tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/museum-33597/articlesMuseum – The Conversation2024-02-05T17:23:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2222292024-02-05T17:23:04Z2024-02-05T17:23:04ZWhat makes something ‘cute’? Inside the exhibition defining the phenomenon<p>Standing at the entrance to Somerset House, I noticed <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/368549">girls</a> – and irrespective of age, they can only be described as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1363460717736719?casa_token=0P-RD37lxjsAAAAA%3AS55azMh3qGwHzmyG305duhZYV_YKsmKalL8ASl3qVf702XGPDrKHgEncKcBShyA0ly5ii370zvPuYg">girls</a> – dressed head to toe in pink, bows and frills, from their elaborately curled hair to their Mary Jane platform heels. </p>
<p>Glittering and adorned with stickers, <a href="https://doi.org/10.21159/nvjs.12.05">cute plasters</a> and whimsical jewellery, they, like this exhibition, stand out in the late-January weather. Beacons of colour in a sea of wintery greys and blacks. What are they here for? It can only be the gallery’s new exhibition on <a href="https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/cute">Cute</a> – the first large-scale exhibition to examine the phenomenon.</p>
<p>The exhibition starts by exploring “cute” as a historic appreciation of cats. It draws a connection from <a href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/104XHB">Victorian cat portraiture</a> and <a href="https://andyholdenartist.com/hermione">collectable porcelain figurines</a> to the Japanese Hello Kitty. The exhibition celebrates the brand’s 50th birthday through a glittering kitty disco. </p>
<p>Jumping through time and geopolitical boundaries, the show demonstrates that “cute” cannot be bound to a single time or place but is an accessible concept that can be claimed by anyone. Appearing in its modern context through Japanese products of the early 20th century known as “fancy goods” for young women, it goes on to encompass diverse cultural products, from <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/7/3/24">comics</a> to computers, appliances to televisions, colonising even the screen itself as an <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1367877916674741?casa_token=NGqBsExImOwAAAAA%3AcxVQvvNJ4IF6g-_lqcW_lYIKDQhgnqCvibZ_-OlOkM8z3hU8C279H2Gff0YmV6_OuRaZxK3NO4Qm_Q">aesthetic</a> in <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/23/article/845498/summary?casa_token=XheY2yytZKAAAAAA:QDsR1YeMLNj5Q5_DVbPCs80Ch6ToVLuTua8Af5TDo9jNNrVBe_1G_T0Da-svWbjQniluXRbJTS0">music videos</a> of the 1980s and 1990s. </p>
<p>The Hello Kitty section of the exhibition is a universe of plushies and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/135918350000500205?casa_token=JH77fxBp6BQAAAAA:OLqETMB27HC8BYV_jbTkreO9EUww1NjWkLcJETX9Cf0w2MMgq1TaXbh3ouOnDoNYX2KBnvFUWtB44g">“Kitty mania”</a> in all kinds of products, from shoes and suitcases to tablets and karaoke machines. This encapsulates the most obvious secondary function of cute – <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/41/2/326/2907555">intense consumerism</a>, and its ability to sell objects of all kinds.</p>
<h2>Cute is a slippery word</h2>
<p>Moving upwards, visitors enter the “cute universe”. Here “cuteness” fragments and distorts into many shapes and meanings. </p>
<p>Playing on the word “slipperiness”, which is invoked several times in the <a href="https://www.somersethouseshop.com/products/cute-exhibition-catalogue">catalogue</a>, the exhibition’s efforts to put cute into distinct categories wrestles with its fluid qualities, which clamour for attention among the many objects on display. </p>
<p>The show is divided into sections – <a href="https://www.cute.guide/CB">“cry baby”</a>,<a href="https://www.cute.guide/PT">“play together”</a>, <a href="https://www.cute.guide/SCP">“sugar-coated pill”</a>, <a href="https://www.cute.guide/MO">“monstrous other”</a> and <a href="https://www.cute.guide/HS">“hypersonic”</a> – which all valiantly attempt to define “cute”. But the word resists definition. Objects of all kinds harness the differing qualities of cute to <a href="https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/eapc.2.1.49_1">incite emotions</a> – of sympathy, tenderness, love and desire. Though which emotions an object evokes vary, depending on the viewer. </p>
<p>The “cute universe” offers a deeper look at the concept through displays on community, how cute can disguise agendas, the juxtaposition of cute and horror and the glistening promise of cute as a future lifestyle aesthetic. The exploration reveals “cute” to be impossible to pin down. Neither good nor bad, it <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502386.2012.738640?casa_token=6RE5gyzPQx4AAAAA%3AeKg-sDlxCI8qyOb0HSVC4JahEIxRod9fZ2LJ-Ne5KDcDitvkFv_-InpW4r08u1uxcgVtg01Dn7-0aA">is a tool</a> to be used, felt and interpreted, dependent on the viewer and performer in a codependent relationship of ambiguity. </p>
<h2>Playing with scale</h2>
<p>The exhibition also plays with <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/90011648?casa_token=M4jXLh8pgEEAAAAA%3AIXDKAMjguiRNoGO7fHa7q_ZHqg4l49jr0f0TdOvLVOdtj9edOjnm7zSqMdJTB0rcA4DbBXi7wZxFCi0EFdchcrCUYlqFnGRbC9K7Bq6s-YYYOsWt3zw7&seq=4">scale</a>, with both oversized and undersized installations. This makes visitors feel they’ve become children once again, playing with tiny toys or experiencing an oversized world. </p>
<p>The immersive experience continues with hyper-feminine singer and visual artist, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/29/to-be-a-girl-is-to-always-be-performing-hannah-diamond-on-pink-punk-and-making-the-pop-album-of-the-year">Hannah Diamond’s</a> creations, which evoke girly pyjama parties and pink beanbags, staying up too late and watching music videos on TV.</p>
<p>These works are nostalgic, a retrospective longing for a time that has already passed. Within cute is a performance of desire, filling in the gap between what we have and what we have <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/004262f802bdec094b52706dea45c89a/1?cbl=1818460&pq-origsite=gscholar">lost</a>. The performance of cuteness can only take place in the presence of loss of innocence.</p>
<p>So what to think of this exhibition of cute? As the curator Claire Catterall told me, the show hints rather than dictates its meaning. Yet, in the end, the bigger questions remain: what is cute doing to society? What does it mean that we are so complicit in its manipulation? Who are the players in cute, and who gets to decide? </p>
<p>Ultimately, the exhibition leaves us to decide for ourselves, but how can we when the concept itself is so slippery? I left Somerset House, disoriented and fizzing, as if I had consumed too many sweets. And yet, as I thought about the exhibition on my journey home, I craved a second helping.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hui-Ying Kerr received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for her Doctorate in History of Design on Japanese
culture in the 1980s economic bubble.</span></em></p>The show is divided into sections which all valiantly attempt to define “cute”. But the word is resistant to definition.Hui-Ying Kerr, Associate Lecturer, Fashion Communication and Promotion, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2220252024-01-30T09:51:37Z2024-01-30T09:51:37ZGhana’s looted Asante gold comes home (for now) – Asante ruler’s advisor tells us about the deal<p><em>After 150 years, 39 artefacts that form part of Asante’s royal regalia are due to return to the <a href="https://manhyiapalace.org/">Asantehene</a> (ruler of the Asante people) in Kumasi, Ghana, in February and April this year. The Asante empire was the largest and most powerful in the region in the 18th century and controlled an area that was rich in gold. Many of the gold royal artefacts were looted by British troops during the third Anglo-Asante war of 1874 (<a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2018/2/5/0z9u3mtcn3ra21uwolkj7rgpr8jai7">Sagrenti War</a>).</em></p>
<p><em>The first collection of seven objects is expected from the Fowler Museum at the University of California in Los Angeles. The second collection of 32 will arrive from the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in the UK. These artefacts are being loaned to the Asante people for six years. Archaeologist and <a href="https://www.theafricainstitute.org/institute-team/rachel-ama-asaa-engmann/">Ghana heritage specialist</a> Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann spoke to the Asantehene’s technical advisor for the project, historian and museum economist Ivor Agyeman-Duah, about the journey to return the items and its implications for cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums.</em></p>
<h2>What are these objects and how did they leave Asante?</h2>
<p>They were royal regalia that was looted in 1874 from the palace in Kumasi after the sacking of the city by British colonial military troops. There was another a punitive expedition in 1896 which led to further looting. They included ceremonial swords and ceremonial cups, some of them very important in terms of a palace’s measurement of royalty. For instance, the Mponponsuo sword, created 300 years ago, dates back to the legendary Okomfo (spiritual leader) linked with the founding of the empire, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Okomfo-Anokye">Okomfo Anokye</a>. This sword is what the Asantehene used to swear the oath of allegiance to his people. Chiefs used the same sword to swear their oaths to the Asantehene. </p>
<p>Some of the items were sold at auction on the open market in London; art collectors bought them and eventually donated some of them to museums (some were kept in private collections). The British Museum and the <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/">Victoria & Albert Museum</a> also <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/10/12/stealing-africa-how-britain-looted-the-continents-art">bought</a> some of them.</p>
<p>However, not every item you see at the British Museum was looted. For instance, there were cultural exchanges between the <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG205733">Asantehene Osei Bonsu</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Edward-Bowdich">T.E. Bowdich</a>, an emissary of the African Company of Merchants who travelled to Kumasi in 1817 to negotiate trade. Some gifts were given to Bowdich, who deposited them at the British Museum later on. There were 14 of these items.</p>
<h2>How was the agreement reached?</h2>
<p>The issue has been on the drawing board for <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65614490">half a century</a>. It’s not just an immediate concern of the current Asantehene. It has been a concern of the last three occupants of the stool (throne). But this year is critical because it marks 150 years since the Sagrenti War. It also marks 100 years since the return of the <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/11/11/9q292hoy7x0uyv4ibm38vghy7mmax1">Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh</a> after his <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/11/11/9q292hoy7x0uyv4ibm38vghy7mmax1">exile in Seychelles</a> and 25 years since the <a href="https://manhyiapalace.org/profile-of-otumfuo-osei-tutu-ii-asantehene/">current Asantehene</a>, Oseu Tutu II, ascended the stool. </p>
<p>So, while in London in May 2023, after having official discussions with directors of these museums, he reopened discussions and negotiations. He asked me and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Asante-M-D-McLeod/dp/0714115630">Malcolm McLeod</a>, former curator and scholar at the British Museum
and <a href="https://www.myjoyonline.com/asantehene-leads-discussions-with-british-museum-over-regalia-taken-from-ashantis/">vice-principal</a> at the University of Glasgow, to help in the technical decisions that would be made. We’ve been working on this for the past nine months.</p>
<h2>Why is it a six year loan and not an outright return?</h2>
<p>The moral right to ownership does exist. But there are also the laws of antiquity in the UK. The Victoria & Albert and the British Museum are national museums. They are governed by very <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2024/01/25/british-museum-lends-ghana-looted-gold-artifacts-heres-why-it-wont-fully-return-them/?sh=60ccee735c7c">strict laws</a> which do not permit <a href="https://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ethno/policies/deaccessioning/">de-accessioning</a> or permanently removing a work of art or other object from a museum’s collection to sell it or otherwise dispose of it.</p>
<p>That had always been the constraining factor over the last 50 years. But there was also a way that we could have these items for a maximum of six years. Not all the objects are being exhibited at the British Museum. Many have never been exhibited and lie in storage in a warehouse.</p>
<p>Based on the circumstances and the trinity of anniversaries, we came to an agreement. Discussions will however continue between us and these museums to find a lasting agreement.</p>
<p>Of course, the Ghana experience will be important for restitution claims from other countries in Africa.</p>
<h2>What does this mean to the Asante people – and Ghana?</h2>
<p>The fact that over the last couple of months we were able to reach some form of agreement for this to happen is testimony of the interest in multicultural agreements.</p>
<p>Any set of objects that is 150 years old (or older) will be of interest to many people. Such artefacts help us to connect the past with the present. They are significant for how our people were, in terms of creativity and technology, how they were able to use gold and other artistic properties. They are also something that will inspire those who are in the craft of gold production today. </p>
<p>Manhiya Palace Museum reopens this year in April. The exhibition of these objects is going to increase visitor attendance at the <a href="https://ashantiobjects.commons.gc.cuny.edu/the-new-manhyia-palace-museum/">museum</a>. It receives about 80,000 visitors a year and we estimate that it could rise to 200,000 a year with the return of these objects. This will generate revenue and allow us to expand and develop our own museums.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A loan deal for the Asante artefacts offers an opportunity for these objects to return home.Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann, Director of Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project, Associate Professor at Africa Institute Sharjah & Associate Graduate Faculty, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2179952023-12-15T13:02:46Z2023-12-15T13:02:46ZEntangled Islands exhibition explores the history of Irish people in the Caribbean – an expert review<p>A new exhibition at Epic, Dublin’s Irish emigration museum, explores connections between Ireland and the Caribbean. <a href="https://epicchq.com/entangled-islands/">Entangled Islands</a> aims to tell “the stories of a wide range of Irish people who traversed and settled in the Caribbean”, while also outlining “our intersecting histories of colonisation and resistance”.</p>
<p>The exhibition was partly inspired by growing academic research into connections between Ireland and the Caribbean in the last 20 years. Such research, as the exhibition explains, “complicates understandings of the Irish diaspora as a historically marginalised people”. The <a href="https://epicchq.com/entangled-islands-bibliography/">extent</a> of this scholarship is clear across the exhibition, although the tone is accessible throughout.</p>
<p>One prominent theme is a reevaluation of Ireland’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. The topic has previously been tackled in books such as <a href="https://books.google.ie/books/about/Ireland_Slavery_and_Anti_Slavery_1612_18.html?id=mToWDAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery: 1812-1965</a> by Nini Rodgers (2007) and <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526150998/">Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean</a> (2023), edited by Finola O’Kane and Ciaran O’Neill. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for Entangled Islands.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The exhibition focuses mainly on the stories of individual Irish people in the Caribbean, with some limited exploration of the wider context. While there are references to the positions of power many Irish people held under the colonial system, the extent of this fact – or its brutalities – do not occupy a large portion of the exhibition.</p>
<p>For example, an early panel explores Howe Peter Browne, the second marquess of Sligo, who became governor of Jamaica in 1834. This is a significant date given that the <a href="https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/explore-by-time-period/georgians/1833-abolition-of-slavery-act-and-compensation-claims/#:%7E:text=The%201833%20Act%20outlawed%20British,the%20Services%20of%20such%20Slaves'.">Slavery Abolition Act of 1833</a> was coming into effect when he arrived. </p>
<p>The exhibition makes much of the fact that Browne would have to enforce the new laws of the act, which required the “formerly” enslaved over the age of six to work 40.5 hours unpaid per week for four to six years. It notes that, Browne, like other enslavers, received compensation for loss of “property”, while also mentioning that Browne supported abolition. </p>
<p>Images on the panel of enslaved people suffering punishment on a treadmill and Brown’s ancestral home, Westport House in Mayo, are suggestive of the interrelationship between the horrors of enslavement and the Irish upper classes. Though nothing in the accompanying text makes this explicit. </p>
<p>Browne is positioned in a post-emancipation framework and portrayed somewhat positively, far from the way he is <a href="https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526151001/9781526151001.00026.xml">described by</a> Finola O’ Kane as a “less-than-mature” marquess, with “a mixed reputation as an improving landlord”.</p>
<h2>The Irish slave myth</h2>
<p>The exhibition is more explicit is in its discussion of the “Irish slave” myth. This refers to an online misinformation meme that <a href="https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:20525/">falsely claims</a> Irish people were enslaved in the Americas but have managed to succeed, nevertheless. </p>
<p>As one exhibition panel explains, the myth “persists in the face of contrary evidence”. The exhibition declares that: “White nationalists and racists, in particular, have seized on the myth in an attempt to undermine the unique suffering of enslaved Africans.” </p>
<p>The strength of this statement is notable, but perhaps because the meme remains most popular <a href="https://limerick1914.medium.com/all-of-my-work-on-the-irish-slaves-meme-2015-16-4965e445802a">in North American territories</a>, rather than in the UK and Ireland, a sense of distance allows for such unequivocal language.</p>
<p>There is a close attention to language across the exhibition, such as the consistent use of “enslaved”, in place of “slave(s)”. This is welcome and reflects reconsiderations, both in academia and beyond, of the extent to which the transatlantic slave trade was foundational to the making of modern Europe. </p>
<p>The layered meanings of “entangled” in the exhibition’s title are evident in the exploration of a number of connections from journalistic, to literary, as well as enslavement and colonialism. </p>
<p>At the same time, as the exhibition shows, there have been moments of solidarity between Ireland and the Caribbean, regions connected by their colonial pasts. Abolitionists such as Dubliner James Field Stanfield and Belfast man Thomas McCabe feature prominently, the latter ensuing an all-island perspective is included. </p>
<p>The visit in 1791 of Olaudah Equiano, a formerly enslaved man whose <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/34285/the-interesting-narrative-and-other-writings-by-olaudah-equiano-ed--vincent-carrett-intro-and-notes--vincent-carrett/9780142437162">memoir</a> would become a key text for the abolitionist movement in Britain, is also described.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, Entangled Islands has interesting stories to tell about specific people from Ireland in the Caribbean. There’s journalist James O’Kelly and his time in Cuba. And Kay Donnellan and Eleanor Frances Cahill, teachers from Ireland who became involved in the country’s labour movement. There’s also a nod towards Che Guevara’s <a href="https://www.thejournal.ie/che-guevara-irish-roots-3754700-Dec2017/">Irish heritage</a>, via his grandmother.</p>
<p>Towards the end of the exhibition, there is a turn towards literature. Figures such as St Lucian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott and former poet laureate of Jamaica Lorna Goodison are showcased as poets who have drawn inspiration from Irish writers such as <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2022/07/05/james-joyce-in-the-caribbean/">James Joyce</a> and W.B. Yeats.</p>
<p>The exhibition ends with a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9gGmmuPyE8&ab_channel=EPICTheIrishEmigrationMuseum">video</a> of four young mixed heritage Caribbean-Irish people talking about links between the two regions. They discuss both the racism they experience in Ireland and the interesting points of contact they find here with the Caribbean, from language to music. It is both joyous and confronting in equal measures and is an important addition to the story.</p>
<p>On the whole, this is a necessary and worthwhile exhibition that has fascinating stories to tell about the Irish in the Caribbean, which are often not widely known. More pressure could have been placed on the portrayal of Irish enslavers, but nevertheless, visitors are likely to come away with a fresh perspective. Entangled Islands is a well-researched, interesting exhibition that ends by echoing the idea of Irish and Caribbean entanglement into the present day.</p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ellen Howley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One prominent theme is a reevaluation of Ireland’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.Ellen Howley, Assistant Professor in the School of English, DCU, Dublin City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173152023-12-05T17:13:01Z2023-12-05T17:13:01ZJapan: Myths to Manga – Young V&A exhibition celebrates nature’s influence on Japanese culture<p><a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/japan-myths-to-manga">Japan: Myths to Manga</a> at the Young V&A is loosely divided into four parts: sky, sea, forest and city. The underlying theme of the exhibition is showcasing how traditions developed in these contexts relate to contemporary Japanese culture. Japan’s dramatic natural landscapes are displayed as the inspiration behind the country’s art and culture.</p>
<p>Visiting the show entails taking a journey from traditional culture (such as kimonos, <a href="https://www.getty.edu/news/why-the-iconic-great-wave-swept-the-world/">Hokusai’s “Big Wave”</a> and Japanese monsters known as <a href="https://yokai.com/introduction/">Yokai</a>) to contemporary culture (such as manga, anime and urban legends). The exhibition explores how those traditional spirits are still alive in contemporary Japan. </p>
<p>In doing so, the exhibition avoids the trap of Orientalist representations of Japan: a different culture is presented without any sweet exoticism.</p>
<p>To engage young people and families, there are several interactive exhibits. This includes <a href="https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20231020-japans-ancient-art-of-taiko-drumming">Taiko</a> (traditional drums) that anybody can try to play, manga drawing, and origami folding. On the surface, the exhibition seems to appeal primarily to children. However, there is plenty to enjoy for adult visitors too, who might notice some interesting techniques of repurposing and retelling at play. </p>
<p>For example, in the “sea” space, Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/great-wave-spot-difference">The Great Wave Off Kanagawa</a> print is well known. But there is also a parody of it by contemporary artist <a href="https://toruishii.com">Toru Ishii</a>, which epitomises the essence of contemporary Japan. </p>
<p>Ishii’s wave almost swallows Tokyo Sky Tree (a new landmark building) and Tokyo city. Ink bottles, pens and desks are dancing in the wave, led by a knight on a horse. The office workplace has become a place of war. This echoes a well-known advertising slogan for the Japanese energy drink <a href="https://shimaguni.co.uk/blog/a-story-of-japanese-workplace-culture">Regain</a>: “Can you fight for 24 hours?” </p>
<p>Although the translated title of the piece is Going Work War, the painting has a second message about ocean pollution, as the giant wave swallows all kinds of things that do not belong.</p>
<p>Resonating with Ishii’s painting, the clothes made by the 12-year-old artist <a href="https://www.instagram.com/coco_pinkprincess/">Coco-Pink</a> shown in the “city” space speak to the audience. Conscious of global environmental issues, Coco-Pink creates new extravagant outfits using old clothes, reducing waste through her creations. </p>
<h2>Cultural translation</h2>
<p>The exhibition can be interpreted as a work of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315670898-20/museums-material-culture-cultural-representations-robert-neather">cultural translation</a>. Artists translated their ideas into artwork. Old myths were passed on orally for many hundreds of years, before being translated into the scripts displayed in the exhibition. The curators translated the exhibits by placing them into contexts known to the audience: sky, sea, forest and city. The visitors are offered an impression of Japan as balanced between its nature and cities.</p>
<p>One particularly strong example of this work of translation is in the “sky” section. Its exhibits relate to a Japanese tradition called <a href="https://www.japansociety.org.uk/resource?resource=72">Otsukimi</a>, which involves watching the beautiful full moon while enjoying rice cakes called Tsukimi Dango (“The Rabbit and the mochi”). It’s said that careful observers can see the image of a rabbit making rice cakes on the moon’s surface (“The Rabbit and the moon”). </p>
