Responsibility and Care in Public History: Lessons learnt from Addressing Colonial Histories at the National TrustPresentation by Dr. Sally-Anne Huxtable and Dr. Christo Kefalas, National Trust, Vereinigtes Königreich (in Englischer Sprache)

In 2020 the National Trust for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland published an Interim Report listing properties with strong colonial connections and links to historic slavery. What started as a journey of acknowledgement and sharing by historians and cultural workers turned a heritage organisation into a chess piece in the UK ‘culture wars’, moving public history to the political frontlines. Three years on, the co-authors of the Report will reflect on lessons learnt around the responsibilities of history and how it can be addressed honestly with care.

Sally-Anne Huxtable is an independent Art and Design Historian and Curator, specialising in 19th and early 20th century visual and material culture, and an Honorary Fellow at the University of York. She  the former Head Curator of the National Trust and Principal Curator of Modern and Contemporary Design at National Museums Scotland where she curated the permanent gallery’ Design for Living 1851-1951’. She has also worked for Dallas Museum of Art, Tate Britain, Museo de Arte de Ponce, and the Universities of Bristol and Northumbria.

Christo Kefalas received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Oxford, studying a Māori collection held by the Pitt Rivers Museum and exploring issues of settler colonialism, Indigenous knowledge, and the repatriation of collections. She has worked as a curator at the British Museum, Great North Museum Newcastle, and the Horniman Museum London. She currently works as the Global and Inclusive Histories Curator for the National Trust.