14 - Art and artefact: displaying social work through objects

Summary

Introduction

This chapter presents the origins, process, and findings of an online research project, Social Work in 40 Objects. The project is ongoing, and its aims are to explore the possibility of discovering meanings in social work through material objects and the stories that attach to them. The experiment is proving to be a quantitative success, with over 160 objects to date (2020) from 26 countries donated to a virtual exhibition of social work. Qualitative success is evident in the many facets of social work refracted through the objects and the wide variety of relationships to social work apparent in those who are participating.

The research methodologies that support the experiment are explored, as well as the theoretical perspectives that have deepened the analysis of the findings: these include material culture theory and museum ethnography, especially the notion of ‘charged objects’. The ‘snowball’ method speeded and broadened the donation of objects and a ‘bricolage’ process helped in the playful clustering of groups of objects into themed ‘collections’. The chapter explores the learning from this experiment and presents a suggested typology of objects.

Research methodology

Rationale

The wider public has direct knowledge of medicine, education, and law, but social work is experienced by only a small minority and is, consequently, poorly represented and understood (the ‘bus stop challenge’: try answering a hypothetical group of random strangers at a bus stop who ask you, ‘What is social work?’).

Medicine, education, and law can each be characterised by a single icon: a stethoscope; blackboard and chalk; the scales of justice. Social work has no iconography, least of all a defining one. It is a complex, contested discipline (the ‘road sign challenge’: design signage to indicate ‘social work ahead’ using only pictograph). In the face of this blankness, is it possible to show social work to this unknowing public rather than trying to explain it?

Social Work in 40 Objects was experimental in many ways, not least in the research design, though ‘design’ suggests a more linear approach than was the case. The methodology evolved developmentally out of these questions: Is it possible to display social work rather than articulate it? Can objects evoke stories of social work? Can these objects-with-stories help a wider audience to connect with what social work is?