<p>This tradition travelled to Japan from China in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Heian-period#:%7E:text=Heian%20period%2C%20in%20Japanese%20history,ky%C5%8D%20(Ky%C5%8Dto)%20in%20794.">Heian period</a> (794-1185). Naoko Takeuchi, a famous manga author, translated this myth and tradition into her internationally known manga (later also <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103369/">anime</a>): <a href="https://sailormoon.fandom.com/wiki/Manga">Sailor Moon</a> (1991-1997). </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for a recent Sailor Moon movie on Netflix.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The girl fighters of Sailor Moon, displayed in five exhibits of manga sketches, all wear sailor uniforms. Sailor style is a popular school uniform among Japanese girls. It is a translation of uniforms worn by sailors in England and was first adopted by a girls’ school in Kyoto in 1920, as part of a wave of democratisation during the Taisho period (1912-1926). </p>
<p>The name of the manga’s protagonist, <a href="https://sailormoon.fandom.com/wiki/Usagi_Tsukino_/_Sailor_Moon_(manga)">Tsukino Usagi</a>, translates as “Moon’s Rabbit”. As much as the Japanese admire the power of the Sun (symbolised by a red disk in the Japanese flag), they are also attracted by the mystical power of the moon. Sailor Moon reflects the understanding of the moon as being female in Japan, but at the same time translates it into a female image of strength and mythical power, fighting for justice. </p>
<p>Attentive visitors understand that they are offered a translated image of Japan as they walk through different levels. It is up them to decide which levels to pick up and translate into new meaning for themselves.</p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nana Sato-Rossberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The exhibition showcases how nature coexists with Japan’s major cities.Nana Sato-Rossberg, Professor in Translation Studies, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2186422023-11-29T15:59:49Z2023-11-29T15:59:49ZHow colonial violence in Tasmania helped build scientists’ reputations and prestigious museum collections<p><em>Readers are advised this article contains the names of Aboriginal people who have died, and mentions attempted genocide, violence towards and offensive language about Aboriginal peoples.</em></p>
<p>We might imagine that scientists gain recognition thanks to the ideas they generate and the knowledge they contribute to our understanding of the world, earned through careers of diligent research. But not everyone takes this route. </p>
<p>When Tasmanian solicitor Morton Allport died in 1878, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8967845?searchTerm=conspicuous%20as%20the%20foremost%20scientist%20in%20the%20colony%20and">his obituary</a> described him as the “the foremost scientist in the colony”. <a href="https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/anh.2023.0859">My research</a>, published today, shows that Allport achieved his status by obtaining the bodily remains of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and endangered animals, and sending them to European collectors – specifically asking for scientific accolades in return. </p>
<p>I read <a href="https://librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/tas/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fARCHIVES_SERIES$002f0$002fARCHIVES_SER_DIX:ALL19/one">hundreds of letters</a> between Allport and his European correspondents. It’s clear from these letters that Allport played up the rarity and value of these remains, while both the people and the animals were being subjected to extraordinary colonial violence. Allport worked in Tasmania at a time when its natural history captivated European scientists. Enigmatic animals <a href="https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/platypus-matters-the-extraordinary-story-of-australian-mammals-jack-ashby?variant=40108244041806">like the platypus</a> challenged Europe’s understanding of the natural world. </p>
<p>The now extinct thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger was related to other marsupials such kangaroos and wombats. It was the largest marsupial carnivore of modern times. And it offered one of the most perfect examples of <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/convergent-evolution.html">convergent evolution</a> – where astonishingly similar animals evolve independently on different branches of the tree of life. Thylacines and wolves are separated by <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0417-y">160 million years</a> of evolution, but closely resemble each other (albeit thylacines had stripes). </p>
<h2>A racist hierarchy</h2>
<p>But accounts of these animals also fed into the <a href="https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/platypus-matters-the-extraordinary-story-of-australian-mammals-jack-ashby?variant=40108244041806">racist view</a> that Australia was a primitive evolutionary backwater. Despite the intrigue, almost every 19th-century account of Australian mammals paints them as weird, inferior beasts.</p>
<p><a href="https://libraries.tas.gov.au/tasmanian-archives/guides-to-records/early-colonial-administration-records/introduction/#:%7E:text=Settled%20in%201803%2C%20Tasmania%20was,responsible%20self%2Dgovernment%20from%201856.">Britain colonised Tasmania in 1803</a>. Thylacines were considered a threat to the new sheep farming industry. So was the Indigenous human population. From 1830 the colonists offered bounties to encourage their violent removal. </p>
<p>The result was extinction of the thylacine and <a href="https://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/truganini/">genocide of Indigenous peoples</a>. I use the term genocide here because, although they were unsuccessful, the British <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-evidence-for-the-tasmanian-genocide-86828">aimed to completely destroy</a> Tasmania’s Indigenous population.</p>
<p>As populations of thylacines and Tasmanian Aboriginal people were decimated, demand for their remains in museums increased. Allport sent more thylacine specimens to Europe than anyone else, and proudly claimed to be the supplier of every Tasmanian human skeleton to reach European collections.</p>
<p>He was also involved in the mutilation of the body of an Aboriginal man, <a href="https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/L/William%20Lanne.htm">William Lanne</a>. Lanne was considered a “prize specimen” as the colonists believed him to be the last Tasmanian man when he died in 1869. They were wrong – thousands of Tasmanian Aboriginal people are alive today. </p>
<p>The events surrounding Lanne’s death have been at the centre of much debate in Tasmania in recent years. This August local authorities agreed that a statue of politician William Crowther – also implicated in the mutilation of Lanne’s body – <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-24/william-crowther-statue-to-be-removed-from-display/102737854">would be removed</a> from Hobart city centre, the Tasmanian state capital.</p>
<p>Historical figures like Allport allow us to consider how violence against the Indigenous population and the exploitative nature of <a href="https://www.natsca.org/node/2509">colonial natural history</a> were parts of the same historical processes. That is not to say these issues were as harmful as each other. Rather, they were connected events taking place at the same time. When we consider the parallels between them, it helps build a picture of the human and environmental costs of colonialism. </p>
<h2>An uncomfortable legacy</h2>
<p>Aside from both being viewed as pests in their own environment, thylacines and Aboriginal people were incorrectly described in colonial and European accounts as savage, primitive, unadaptable and unintelligent. </p>
<p>In the context of European racism, hierarchies were invented by the western scientific elite that placed marsupials <a href="https://www.natsca.org/article/2684">as inherently “inferior”</a> compared to European mammals – just as human racial hierarchies had been similarly fabricated. </p>
<p>It led to a narrative that they would inevitably become extinct through exposure to more modern newcomers. This propaganda minimised the impact of the state-sponsored violence. </p>
<p>Colonists described the people and thylacines as at fault for what happened to them – that they couldn’t cope in the “modern” world. This obscures the actual reason for their decline: they were being killed either directly by European settlers or by the conditions the colonial establishment forced them to live in.</p>
<p>But there is also an interesting paradox regarding these two “extinctions” and the mythology surrounding them. Thylacines are extinct, but the notion that they are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723014948">not is mainstream</a>, whereas Aboriginal Tasmanians are not extinct despite a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/14/australia.features11">persistent narrative</a> that they were exterminated.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/collections-research/collections-uncovered/colonial-histories-australian-mammal-collections">I now work</a> with some of the thylacine skins Allport sent to Europe, at the <a href="https://www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/">University Museum of Zoology</a>, Cambridge. They are invaluable scientific specimens that teach us so much about an iconic extinct species. </p>
<p>But these skins also hold power in allowing museums to connect people to this story. I can no longer look at them without thinking of the human story they relate to. Museum specimens aren’t just scientific data – they also reflect important moments in history, much of which was <a href="https://www.natsca.org/node/2631">tragically violent</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Ashby received funding from a Headley Fellowship with Art Fund. He is affiliated with the Natural Sciences Collections Association.</span></em></p>New research shows the uncomfortable and shocking truth behind a revered scientist’s reputation.Jack Ashby, Assistant Director of the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2161232023-10-25T12:50:23Z2023-10-25T12:50:23ZBritain’s first Faith Museum is the ideal place to set aside your preconceptions about religion<p>Britain’s first <a href="https://aucklandproject.org/venues/faith-museum/">Faith Museum</a>, which has recently opened in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, faces three problems. First, “religion” is an explosively controversial subject on which it’s almost impossible not to stir up anger. Yet it’s also a subject that a great many modern British people find baffling and laughably irrelevant to their lives. Finally, there is no such thing as “religion” or “faith” in the abstract – only specific faiths in actual people’s lives. </p>
<p>However, it turns out that a museum is the ideal solution to all these problems. A museum cannot be about abstractions such as faith, belief and religion. Rather, it is about actual objects, each with a specific history, gathered in a specific place, being looked at by specific human beings. All of which provides a rare opportunity to set aside your preconceptions about faith and just look.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Introduction to the Faith Museum.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The setting is significant. County Durham is one of England’s most deprived counties, and Bishop Auckland is a tough little town even here. But the county has, as surely everyone knows, <a href="https://www.durhamcathedral.co.uk">the world’s finest cathedral</a> at its heart, while <a href="https://aucklandproject.org/venues/auckland-castle/">Auckland Castle</a> is the historic seat of <a href="https://englandsnortheast.co.uk/prince-bishops-durham/">the prince bishops of Durham</a>. The north-east of England is the ancient kingdom of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Northumbria">Northumbria</a>, the heart of early Christian England where the greatest scholar of his age, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Bede-the-Venerable">Venerable Bede</a>, first wrote about the “English people”.</p>
<p>The castle had been falling into slow decay until 2013, when it was bought from the bishops by a charitable trust run by the philanthropist <a href="https://aucklandproject.org/news/new-role-for-jonathan-ruffer/">Jonathan Ruffer</a>. The goal was not merely economic regeneration, but cultural renewal and claiming some of that proud heritage. There are now plenty of other things to see at Auckland Castle, but the new honey-stone block containing the Faith Museum stands out.</p>
<h2>What to see at the Faith Museum</h2>
<p>The museum’s ground floor leads visitors on a chronological journey from pre-Roman times to the present. It begins with carved markings on stones that appear to have had a ritual meaning, through various relics of Roman paganism, to the quietly significant display of <a href="https://artway.eu/content.php?id=2788&lang=en&action=show">a silver ring</a> which may be the oldest evidence of Christianity on this island.</p>
<p>The ring is one of several moments when you find yourself distracted by the thought: “How on earth did they get hold of <em>that</em>?” I won’t give away too many secrets, but the curators have plundered a wide range of other museums’ backroom collections to ensure visitors are not simply looking at books and obscure items of jewellery.</p>
<p>The fabrics, paintings, keepsakes and even a truly sinister child’s doll all serve to make the same point: “faith” is shorthand for what people take their lives to mean. These objects, which are all that we have of those people, are our best window to them.</p>
<p>The spine of the historic story is inevitably Christian (a spine with a sharp, badly healed fracture at the 16th-century Reformation). But while the multi-faceted Christian story is central, that story’s variety and the non-Christian threads are always in view. </p>
<p>For me, one of the most striking items is a Jewish vessel from Colchester that predates <a href="https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/why-were-the-jews-expelled-from-england-in-1290-0">the expulsion of England’s entire Jewish population in the 13th century</a>.</p>
<p>The scale is not huge. You can see every item on the lower floor – including the film montage about religion and sport in our time – within an hour, and you will only just be starting to develop museum legs. Then you are directed upstairs, and think: “So, we’ve done the history, is that it?”</p>
<h2>Reflecting on ‘faith’</h2>
<p>The very final part of the museum is a thoughtful set of spaces providing a snapshot of the rapidly changing religious landscape of Britain today. Here, a series of contemporary artists reflect on their different relationships to “faith”, and visitors are offered a chance to add your own response. Which is all fine and good, but that’s not why you visit a museum.</p>
<p>I am tempted not to tell you what awaits visitors in the penultimate space, at the top of the stairs, and if you’d rather find out for yourself, look away now. </p>
<p>Most of the top floor is boldly given over to a single installation: <a href="https://matcollishaw.com/works/eidolon/">Eidolon, by Mat Collishaw</a>. The work is a vast projection of an iris (the flower, not the eye), slowly opening and closing, which seems to burn with blue-gold flames yet is never consumed.</p>
<p>This may not sound very remarkable. But all I can say is that, having spent an hour being softened up by all the human lives and deaths to which the objects down below testified, I found myself almost wrenchingly moved by this installation. For me, it was a sort of minimalist answer to <a href="https://www.sainte-chapelle.fr/en">Saint-Chapelle in Paris</a>.</p>
<p>Your experience will be different, of course. Museums are like rivers: no one ever steps into the same one twice. But this is a river of faith worth stepping into. You will understand something of why so many people have been swept away by it. You may even feel a gently insistent tug yourself.</p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216123/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alec Ryrie provided some limited, informal advice on specific objects to the curators of the Faith Museum during the development of the project.</span></em></p>The curators of this new Bishop Auckland museum have plundered a wide range of other backroom collections.Alec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christianity, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2083602023-08-03T15:21:16Z2023-08-03T15:21:16ZSix must-see summer exhibitions – reviewed by our experts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539792/original/file-20230727-19-h7rmry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C31%2C5301%2C3491&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-august-15-2017-female-706599463">I Wei Huang</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Looking for something to do this Summer? Our experts have gone to some of the best exhibitions around the UK and given us their take on it. From retrospectives of painter Peter Howson’s work in Edinburgh and filmmaker Brian Desmond Hurst’s work in Belfast to a groundbreaking photography exhibition in London and a huge inflatable sculpture installation in Manchester.</em> </p>
<h2>1. <a href="https://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/whats-on/when-apple-ripens-peter-howson-65">When The Apple Ripens: Peter Howson at 65</a> – Edinburgh City Arts Centre, Edinburgh</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.flowersgallery.com/artists/167-peter-howson/">Peter Howson’s</a> story is about seeking dignity in human suffering and violence, and finding redemption. It is also uniquely Scottish.</p>
<p>Howson’s Edinburgh retrospective, <a href="https://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/whats-on/when-apple-ripens-peter-howson-65">When The Apple Ripens</a>, covers three key stages of his life: the early works of portraiture and recording of the aftermath of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22079683">Thatcherite Britain</a>; the impact of his <a href="http://www.hasta-standrews.com/features/2017/12/5/peter-howson-and-the-bosnian-war">experiences as a war artist</a> in Bosnia and Kosovo; and finally, his therapeutic <a href="https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/21712/Froelich_Peter_Howson_and_The_Language_of_Salvation.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">conversion to Christianity</a> after years of battling with alcoholism and drugs.</p>
<p>An unmistakably Scottish feature of Howson’s work is the undertone of <a href="https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/sbet/19-2_195.pdf">Calvinism</a> with its god-fearing, joyless culture of toil and penitence. He demonstrates empathy, acceptance and respect for worthy subjects, but he has also created works of satire and mockery, attacking the evils of the world, particularly fascism. </p>
<p>His purpose and dedication to his artisanship are evident, but it is his moving display of human suffering and his pursuit of redemption that mark him out as a great contemporary British artist. This is a timely showcase to celebrate his 65th year.</p>
<p><em>Until October 1<br>
Reviewed by Blane Savage, Lecturer in MA Creative Media Practice</em></p>
<h2>2. <a href="https://pallant.org.uk/whats-on/gwen-john-art-and-life/">Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris</a> – Pallant House Gallery, Chichester</h2>
<p>Born in 1876, the Welsh painter <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/artists/john-gwen-18761939">Gwen John</a> was a genuinely unique <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/modernism#:%7E:text=Although%20many%20different%20styles%20are,up%20the%20work">modernist painter</a>. She didn’t create loud, macho work, nor sexy, objectified nudes, nor abstract forms, like many male modernists. She was fiercely herself, making small, intimate, idiosyncratic paintings that share a definite style and palette over the course of her career.</p>
<p>This exhibition includes works by some of John’s greatest influences, including her one-time tutor <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/whis/hd_whis.htm">James McNeill Whistler</a> as well as <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pcez/hd_pcez.htm">Paul Cezanne</a>, <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/edouard-vuillard">Edouard Vuillard</a>, <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/walter-sickert">Walter Sickert</a>, her brother <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/augustus-john-om-1362">Augustus John</a> and her lover <a href="https://rodinmuseum.org/collection/about-auguste-rodin">Auguste Rodin</a>.</p>
<p>It decisively reframes John, often characterised as a recluse: “This is a story of connection, rather than isolation,” the first wall text states, “of a woman who was part of the culture of her age”. </p>
<p>Pallant House’s exhibition is fundamentally biographical and engages with the nuances of a woman who eschewed the norms of both sexes to make her own way. It valiantly takes on the task of proclaiming her importance in the history of modern art. </p>
<p><em>Until October 8<br>
Reviewed by Eliza Goodpasture, PhD candidate in the History of Art</em></p>
<h2>3. <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/contemporary-african-photography-a-world-in-common">A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography</a> – Tate Modern, London</h2>
<p>For most visitors, this exhibition serves as an enlightening journey that challenges their perspective. It confronts and dismantles enduring colonial stereotypes associated with Africa. Simultaneously, it stands as a long-awaited affirmation of African photographers, validating their unique use of the medium.</p>
<p>The show’s curator, Osei Bonsu, developed three major themes – “identity and tradition”, “counter histories” and “imagined futures”. The 36 featured photographers tell stories of an Africa that celebrates its spirituality and is untangling itself from its colonial past. This is awe-inspiring work by a new generation of artists who draw on the rich social and political history of the continent to tell their stories.</p>
<p>By working with masks, mirrors, self-portraiture or consenting sitters, the featured artists all circumnavigate the historic and often still-present exploitative relationship between the camera and the African continent. This is a decolonial approach to photography we can all learn from, but it also poses the question of how African photographers will make visible the richness of everyday life on the continent.</p>
<p><em>Until January 4 2024<br>
Reviewed by Kerstin Hacker, Senior Lecturer in Photography</em></p>
<h2>4. <a href="https://www.ulstermuseum.org/whats-on/film-art-brian-desmond-hurst-film-director-exhibition">Film as Art: Brian Desmond Hurst, Film Director</a> – Ulster Museum, Belfast</h2>
<p>This exhibition at the Ulster Museum presents the story of film director Brian Desmond Hurst’s eventful life and times through archive film posters, production stills, photographs, letters and a video compilation of clips from some of his work. Born in the heart of working-class East Belfast in 1895, Hurst’s long life – like his film œuvre – was a bundle of surprises and contradictions. </p>
<p>An artistically ambitious and intelligent filmmaker, Hurst’s output was confined almost entirely to British genre cinema (including classics such as Caesar and Cleopatra, 1945; Scrooge, 1951; and Malta Story,1953). He was a caustic wit with a gift for melodramatic scene setting, bipartisan on the <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/the-irish-question">Irish question</a> (Irish-British relations), bisexual in his love life, and an essentially elusive figure clearly regarded with genuine affection by his wide circle of friends, and his family. This modest but often fascinating exhibition is an important public testament to this remarkable filmmaker and his achievements.</p>
<p><em>Until January 11 2024<br>
Reviewed by Des O'Rawe, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies</em></p>
<h2>5. <a href="https://www.theherbert.org/whats-on/1697/dippy-in-coventry-the-nations-favourite-dinosaur">Dippy in Coventry: The Nation’s Favourite Dinosaur</a> – Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry</h2>
<p>Billed as the “dinosaur in residence”, Dippy the famous sauropod from the Natural History Museum is on long loan to the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry. This is the 26-metre skeleton of one of the longest dinosaurs ever – the marvel of the Jurassic.</p>
<p>Dippy, properly <em>Diplodocus</em>, lived 155 million years ago in Wyoming. What you see is a perfect, life-sized plaster cast of the original skeleton, which is in the Pittsburgh Natural History Museum. This perfect plaster copy of the skeleton arrived at the Natural History Museum in 1905 and it has been a favourite ever since.</p>
<p>Dippy has been on tour since 2018, travelling from London to Dorset, Birmingham, Belfast, Glasgow, Newcastle and Norwich, and – after a brief touchdown in London – has been in Coventry for a few months.</p>
<p>This is a fun museum visit no child will complain about. Your five-year-old will hold forth like a professor, giving you all the details of Dippy’s life and times.</p>
<p><em>Until February 2026<br>
Reviewed by Mike Benton, Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology</em></p>
<h2>6. <a href="https://factoryinternational.org/whats-on/yayoi-kusama-you-me-and-the-balloons/">Yayoi Kusama: You, me and the Balloons</a> – The Warehouse at Aviva Studios, Manchester</h2>
<p>This exhibition offers a captivating journey into the Japanese artist’s world in the largest-ever immersive show of her inflatable works. The installations provide various levels of engagement, from playful interactions to deeper contemplation of meaning.</p>
<p>Kusama’s universe is magic to observe, in the first room visitors are confronted by inflatable tentacles that fill the room with their impressive size. The journey to the larger space provides a unique vantage point, allowing time to linger here revealed the subtle movements of the floating inflatable universe above. The large mirrored wall also creates distorted reflections, blurring the lines between reality and Kusama’s dream world. </p>
