C O N T E X T 1 7 3 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 13 DIVERS I TY AND INCLUS ION Opposite: The former Martins Bank in Liverpool has a prominent relief depicting African children bearing bags of money. See page 14. Editorial The world as it actually is We try to conserve the buildings and places that we value, and to help people enjoy and understand them. But who are we?What do we value? How can we best communicate about it? ‘We’ may be a rather small and unrepresentative sliver of the population.What we value, and our ability to communicate about it, is likely to reflect who we are. Our familiar world of conservation may be quite limited; this issue of Context tries to challenge it. It is tempting to portray history as comforting and to present historic buildings as a chance to step back into some sort of golden era, enjoying a pleasant day out for the family with tea and cakes. But that may be fiction, or propaganda. If we are interested in history, we should be prepared for aspects that may have been airbrushed out. These include people of different races who served on historic estates; a slave-based economy that supported the estate owners’ way of life; historic sites with LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and others) histories; womenwho created notable buildings and places; overlooked opportunities to make historic buildings accessible and attractive to a wide range of people who do not usually visit them; and the fact that people on low incomes, includingmany livingwithmental-health problems, are least likely to visit historic sites, but benefit their wellbeing more than others when they do. This issue of Context, whose theme has been conceived by Peter de Figueiredo, points to missed opportunities. But above all it is a celebration of what has been achieved when historic building conservation is opened up to reflect the world as it actually is. Since 2019, the IHBC equality, diversity and inclusion working group has been asking members to consider the diversity of the built heritage sector, and what members might do to promote opportunities to all communities through the institute’s work. There is further inspiration to be had from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain’s equality, diversity and inclusion networks (covering LGBTQIA+, women architectural historians, disability, and race and ethnicity). Theywill be partneringwith theTwentiethCentury Society as part of itsmonthly building-of-the-month feature. Throughout 2022 the society is committed to featuring buildings that tell the stories of under-represented groups across geographies and building types. It’s a whole new world.
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