Conference

Our 2025 Autumn conference was held on Friday 31st October (programme). The theme of this conference was Narratives and Memories of Industrial Work and Heritage and it was held at the Engine Shed in Stirling.

We were delighted to have a range of speakers from museum, archival, artistic and academic backgrounds including:

• Dr Andy Clark, Lecturer in Scottish History, University of Stirling
• Helen Balfour, Assistant Curator, South Georgia Museum
• Amber-Louise Thornborrow, Visitor Services Assistant, Scottish Maritime Museum
• Lily Barnes, Collections Curator, OnFife (Fife Cultural Trust)
• Rosa Ó Caoimh, Independent Researcher
• Charlie Adby, New Lanark World Heritage Site
• Nicky Bird, Artist
• Shannen Provan-Sloan, Collections Development Officer, The MacDougall of Dunollie Preservation Trust
• Rosie Shackleton, North Lanarkshire Council and Industrial Museums Scotland

Scotland has a rich tradition of capturing memories of working lives, through documentary production and oral history (both in academic and non-academic settings). Concomitantly, deindustrialisation since the 1980s has fundamentally reshaped Scotland’s economy, society, geography, and political landscape. This conference brings these factors together, to understand how memories and narratives of industrial work are framed through lived experiences of loss, decline, and socio-economic rupture. It asks us, as heritage professionals, to consider how we can proactively incorporate narratives of struggle, destruction, and anger within our representations of the past.