<p>The installations encourage different experiences. The Dots Obsession Dome invite this a brief immersion, while the smaller Peephole Dome elicit genuine reactions and introspection through the unexpected eyes looking back at you. The exhibition offers rich people-watching opportunities, where you lose track of time completely. </p>
<p><em>Until August 28<br>
Reviewed by Lucy Gannon, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader in Interior Design</em></p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Launches 4 August. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our experts have you covered with recommendations of what to see this summer.Blane Savage, Lecturer in MA Creative Media Practice and BA(Hons) New Media Art, University of the West of ScotlandDes O'Rawe, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Queen's University BelfastEliza Goodpasture, PhD candidate in the History of Art, University of YorkKerstin Hacker, Senior Lecturer in Photography, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLucy Gannon, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader BA in Interior Design, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityMichael J. Benton, Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2096202023-07-17T16:05:27Z2023-07-17T16:05:27ZYoung V&A: Museum of Childhood rebrand excels at playful spaces but misses chances to go deeper<p>The former Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green has reopened its doors as the newly styled “<a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/young">Young V&A</a>” after a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jun/27/light-colour-newly-renovated-young-v-and-a">£13m programme of reimagining</a>”. The new offering marks an effort to embed creativity into the visitor experience, with child-centred design at the heart of its <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-life/introducing-young-va-a-powerhouse-of-creativity-for-generation-alpha">new strategy</a>.</p>
<p>The newly-imagined museum is clearly family focused. Provisions including an extensive buggy park and friendly staff ensure that visitors with young children are welcomed and cared for. </p>
<p>The galleries are set out over two floors, with a grand central atrium providing a social café space. The lower floors have two interactive thematic zones, named Imagine and Play. Further gallery spaces focus on design, with temporary exhibitions on the upper balcony. </p>
<p>Navigating the space is a free-flowing experience – visitors can choose their own route, unrestricted by timescales and traditional museum etiquette.</p>
<p>The balance between more traditional object-based displays and innovative interpretation is swayed towards collections behind glass. But extensive efforts are made to ensure that the conceptual framing of these spaces allows for audience responses, through a range of digital and audio interactive opportunities. This includes Coolest Projects, which showcases inventions by young makers and creative coders and digital game-based representations of the museum as a Minecraft location.</p>
<p>Thoughtful questions, displayed on interpretation panels throughout the gallery, create scope for imaginative responses and discussions generated by the objects on display.</p>
<p>The Imagine gallery presents emotive themes linked to identity and place, encouraging visitors to consider their understanding of “home”. The overall aesthetic is well considered and successfully positions alluring content at varying eye levels. This ensures that even the smallest visitors can engage with the displays, as a band of sticky hand prints across the lower levels of the glass cases proves.</p>
<p>However, the layout is limited by several missed opportunities to implement theatrical or story-based learning experiences. One example is the impressive life-size puppet used as part of the live stage show of War Horse, which stands motionless in the corner without any digital interactive to bring it to life.</p>
<p>The Play Zone, designed for young people aged up to 14, is the most successful of the visual and participatory areas. The zone provides designated spaces for inter-generational interaction, such as reading nooks and board game design stations. </p>
<p>Themes such as “Twist & Turn” and “Thread & Sew” – each represented through toys and games from the museum’s collection – could better be used as inspiration for a wider range of accessible, interactive sensory stations.</p>
<h2>Highlights and areas for development</h2>
<p>The highlights of my visit were the subtle interactions. A toddler chatting away to their reflection. The unexpected sound of Frankenstein’s monster roaring to life from behind the glass. A fun remark about the need for a miniature electrician to service the dollhouses. </p>
<p>Playful spaces within the museum encourage interactions which collectively shape the overall visitor experience. In this regard, Young V&A excels. This could be further enhanced by providing accessible handling of collection objects throughout the museum, offering the audience opportunities to find their own meanings.</p>
<p>Themes of sustainability and cultural diversity are well represented and a considerable focus has been placed on addressing issues of representation and inclusion. Discussion of anti-racist and LGBTQ+ narratives, however, is confined to a dark corridor space in the Design gallery. </p>
<p>They are combined with themes of protest and activism, rather than being addressed as separate issues. The positioning and visibility of contemporary critical issues for young people deserves greater consideration.</p>
<p>In terms of both accessibility and ingenuity, Young V&A is to be applauded. They have created a safe and inclusive location for families to explore. But how playful can the museum truly be when the predominant feature continues to be curated displays of objects in cases?</p>
<p>There is a conflict created by child-focused museums. Their creation supposes that the noisy, often messy interactions of children should be contained in a special location – and that this should be distinct from adult-focused, mainstream museum sites. But this raises questions about the need to provide inclusive content at all museums, not just those that are created for families.</p>
<p>The playful opportunities that the Young V&A presents are its greatest success, providing places to marvel, question and interact. But the museum needs to ensure that serious and sometimes challenging topics are addressed with the same level of focus and compassion, helping young people to talk openly about the contemporary issues that impact their lives. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight,
on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebekah Pickering Wood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Provisions like an extensive buggy park and friendly staff ensure that visitors with young children are welcomed and cared for.Rebekah Pickering Wood, Senior Lecturer in Museum and Heritage Studies, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2070942023-07-10T18:28:00Z2023-07-10T18:28:00ZHow an African collection of art in Canada is celebrated with care and community<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534440/original/file-20230627-26-h8ew4u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C206%2C5649%2C3359&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A significant collection of traditional African art has had a home in Canada for almost 100 years. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Qanita Lilla)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A significant collection of traditional African art has had a home in Canada for almost a hundred years. </p>
<p>At <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/">Agnes Etherington Art Centre</a>, we are working on new, more hospitable practices of care for this collection. This means that we are attentive <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/benedicte-savoy-on-africas-struggle-for-its-art">to the unmet needs of the collection</a> and are taking responsibility for responding to these in ways that encourages community access and inclusion.</p>
<p>We are located at Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ont., on the territories of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat, in a city where <a href="https://www.cityofkingston.ca/explore/culture-history/history/indigenous-people">over 7,000 people identify as First Nations, Inuit or Métis</a>.</p>
<p>The African art collection, named after donors Justin and Elisabeth Lang, consists of approximately 600 three-dimensional pieces that originate from 19 West African countries. </p>
<p>This collection is part of a cluster of similar collections in North America that made their way via European art markets. In 1938, Elisabeth Lang (nee Von Taussig), fleeing from Nazi-occupied Vienna, started the collection <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/explore/collections/object/female-figure-with-child-waka-sran">with a Baule figure</a> from Ivory Coast that she purchased in an Amsterdam junk shop. </p>
<h2>European market in African art</h2>
<p>The European market in African art had boomed in the 1920s and 1930s. European enthusiasm for African art was partly due to its influence on modernist artists, <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aima/hd_aima.htm">such as Picasso, Cézanne and Gauguin</a>. </p>
<p>From the early 1900s, <a href="https://doaj.org/article/b55e05112f604aa8b2db1e732c9e0c59">cultural belongings from West Africa were placed on the art market</a> directly from European, mainly French, colonies. Buyers and sellers were colonial officials, missionaries or in the military. This commercial network remained intact as the appreciation of African art shifted dramatically from an ethnographic bias where African objects were studied as materials of a specific people, to becoming African “art” for aesthetic contemplation.</p>
<p>Both these frameworks for studying African material had a colonial bias. As scientific specimens, objects from Africa were often used as evidence of racial and cultural difference. The term <a href="https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v6i9.1251">“primitive” art demonstrates this racism</a>.</p>
<p>As art, these objects were used to <a href="https://doi.org/10.23690/jams.v4i1.96">qualify Africa as mysterious and incomprehensible</a> to the western mind. The establishment of an African art market therefore had direct ties to European colonial projects and imperial commercial networks that reinforced colonial violences.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Hands in gloves seen holding sculptural elements on a blue fabric background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534426/original/file-20230627-28043-jhjnat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534426/original/file-20230627-28043-jhjnat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534426/original/file-20230627-28043-jhjnat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534426/original/file-20230627-28043-jhjnat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534426/original/file-20230627-28043-jhjnat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534426/original/file-20230627-28043-jhjnat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534426/original/file-20230627-28043-jhjnat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Agnes staff are seen positioning African pieces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tim Forbes)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>At least four lives of the collection</h2>
<p>The Lang family donated the collection to Agnes in 1984. At the time, it was the <a href="https://www.rom.on.ca/en/node/17856">largest collection of African art</a> at a Canadian university. As a body, the collection has had at least four lives: one within Africa as an active part of everyday life, another in Europe as part of a thriving art market, in Canada as a private art collection and now as a museum holding on a university campus.</p>
<p>But our records of these lives are sparse. We know very little about the contexts in which the individual pieces were produced, bought and sold in Africa, from as far south as Angola to as far north as Mauritania.</p>
<p>Instead, museum records and databases focus on other things: place of origin, material make up and physical size. These kinds of records were made for institutions, not communities.</p>
<h2>‘You are holding communities’</h2>
<p>Decolonising Cultural Spaces: The Living Cultures Project, is an initiative with a short film at its heart <a href="https://theecologist.org/2020/aug/11/living-cultures-decolonising-cultural-spaces">about uniting Indigenous communities across borders, to celebrate and protect their cultures</a>.</p>
<p>In this film, Samwel Nangiria, Maasai community leader, notes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNev9Pi61mk">You are not holding artifacts, you are holding communities</a> … museums need to be a place of people, not a place of artifacts. When we see these objects we see our parents, we see our ancestors.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Decolonising Cultural Spaces: The Living Cultures Project’ video by InsightShare.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As curator of the Lang collection, I am rethinking its future role. How do we adjust our practices to respond to a colonial past and to the gaps in our understanding? Considering voices like Nangiria’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800734234">in restitution debates</a>, I believe that while the collection resides with us, we have the responsibility to respond to new questions: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>What does it mean to think of the collection as living, and of needing to be in relation to communities? </p></li>
<li><p>How does a museum meet these evolving needs, and practise better care? </p></li>
<li><p>How do we respond to a complex history proactively, highlight absences and enable alternatives?</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Displayed African masks and objects, two showing a male and female faces, seen against a blue landscape background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535567/original/file-20230704-27-1og7zt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535567/original/file-20230704-27-1og7zt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535567/original/file-20230704-27-1og7zt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535567/original/file-20230704-27-1og7zt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535567/original/file-20230704-27-1og7zt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535567/original/file-20230704-27-1og7zt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535567/original/file-20230704-27-1og7zt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Exhibition view of ‘With Opened Mouths,’ 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tim Forbes)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New curatorial approaches</h2>
<p>Agnes’s <a href="https://vimeo.com/623714640">2022 exhibition <em>With Opened Mouths</em></a> drew on sculptural elements from contemporary art and incorporated the work of <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/digital-agnes/audio-file/intimate-recollections-of-black-lives/">Nigerian Canadian artist Oluseye Ogunlesi</a>. </p>
<p>This exhibition was conceived under pandemic lockdown in Cape Town. I was confronting isolation, impending economic migration to Canada and the start of curatorial work at Agnes and Queen’s University. I felt compelled to find new ways to enliven a collection that inhabited an awkward silence in the museum.</p>
<p>Then the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCZVL_8D048">dance craze, “Jerusamela,” by Master KG and Nomcebo</a>, became a <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/jerusalema-global-dance-hit-south-africa-spotify-1076474">global phenomenon</a>. Mobilizing the world, it presented another view of Africa: action, aliveness and contemporaneity. </p>
<h2>‘With Opened Mouths’</h2>
<p>For the Agnes exhibit <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/product/with-opened-mouths"><em>With Opened Mouths</em></a>, we discarded the glass display cases often used in museums and instead used labelling that echoed contemporary African signage. To open spaces outside the museum, a podcast ran alongside the exhibition, and currently continues into a second season. <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/digital-agnes/audio-file/with-opened-mouths-the-podcast/">With Opened Mouths: The Podcast</a> is a digital safe space where I interview racialized creatives to discuss their practice. </p>
<p>The podcast not only reflects on the journeys of artists but also the crucial value of artistic communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People seen pulling a bin through a hallway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534427/original/file-20230627-30373-7ee7su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534427/original/file-20230627-30373-7ee7su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534427/original/file-20230627-30373-7ee7su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534427/original/file-20230627-30373-7ee7su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534427/original/file-20230627-30373-7ee7su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534427/original/file-20230627-30373-7ee7su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534427/original/file-20230627-30373-7ee7su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Agnes’s collections staff and curator move the African collection from the vault to above ground.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tim Forbes)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moving out of the vault</h2>
<p>On July 15, the Lang Collection makes its next journey.</p>
<p>The collection will move to a temporary home on campus in preparation for “<a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/connect/news-and-stories/agnes-reimagined-comes-to-life">Agnes Reimagined,” reconstrustuction and reimagining</a> which are not only about expanding Agnes’s space, but also about decolonizing Agnes’s curatorial practices.</p>
<p>The move of the African collection out of the vault is momentous. Although portions of the collection have been on display before, this is the first time the entire collection has been brought above ground to once again be part of the living world. </p>
<p>To honour the liveliness of beings and history both seen and unseen, on July 15 we are <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/participate/talks-tours-events/vulindlela-procession">holding a ceremonial procession, Vulindlela! Out the Gates</a>, named after South African music icon Brenda Fassie’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB-OGtSEc64">post-apartheid hit music single</a>.</p>
<h2>Celebration of presence, welcome, care</h2>
<p>Agnes staff and community members will celebrate with music, poetry and dance, and we will launch the poetry bundle <em>eleven metal tongues</em> written by award-winning <a href="https://julianeokotbitek.com/bio-press">poet Otoniya J. Okot Bitek</a>. The project emerged after Bitek’s first visit to the vaults.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534424/original/file-20230627-23-eyd0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman's face next to a purple vertical design element that says 'With Opened Mouths, Agnes podcast." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534424/original/file-20230627-23-eyd0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534424/original/file-20230627-23-eyd0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534424/original/file-20230627-23-eyd0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534424/original/file-20230627-23-eyd0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534424/original/file-20230627-23-eyd0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534424/original/file-20230627-23-eyd0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534424/original/file-20230627-23-eyd0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poet Otoniya J. Okot Bitek has written poetry in response to visiting the African collection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Seasmin Taylor)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bitek’s poetry evokes a deep sense of being in the collection’s presence, of the uneasy fit of written descriptions in collection databases with the quivering reality before us, the inadequacies of language and suppressed stories. Vulindlela! will be a moment of hope, welcome and care. It marks a renewed commitment to reconsider the living significance of these belongings.</p>
<p>In essence, these curatorial practices seek to acknowledge the African communities and artists who have, unknowingly, built up the collection at Agnes. </p>
<p>The hearts, hands and minds of those who remain unnamed need their labour celebrated, and their voices heard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Qanita Lilla does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Western approaches to studying African materials have had a colonial bias. A curator considers what it means to think of the collection as needing to exist in relation to communities.Qanita Lilla, Associate Curator Arts of Africa, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2048672023-05-12T14:58:33Z2023-05-12T14:58:33ZTartan at V&A Dundee: a celebration of the pattern’s disruptive power<p>“Oldest”, “rarest”, “most celebrated” … these adjectives are intentionally avoided in the major new exhibition, <a href="https://www.dundee.com/news/tartan-va-dundee">Tartan</a>, at the V&A Dundee. It is ironic, therefore, that myself and the other curators have chosen to display the earliest authenticated fragment of tartan found in Scotland – an item which could be described using all three adjectives. </p>
<p>Following radiocarbon dating and extensive dye analysis, <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/dundee/info/scotland-s-oldest-tartan-discovered-by-scottish-tartans-authority">the Glen Affric tartan</a> – first discovered in a peat bog in the 1980s – has been dated to between 1500 and 1600. Naturally occurring green, brown, red and yellow dyes have been detected in the textile fragment, which is woven in the characteristic pattern (or “sett”, as the individual pattern of a tartan is officially known).</p>
<p>This discovery revises previous scholarship which suggested that <a href="https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartandetails?ref=1146">the Falkirk tartan</a> (dating back to the third century CE) was the earliest example of “true tartan”. In fact, this older fragment is actually a simple two-colour checked weave – or “shepherd’s plaid” – unlike the multicoloured true tartan pattern of the Glen Affric.</p>
<p>As important as this discovery is, the Glen Affric fragment is displayed not as an origin story but as part of the exhibition’s opening theme of tartan as a universal and inspirational grid pattern. The fragment shares this space with examples of fine art, including a series of tartan-inspired prints by American minimalist (and tartan obsessive) <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/judd-no-title-p11522">Donald Judd</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Outlander’s Graham McTavish visits the exhibition.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are examples of 1960s ecclesiastical architecture by Dutch Benedictine monk <a href="https://drawingmatter.org/dom-hans-van-der-laan/">Hans van der Laan</a>, based on the Grey Douglas tartan pattern. </p>
<p>Contemporary fashion that deconstructs and reassembles the fundamental structure of tartan is also on display, as are examples of global indigenous checked textiles. This includes <em>Shuka</em> cloth from west Africa and Bhutanese fabric that shares a visual affinity with Scottish tartan.</p>
<p>Visitors are encouraged to understand tartan in four interlinked spaces: Innovating Tartan, Tartan and Identity, Tartan and Power, and Transcendental Tartan. Historical and contemporary, unique and everyday, familiar and unexpected juxtapositions are all used to interrogate established histories of tartan and illuminate some of its lesser known stories. </p>
<h2>Moments of rupture and discontinuity</h2>
<p>We rejected a chronological narrative for this exhibition because of tartan’s unique history, which is complex, multilayered, and full of moments of rupture and discontinuity.</p>
<p>Possibly the most significant of these ruptures occurred following the final defeat of the Jacobite cause at the Battle of Culloden. It was then that tartan (as part of Highland dress) <a href="https://www.scottishtartans.co.uk/Act_of_Proscription_1746_-_The_Tartan_Ban_-_Fact_or_Myth.pdf">was outlawed</a> under the <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/jacobite-1745/9128-2/">Disarming Act of 1746</a>.</p>
<p>This act sought to stamp out Scottish opposition to British rule. Wearing Highland dress – including tartan – was considered an expression of anti-government feeling, even of rebellion.</p>
<p>While there were many exceptions to the rule (including women, children, the Highland regiments and the landed elite), a textile being perceived as a source of insurrection is just one of many factors that makes tartan unique. So, rather than display the Disarming Act document within a linear storytelling of tartan’s development in the 18th century, we have displayed it within the broader concept of Tartan and Power.</p>
<h2>Tartan and the establishment</h2>
<p>Adjacent to this document is a pair of tartan bondage trousers, showcasing the pattern’s potential for confrontation and its symbolism in punk’s anti-establishmentism.</p>
<p>This display is, in turn, next to a screening of a scene from the National Theatre of Scotland’s celebrated production, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Watch_(play)">Black Watch</a> (2006). In this sequence, a soldier of the Black Watch regiment serving in Iraq is repeatedly dressed and undressed in successive variants of the regimental tartan uniform. Here, tartan is used to represent a choreographed collapsing of military history.</p>
