David Farrell-Banks

David Farrell-Banks is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work focuses on the impact of the past on everyday lives in the present. His research background is in museums, heritage and cultural memory. David completed his PhD at Newcastle University in 2021, with work interrogating uses of the past in museums, heritage sites and political discourse now published as the monograph Affect and Belonging in Political Uses of the Past (2022, Routledge). He has since worked on the Museums, Crisis and Covid-19 project at Ulster University, and has published on a variety of topics including activist pedagogies in museums, galleries and heritage studies; co-creation of museum exhibitions; and the relationship between far right action, heritage and memory.

His past work at the Fitzwilliam Museum explored the potential for increased involvement of voices from outside the Museum in our practice. The work supported the development of participatory methodologies and practice across the Museum. In 2025, David joined the University of Edinburgh as Lecturer in Heritage and Co-Director of the MSc Cultural Heritage Futures programme at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.