Abstract

The Museum of Truth & Lies (MoT&L) is a creative enquiry that has recently emerged from Yasmin Khan’s inaugural fellowship at the AKO Storytelling Institute. MoT&L is seeking imaginative ways to maintain public trust, strengthen truth-telling, and curb misinformation in our cultural institutions and collections. The grassroots initiative is anchored by a forthcoming podcast series to spur discussion and debate. The emergent stories are being reformatted into a legacy playbook that will amplify key messages and influence the next generation of artists and curators to be better truthtellers.

Session and activities

This session will offer a sneak preview of the emergent outputs and creative processes involved in the making of the Museum of Truth and Lies (MoT&L) which will include:
– Podcast snippets: As a socially engaged independent curator, I am in the midst of interviewing grassroots artists, and activists alongside cultural leaders responding to critical questions such as ‘Do you believe what you see in museums?’, ‘Are museums telling the full truth?’, and ‘What stories are missing?’.
– Design mock-ups of MoT&L’s visual identity made by Plan B Creative Studio.
– Feedback gathered from student focus groups responding to prototype stimuli.
– Highlights from the Storytelling Fellows Symposium at The Hub held on 7th June.
This project is live in progress so it will be an opportunity to share lessons learnt, invite support, and find collaborators to help shape the next steps.