<p>Within eyesight of this is the work of artist Michael Sanders, who uses the <a href="https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails?ref=3350">Polaris tartan</a>, developed for the American submarine base in Holy Loch Scotland, to question colonisation and the nuclear contamination of UK waters.</p>
<p>Finally, there is a trio of Alexander McQueen tartan garments on show. This includes a dress from his seminal <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qamlqItTNwk">Widows of Culloden collection</a> of 2006/2007. That collection catapulted tartan into the 21st century, reclaiming its potential for resistance and revolt.</p>
<p>The long shadows of chronology and hierarchy that usually fall across such design exhibitions are dispelled here. Instead, our exhibition directs visitors away from beginnings, “firsts” and fixed origin stories, and towards new possibilities.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/dundee/whatson/exhibitions/tartan">Tartan</a> is on at the V&A Dundee until January 14, 2024.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Faiers is the author of Tartan, the book which was the inspiration for the V&A Dundee exhibition. He's also one of the curators of the exhibition. </span></em></p>The exhibition’s Alexander McQueen garments show how the designer catapulted tartan into the 21st century, reclaiming its potential for resistance and revolt.Jonathan Faiers, Professor of Fashion Thinking, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2020112023-04-05T12:24:51Z2023-04-05T12:24:51ZRacist and sexist depictions of human evolution still permeate science, education and popular culture today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518818/original/file-20230331-1042-s84ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C1367&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Human evolution is typically depicted with a progressive whitening of the skin, despite a lack of evidence to support it.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stone_age_by_Vasnetsov_01.jpg">Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Systemic racism and sexism have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70401-2">permeated civilization</a> since the rise of agriculture, when people started living in one place for a long time. Early Western scientists, such as Aristotle in ancient Greece, were indoctrinated with the <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Superior-P1495.aspx">ethnocentric</a> and <a href="https://www.akpress.org/a-brief-history-of-misogyny.html">misogynistic</a> narratives that permeated their society. More than 2,000 years after Aristotle’s writings, <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Inferior-P1278.aspx">English naturalist Charles Darwin</a> also extrapolated the sexist and racist narratives he heard and read in his youth to the natural world. </p>
<p>Darwin presented his biased views as scientific facts, such as in his 1871 book “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/39301709">The Descent of Man</a>,” where he described his belief that men are evolutionarily superior to women, Europeans superior to non-Europeans and hierarchical civilizations superior to small egalitarian societies. In that book, which <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-darwins-descent-man-holds-150-years-after-publication-180977091/">continues to be studied</a> in schools and natural history museums, he considered “the hideous ornaments and the equally hideous music admired by most savages” to be “not so highly developed as in certain animals, for instance, in birds,” and compared the appearance of Africans to the New World monkey <em>Pithecia satanas</em>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Science isn’t immune to sexism and racism.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“The Descent of Man” was published during a moment of societal turmoil in continental Europe. In France, the working class <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Commune-of-Paris-1871">Paris Commune</a> took to the streets asking for radical social change, including the overturning of societal hierarchies. Darwin’s claims that the subjugation of the poor, non-Europeans and women was the natural result of evolutionary progress were music to the ears of the elites and those in power within academia. Science historian <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OCG87poAAAAJ&hl=en">Janet Browne</a> wrote that Darwin’s <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691114392/charles-darwin">meteoric rise within Victorian society</a> did not occur despite his racist and sexist writings but in great part because of them. </p>
<p>It is not coincidence that Darwin had a state funeral in Westminster Abbey, an honor emblematic of English power, and was <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/darwin/oclc/644948405">publicly commemorated</a> as a symbol of “English success in conquering nature and civilizing the globe during Victoria’s long reign.” </p>
<p>Despite the significant societal changes that have occurred in the last 150 years, sexist and racist narratives are still common in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21978">science, medicine and education</a>. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sOat2IwAAAAJ&hl=en">teacher and researcher</a> at Howard University, I am interested in combining my main fields of study, <a href="https://www.ruidiogolab.org/">biology and anthropology</a>, to discuss broader societal issues. In research I recently published with my colleague <a href="https://profiles.howard.edu/fatimah-jackson">Fatimah Jackson</a> and three medical students at Howard University, we show how racist and sexist narratives are not a thing of the past: They are still present in scientific papers, textbooks, museums and educational materials.</p>
<h2>From museums to scientific papers</h2>
<p>One example of how biased narratives are still present in science today is the numerous depictions of human evolution as a linear trend from darker and more “primitive” human beings to more “evolved” ones with a lighter skin tone. Natural history <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/john-gurche-shaping-humanity/1836128.html">museums</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/paperkin/where-is-evolution-taking-the-human-race-6ddaf7eaddba">websites</a> and <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/africa/south-africa/articles/what-south-africas-caves-can-tell-you-about-humankind/">UNESCO heritage sites</a> have all shown this trend.</p>
<p>The fact that such depictions are not scientifically accurate does not discourage their continued circulation. <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/video/15-countries-largest-white-population-195712421.html">Roughly 11%</a> of people living today are “white,” or European descendants. Images showing a linear progression to whiteness do not accurately represent either human evolution or what living humans look like today, as a whole. Furthermore, there is no scientific evidence supporting a progressive skin whitening. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24564">Lighter skin pigmentation</a> chiefly evolved within just a few groups that migrated to non-African regions with high or low latitudes, such as the northern regions of America, Europe and Asia.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Illustrations of human evolution tend to depict progressive skin whitening.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sexist narratives also still permeate academia. For example, in a 2021 paper on a famous early human fossil <a href="https://doi.org/10.4436/jass.99001">found in the Sierra de Atapuerca</a> archaeological site in Spain, researchers examined the canine teeth of the remains and found that it was actually that of a girl between 9 and 11 years old. It was previously believed that the fossil was a boy due to a popular 2002 book by one of the authors of that paper, paleoanthropologist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5nDp-kIAAAAJ">José María Bermúdez de Castro</a>. What is particularly telling is that the study authors recognized that there was no scientific reason for the fossil remains to have been designated as a male in the first place. The decision, they wrote, “<a href="https://newsrnd.com/news/2021-03-16-%0A---the-boy-from-the-gran-dolina-was-actually-a-girl%0A--.Skx4GEFC7u.html">arose randomly</a>.”</p>
<p>But these choices are not truly “random.” Depictions of human evolution <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801435492/ancestral-images/">frequently only show men</a>. In the few cases where women are depicted, they tend to be shown as passive mothers, not as active inventors, cave painters or food gatherers, despite available anthropological data showing that <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Inferior-P1278.aspx">pre-historical women were all those things</a>.</p>
<p>Another example of sexist narratives in science is how researchers continue to discuss the “puzzling” <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jez.b.22690">evolution of the female orgasm</a>. Darwin <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70401-2">constructed narratives</a> about how women were evolutionarily “coy” and sexually passive, even though he acknowledged that females actively select their sexual partners in most mammalian species. As a Victorian, it was difficult for him to accept that women could play an active part in choosing a partner, so he argued that such roles only applied to women in early human evolution. According to Darwin, men later began to sexually select women.</p>
<p>Sexist narratives about women being more “coy” and “less sexual,” including the idea of the female orgasm as an evolutionary puzzle, <a href="https://www.iflscience.com/female-orgasms-are-not-puzzling-enigmas--43486">are contradicted</a> by a wide range of evidence. For instance, women are the ones who actually more frequently experience <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2020.1743224">multiple orgasms</a> as well as more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490209552129">complex, elaborate and intense orgasms</a> on average, compared to men. Women are not biologically less sexual, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/data-should-smash-the-biological-myth-of-promiscuous-males-and-sexually-coy-females-59665">sexist stereotypes</a> were accepted as scientific fact.</p>
<h2>The vicious cycle of systemic racism and sexism</h2>
<p>Educational materials, including textbooks and anatomical atlases used by science and medical students, play a crucial role in perpetuating biased narratives. For example, the 2017 edition of “<a href="https://evolve.elsevier.com/cs/product/9780323547086?role=student">Netter Atlas of Human Anatomy</a>,” commonly used by medical students and clinical professionals, includes about 180 figures that show skin color. Of those, the vast majority show male individuals with white skin, and only two show individuals with “darker” skin. This perpetuates the depiction of white men as the anatomical prototype of the human species and fails to display the full anatomical diversity of people.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Textbooks and educational materials can perpetuate the biases of their creators in science and society.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Authors of teaching materials for children also replicate the biases in scientific publications, museums and textbooks. For example, the cover of a 2016 coloring book entitled “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Evolution_of_Living_Things_Coloring.html?id=mOUkMQAACAAJ">The Evolution of Living Things”</a>“ shows human evolution as a linear trend from darker "primitive” creatures to a “civilized” Western man. Indoctrination comes full circle when the children using such books become scientists, journalists, museum curators, politicians, authors or illustrators.</p>
<p>One of the key characteristics of systemic racism and sexism is that it is unconsciously perpetuated by people who often don’t realize that the narratives and choices they make are biased. Academics can address long-standing racist, sexist and Western-centric biases by being both more alert and proactive in detecting and correcting these influences in their work. Allowing inaccurate narratives to continue to circulate in science, medicine, education and the media perpetuates not only these narratives in future generations, but also the discrimination, oppression and atrocities that have been <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/disturbing-resilience-scientific-racism-180972243/">justified by them in the past</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rui Diogo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From Aristotle to Darwin, inaccurate and biased narratives in science not only reproduce these biases in future generations but also perpetuate the discrimination they are used to justify.Rui Diogo, Associate Professor of Anatomy, Howard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1851452022-10-31T13:11:38Z2022-10-31T13:11:38ZGhana’s National Museum: superb restoration but painful stories remain untold<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490104/original/file-20221017-18-2taq3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A museum </span> </figcaption></figure><p>Ghana’s national museum has reopened its doors after a seven-year closure to allow for major renovations.</p>
<p>The museum was first <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110670714-019/pdf">opened in March 1957</a> as part of the celebrations marking the transition from colonial rule to independence. </p>
<p>The opening also marked the end of a bitter struggle between members of the museum staff over issues related to the creation of a new memory space. I traced this history in a <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110670714-019/pdf">paper</a> about the origins of the museum.</p>
<p>Often, museums are considered spaces for the past. However, they also reflect how the past is understood and used in the present. In 1957, the makers of the museum wanted to create a space for foreign visitors, telling a history that focused on peaceful aspects of Ghana’s past. In the process, less peaceful histories were excluded, such as the slave trade and the destructive aspects of colonial rule. </p>
<p>Over time, histories of the slave trade were added to the museum’s exhibitions. The recently completed renovation has provided the museum with the opportunity to develop a new exhibition where these histories were part of the main narrative. </p>
<p>I was intrigued to find out how the museum compared with the original vision.</p>
<p>After visiting it I concluded that it does an exemplary job of presenting the dynamic diversity of Ghana as a nation. But it still excludes certain histories – most notably those of the slave trade and colonial rule. The museum is leaving out crucial aspects of Ghana’s past. It misses the opportunity to be a space where these can be discussed and processed peacefully. </p>
<h2>Origins of the National Museum</h2>
<p>The idea of establishing a national museum in what was then known as the Gold Coast was first raised in the 1940s by the colonial government. </p>
<p>In 1951, the <a href="https://www.nli.org.il/en/a-topic/987007272993505171">archaeologist A.W. Lawrence</a> became the director of this future museum. With a collection consisting of archaeological artefacts and an archaeologist as its director, it had a strong historical basis. </p>
<p>Over the next few years, new politicians decided where to house the museum and what histories it should tell. Together with British officials, the anti-colonial Convention Peoples’ Party became responsible for it. </p>
<p>The building was designed by <a href="https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/architect-of-the-week-denys-lasdun/">Denys Lasdun of Fry, Drew, Drake & Lasdun</a>, a partnership known for Modernist tropical architecture. </p>
<p>The museum consisted of several modern elements, not least the building materials. A prefabricated aluminium dome covers most of the building. But domes also characterise many European museums. The building can therefore be seen as a compromise between the traditional and the modern. </p>
<p>Inside the museum, Lawrence wanted to tell a history that was referred to as “Man in Africa”. This history focused on the Gold Coast against the background of what “Man has achieved throughout the rest of Africa.” </p>
<p>To tell this story, the museum acquired artefacts from ancient Egypt, the Roman period in Morocco, and two original Benin bronze heads, among other things. Lawrence also acquired European objects used in West Africa in the past centuries to illustrate the relationship between the Gold Coast and Europe. </p>
<p>However, one member of the staff, John Osei Kufour, who was an ardent supporter of the Convention Peoples’ Party, wanted the museum to be a space for anti-colonial history. He was highly critical of the objects acquired by Lawrence, particularly those from Europe. He wanted the museum to focus exclusively on Ghana and its traditions – traditions he hoped would soon be confined to the past by the government’s development plans. </p>
<p>In 1956, shortly before the museum was about to open, he used his contacts in the party in an effort to remove the director. It failed. The party leaders did not want the museum to be an anti-colonial space. Rather, they saw it as a suitable meeting place where visitors to the country could learn something of its history.</p>
<h2>Opening exhibitions</h2>
<p>Two temporary exhibitions were unveiled at the opening in 1957.</p>
<p>One was based on objects and told the history of “Man in Africa”, and the other used documents from the newly established national archives to narrate recent history. Both presented narratives of the past characterised by ordered progress and development resulting from the interaction between the people of Ghana, West Africa and other parts of the world. </p>
<p>In general, the national museum excluded all references to the parts of Ghana’s global past that were problematic. It contained references to European contact but not to the slave trade. The documents excluded the anti-colonial narrative of colonial exploitation or resistance. </p>
<p>Over the following decades certain changes were made in a bid to adjust the museum to new demands. In the 1990s, for instance, the history of the transatlantic slave trade was included. This enabled visitors from the African diaspora to find their past too. </p>
<p>In 2015 the museum was closed for reparation and restoration. When it opened in 2022, it started with a clean slate.</p>
<h2>What now?</h2>
<p>The museum has been beautifully restored, and is worth a visit for all who appreciate modernistic architecture from the independence era. </p>
<p>But I have a few criticisms.</p>
<p>The new exhibition is entitled “Unity in Diversity”, which I think is an excellent title. But the opening exhibition fails to explore or discuss this. What does diversity entail? How is it connected to tolerance and acceptance?</p>
<p>Also, as in 1957, difficult histories are excluded. The transatlantic slave trade is not discussed. Nor is the colonial period.</p>
<p>In general, the museum seems unfinished. But this can be a good thing: it allows the museum staff to continuously develop the exhibitions and invite new forms of participation from visitors. Rather than telling the singular “history” of Ghana, it could tell many histories of Ghana - from perspectives that also bring out the diversity of country. </p>
<p>Museums are potentially important places for dialogue and discussions. The National Museum in Ghana can be a place where people use their diverse experiences from the past to discuss how to solve issues in the present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185145/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Olav Hove does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghana’s national museum has been reopened after being closed for seven years.Jon Olav Hove, Associate Professor, Department of Historical and Classical Studies, Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1736572021-12-15T14:34:22Z2021-12-15T14:34:22ZFive exciting African museums to add to your travel wish list<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437155/original/file-20211213-13-1xumx7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A display in the Museum of Black Civilisations in Dakar, Senegal.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SEYLLOU/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Museums don’t often feature on vacation itineraries. That’s probably because people think of these spaces as dull houses of antiquities. But there are few better ways to learn about a country’s history, its people and their cultures than by visiting a museum.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m biased: as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nompumelelo-Maringa">an archaeozoologist</a> – an archaeologist who studies animal fossils (mostly rodents) – I like digging in the past. And I’ve worked as a museum tour guide, at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Origins Centre Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. </p>
<p>So I love museums, because they archive, preserve and display objects of significant importance. They allow you to delve deep into the past with eye-catching displays of artefacts, ancient textiles, high-quality images and short films that narrate how our ancestors lived. </p>
<p>In recent years, <a href="https://theconversation.com/virtual-reality-breathes-new-life-into-african-fossils-art-and-artefacts-83911">virtual reality</a> has added an exciting dimension to the world of museums. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many museums have introduced fully virtual tours so that distance is no object. </p>
<p>If virtual tours are unavailable for your museum of choice, search for their formal or social media platforms (websites, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter). Many museums use these platforms to share detailed information, high-resolution photographs, videos, and audio files. Another alternative is the <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/">Google Arts and Culture App</a>: it provides phenomenal images of the exhibitions, limited virtual tours (similar to the Google Maps Street view) of the museum and general interactive activities to rouse your interest. </p>
<p>For those who are planning a holiday on the African continent, I’ve put together a list of museums that would be a delight to visit. Some offer digital and virtual reality alternatives; others require a physical visit. And if you can’t get there now, why not add these to your bucket list for future museum adventures?</p>
<h2>Maison Tiskiwin/Musée Tiskiwin (Tiskiwin Museum) – Marrakech, Morocco</h2>
<p><a href="https://tiskiwin.wdro.nl/">This museum</a> is one of the oldest in Marrakech. It focuses on the history and culture of the Amazigh and Tuareg people, indigenous nomadic groups in North Africa. It holds a collection of objects acquired by the founder of the museum, Dutch anthropologist Bert Flint. He collected these cultural items during decades of North African expeditions. The exhibits represent different regions, recreating the former caravan route from Marrakech to Timbuktu. Each exhibit is generously filled with crafts, artworks, traditional attire, and intricately designed carpets.</p>
<h2>Nairobi National Museum – Nairobi, Kenya</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437153/original/file-20211213-21-1087mwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437153/original/file-20211213-21-1087mwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437153/original/file-20211213-21-1087mwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437153/original/file-20211213-21-1087mwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437153/original/file-20211213-21-1087mwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437153/original/file-20211213-21-1087mwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437153/original/file-20211213-21-1087mwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437153/original/file-20211213-21-1087mwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Nairobi National Museum in Kenya collects and logs thousands of fossils each year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SIMON MAINA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.museums.or.ke/nairobi-national-museum/">This museum’s</a> beautiful architecture and modern interior design set the ambience for bountiful exploration. It focuses on four aspects: culture, history, contemporary art, and nature. All are well represented and celebrated. Statues and artworks are peppered in among the collections. Visitors can explore at their own pace, using self-guided tour options.</p>
<h2>Musée des Civilisations Noires (Museum of Black Civilisations) – Dakar, Senegal</h2>
