I Am From Everywhere

An exhibition by Glasgow Museums' Intercultural Youth Group (ICY) marking the end of 18 months’ collaboration between the group and museum staff. It serves as an archive of the group’s journey, and as a reflection of the questions that emerged throughout.

Funded by Museums Galleries Scotland, the ICY programme asked these young people, all aged 18-26 and from ethnic minority communities, to come together across Glasgow Life venues to discuss questions of belonging, heritage and identity within museum, gallery and archive spaces. They examined how the imperialist origin of many museum collections and buildings affect and influence the ways histories are told, preserved and remembered. In engaging with these discussions, the group developed a practice centred around cross-cultural solidarity, creating workshops and projects across Glasgow. They highlighted different social issues, traditional practices and stories. They also worked with curators supporting decolonising initiatives and development of new museum spaces. Many of the artworks in this exhibition emerge from this work.

Having spent months asking difficult and necessary questions about museums, identity, and place, the group now turns those questions outwards. The exhibition's title, I Am From Everywhere, speaks to the experiences of diaspora, rejecting the idea of a fixed identity label and the familiar question: Where are you from? This exhibition invites visitors to reflect on their own experiences and consider the meaning of belonging in cultural spaces.

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The Intercultural Youth Group (ICY) is a programme funded by Museums Galleries Scotland’s Sustainable Co-production Fund, which was set up as part of Delivering Change, a Museums Galleries Scotland programme that supports museums and galleries across Scotland to make changes to help all people to access culture.