ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the four projects which are taking diverse community engagement methodologies, activist agendas, interpretive devices and qualitative data analysis to illuminate social inequities and contribute to changing attitudes, behaviours and power dichotomies in the community. The Invisible Farmer project is a multi-tiered and multi-faceted change-making project, involving a nation-wide partnership between rural communities, academics, government and cultural organisations. The Invisible Farmer project is using museum methods to invite women to hold this ‘speaking stick’ again and to stand up and claim their place in the past, present and future of their rural enterprises and communities. Activism requires the museum to be open to acting as both change agent and change recipient: that is, to affect community and societal change, a museum must also be open to change within the institution. Museum exhibitions with an activist charter attempt to challenge visitors to open themselves to attitudinal and behavioural change.