<p>Long before European settlers arrived on the continent, African civilisations boasted advanced heritage, technology and knowledge systems. <a href="http://www.mcn.sn/mcn-template/index.html">This museum</a> evokes that history. It educates visitors about the diversity and versatility of African civilisations. Elaborate masks, statues, art pieces and objects of significance are displayed throughout – each with its own story to tell. It doesn’t shy away from darker matters, examining how communities were demoralised, divided and diminished during colonialism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437157/original/file-20211213-27-emc1nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437157/original/file-20211213-27-emc1nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437157/original/file-20211213-27-emc1nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437157/original/file-20211213-27-emc1nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437157/original/file-20211213-27-emc1nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437157/original/file-20211213-27-emc1nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437157/original/file-20211213-27-emc1nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All the exhibits at Dakar’s Museum of Black Civilisations reveal stories about the continent’s pre-colonial past.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SEYLLOU/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Museu Nacional de Antropologia (National Museum of Anthropology) – Luanda, Angola</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/museunacion/">National Museum of Anthropology</a> is especially significant because it was opened in 1976, soon after Angola gained its <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Angola/Independence-and-civil-war">independence from Portugal</a>. The museum cleverly captures Angola’s heritage; you’ll find a variety of masks, musical instruments, sculptures, art pieces, traditional accessories, and attire on display. Some of these date as far back as the early days of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/kingdom-kongo-1390-1914">Kingdom of Kongo</a> (1390-1914), which was centred on what is today northern Angola.</p>
<h2>Maropeng: Official Visitor Centre for the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site – Krugersdorp, South Africa</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.maropeng.co.za/content/page/maropeng-visitor-centre">Maropeng visitor centre</a> is a world-class exhibition at the Cradle of Humankind, a world heritage site. The museum is centred on our human ancestors and their development over millions of years. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437156/original/file-20211213-13-1v072je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437156/original/file-20211213-13-1v072je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437156/original/file-20211213-13-1v072je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437156/original/file-20211213-13-1v072je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437156/original/file-20211213-13-1v072je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437156/original/file-20211213-13-1v072je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437156/original/file-20211213-13-1v072je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A visitor explores part of the visitors’ centre at the Cradle of Humankind near Johannesburg, South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibitions are organised chronologically from the formation of our planet to recent modern developments; they cover a wide range of topics that you can navigate at your own pace. Aspects of adventure and intrigue are introduced with a family friendly boat ride, interactive games and fun activities that add to this pleasurable experience. Lastly, you can explore a few archaeological sites on a pleasant walk on the paths outside the Tumulus (main museum).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nompumelelo Maringa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Museums allow us to delve deep into the past with eye-catching displays of artefacts, ancient textiles, high-quality images and short films that narrate how our ancestors lived.Nompumelelo Maringa, Faunal research assistant, Genus, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1713632021-11-14T14:45:00Z2021-11-14T14:45:00ZBelize shows how local engagement is key in repatriating cultural artifacts from abroad<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431703/original/file-20211112-19-1el7txc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C6%2C4587%2C3442&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Local children learning about ancient belongings at a cultural event in the Orange Walk District. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sylvia Batty)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Smithsonian Museum of African Art <a href="http://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/11/05/smithsonian-museum-of-african-art-removes-benin-bronzes-from-display-and-plans-to-repatriate-them">recently announced</a> its intent to repatriate Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. Similar news stories of returning “stolen” or “removed” items of historical and cultural value <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/9/france-hands-back-26-treasures-looted-from-benin">are becoming more common</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/benin-bronzes-what-is-the-significance-of-their-repatriation-to-nigeria-171444">Benin bronzes: What is the significance of their repatriation to Nigeria?</a>
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<p>Stories covering repatriation of belongings by colonial institutions back to their communities of origin tend to go two ways. They contemplate the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/learning/should-museums-return-looted-artifacts-to-their-countries-of-origin.html">opinions surrounding</a> and <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/culture/canadas-museums-are-slowly-starting-to-return-indigenous-artifacts/">the legal frameworks</a> involved in returning such belongings. Or they challenge our <a href="http://time.com/5670807/museums-definition-debate/">perceptions of colonial institutions like museums</a>. </p>
<p>People who write stories like these often invoke <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jun/29/should-museums-return-their-colonial-artefacts">Erik Killmonger’s powerful remarks about stolen artifacts in <em>Black Panther</em></a>: “How do you think your ancestors got these? Do you think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it, like they took everything else?” More commonly, they point to Indiana Jones’ now famous declaration, “<a href="http://www.vice.com/en/article/j5wnay/indiana-jones-has-aged-terribly">That belongs in a museum!</a>”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/enduring-myths-raiders-lost-ark-180977923/">As archeologists</a> and heritage specialists from Canada and Belize, we offer an alternative commentary. We focus on communities of origin as agents of change both globally and locally. </p>
<h2>Material past in the living present</h2>
<p>Nations and people are increasingly participating in everyday actions of <a href="http://www.sapiens.org/culture/decolonizing-heritage/">decolonization and reconciliation</a>, of which repatriation is just one element.</p>
<p>But what’s more important are acts of local engagement and community-based initiatives in <a href="http://www.heritagebelize.org/blog/heritage-and-culture-explained">culture and heritage</a>. These help pivot our understanding of the material past in the living present and work to break down power structures that intrude on peoples’ rights and paths to self-determination. </p>
<p>Local engagement and community-based initiatives negotiate relationships that seek to reimagine colonial political systems and foster empowerment for local benefit. They also aim to avoid recreating past power imbalances, and amplify diverse voices in storytelling.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People sitting at a table. There are 6 people, they are in a classroom that is painted blue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431702/original/file-20211112-17238-1yb7jyt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431702/original/file-20211112-17238-1yb7jyt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431702/original/file-20211112-17238-1yb7jyt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431702/original/file-20211112-17238-1yb7jyt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431702/original/file-20211112-17238-1yb7jyt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431702/original/file-20211112-17238-1yb7jyt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431702/original/file-20211112-17238-1yb7jyt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The co-authors consulting with government, school board and culture centre representatives regarding the production of future educational initiatives featuring local community-engaged archeological research.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shawn Morton)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The case of Belize</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Belize">Belize is a former</a> colony of Britain, now a multicultural and independent country, and has been pursuing relatively quiet acts of repatriation for decades. The country has also engaged in <a href="http://www.livescience.com/25410-indiana-jones-crystal-skull-lawsuit-hoax.html">high-profile demands for restitution</a>. </p>
<p>Community members work alongside Belizean and foreign archeologists at the local level to ensure that what led to the initial removal of material culture never happens again.</p>
<p>An early Belizean initiative involved the establishment of temporary and longer-term loan programs with foreign institutions. One of the first was with the <a href="http://www.rom.on.ca/en">Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)</a> and the country’s legally excavated archeological collection from the ancient Maya city of <a href="http://nichbelize.org/institute-of-archaeology/archaeological-sites-and-parks/altun-ha/">Altun Ha</a>, which has since <a href="http://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/19046">been mostly repatriated</a>. Additional artifacts remain on loan and form the centrepiece of the ROM’s Maya collection and associated exhibits.</p>
<p>The Belizean government established the national <a href="http://nichbelize.org/museum-of-belize-and-houses-of-culture/">Museum of Belize</a> in 2002 following these early repatriations. Museum representatives and officials from the <a href="http://nichbelize.org/institute-of-archaeology/">Institute of Archaeology</a> arrange regular <a href="http://ambergriscaye.com/photogallery/100222.html">countrywide tours</a> because not all citizens can readily access the museum. </p>
<p>They do this because access to tangible heritage — including artifacts that have been repatriated — helps connect people to the past and to their identities. This is essential to rebuilding and reimagining post-colonial Belize. </p>
<p>Belizean organizers and foreign archeologist-collaborators often pair these tours with locally planned cultural activities, like the <a href="http://fajinaoutreach.org/2015/10/18/community/">Succotz Archaeology and Culture Fair</a> that enables residents from smaller communities across Belize to engage with their people’s belongings and history, making it a part of their daily lives.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wears gloves as she carefully arranges a small artifact" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431705/original/file-20211112-15515-hhexu0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431705/original/file-20211112-15515-hhexu0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431705/original/file-20211112-15515-hhexu0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431705/original/file-20211112-15515-hhexu0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431705/original/file-20211112-15515-hhexu0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431705/original/file-20211112-15515-hhexu0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431705/original/file-20211112-15515-hhexu0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Co-author Sylvia Batty carefully installing ancient belongings from Belize at an American museum in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Rebecca Newberry)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Establishing small <a href="http://www.heritagebelize.org/blog/a-locals-guide-to-community-museums-in-northern-belize">community museums</a> and cultural centres across the country is important because it allows communities the chance to highlight stories of their particular locales. </p>
<p>These organizations also participate in associated <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/3/2/25">community-based heritage and cultural research</a>, with, by and for Indigenous, descendant and local communities. The <a href="http://crookedtreemuseum.org/">Crooked Tree Museum and Cultural Heritage Centre</a> is a great example of a community-led educational initiative and research program that does just that. </p>
<p>Crooked Tree explores the deep and shifting history of the lower Belize River watershed, from the first local peoples over 10,000 years ago to the Creole community of today.</p>
<h2>Accompanying items abroad</h2>
<p>Professionally trained Belizeans <a href="http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=56503">now accompany heritage and cultural items</a> when they leave the country for museums abroad. These individuals are active participants in recounting the artifacts’ life stories. They also ensure the items are appropriately cared for and respected physically and culturally. </p>
<p>In the recent travelling exhibit of <a href="https://www.smm.org/exhibitrental/maya-hidden-worlds-revealed">Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed</a>, Belizeans acted as couriers and primary decision-makers. Along the way they have benefited from additional hands-on training in diverse exhibition and curation practices. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/making-kin-not-cash-repatriations-of-substance-cannot-be-made-on-terms-that-solely-suit-european-museums-128089">Making kin not cash: repatriations of substance cannot be made on terms that solely suit European museums</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While these everyday initiatives aim to break down colonial power structures both at home and abroad, they are far from perfect. Issues of heritage and culture are fraught with complex power and identity struggles. </p>
<p>They can simultaneously trigger legal battles while also inspiring new collaborations. This happened recently at the <a href="http://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/173524">ancient Maya city of Uxbenka</a>. </p>
<p>Conversations of repatriation often fade to the background upon the point of return. Repatriation attempts to signal that wrongs have been righted, and attention shifts to the next artifact held captive. Local initiatives that create open access to archeology, artifacts and museums are the first step to decolonizing institutions that have taken decision-making away from communities. </p>
<p>Before an artifact is even returned, <a href="https://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/job-descriptions/heritage-manager-job-description">heritage managers</a> must work to repair centuries of divisive actions by building trust through collaborative projects. </p>
<p>Decolonization and reconciliation work is slow because they represent the dismantling of centuries of colonialism and its legacies. What’s happening in Belize is a work in progress. Its citizens pursue diverse self-determined actions along with repatriation as steps toward generational healing and redress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meaghan Peuramaki-Brown receives research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The Belize Institute of Archaeology, National Institute of Culture and History, permits her archaeological research and related activities. She is a Registered Professional Archaeologist (44090926) and a member of the Canadian Archaeological Association and the Society for American Archaeology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sylvia Batty is a co-founder and co-director of Heritage Education Network Belize a 501c-3 registered organization. Sylvia is also a co-founder of Fajina Archaeology Outreach which operates in Belize. Sylvia is a 2021 Museums Association of the Caribbean fellow. She also holds the post of Archaeologist in the Research and Education Department of the Institute of Archaeology in the National Institute of Culture and History under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology for the Government of Belize.</span></em></p>What’s happening in Belize is a work in progress. Its citizens pursue diverse self-determined actions along with repatriation as steps toward generational healing and redress.Meaghan Peuramaki-Brown, Associate Professor, Archaeology/Anthropology, Athabasca UniversitySylvia Batty, Adjunct Lecturer, Archaeologist, Co-director of Heritage Education Network Belize, Galen UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1714442021-11-08T15:09:40Z2021-11-08T15:09:40ZBenin bronzes: What is the significance of their repatriation to Nigeria?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430815/original/file-20211108-13-1cbbsnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GettyImages</span> </figcaption></figure><p>After years of pressure, western countries are finally returning priceless artefacts and artworks that had been looted from Nigeria during colonial times and were on display in foreign museums. </p>
<p>Commonly called the <a href="https://theconversation.com/germany-is-returning-nigerias-looted-benin-bronzes-why-its-not-nearly-enough-165349">Benin Bronzes</a>, because the objects originated from the Kingdom of Benin (today’s Nigeria), these beautiful and technically remarkable artworks have come to symbolise the broader restitution debate.</p>
<p>Two British universities – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/15/cambridge-college-to-be-first-uk-return-looted-benin-bronze">Cambridge</a> University and the University of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-59063449">Aberdeen</a> – recently returned two of the artefacts. And, in mid-October, Germany and Nigeria <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/smithsonian-african-art-benin-bronzes-repatriation/index.html">signed</a> a memorandum of understanding setting out a timetable for the return of around 1,100 sculptures from German museums.</p>
<p>Jos van Beurden – an expert on the protection, theft and smuggling of cultural and historical treasures of vulnerable states – offers his insights into this wave of repatriation. He also suggests a way forward for Nigeria to handle and harness the benefits of the artefacts.</p>
<p><strong>Photo:</strong><br>
Altar to the Hand (Ikegobo), late 18th century, Nigeria, Court of Benin, Edo peoples, Bronze. In the royal kingdom of Benin, cylindrical ‘altars to the hand,’ or ikegobo, are created to celebrate a person’s accomplishments and successes. Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/altar-to-the-hand-late-18th-century-nigeria-court-of-benin-news-photo/1296574449?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a>, <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/eula#RM">Rights-managed</a> </p>
<p><strong>Music:</strong>
“Happy African Village” by John Bartmann, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/happy-african-village">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a>.</p>
<p>“African Moon” by John Bartmann, found on <a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/african-moon">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1.0 Universal License.</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
After years of pressure, western countries are finally returning the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. What's next?Joey Akan, Freelance Arts & Culture EditorUsifo Omozokpea, Audience Development ManagerLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1464412020-09-26T06:13:47Z2020-09-26T06:13:47ZA good museum experience pays off for the tourism sector in Ghana<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360030/original/file-20200925-22-1qn0qfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elmina Castle Museum is a popular tourist attraction in Ghana</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2019 <a href="https://www.yearofreturn.com/">Year of Return</a>, when Ghana welcomed Africans in the diaspora to participate in events associated with the country’s rich cultural heritage, was an opportunity to learn more about what tourists want. One million foreign visitors entered the country to mark 400 years of the first enslaved Africans arriving in the United States. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331203256580">event</a> reaffirmed Ghana’s prominence in heritage tourism and the importance of tourism to its economy.<br>
The sector is one of the main <a href="https://www.icao.int/Meetings/SUSDEV-AT/Documents/Presentation_GHANA%20TOURISM%20POTENTIALS.pdf">socio-economic drivers</a> of Ghana’s foreign income and job creation. It also stimulates the growth of other industries. Tourism contributed <a href="https://wttc.org/Research/Economic-Impact">6.2%</a> of Ghana’s GDP in 2017 and is the fourth highest income earner for Ghana after gold, cocoa and oil. In 2017, <a href="https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/ghana-2018">1.3 million</a> international tourists visited the country and before the COVID-19 pandemic the sector had <a href="http://www.ghana.travel/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Ghana-Tourism-Development-Plan.pdf">high hopes</a> for tourism growth.</p>
<p>The importance of heritage in Ghana’s tourism offerings means that museums are a big part of tourism. I conducted a <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IHR-04-2020-0009/full/html">study</a> to examine tourists’ experiences of the country’s National Museum. I aimed to find out what effect their experiences have on their satisfaction with their museum visit, their loyalty to the venue and their willingness to pay more for a visit. I also wanted to understand how the frequency of a tourist’s visit to the museum influences the relationship between satisfaction and willingness to pay more.</p>
<p>I found that frequency of visits has an influence on willingness to pay more. This research also found that the more often people visit a museum, the more they are willing to pay. This study offers managers of museums some insight into how to attract and satisfy more tourists and the economic benefits this could bring.</p>
<h2>Findings</h2>
<p>Ghana has several museums across the country. Among them are the National Museum and Museum of Science and Technology in Accra, Volta Regional Museum, Cape Coast Castle Museum, Upper East Regional Museum in Bolgatanga, St George’s Castle (Elmina Castle) Museum, and Fort Apollonia Museum of Nzema Culture and History. In 2018, these museums received thousands of visitors with the <a href="https://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2019/01/10/elmina-cape-coast-castles-record-over-100000-domestic-tourists-in-2018/">Cape Coast and Elmina</a> castles being the most popular.</p>
<p>My research was done at the <a href="https://nationalmuseum.ghana-net.com/index.html">National Museum</a>, which contains artefacts, cultural objects and Ghanaian artists’ paintings. The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Ghana. Built in 1975, it is a leading heritage tourism destination particularly for African-Americans who trace their family roots to Ghana. </p>
<p>During the tourism season of 2019, I engaged with 385 domestic and foreign tourists on site, which represented a 68.8% response rate. The visitors completed questionnaires directly after their experience of the National Museum. Most of the tourists were female (56%) and 30% were aged between 35 and 44. Just over half (52%) were international tourists. About the same percentage (53%) were repeat tourists. </p>
<p>Analysis of the questionnaire responses showed that tourists’ museum experience had a direct impact on satisfaction. In turn, satisfaction influenced loyalty; and loyalty affected willingness to pay more for the experience. Number of visits also had a positive relationship with willingness to pay more.</p>
<h2>What it means</h2>
<p>The findings support the perception of the government of Ghana and other stakeholders that tourist experience and satisfaction should be cultivated. </p>
<p>The main research problem addressed in this study was the need to consider museum cultural experience as part of the tourism experience. First, the finding confirms that visitors’ experience has a positive effect on tourist satisfaction. This is evidence that visitor expectations were likely to have been met.</p>
<p>Considering that museum experience creates emotional attachments, this finding underscores the importance of preserving cultural heritage at museum destinations. The study showed that tourists’ satisfaction positively influenced loyalty, loyalty positively influenced willingness to pay more and frequency of visits moderates the relationship between satisfaction and willingness to pay more. </p>
<p>The findings are encouraging for Ghana because they suggest that the National Museum of Ghana is adopting international standards to preserve and protect cultural heritage that would attract tourists from all over the world. </p>
<p>In addition, Ghana provides a unique cultural context in which to study the effects of tourist experience, as there are creative art exhibitions and cultural artefacts that attract a large number of tourists to the museums.</p>
<p>The tourists indicated that they were likely to visit the museum repeatedly. This would expose them to different personalities and cultural values, and help build lasting relationships.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Diani Kofi Preko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghana’s museums can improve visitor numbers by paying attention to customer satisfaction.Alexander Diani Kofi Preko, Senior Lecturer, Marketing, University of Professional Studies AccraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1317002020-03-17T15:14:50Z2020-03-17T15:14:50ZChildren are doing archaeology – and becoming experts who enrich whole communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321026/original/file-20200317-60937-69wnct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C4019%2C3024&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/millstone-hill-cairn-snow-bennachie-background-1650106261">S Buwert/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Keig, Aberdeenshire. A gaggle of excited children are instructing community archaeologist Colin Shepherd when to drop a china mug on the floor so that they can see how it breaks on impact. </p>
