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Museums and Missing Voices

Currently on display at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery is Christopher Samuel's Watch Us Lead. The exhibition explores themes of stigma, belonging and agency while encouraging conversations about under-representation, autonomy and the lived experience of disability. In this post, Kate Lynch reflects on the exhibition and the role museums can play in shaping whose stories are heard.

One of the first works to catch the eye in this exhibition is a large stained glass panel. Stained glass is often associated with churches and public acts of remembrance, making it an especially powerful medium for an exhibition about stories that have been overlooked.
 

Pray For Me by Christopher Samuel

Elsewhere, visitors encounter a series of portraits, each accompanied by a quotation and the opportunity to hear more. The stories touch on healthcare, education, employment, identity and family life, exploring not only the experience of stigma but also the ways participants have asserted their own voices and agency. The people at the heart of the exhibition are also its storytellers. 

Jenica reflects on living with sickle cell disease and the feeling that healthcare professionals do not always understand the condition or the pain it causes. 


Jenica and a quotation from her describing living with sickle cell disease, her experience with of healthcare and the importance of advocacy.

Darren, a Paralympian and England's most decorated blind footballer, speaks about the pressure to put other people at ease through displays of independence.

  

Darren, a quotation of him describing the experience of vision loss and a drawing of him by Christopher Samuel.

Rebekah describes her experience of invisibility surrounding acquired disability and how she felt like she was engaging in "one-sided conversation", before reflecting on finally entering a "two-way conversation". It is a phrase that captures much of what the exhibition sets out to do. 

      
 
Rebekah, a quotation of her describing living with an acquired disability and a drawing of her by Christopher Samuel.
  
The stories in Watch Us Lead touch on questions that philosophers have explored for many years. What happens when some people's experiences are overlooked, dismissed or treated as less important than others? The exhibition suggests that understanding disability requires more than clinical expertise or historical records. It also requires listening to the people who live those experiences every day. By placing their voices at the centre, the exhibition encourages visitors to think differently about where knowledge comes from and whose perspectives shape it. 

Museums are often described as places where knowledge is preserved. Watch Us Lead reminds us that they are also places were knowledge is made. Philosophers sometimes describe these as epistemic spaces: environments that shape what we know and whose experiences we come to understand. By inviting visitors to listen as well as look, the exhibition shows how museums can challenge established narratives rather than simply preserve them.

It is a thoughtful and beautifully curated exhibition, and well worth a visit while it remains on display until the end of 2026.

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