Democracy through Museums Why should museum professionals dictate what goes into museums and what gets displayed? Who says that the public should just be consumers of culture? Why can’t they be creators as well? This is the central idea behind our proposals for democratising museums; transforming the public’s role from consumers to creators; from readers to authors and ensuring that there is a two way dialogue between visitors and institutions. There are a number of ways we could achieve this, including: Personal museums and community collecting – letting individuals and communities decide what’s worth collecting by creating their own personal museums. This would create a legacy for their own lives that would build into a community collecting programme, filling our cultural memory banks (museums) for future generations. It would enable people to tell us what’s important, rather than allowing museums to do the dictating.   Community curating – inviting anyone to trade places with the professionals and create their own museums and displays, with existing and new-found objects. Museums would facilitate, mediate and communicate the results. What all this would do is create a much-needed bond between society and some of its public institutions, providing a route to debate and democratic participation.