<p>They will use the results of this experiment to better understand an archaeological find: the broken pieces of an old marmalade jar, last used for breakfast around 100 years ago. The children had recently excavated the jar from woodland in which they usually build dens and play hide and seek as part of an <a href="https://policypress.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1332/policypress/9781447345299.001.0001/upso-9781447345299-chapter-010">archaeological investigation</a>. </p>
<p>When children are invited to visit archaeological excavations, they rarely have much specific knowledge about the site’s history. Instead, they are usually given simple tasks like washing and sorting finds. What is less usual is to find primary school pupils working as partners with an archaeologist.</p>
<p><a href="https://policypress.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1332/policypress/9781447345299.001.0001/upso-9781447345299-chapter-010">Our project</a> let primary school children take a leading role in an archaeological investigation. This active learning brought benefits to the children by allowing them to interact with their local environment and history in a new way, and to create as well as absorb knowledge. It also forged connections between the wider community and the landscape. </p>
<h2>Local landscapes</h2>
<p>The children’s archaeological investigations were part of a larger project initiated by a community group, the <a href="https://www.bailiesofbennachie.co.uk/">Bailies of Bennachie</a>, which works to study and preserve the landscape of the Bennachie hill region in Aberdeenshire. The main project was developed with a team from the <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/geosciences/departments/archaeology/the-bennachie-landscape-project-251.php">University of Aberdeen</a> and funded by the AHRC Research 4 Community Heritage fund and the Lottery. It focused on the history and archaeology of an abandoned mid 19th century settlement, located on common ground on the lower slopes of Bennachie.</p>
<p>The Bailies’ archaeologist, Colin Shepherd, set up two archaeological projects with local primary school children and their teachers as well as myself. Pupils worked as partners on an archaeological project to investigate the history of the place in which they live and go to school. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321029/original/file-20200317-60879-9a7i71.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321029/original/file-20200317-60879-9a7i71.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321029/original/file-20200317-60879-9a7i71.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321029/original/file-20200317-60879-9a7i71.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321029/original/file-20200317-60879-9a7i71.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321029/original/file-20200317-60879-9a7i71.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321029/original/file-20200317-60879-9a7i71.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The children working on their finds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At one of the schools, the excavation took place in woodland where pupils usually took part in outdoor learning. Until the archaeology project began, the children viewed the woodland as existing only in the present. Through their work they became aware of its history and the people who lived and worked in the land near their school in the past. </p>
<p>Taking on the role of the historian and working with primary source materials, such as Estate and Ordnance Survey maps, census returns and valuation rolls which record tax payments, the children were able to develop their own lines of enquiry. Their archival work suggested that there had been a water mill in the area, so their excavations set out to find it. The children, working with the community archaeologist, found evidence for this. They also discovered the remains of a 19th-20th century midden, or rubbish dump, containing many sherds of broken pottery.</p>
<h2>Creating knowledge</h2>
<p>My role as a teacher educator specialising in history education was to work alongside pupils and staff to create an exhibition for their families and the local community. Following a visit to the university’s museum, the children planned a timeline of finds and a “guess the object” game to engage visitors. </p>
<p>The children were given the use of the museum’s replica of a 17th-century collector’s cabinet for their exhibition. During the identification of the pottery sherds, one was identified as distinctive Seaton Pottery from Aberdeen, so a complete example was borrowed from the museum and included in the cabinet alongside the sherd. By using a high quality and high status exhibition space, the children’s exhibition gained a similar status to that of a museum for the parents and community members who came to see it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321031/original/file-20200317-60885-90bbls.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321031/original/file-20200317-60885-90bbls.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321031/original/file-20200317-60885-90bbls.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321031/original/file-20200317-60885-90bbls.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321031/original/file-20200317-60885-90bbls.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321031/original/file-20200317-60885-90bbls.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321031/original/file-20200317-60885-90bbls.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Creating an exhibit in the collectors’ cabinet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The project meant the children could lead their own historical investigations, and expand their understanding of the places in which they live and the heritage of their family and community. This is a key principle in the social studies area of Scotland’s <a href="https://education.gov.scot/education-scotland/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5/what-is-curriculum-for-excellence">Curriculum for Excellence</a>, the national framework for learning for children between the ages of three and 18.</p>
<p>Not only did the children learn the history of the place, they learned to understand the process of creating historical knowledge. Through their museum visit, they learned how to select items for display and to think about how to tell other people about the history they had created. Setting up the exhibition and showing it to people aided conversations between children and their community. </p>
<p>One of the children discovered that their great grandfather had once owned the Seaton pottery works. The grandmother of another child recounted her memories of making oatmeal brose in a small bowl decorated with the same floral design as a sherd on display. </p>
<p>The archaeological investigations carried out by the children created a real-life context for them to play an active part in learning – educating not just themselves but their community too. By having responsibility for their investigation and exhibition, the children became knowledgeable experts and were recognised as such by adults too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131700/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Curtis . The Bennachie Landscapes Project was funded through the AHRC Research 4 Community Heritage fund. </span></em></p>Active learning brings new knowledge to children and to their community.Elizabeth Curtis, Lecturer, School of Education, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1274052019-11-21T13:03:44Z2019-11-21T13:03:44ZFrom the Iliad to Circe: culture’s enduring fascination with the myths of Troy<p>The story of the epic war fought over a woman has been told many times. It now lies at the heart of an exhibition at the British Museum opening on November 21. <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/troy-myth-and-reality?campaignid=1642&cmpid=em%7Cmktg%7Ccard%7C180619%7Ctroy&contactid=1512094">Troy: Myth and Reality</a> introduces audiences to the history of the archaeological site of Troy (modern-day Hisarlik, Turkey), many of the different individuals caught up in the Trojan War, and various later responses to this powerful <a href="https://blog.britishmuseum.org/the-myth-of-the-trojan-war/?_gl=1*2wk0wc*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE1NzQxNzk4MzEuRUFJYUlRb2JDaE1JXzRlUTZ0VDI1UUlWZ3JIdENoM1p6UWQxRUFBWUFTQUFFZ0xzUHZEX0J3RQ..">legend</a> in drama and literature.</p>
<p>That the story of the Trojan War should be the subject of a blockbuster exhibition comes as little surprise. Ever since classical antiquity, audiences have been consistently telling and retelling stories about the site of Troy and the heroic war that was fought there between the Trojans and the Achaeans (later conflated with the Greeks). The most famous telling of all perhaps is the <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D1">Iliad</a> from the eighth century BCE, composed by Homer, a figure shrouded in mystery.</p>
<p>The Homeric poem captures the story of a dreadful, ten-year war fought between two nations. It shows the major influence of powerful men on the battlefield, such as the Trojan prince Hector and the commander of the Myrmidons, Achilles. For these individuals, deeds performed in war will secure them “<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Il.+9.410&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134">everlasting fame</a>” (κλέος ἄφθιτον in ancient Greek).</p>
<p>But the poem also illustrates the horrendous impact of the war far away from the battlefield. In <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0134:book=19:card=276&highlight=briseis">one memorable passage</a>, Briseis, the captive prisoner of Achilles, laments the slaughter of her husband and children. It is a heartbreaking account that shows acutely the universal misery brought on by the bloodshed of war.</p>
<h2>Troy after Homer</h2>
<p>Ever since Homer, people have looked to expand on and retell different aspects of the Trojan War in light of their own circumstances.</p>
<p>The fifth century BCE Athenian playwright Euripides produced several plays that depicted the aftermath of the conflict. In his <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0124%3Acard%3D1">Trojan Women</a>, Euripides centres the widows of Troy and the hardships they endure at the hands of their Greek oppressors, who divide the women like booty between themselves. It is an uncompromising account that many have read as a biting commentary on the civil war fought between Athens and Sparta at the end of the fifth century BCE. The play does not glorify war and instead highlights its horrors through Troy’s displaced women.</p>
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<p>Of course, the creation of refugees through warfare and the transportation of human bodies across geographic boundaries is a profound concern for audiences today. The ongoing Syrian civil war has created around <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/numbers-syrian-refugees-around-world/">6.7m refugees</a>, who have been dispersed across the globe. And the recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/07/all-39-people-found-dead-in-essex-lorry-identified">shocking discovery</a> of 39 Vietnamese nationals’ bodies in a lorry in Grays, Essex on 23 October, 2019 is a ghastly reminder of the terrible conditions that many refugees have faced past and present.</p>
<h2>Troy Today</h2>
<p>In contemporary culture too, there has been a spate of interest in the stories and myths of Troy. The exhibition shows clearly the impact it has had on the visual arts. Highlights include a 1978 collage by the African-American artist Romare Bearden, titled <a href="http://sitesarchives.si.edu/romarebearden/works/sirensSong.html">The Sirens’ Song</a>, which recasts Odysseus’ journey home after the war with African-American subjects. Bearden’s work employs the familiar story of Troy to give the African-American experience a universal and classical representation. </p>
<p>Another notable work is a print called Judgement of Paris (2007), pictured above, by the conceptual artist Eleanor Antin. The photo, which riffs on <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/peter-paul-rubens-the-judgement-of-paris">Peter Paul Ruben’s Judgement of Paris</a> (1639), highlights the powerlessness of Helen who sits looking outwards, forced to the margins of the image. Antin’s work turns this on its head. Featured as part of a series called Helen’s Odyssey, the photo challenges a tradition that has often vilified the Spartan queen Helen for her involvement in the war. </p>
<p>A recent significant development has been the growing number of English-language fictional accounts about Troy written by women. These works retell and expand on various aspects of the Trojan War story from the perspective of the women involved. They range from Pat Barker’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/22/silence-of-the-girls-pat-barker-book-review-iliad">The Silence of the Girls</a>, which retells the Iliad from the perspective of the story’s women, to Madeline Miller’s bestseller <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/books/review/circe-madeline-miller.html">Circe</a>, a feminist exploration of certain events from the Odyssey. Such works offer a potent challenge to a tradition that has been wholly dominated by male authors and male-centred stories. </p>
<p>An especially impressive entry in this burgeoning group of women writers’ works on Troy is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/books/review/memorial-alice-oswalds-version-of-the-iliad.html?login=email&auth=login-email">Alice Oswald’s 2011 poem Memorial</a>, an idiosyncratic translation of the Iliad. The poem evokes various contemporary war memorials, such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, in its opening which lists the names of almost all the men whose deaths are reported in the Iliad.</p>
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<p>What’s more, the poem records moments in which the soldiers of the Iliad die on the battlefield. In doing so, as in the Iliad, Oswald repeatedly draws attention to bereaved parents, widowed partners and fatherless children. In an age where technology has changed the methods and image of warfare, desensitising us to such violence, works like Memorial are a timely reminder of the human costs of deadly conflict.</p>
<p>It is clear, then, that Troy and the stories that surround it continue to shape culture thousands of years after the Trojan War ostensibly occurred. This is what makes the British Museum exhibition so relevant for audiences today. The story of the Trojan War is a story of universal suffering that stretches past the battlefield. It is a story that highlights the absurdity of war, which at its core holds sentiments that ring as true today as they did in antiquity. </p>
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<p><em>Troy: Myth and Reality is on at The British Museum from November 21, 2019 - 8 March 8, 2020</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Haywood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From art that centres the African-American experience to feminist retellings, the British Museum’s new exhibition explores culture’s enduring fascination with the legend of TroyJan Haywood, Lecturer in Classical Studies, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1207112019-08-20T12:31:19Z2019-08-20T12:31:19ZHeritage is a hot commodity in Lviv – but it’s time the public had a share in the past again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288596/original/file-20190819-123710-1bw8wpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1784%2C0%2C6149%2C3853&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/lviv-ukraine-july-29-2017-city-1042479925?src=tFAPrTHxvBgnCgaGBP5b4g-2-1">Ruslan Lytvyn/Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Ukrainian city of Lviv has become a popular tourist destination over the past decade, as cheap flights make visiting ever more affordable. Downtown Lviv was added to the list of <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/865/">UNESCO world heritage sites in 1998</a> for its medieval townscape, where the narrow streets of the Polish, Ukrainian, Jewish and Armenian quarters testify to the city’s multicultural past. </p>
<p>Amid architecture ranging from the Renaissance to 19th century Art Nouveau, the old town buzzes with cafés and restaurants, guided tours and souvenir shops. Consumption tends to dominate these spaces: people are more likely to get artisan coffee or craft beer than take a stroll or sit on a bench, and many flats have been converted into holiday rentals or co-working spaces. </p>
<p>As in so many other post-industrial cities, these changes are the result of urban regeneration policies that mostly cater for visitors and the upwardly mobile “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Rise_of_the_Creative_Class_Revisited.html?id=9d44DgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">creative class</a>”. The <a href="http://city-institute.org/index.php/en/stratehii-2/download/47_6511dce33151720f127dd5be3420a4b7">city council’s strategic plan</a> prioritises sectors like tourism, education and IT, and as investment and affluent people flow in, it has transformed the historic centre. </p>
<p>This blend of conservation and gentrification has had benefits in Lviv, where entire districts stood crumbling and dilapidated until recently. But it has also hollowed out the inner city, making it a lot more crowded, predictable and sterile. Whatever the overall balance of these changes – whether or not more participatory governance programs, jobs in the creative sector and a sense of dynamism are thought to be “worth it” – Lviv is now a textbook example of heritage-based urban renewal. </p>
<h2>The streets as museums</h2>
<p>My own <a href="https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/directory/staff/?mode=staff&id=17893">PhD research</a> in Lviv uncovered a range of conflicts regarding heritage – especially over who gets to shape heritage policies, and to what end. The architects and conservation professionals I worked with who studied during the Soviet era often lamented the visible presence of consumption in the city today. The proliferation of coffee shops and hotels should have been controlled, they said, and controversial constructions around the UNESCO site should have been stopped. </p>
<p>Like all cities across the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, Lviv was run in a radically different fashion under state socialism than it is now. Much of the housing stock was in state ownership, and a top-down planning system encompassed everything from economic activities and tourism to conservation. </p>
<p>The Soviet Union is seldom thought of as a champion of heritage conservation, and for a good reason. Historic housing was notoriously unkempt, and protection efforts were concentrated on a select few monumental buildings. Reconstructions were often geared towards historic periods deemed less politically problematic: in Lviv, “bourgeoise” Habsburg and Polish heritage was ignored, while medieval fortifications were prioritised. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288709/original/file-20190820-170956-81uirm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288709/original/file-20190820-170956-81uirm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288709/original/file-20190820-170956-81uirm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288709/original/file-20190820-170956-81uirm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288709/original/file-20190820-170956-81uirm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288709/original/file-20190820-170956-81uirm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288709/original/file-20190820-170956-81uirm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The way things used to be: a panorama of Lviv, from the pre-Soviet era.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Lw%C3%B3w.Panorama_miasta.jpg">M. Münz/Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
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<p>But in some cases, Soviet-era conservation had bigger ambitions than the upkeep of buildings. Downtown Lviv was a “historic and architectural reserve” that enjoyed federal protection (the highest possible level) from 1975. There were no coffee shops, and hotels were placed around the historic zone, rather than inside it. Several museums opened there in the 1960s and 70s, and institutions that supervised conservation were also placed within the area. </p>
<p>The older architects and planners I spoke to called this approach “museification”: creating a zone dedicated the open-air display of the past, filled with museums and conservation workshops. Museification is a dream of a bygone regime, where historic zones were exempt from economic activities, and instead dominated by public and residential functions. There was no need to turn heritage into a valuable asset – it was actually impossible to commodify it. </p>
<p>Opponents of these elderly professionals often say that what they want is impossible under free market capitalism. They argue that the lack of funds made Soviet conservation inefficient: historic zones were never a high priority because their value was purely symbolic.</p>
<p>This is all true. Modern public-private partnerships offer <a href="https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/public_private.html">a more efficient way</a> to fund and maintain historic sites, especially in countries like Ukraine that struggle financially. But without needing to buy Soviet conservation wholesale, the idea of heritage zones – where the buildings’ use and function are regulated in the public interest – is worth revisiting. </p>
<h2>A new vision of the old</h2>
<p>When heritage fuels gentrification, a common problem is that public access to historic sites is curbed. Apart from the remaining museums and a few benches, inner city Lviv does not invite the elderly or the poor to participate in daily life. But concentrating public institutions in these zones could ensure they remained open to the public, and protect historic sites from being taken over by private companies, too.</p>
<p>Conservation as we know it is mostly about aesthetics: we usually preserve buildings, especially their facades, rather than the whole way of life they were once part of. It would be unrealistic to cling to defunct professions and bygone institutions. But heritage sites represent our shared inheritance from the past, so it makes sense to regulate more than looks, and promote uses that serve the wider public. </p>
<p>Increasingly, authorities are <a href="http://openarchive.icomos.org/1812/1/FINAL_OWHC%20Guidebook%202017.pdf">inviting communities to have a say</a> in the fate of their heritage. But they often lack the means to take ownership of such spaces: a community theatre can rarely compete with cafés or office spaces. To take participatory heritage seriously, it’s necessary to ask what the current political and economic context allows for – and to stop taking such constraints for granted.</p>
<p>Bolder regulation could view buildings, not just as empty shells, but as public assets. Authorities could offer concessions for public or community groups, museums, require a mix of uses or impose bigger taxes on for-profit enterprises. Instead of being just a backdrop to the global franchise of tourism, historic areas would then instead reflect their communities in all their diversity. That way, heritage would fuel urban renewal for all citizens – not just the affluent few.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120711/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diána Vonnák was a guest researcher at the Centre for the Urban History of East-Central Europe in Lviv in 2015-6. Since 2018, she is an affiliate researcher at the Metropolitan Research Institute in Budapest. </span></em></p>Looking back at Lviv’s Soviet past, there are clues about how to preserve history for everyone – not just the affluent.Diána Vonnák, PhD Candidate, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1139372019-03-21T14:19:54Z2019-03-21T14:19:54ZAs archaeologists, it was our duty to take on Cadbury over ads encouraging kids to dig up ‘treasure’ – and we won<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265116/original/file-20190321-93060-17y0dti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C44%2C3725%2C2446&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Doonagore Castle, which Cadbury incorrectly identified as Mooghaun Fort in its ad campaign. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/round-tower-doonagore-castle-ireland-130088756">Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest online campaign by chocolate giant Cadbury encouraged children to go “treasure hunting” over Easter. Kids were encouraged to “uncover underwater shipwrecks in Devon” or “dig up Viking silver on the River Ribble”. After discovering the website, archaeologists (ourselves included) launched a <a href="http://bajrfed.co.uk/bajrpress/cadbury-treasure-hunt-fiasco/">call to action</a>, pointing out that such activities might well be breaking the law.</p>
<p>Several of the sites listed were protected monuments, where treasure hunting is illegal. Cadbury named Mooghaun Fort in Ireland, which is covered by very strict national laws, as one of its treasure hunting sites. Any excavation or use of metal detectors in Ireland requires a state-licensed archaeologist. Without one, <a href="https://www.museum.ie/The-Collections/Metal-Detecting-in-Ireland-The-Law">fines can be enormous and lead to prison time</a>. </p>
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<p>Cadbury removed their campaign website two days later. The company now promises to “focus solely on directing families to museums where existing treasures can be found”. So, thanks to the swift response from the heritage community, damage to sites was prevented – unlike a similar incident involving the company in the 1980s. </p>
<p>At that time, a <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230560/Cadburys-calamity-The-22-carat-gold-egg-led-thousands-people-digging-countryside.html">Creme Egg treasure hunt</a> led to members of the public digging up historic sites throughout the UK, in search of a scroll that would entitle them to one of 12 22-carat gold eggs. This treasure hunt was also cancelled, after the company received complaints from landowners. </p>
