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| Photo: Maria Vlachou |
I love museums. I love them for what they are; I love them for what they are not, but can be; I love them for their potential. I especially love them because of the work developed by a number of colleagues around the world so that museums may adapt to new realities, remain or become relevant for people, and even reinvent themselves. I particularly love them lately because of the controversies they cause or face, pushing our thinking and practice forward.
The debate regarding
the proposal for a Museum of the Discoveries in Lisbon is one of the best
(perhaps the only one, in terms of duration and general civic involvement) I´ve
had the pleasure to follow in Portugal, related to museums. I've read
things that inspired me and allowed me to develop my own thinking; I've read
things that disappointed me; I've read things I didn’t agree with. I valued
them all.
The decolonisation of
museums is something relatively new for me. When I was still studying museology
in the early 90's and in the years that followed, perhaps the only reference to
this concept (although, as far as I was aware of, the term “decolonisation” was
not being used) was the debate around the provenance of museum objects, as well as
the return of human remains and sacred objects to their communities of origin.
More recently, one of
my first references regarding the concept of decolonisation came in the end of 2015, when reading about Rijksmuseum’s project of rewriting its labels in order to avoid
bigoted terms. The museum decided that “We no longer want to make use of terms
that reflect a Eurocentric way of looking at people or historic moments, or
that are considered discriminatory because the used terms refer to race in a
negative way, or contain terms that go back to colonial times”, according to curator Eveline Sint Nicolaas. In 2016, Acesso Cultura | Access Culture invited Martine Gosselink, the Director
of Rijksmuseum’s History Department, to Lisbon, to be the keynote speaker in the conference “What? So what? Relevance of contents and simple language”.
There, we had the opportunity to hear why the museum decided to take into
account the criticism made by some of its visitors and why this project’s aim
was not “historical revisionism, censorship, or political correctness gone too
far”, as it had been accused of.
In the last perhaps two or three
years, the decolonisation movement has picked up in a number of countries. The cases
of museums being accused of cultural appropriation (which I recently discussed
on this blog) may also be considered part of this discussion. The decolonisation of museums
finally became part of the public debate in Portugal once the controversy
around the Museum of the Discoveries erupted. Thus, it was with great interest
that I decided to attend Nicholas Mirzoeff’s talk "Decolonizing the Museum: Lessons
from New York", which took place in Lisbon on 6 June, organised by the
Collective Descolonizando and a group of cultural agents who are against the
designation and mission of the proposed Museum of the Discoveries. I guess that I decided to attend with
the expectation of getting a more structured view on what one means by museums being
colonised and what may be done if one wishes to decolonise them, mainly as museum
professionals.
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| Photo taken from Helena Correia's Facebook page. |
The first thing that stroke me was the almost total absence of museum
professionals in the room. I believe there were three or four of us - none actually
working “in” a museum, but rather “for” museums. This raises some very serious
concerns as to what kind of debate we wish to promote in Portugal and whether
this will be an honest debate if we don’t come out of our comfort zone to be
confronted with different views. On the other hand, the room was practically
full of people I didn’t know, which was a good sign for me; a sign that there
is a real interest in the decolonisation of museums, also – and especially - among
those who don’t work in them. One more reason for Portuguese museum
professionals to attend debates in unfamiliar territories.
My feelings regarding Nicholas Mirzoeff’s presentation and the debate that
followed are mixed. There were some very interesting references in the
talk, but I don’t think they were actually sewn together in order to promote a
more structured discussion on decolonisation (starting by making clear what we
mean by “colonisation”) or, at least, to build a clearer base for that
discussion. I think this would have been fundamental, as the debate showed that
most people did not have a clear view on these issues, they were rather
looking for answers.
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| The statue of Theodore Roosvelt in front of the American Museum of Natural History, New York (image taken from https://jakerajs.photoshelter.com) |
Right in the beginning, Mirzoeff showed the image of one of the mummies at the Carmo Archaeological Museum, in Lisbon. One many Portuguese have seen, but whose presence and exhibition at the museum few have questioned. I am not sure it was clear, though, to those present (except perhaps Mirzoeff’s students) why that image was shown and how it was relevant to our discussion on the (de)colonisation of museums. A number of interesting philosophical and historical references were shared after that, culminating into a concrete example from New York City: the action taken in October 2017 in front of the American Museum of Natural History, with regards to the statue of Theodore Roosvelt, commissioned in the 1930s (read more here). The President of the United States is shown on a horse, with a Native American and an African man walking on either side (the controversy first erupted in the late 90's, when American sociologist and historian James Loewen argued in Lies Across America that the arrangement of the figures is meant to advocate white supremacy; it was also discussed by artist and activist Titus Kaphar in his April 2017 TED Talk Can Art Amend History?). The discussion did not go much further or deeper than the obvious racism in the conception of the statue (a bit more in this article) and the same happened with some rather quick references to Brooklyn Museum or the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes from Cape Town University.
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| Image taken from Helena Correia's Facebook page. |
There
is no doubt that Nicholas Mirzoeff knows what he’s talking about, but I am still
wondering whether the people present actually realised how these examples
relate to our subject and what they, as citizens, can do about it: what colonisation
/ decolonisation of museums actually means and how it affects almost every
aspect of museum work (further from the discussion on what is considered today
a depiction of racism; I am thinking about collections, interpretation, marketing,
staff, etc.). I don’t mean to sound patronising, I consider myself a novice as
well, and given that the discussion is rather recent in Portugal and in Lisbon,
I think it would have been useful to offer a more solid and concrete base for
discussion, instead of debating certain examples which took previous
knowledge on the subject for granted.
There
are two things that stuck with me from the debate that followed: a gentleman
saying that it is very rare for museum authority to be questioned, identifying
the last attempt perhaps in the 80´s; and a few people referring to museums in
general as colonial tools, some asking for “no more museums” and a lady
saying that “museums are here, we can’t erase them, we need to confront them”. This
felt odd to me. As I am furthering my readings on the subject of the decolonisation
of museums, I could easily say that not one day passes without an article coming
up on museum authority being questioned, either from within (by staff members)
or by individuals and communities. To not be aware of this kind of revolution,
that is already affecting museums, as well as to see all museums as being of one
kind and colonial tools, and not to recognise their wish and capacity to evolve,
is to leave out an important part of this equation.
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