role of museums as active partners in sustainable development and community-centred climate action.

The lecture attracted staff, students, and members of the wider museum and heritage community, contributing to ongoing discussions around the role of museums in addressing contemporary global challenges through locally grounded and community-driven approaches.

The Shared Island Stories research project was selected by the European Research Council (ERC) and funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) (reference: EP/X023036/1). It is coordinated by the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews. This activity is held in collaboration with the Barbados Museum & Historical Society and is supported by the University of St Andrews Impact funding.

Presentation slides can be accessed here: Kaye Hall Slides 2026 (Redacted)

Recording can be accessed here: Kaye Hall Presentation

Shared Island Stories at the ICOM UK Conference

On 16 April 2026, Research Fellow Jamie Allan Brown delivered an invited presentation at the ICOM UK 2026 Annual Conference, Museum Diplomacy in Action, held at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in Oxford, UK.

His presentation, Shared Island Stories: Youth, Museums and Climate Action Across Island Communities, explored how museums and heritage organisations can act as spaces of cultural diplomacy through youth-led climate action, transnational collaboration, and community engagement across island contexts.

Drawing upon the ERC-selected and UKRI-funded Shared Island Stories project between Scotland and Barbados, the presentation highlighted the role museums can play in fostering cross-cultural dialogue, sustainability, intergenerational knowledge exchange, and international partnership-building in response to the climate crisis.

The ICOM UK conference brought together museum professionals, academics, and cultural leaders from across the UK and internationally to examine the evolving role of museums as agents of cultural diplomacy in addressing global challenges and strengthening international relationships.

Jamie’s participation contributed to wider international discussions on the role of museums, heritage, and young people in shaping more sustainable and connected futures across island communities.

You can access the recording via: https://youtu.be/NpX-aCLA7Rs?si=xr-qgbM4cZzp6N9W&t=1946

“Hidden Stories, Entangled Spaces: Contested Island Heritage and Contemporary Art Curation”, edited by Dr Ana S. González Rueda and Professor Karen Brown; is a publication that emerged from the Transnational Island Museologies conference (2024), co-organised by ICOFOM and the University of St Andrews as part of the Shared Island Stories research project.

Departing from Teresia Kieuea Teaiwa’s provocation that turns ‘island’ into a verb in one of her poems, and thinking on what it means ‘to island’ in contemporary art curation, this publication explores how an urgent, connective, sustainable, and caring mindset informs exhibition-making today.

Edited by Ana S. González Rueda and Professor Karen Brown.

Excerpt from the introduction by Ana S. González Rueda:

“In her poem ‘To Island’ (2022, p. 127), I-Kiribati and African American scholar, poet, and activist Teresia Kieuea Teaiwa proposes turning ‘island’ into a verb, finding the noun form too vulnerable. She urges us ‘to island’ the world – to embrace a way of living as if we were all islanders. (…)
This volume takes up Teaiwa’s provocation, asking what it might mean ‘to island’ in contemporary art curation. It explores how an urgent, connective, sustainable, and caring mindset informs exhibition-making today. Emerging from the Transnational Island Museologies conference (2024), co-organised by ICOFOM and the University of St Andrews as part of the Shared Island Stories research project, the volume foregrounds contributions examining oceanic travel and entangled histories. The chapters trace how contemporary artists engage with contested island heritage to tell lesser-known transnational stories and shed light on obscured historical undercurrents. “

Cover © Alberta Whittle, An Assembly or a ting, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow. Photograph Keith Hunter.

Read the full publication here: “Hidden Stories, Entangled Space”

This publication is part of a research project that was selected by the European Research Council (ERC) and funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) with reference: EP/X023036/1. It is coordinated by the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews.

Shared Island Stories Youth Exchange in the media

“Your island, my island, and our shared story” Dè tha dol? The Harris Community Newspaper

https://www.dethadolharris.com/post/your-island-my-island-and-our-shared-story

Youth: “Poppy Young: An incredibly impactful experience” Blog Entry