James R. Dixon, UWE/University of Bristol

With a conservation epidemic rife on the streets of contemporary Britain it is becoming increasingly clear that certain elements of society expect us to live in a museum. What this translates to at street-level (at the council planning meetings, the public archaeology displays, the urban regeneration schemes, the street art and people’s daily use of urban spaces) is a two-scale competition. At city-wide scale, different areas (museums) compete for money, attention and even artefacts for their displays. At the single museum scale there is much infighting between would-be curators over what historical and social narrative to give prominence to in the museums’ collection.

In Bristol in 2008, street lamps, flower pots and night clubs have risen to prominence as the must-haves (or must-not-haves) that are defining the cultural narratives battling for acceptance within a city already much divided in a multitude of different ways. How these potential exhibits are treated through the processes of conservation, de-accession, re-labelling and in the souvenir shops is of the utmost importance in gaining an understanding of how this ‘museum of the street’ works, both as an institution in its own right and in its interactions with the consumers.

This paper seeks to take the central concerns of the session with regard to complicating discussion of museums, heritage, producers and consumers and undertake such a complication through analysis of the daily lives of a number of artefacts within the museum-city. Finally, I will seek to outline and propose a Portable Ubiquities Scheme for Britain’s towns.