What is Worth Remembering? Objects, Care and Inclusivity

Museum collections carefully preserve paintings and precious objects – but what about the material culture of everyday work?

Lisa Hodgens, a student curator on this year’s Exhibition Development course, reflects on what a forgotten piece of flooring teaches us about collecting, care, inclusivity – and what we choose to remember.

When we started developing this year’s student exhibition, What is Worth Remembering?, we knew we wanted to ask difficult questions about memorialisation.

However, we didn’t expect such an everyday fragment of linoleum to become one of our most challenging objects…

Finding the Linoleum

We encountered the linoleum early in the exhibition development process, long-listed alongside many arguably more aesthetically-pleasing objects.

At first glance, the linoleum seems out of place – a fragment of patterned flooring, paint-splattered and worn. It’s also sealed in a plastic bag, protecting staff and visitors from possibly hazardous materials.

We knew so little about its potentially rich and layered story. The more we looked at it, the more questions emerged – and this inspired the way we developed our theme, title and interpretive vision for the exhibition.

Photograph of a museum display case containing a rectangular fragment of linoleum flooring wrapped in clear plastic, placed on a white stand with a black base. Text on a white wall behind provides context about an exhibition related to a fragment of sandstone and its historical significance at a university. — Sample of the Hunterian Museum’s linoleum flooring from 1977. GLAHM:C.1987.3.

The Gaps in the Story

The linoleum’s collection record – a single handwritten note originally glued to its front – tells us that the fragment was removed from the floor of the Hunterian Museum in 1977.

We don’t know who designed it, which factory manufactured it, or where. We don’t know the names of the workers who laid it on the floor of the Gilbert Scott Building, or who cleaned it, day after day, for decades. We don’t know when it was decided that it no longer belonged there, or why.

So, why was it kept? Is it worth remembering?

Almost half a century ago, someone decided it was important to keep this fragment as a record of the building’s interior. Did they expect it to end up in the condition we find it in today?

Photograph of a museum exhibit titled "What is Worth Remembering?" featuring broken glass fragments displayed on a white surface inside a protective case. The exhibit includes background text panels and a small framed object on a stand, suggesting a focus on memory, history, or preservation themes. — *What is Worth Remembering?* invites visitors to look beyond the familiar narratives of achievement and prestige, and to consider what else the University’s history contains.

What does the linoleum’s current condition tell us about how the object has been valued by the museum over the years? Does the condition tell us anything about the resources museums have available for conservation?

As a curatorial team we found these questions and the absence of certain information quite striking. Within the collection, there are paintings with detailed provenance records, objects with documented makers, and artefacts with careful conservation histories.

However, this object – a piece of the actual surface that people walked on, that shaped the everyday experience within the University building – wasn’t treated with the same care. No one thought to record the details that might tell us who made it, who installed it, who maintained it.

Why That Matters

Linoleum is a practical material, designed to be more hard-wearing than traditional floor coverings. It was mass produced, and communities were built around its manufacture. It was used in kitchens, school corridors and universities – in spaces where cost-effective durability mattered more than aesthetics.

As part of a museum collection, that tells us something about what institutions choose to preserve and what they choose to forget.

We carefully document and conserve the objects that signal cultural status, like fine art, precious materials, or the things associated with wealth, empire-building or academic success.

Photograph of a fragment of linoleum flooring displayed in a glass case within a museum setting. The linoleum is supported on a white stand, with informational plaques visible on the wall behind, indicating historical significance and context. — The linoleum fragment became a central object, inspiring the interpretative vision for the exhibition.

But the material culture of labour, of everyday work, of the people who build, furnish and keep institutions running – often that can be overlooked. Literally stored in a bag, awaiting a decision about whether it’s worth displaying at all.

As a curatorial team, we felt the linoleum fragment had the potential to resonate with a diverse range of visitors, while also highlighting the tensions that exist between historic collecting practices and the audiences museums seek to cater for today.

What do we do with an object that’s physically difficult to display, but too significant to ignore? Whose stories do we preserve? What do we choose to value? These aren’t abstract questions. They’re the decisions curatorial teams make every day across the sector.

What Good Practice Looks Like

We’re certainly not the first curatorial team to grapple with these questions. Across the UK, museums are actively rethinking how they collect, preserve and display working-class material culture.

By increasing the visibility of working-class stories in an intentional space, the People’s History Museum in Manchester, as the national centre for the interpretation and study of the history of working-class people in the United Kingdom, is doing exemplary work.

Similarly, the Museum as Muck network, founded in 2018, has been instrumental in highlighting issues of class representation in museum workforces – drawing attention to the fact that inclusion isn’t just about what we display, but about who we employ and whose voices shape our institutions.

These examples show that there are different approaches to this work. Some museums create dedicated spaces for working-class stories; others, like The Hunterian, are trying to integrate these narratives within their collections and displays.

There’s no single ‘right’ way, but there are valuable lessons to be learned from other organisations and institutions – and how they involve communities in co-designing visitor experiences too.

Learning from Linoleum

Through developing What is Worth Remembering?, our team has engaged with ongoing conversations about how museums approach working-class material culture and its representation. What has become clear is that this work isn’t finished – nor should it be.

While this piece has focused on class representation through the linoleum, we recognise that meaningful inclusion requires museums to address multiple dimensions of identity simultaneously.

Photograph of a museum exhibition titled "What is Worth Remembering?" featuring wall art with a cracked design revealing a building image. Display cases and framed artworks are arranged on wooden floors, highlighting themes of memory and preservation through visual and textual elements. — Created by students from the University of Glasgow’s Museum Studies MSc, *What is Worth Remembering?* brings together objects that rarely appear in commemorative displays.

Class intersects with race, religion, gender, disability, and other identities – and museums must work to be inclusive across all these dimensions, not as separate issues to be tackled sequentially.

For institutions like The Hunterian, this means reckoning with how collections, care practices, and display priorities have historically reflected much narrower audiences.

It means that interpretation, programming, and employment opportunities must be genuinely representative – not tokenistic gestures, but meaningful, deliberate, and intersectional approaches to visibility and diversity, both front- and back-of-house.

The linoleum is one entry point into such conversations, but it’s one of many that museums need to be having.

‘What is Worth Remembering?’ is on display at the Hunterian Art Gallery from 19 June to 04 October 2026. This small exhibition invites us to look beyond the familiar narratives of achievement and prestige, and to consider what else the University’s history contains.

Created by students from the University of Glasgow’s Museum Studies MSc, What is Worth Remembering? brings together objects that rarely appear in commemorative displays – exploring memorialisation, collecting practices and what we choose to preserve.

Interested in how museums think about these challenges? The University of Glasgow’s Postgraduate Masters in Museum Studies offers students the opportunity to engage directly with collections, develop exhibitions, and shape the future of museum practice.

And if you’d like to read more reflections from students and staff working at The Hunterian, sign up to our mailing list for new blog posts.