<h2>The treasure laws</h2>
<p>Britain has probably the oldest and most liberal treasure hunting laws in the world. The common law of Treasure Trove goes back to late Saxon times. When objects of gold or silver were discovered, ownership fell to the Crown. In 1996, the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/24/contents">Treasure Act</a> placed the law on a more modern footing, redefining “treasure” to include prehistoric metalwork, coin hoards and objects made of gold and silver that are at least 300 years old.</p>
<p>People who find such artefacts have a responsibility to declare it to their local <a href="https://finds.org.uk/contacts">Finds Liaison Officers</a> for review. If museums wish to acquire the treasure, a reward is split between the finder and the landowner. Of course, it is not permitted to hunt for treasure on the 20,000 archaeological sites that are protected <a href="https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/what-is-designation/scheduled-monuments/">ancient monuments</a>.</p>
<p>In contrast, throughout much of Europe and the developing world, it’s illegal to use a metal detector for treasure hunting – and so is any form of unlicensed excavation. In Mediterranean countries such as Greece or Italy, where the landscape is bursting with buried sites, tomb robbers face significant criminal sanctions.</p>
<p>While stories in the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6657067/Iron-Age-chariot-amateur-history-lover-whos-set-pocket-1MILLION.html">media</a> tell of amazing finds, metal detectors are more likely to turn up trivial pieces from the past, such as nails, buttons and ring-pulls. The depth that most detectors reach is seldom more than eight inches in freshly ploughed soil on farmers’ land – soil that would already be considered disturbed.</p>
<p>Yet the way these finds are distributed in the soil can offer clues about the location of new archaeological sites. Working with detectorists, <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/archaeology/research/current-projects/torksey/">archaeologists at Torksey</a>, in Lincolnshire, were able to pinpoint the location of the Viking winter camp of 872, which led experts to massively increase their estimates of the size of the invasion army.</p>
<h2>Report and respond</h2>
<p>The Portable Antiquities Scheme records many detectorists’ finds, and makes them available to view on a <a href="https://finds.org.uk/database">public website</a>. With over 3m photographs online, it’s a fascinating resource documenting the everyday objects of the past. </p>
<p>The UK’s ambiguous national attitude towards metal detecting and treasure hunting divides archaeologists. Responsible detectorists can be viewed as citizen scientists, helping to create a database of the nation’s rich buried heritage. Many already work together with archaeologists, and we encourage this community of enthusiasts and professionals – and the wider public – to make their voices heard in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/revising-the-definition-of-treasure-in-the-treasure-act-1996-and-revising-the-related-codes-of-practice">current consultation on the Treasure Act</a> to forge new definitions and guidance on how to explore our shared cultural heritage.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265090/original/file-20190321-93060-6txdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265090/original/file-20190321-93060-6txdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265090/original/file-20190321-93060-6txdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265090/original/file-20190321-93060-6txdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265090/original/file-20190321-93060-6txdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265090/original/file-20190321-93060-6txdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265090/original/file-20190321-93060-6txdwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Citizen science in action.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/metal-detecting-field-stubble-114239302">Shutterstock.</a></span>
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<p>But treasure hunters who are driven by profit can strip objects of their cultural context and remove them into private collections forever. Even worse are “<a href="http://theconversation.com/history-wars-archaeologists-battle-to-save-our-heritage-from-the-nighthawks-49068">nighthawks</a>”: an illegal fringe group who trespass private land in purposeful efforts to secretly loot archaeological sites. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/history-wars-archaeologists-battle-to-save-our-heritage-from-the-nighthawks-49068">History wars: archaeologists battle to save our heritage from the nighthawks</a>
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<p>One area of concern are detecting rallies, when a farmer may open up his fields for a day and invite all-comers to hunt for treasure. In spite of defined <a href="https://finds.org.uk/getinvolved/guides/rallycode">codes of conduct</a>, hundreds of detectorists may descend on the landscape to be stripped of any finds, within a few hours, with little scope to record them or where they were found, while the objects disappear into people’s pockets.</p>
<h2>Commodifying culture</h2>
<p>There was a missed opportunity for Cadbury to work with archaeologists and engage with the UK’s ancient artefacts and sites as a wonderful cultural resource. The minister for arts, culture and heritage has <a href="https://twitter.com/Michael_Ellis1/status/1108027220218523649">called on the company</a> to redress its transgressions, as have national organisations such as the <a href="https://twitter.com/archaeologyuk/status/1107652242402873344">Council for British Archaeology</a>. In response, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-47617110">Cadbury said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was not our intention to encourage anyone to break existing regulations regarding the discovery of new archaeological artefacts and we are grateful this matter has been brought to our attention.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are many opportunities for families to explore outdoor sites of historic and archaeological importance, without digging holes in the ground. The network of <a href="https://www.yac-uk.org/">Young Archaeologists Clubs</a> is a great place to start and join an enthusiastic community, who offer a hands-on approach to the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113937/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A swift response from the heritage community prevented damage to sites of national heritage.Aisling Tierney, Research associate, University of BristolMark Horton, Professor in Archaeology, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1103752019-02-05T14:01:37Z2019-02-05T14:01:37ZHow hunting for crabs in a museum helped unlock secrets of their evolution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257219/original/file-20190205-86224-143v9rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A young shore crab displaying varied colouring.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/saltwater-shore-crab-carcinus-maenus-natural-1296643405?src=YXwdgThSpUoOmsSthOQBzg-1-26">Aleksey Stemmer/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Games can help people engage with science outside of the traditional realm of research and academia. And using games in ecological research <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1890/110294">is on the rise</a>, helping ecologists answer questions they’d never be able to in a laboratory experiment. This is particularly true when it comes <a href="http://www.sensoryecology.com/games/">to answering questions about evolution</a>, such as: which traits help organisms maximise their chance of survival? </p>
<p>Natural selection operates over incredibly long timescales as individuals pass on their genes from generation to generation. With a game, we can speed up selection and test how different processes influence survival in just a few clicks. <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13280">Our citizen science study</a> enlisted ordinary people to help researchers find out which colours and patterns help crabs to camouflage. Digital games were deployed at the Natural History Museum, London, featuring images of common crabs defending themselves in different environments. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255787/original/file-20190128-108342-1bfau1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255787/original/file-20190128-108342-1bfau1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255787/original/file-20190128-108342-1bfau1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255787/original/file-20190128-108342-1bfau1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255787/original/file-20190128-108342-1bfau1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255787/original/file-20190128-108342-1bfau1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255787/original/file-20190128-108342-1bfau1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The game’s opening screen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13280">Nokelainen et al., 2019</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Camouflage is one of the most common defences in nature, but <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2016.0342">many species change colour and pattern as they grow older</a>. Shore crabs (<em>Carcinus maenas</em>) are no exception. Juvenile shore crabs are known for their bright and varied colouration, which helps them camouflage in a range of habitats. But, despite this diversity when young, they all become greener with age. Why this happens remained a mystery – until now.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257221/original/file-20190205-86210-1ruopg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257221/original/file-20190205-86210-1ruopg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257221/original/file-20190205-86210-1ruopg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257221/original/file-20190205-86210-1ruopg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257221/original/file-20190205-86210-1ruopg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257221/original/file-20190205-86210-1ruopg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257221/original/file-20190205-86210-1ruopg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257221/original/file-20190205-86210-1ruopg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mature, female shore crab with dark green colouring.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/overhead-view-female-green-shore-crab-1115441777?src=YXwdgThSpUoOmsSthOQBzg-1-1">Davemhuntphotography/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A team of <a href="https://www.jyu.fi/science/en/bioenv/staff-and-administration/staff/nokelainen-ossi">Finnish</a> and <a href="http://www.sensoryecology.com/people/">British</a> ecologists combined forces with game developers and science communicators at a firm called <a href="https://fo.am/studios/kernow/">FoAM Kernow</a>. Together they created a touch-screen game in which museum visitors searched for camouflaged crabs. A series of crabs were displayed against photos of different coastal habitats, challenging players to find them as fast as possible. At the end of each round, players could see how fast they found them and which crabs hid most effectively, with the research results shared with participants in real time.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255797/original/file-20190128-108351-8g6tms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255797/original/file-20190128-108351-8g6tms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255797/original/file-20190128-108351-8g6tms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255797/original/file-20190128-108351-8g6tms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255797/original/file-20190128-108351-8g6tms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255797/original/file-20190128-108351-8g6tms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255797/original/file-20190128-108351-8g6tms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crabs were displayed against their original habitat as well as mudflats, rockpools and mussel beds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sara Mynott</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Photos of crabs found in rockpools, mudflats and mussel beds were displayed against each environment on a sleek screen during the museum’s <a href="http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/colour-and-vision-exhibition.html">Colour and Vision exhibition</a>. Visitors to the exhibition performed the role of predators in the crabs’ environment – each on a mission to find crabs hidden in the different habitats. With thousands of “predators” playing the game, the team were able to see which colours and patterns helped the crabs hide most effectively.</p>
<p>As Ossi Nokelainen, a researcher at University of Jyväskylälead and lead author of our study, explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The citizen science game enables us to explore crab survival – something that would be really difficult to measure in the wild. This helps us to better understand why the crabs change appearance as they age when reared in controlled conditions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The time taken to find each crab – and whether it was found at all – allowed the researchers to see how effective each crab’s camouflage was. Across all environments green crabs were the hardest to detect. They were the most likely to survive and took the longest to find, offering clues to why crabs get greener as they grow.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255784/original/file-20190128-108338-9yew3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255784/original/file-20190128-108338-9yew3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255784/original/file-20190128-108338-9yew3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255784/original/file-20190128-108338-9yew3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255784/original/file-20190128-108338-9yew3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255784/original/file-20190128-108338-9yew3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255784/original/file-20190128-108338-9yew3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rapid results: research findings were shared with players after each play.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sara Mynott</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While baby crabs can be camouflage specialists – fine-tuning their appearance to match their surroundings – as they grow it pays to get greener and avoid predators across a wider range of environments. This shift from specialist to generalist camouflage may explain why many other species also <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2014.00014/full">start to look more similar as they age</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike many citizen science activities, the game shared live results with participants as they played, generating what is quite possibly the fastest public engagement with a research finding.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110375/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Mynott has received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council and the UK Research and Innovation Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.</span></em></p>Citizen science game offered clues to why shore crabs get greener as they grow.Sara Mynott, PhD researcher in Marine Ecology, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1038262018-09-25T19:57:45Z2018-09-25T19:57:45ZMandela My Life is a welcome tribute to a hero, but avoids difficult questions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237833/original/file-20180925-85773-5xvge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from Father of the Innocents, from the series, Mandela A Life's Journey, by John Meyer</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Melbourne Museum</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Mandela My Life, Melbourne Museum.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>What is the role of commemorative exhibitions that focus on the life of a single change agent I asked myself, as I viewed Melbourne Museum’s latest blockbuster, Mandela My Life: The Official Exhibition. </p>
<p>The result of an international collaboration between Museums Victoria, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and IEG exhibitions, the exhibition is billed as a major international event that “will commemorate, illuminate and most importantly share Nelson Mandela’s living legacy with the world” on the centenary of his birth. </p>
<p>At first glance I doubted that these aims could be achieved. The tone of the exhibition could be accused of being hagiographic, given the ostensible reason for the exhibition – to celebrate the centenary of Mandela’s birth – as well as its narrative structures, which blended Mandela’s own words with the editorialising of the Mandela Foundation. This lent support to the claim that this exhibition was the “official” version of how to interpret the meaning of Mandela’s life. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237847/original/file-20180925-85758-tio8q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237847/original/file-20180925-85758-tio8q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237847/original/file-20180925-85758-tio8q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237847/original/file-20180925-85758-tio8q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237847/original/file-20180925-85758-tio8q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237847/original/file-20180925-85758-tio8q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237847/original/file-20180925-85758-tio8q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237847/original/file-20180925-85758-tio8q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keith Bernstein</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/revisiting-nelson-mandelas-roots-a-photographic-exploration-100551">Revisiting Nelson Mandela’s roots: a photographic exploration</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Organised chronologically, the exhibition follows Mandela’s life. It begins with his birth in the Transkei region of South Africa, where he was initiated into his tribe’s traditional cultural practices and knowledge systems and attended a mission school. </p>
<p>The exhibition then follows him as he decides to leave his homeland for Johannesburg, where his experiences under apartheid radicalised him, leading on towards his role as a leader in the African National Congress, and his eventual imprisonment. His resilience while in prison and his leadership of the new post-apartheid South Africa led him to become the revered figure he is today. </p>
<p>This simple chronological narrative is given emotive force by three elements that come into play. </p>
<p>The first of these is the sound of Mandela’s voice at key moments. These include his famous <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/i-am-prepared-to-die">Rivonia Trial</a> speech in which he stated that he was prepared to die for the anti-apartheid movement. </p>
<p>Others are his memories of his childhood in the Transkei, his reflections on his time in prison, and his speech when he was freed, where his conciliatory approach to ending apartheid set the tone for what was to follow. Mandela’s voice guides us through the exhibition, supported by a rich display of personal photographs, letters and personal objects carefully preserved by the Mandela Foundation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237849/original/file-20180925-85782-1crasyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237849/original/file-20180925-85782-1crasyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237849/original/file-20180925-85782-1crasyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237849/original/file-20180925-85782-1crasyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237849/original/file-20180925-85782-1crasyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237849/original/file-20180925-85782-1crasyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237849/original/file-20180925-85782-1crasyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237849/original/file-20180925-85782-1crasyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boxing glove signed by Muhammad Ali.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nelson Mandela Foundation. Photo: Jon Augier/Museums Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These are then contrasted with the evidence of apartheid from material borrowed or reproduced from other collections and media organisations, which provides the second element. The role of these sources is to lend authority to the human rights claim that apartheid was an unjust system – they are the evidence of what goes wrong when equality between humans is not respected. </p>
<p>The third element is the visitor – a visitor who already knows the end of the story and believes in its righteousness. Mandela was on the right side of history.</p>
<p>None of this is wrong of course. But the desire to eulogise, as often appears to be the case in this exhibition, does not allow space for questions that might allow for a fuller explication of the nature of Mandela’s legacy and its relevance beyond South Africa. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/centenary-of-nelson-rolihlahla-mandelas-birth-a-tribute-in-poems-100046">Centenary of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's birth: a tribute in poems</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For instance, the final gallery shows a series of 16 paintings by John Myer, retelling Mandela’s life story and giving body to South African’s pride in the achievements of this extraordinary man. This could have been the moment, however, when his legacy could have been broadened out and key themes explored and thus gone beyond the outpouring of grief on his death, captured by the 95 messages of condolence, one for each year of his life – available in the penultimate gallery via a table full of telephone handsets. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237848/original/file-20180925-85782-y020ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237848/original/file-20180925-85782-y020ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237848/original/file-20180925-85782-y020ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237848/original/file-20180925-85782-y020ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237848/original/file-20180925-85782-y020ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237848/original/file-20180925-85782-y020ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237848/original/file-20180925-85782-y020ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237848/original/file-20180925-85782-y020ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prepared to Die, from the series Mandela A Life’s Journey, by John Meyer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Melbourne Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond the obvious answer – he was a hero who fought apartheid and won – what is it that those fighting for human rights can learn? What are the difficult questions his activism raises for those fighting on behalf of the oppressed? And, finally, are there other contexts in which his life might have meaning?</p>
<p>In an Australian context, some of the answers were alluded to in the speeches on opening night, which pointed to the relevance of Mandela’s activism for Australians fighting for Indigenous rights. Such speeches go some way towards explaining why the Melbourne Museum, which is aligned with human rights museums and whose First Peoples Gallery is an eloquent articulation of the need for treaty, is host to this exhibition. </p>
<p>But I would also argue that Mandela’s life is relevant to all of us at this particular juncture in time – a time when we need to hang on to the hope that change is both necessary and possible and that the actions of ordinary, everyday people can bring it about. This is as true for situations of unequal power relations as for other complex problems, such as what to do about climate change. </p>
<p>Mandela was an extraordinary man – but he was also supported by many others, both within and outside South Africa, all of whom believed in the necessity of change. Mandela is important because we need to have figures who show us that hope, resilience and leadership is still possible when those values are valued by all of us. </p>
<p>The exhibition does not make these points itself – but perhaps it is enough that such points can be made by those who visit it and reflect upon it. Even so, I wish there was less emphasis on the authorised, official nature of the exhibition, which, for me, closed down the potential for some really interesting discussions on the nature of change and how to achieve it. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://museumsvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whats-on/mandela-my-life-the-exhibition/">Mandela My Life</a> is being exhibited at the Melbourne Museum until March 3 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103826/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Witcomb is an Honorary Research Associate of Museums Victoria. She recently completed an ARC project on the Australian Collecting Sector and its engagement with cultural diversity.</span></em></p>The desire to eulogise, as often appears to be the case in this exhibition, does not allow space for questions that might allow for a fuller explication of the nature of Mandela’s legacy and its relevance beyond South Africa.Andrea Witcomb, Professor, Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1028332018-09-17T10:50:47Z2018-09-17T10:50:47ZDigitizing the vast ‘dark data’ in museum fossil collections<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236483/original/file-20180914-177965-18rfcei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=296%2C7%2C4290%2C3140&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With a lot not on display, museums may not even know all that's in their vast holdings.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/LA-Tar-Pits/b4ca06d8d3894287bb812f0d5c92024a/1/0">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The great museums of the world harbor a secret: They’re home to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.352.6287.762">millions upon millions of natural history specimens</a> that almost never see the light of day. They lie hidden from public view, typically housed behind or above the public exhibit halls, or in off-site buildings.</p>
<p>What’s on public display represents only the tiniest fraction of the wealth of knowledge under the stewardship of each museum. Beyond fossils, museums are the repositories for what we know of the world’s living species, as well as much of our own cultural history. </p>
<p>For paleontologists, biologists and anthropologists, museums are like the historians’ archives. And like most archives – think of those housed in the Vatican or in the Library of Congress – each museum typically holds many unique specimens, the only data we have on the species they represent. </p>
<p>The uniqueness of each museum collection means that scientists routinely make pilgrimages worldwide to visit them. It also means that the loss of a collection, as in the recent heart-wrenching fire in Rio de Janeiro, represents an irreplaceable loss of knowledge. It’s akin to the loss of family history when a family elder passes away. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06192-9">In Rio, these losses included</a> one-of-a-kind dinosaurs, perhaps the oldest human remains ever found in South America, and the only audio recordings and documents of indigenous languages, including many that no longer have native speakers. Things we once knew, we know no longer; things we might have known can no longer be known.</p>
<p>But now digital technologies – including the internet, interoperable databases and rapid imaging techniques – make it possible to electronically aggregate museum data. Researchers, including a multi-institutional team <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UQhjq5QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I</a> am leading, are laying the foundation for the coherent use of these millions of specimens. Across the globe, teams are working to bring these “dark data” – currently inaccessible via the web – into the digital light.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236480/original/file-20180914-177941-jqvlcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236480/original/file-20180914-177941-jqvlcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236480/original/file-20180914-177941-jqvlcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236480/original/file-20180914-177941-jqvlcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236480/original/file-20180914-177941-jqvlcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236480/original/file-20180914-177941-jqvlcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236480/original/file-20180914-177941-jqvlcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236480/original/file-20180914-177941-jqvlcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers must travel to visit non-digitized specimens in person, not knowing what they will find – if they’re even aware of their existence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Smithsonian Institution</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s hidden away in drawers and boxes</h2>
<p>Paleontologists often describe the fossil record as incomplete. But for some groups the fossil record can be remarkably good. In many cases, there are plenty of previously collected specimens in museums to help scientists answer their research questions. The issue is how accessible – or not – they are.</p>
<p>The sheer size of fossil collections, and the fact that most of their contents were collected before the invention of computers and the internet, make it very difficult to aggregate the data associated with museum specimens. From a digital point of view, most of the world’s fossil collections represent “dark data.” The fact that large portions of existing museum collections are not computerized also means that <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/60536/11-things-lost-then-rediscovered-museums">lost treasures are waiting to be rediscovered</a> within museums themselves. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236479/original/file-20180914-96155-d0n2wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236479/original/file-20180914-96155-d0n2wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236479/original/file-20180914-96155-d0n2wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236479/original/file-20180914-96155-d0n2wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236479/original/file-20180914-96155-d0n2wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236479/original/file-20180914-96155-d0n2wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236479/original/file-20180914-96155-d0n2wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236479/original/file-20180914-96155-d0n2wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">High-resolution photos are an important part of the digitization process.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Smithsonian Institution</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the vision and investment of funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States, numerous museums are collaborating to digitally bring together their data from key parts of the fossil record. The <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/">University of California Museum of Paleontology</a> at Berkeley, where I work, is <a href="https://epicc.berkeley.edu/people-participants/">one of 10 museums</a> now aggregating some of their fossil data. Together through our digitized collections, we are working to understand how major environmental changes have affected marine ecosystems on the eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean, from Chile to Alaska, over the last 66 million years.</p>
<p>The digitization process itself includes adding the specimen’s collection data into the museum computer system if it hasn’t already been entered: its species identification, where it was found, and the age of the rocks it was found in. Then, we digitize the geographic location of where the specimen was collected, and take digital images that can be accessed via the web.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.idigbio.org/content/thematic-collections-networks">Integrated Digitized Biocollections</a> (iDigBio) site hosts all the major museum digitization efforts in the United States funded by the current NSF initiative that began in 2011.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236481/original/file-20180914-177962-15set64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236481/original/file-20180914-177962-15set64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236481/original/file-20180914-177962-15set64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=155&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236481/original/file-20180914-177962-15set64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=155&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236481/original/file-20180914-177962-15set64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=155&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236481/original/file-20180914-177962-15set64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=195&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236481/original/file-20180914-177962-15set64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=195&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236481/original/file-20180914-177962-15set64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=195&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Team members entering information about each fossil into a centralized database.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Smithsonian Institution</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Significantly, the cost of digitally aggregating the fossil data online, including the tens of thousands of images, is remarkably small compared with the cost it took to collect the fossils in the first place. It’s also less than the expense of maintaining the physical security and accessibility of these priceless resources – a cost that those supposed to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/world/americas/brazil-museum-fire.html">responsible for the museum in Rio apparently were not</a> willing to cover, with disastrous consequences.</p>
<h2>Digitized data can help answer research questions</h2>
<p>Our group, called EPICC for <a href="https://epicc.berkeley.edu/">Eastern Pacific Invertebrate Communities of the Cenozoic</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0431">quantified just how much “dark data”</a> are present in our joint collections. We found that our 10 museums contain fossils from 23 times the number of collection sites in California, Oregon and Washington than are currently documented in a leading online electronic database of the paleontological scientific literature, <a href="https://paleobiodb.org/">the Paleobiology Database</a>. </p>
<p>EPICC is using our newly digitized data to piece together a richer understanding of past ecological response to environmental change. We want to test ideas relevant to long- and short-term climate change. How did life recover from the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs? How did changes in ocean temperature drive marine ecosystem change, including those associated with the isolation of the cooler Pacific Ocean from the warmer Caribbean Sea when the land bridge at Panama first formed?</p>
<p>To answer these questions, all the relevant fossil data, drawn from many museums, needs to be easily accessible online to enable large-scale synthesis of those data. Digitization enables paleontologists to see the forest as a whole, rather than just as a myriad number of individual trees.</p>
<p>In some cases – such as records of past languages or the collection data associated with individual specimens – digital records help protect these invaluable resources. But, typically, the actual specimens remain crucial to understanding past change. Researchers often still need to make key measurements directly on the specimens themselves. </p>
<p>For example, Berkeley Ph.D. student Emily Orzechowski is using specimens being aggregated by the EPICC project to test the idea that the ocean off the Californian coast will become cooler with global climate change. Climate models predict increased global warming will lead to stronger winds down the coast, which will increase the coastal upwelling that brings frigid waters from the deep ocean to the surface – the cause of San Francisco’s famous summer fogs.</p>
<p>The test she’s using relies on mapping the distributions of huge numbers of fossils. She’s measuring subtle differences in the oxygen and carbon isotopes found in fossil clam and snail shells that date to the last interglacial period of Earth’s history about 120,000 years ago, when the west coast was warmer than it is today. Access to the real-life fossils is crucial in this kind of research.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236495/original/file-20180915-177953-1qv2pkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236495/original/file-20180915-177953-1qv2pkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236495/original/file-20180915-177953-1qv2pkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236495/original/file-20180915-177953-1qv2pkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236495/original/file-20180915-177953-1qv2pkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236495/original/file-20180915-177953-1qv2pkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236495/original/file-20180915-177953-1qv2pkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236495/original/file-20180915-177953-1qv2pkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Once digitized, information about a fossil is available worldwide, while the specimen itself remains available to visiting researchers to make crucial observations or measurements.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deniz Durmis, contract photographer for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Understanding response to past change is not just restricted to fossils. For example, nearly a century ago the director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, <a href="http://mvz.berkeley.edu/Grinnell.html">Joseph Grinnell</a> at the University of California, Berkeley, undertook systematic collections of mammals and birds across California. Subsequently, the museum <a href="http://mvz.berkeley.edu/Grinnell/index.html">re-surveyed those precise localities</a>, discovering major changes in the distribution of many species, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805123115">loss of many bird species</a> in the Mojave Desert.</p>
<p>A key aspect of this work has been comparison of the DNA from the almost hundred-year-old museum specimens with DNA of animals alive today. The comparison revealed serious fragmentation of populations, and led to the identification of genetic changes in response to environmental change. Having the specimens is crucial to this kind of project.</p>
<p>This digital revolution is not just restricted to fossils and paleontology. It pertains to all museums collections. Curators and researchers are enormously <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.352.6287.762">excited by the power to be gained</a> as the museum collections of the world – from fossils to specimens from live-caught organisms – become accessible through the nascent digitization of our invaluable collections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Marshall receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>A tiny percentage of museums’ natural history holdings are on display. Very little of these vast archives is digitized and available online. But museums are working to change that.Charles Marshall, Professor of Paleontology and Director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1023752018-09-14T10:34:44Z2018-09-14T10:34:44ZDelacroix at the Met: A retrospective that evokes today’s turmoil<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236247/original/file-20180913-177935-lwivej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eugène Delacroix's 'Self-Portrait in a Green Vest' (1837).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix_-_Self-Portrait_-_WGA6192.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I’m an art historian and professor who studies and teaches French Romantic art. So when I was in France this past summer, I made sure to see <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/in-paris-a-major-delacroix-exhibition-that-continues-to-explore-his-genius/2018/04/12/0d754b62-3d6c-11e8-8d53-eba0ed2371cc_story.html?utm_term=.831a1d2be02d">the Louvre’s retrospective exhibition</a> of French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix. </p>
<p>In the galleries, I listened in on the other viewers discussing his paintings. Yes, they talked about their beauty and vibrant colors. But they also spoke of the images they depicted – scenes of tyranny and political upheaval, of resistance, chaos and refugees. They may just as well have been speaking of our present moment. </p>
<p>Now the Delacroix <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/delacroix">exhibition</a> is coming to the United States. It opens Sept. 17, at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and will run through Jan. 6, 2019. </p>
<p>The exhibition will have a special resonance for those trying to make sense of the uncertainties and challenges we face today.</p>
<p>If you only know Delacroix from his iconic 1830 work “<a href="https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/july-28-liberty-leading-people">Liberty Leading the People</a>” – in which a symbolic woman representing liberty celebrates the three glorious days of the Revolution of 1830 – you might think he was a political revolutionary. He was not.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235848/original/file-20180911-144455-ktyybr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235848/original/file-20180911-144455-ktyybr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235848/original/file-20180911-144455-ktyybr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235848/original/file-20180911-144455-ktyybr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235848/original/file-20180911-144455-ktyybr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235848/original/file-20180911-144455-ktyybr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235848/original/file-20180911-144455-ktyybr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eugène Delacroix’s ‘Liberty Leading the People’ (1830).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix_-_La_libert%C3%A9_guidant_le_peuple.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Instead, the artist was a conservative man facing what he called “<a href="http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/evenements/delacroix.asp">the century of unbelievable things</a>.” During his lifetime, he experienced war, two revolutions on his doorstep and encounters with Islamic cultures that challenged and entranced him. The exhibition shows us a man trying to comprehend what is happening to his world.</p>
<h2>A star is born</h2>
<p>Born in 1798, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/14143.html">Delacroix</a> was a privileged child of the Napoleonic age. As a young student, he honed his skills by drawing in schoolbooks and sketchbooks. </p>
<p>But by the time Delacroix was 16 years old, both of his parents had died, and the family’s money dried up. Delacroix, realizing he would have to rely on his painting to make a living, enrolled in the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris while also studying in the studio of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T035432">Pierre Guerin</a>, where he befriended influential painter <a href="https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1334.html">Theodore Gericault</a>. </p>
<p>He was considered an early leader of the new <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roma/hd_roma.htm">Romantic style</a>, an approach to painting that expressed passions through dramatic colors and loose, fluid brushstrokes. </p>
<p>While today he’s known as “the great Romantic,” Delacroix rejected that title. Instead, he styled himself as a painter who continued the glorious <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3333655?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Classic tradition of French art</a>; in his work, he often depicted Classical and historical subjects that were the bedrock of that approach.</p>
<p>He made his debut in the Paris Salon exhibition with the dramatic 1822 work “<a href="https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/barque-dante">Barque of Dante</a>,” an image of Dante and Virgil crossing into Hell that earned him widespread praise. </p>
<p>But Delacroix’s paintings of the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300045321/french-images-greek-war-independence-1821-1830">Greek War of Independence</a> – an early 1820s conflict between the Greeks and their Ottoman occupiers – catapulted him to fame. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235850/original/file-20180911-144488-brjwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235850/original/file-20180911-144488-brjwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235850/original/file-20180911-144488-brjwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235850/original/file-20180911-144488-brjwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235850/original/file-20180911-144488-brjwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235850/original/file-20180911-144488-brjwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235850/original/file-20180911-144488-brjwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235850/original/file-20180911-144488-brjwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In ‘Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi,’ Delacroix uses a pale female figure to symbolize Greece.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece_on_the_Ruins_of_Missolonghi#/media/File:Eug%C3%A8ne_Ferdinand_Victor_Delacroix_017.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Delacroix, like many in his circle, supported the Greeks in their struggle against the oppressive Ottoman Empire. While “<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix_-_Le_Massacre_de_Scio.jpg/300px-Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix_-_Le_Massacre_de_Scio.jpg">The Massacre at Chios</a>” (1824), dedicated to the brutal deaths of the Greeks on that island, will remain at the Louvre, the celebrated “Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi” (1826), an image of tragic defeat, travels to the New York exhibition. Delacroix began the painting shortly after the citizens of Missolonghi attempted to liberate their city only to be massacred by the Ottoman Turks in 1825.</p>
<p>In “Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi,” Delacroix embodied Greece as a single allegorical figure. Pale-skinned and clothed in traditional garments of white and blue – with her body lowered on one knee upon the fallen marble blocks – she recalls the Virgin Mary. Shrouded in darkness behind her, there’s a Turk – dark-skinned, turbaned and dressed in menacing hues of red. </p>
<p>At this point in his life, Delacroix had never traveled to the Ottoman Empire or anywhere else in the Islamic world; he only knew of it from the stories, objects and images he encountered in Paris. People in his circle wrote about the Oriental world of the Turks and North Africa as “the other,” at best, and barbaric at worst. In the painter’s hands, the Islamic world is cast as the infidel, while Christian Greece is represented with the imagery of the Virgin. It is a classic clash of West and East, liberty and oppression. </p>
<p>In Europe and America today, these old conflicts are playing out again with similar language and imagery being deployed. This binary relationship runs so deep in Western culture that it seems like a permanent fixture of our politics. </p>
<h2>An artist broadens his horizon</h2>
<p>In Delacroix’s art that simple binary never quite applied. Instead of seeing a border between the two worlds, it was as if he wanted to slip between them time and again. Though he was on the side of the Greeks two centuries ago, he was also fascinated by the glamour and violence he associated with the Islamic world. </p>
<p>In 1832, Delacroix, who seldom traveled, embarked for North Africa as part of a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1552652?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">diplomatic mission to Algeria and Morocco</a>. The voyage came about purely by chance when the ambassador, Count Charles de Mornay, sought a diverting traveling companion and artist to accompany him on the mission. Delacroix left within a month of receiving the invitation for the voyage. </p>
<p>The lure of the exotic Islamic world that Delacroix only knew through paintings and drawings was too much to resist. It changed the man and his art.</p>
<p>Little prepared him for North Africa and the beauty he found there. To Delacroix, all was soft and liquid in the light. </p>
<p>“I am dizzy,” he wrote his friend <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1552652?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Pierret</a>. “I am like a man who is dreaming.” </p>
<p>The artist’s small sketchbooks from North Africa, which will be featured in the Met exhibition, offer an intimate glimpse of the scenes and people that captivated him. He would return to these subjects repeatedly throughout his career.</p>
<p>A star of the New York exhibition, “The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment” (1834), brings viewers into Delacroix’s North African world. Years later, the journalist Phillipe Burty reported in his magazine article “Eugene Delacroix a Algers” that Delacroix had received permission to enter the private women’s quarter of an Algerian home with the help of an Algerian acquaintance. Even male family members needed permission to enter the “harem,” so Delacroix’s access would have been an extraordinary event. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235878/original/file-20180911-144461-1oy1zci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235878/original/file-20180911-144461-1oy1zci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235878/original/file-20180911-144461-1oy1zci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235878/original/file-20180911-144461-1oy1zci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235878/original/file-20180911-144461-1oy1zci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235878/original/file-20180911-144461-1oy1zci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235878/original/file-20180911-144461-1oy1zci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235878/original/file-20180911-144461-1oy1zci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Delacroix returned from his trip to North Africa inspired. He would go on to paint ‘The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment’ (1834).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gandalfsgallery/9892248346">Gandalf's Gallery</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The story may or may not be true, especially since Delacroix painted the piece in his Paris studio. Working from sketches, memory and Parisian models wearing the clothing he brought back from Algeria, Delacroix created what art historian <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/obituaries/linda-nochlin-groundbreaking-feminist-art-historian-is-dead-at-86.html">Linda Nochlin</a> once called an “<a href="http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/rethinking-orientalism-again/">imaginary Orient</a>” – a world that may meld truth with fiction, but reveals much about its author. </p>
<p>Like many of us, Delacroix didn’t spend every moment obsessed with politics and conflict. He lived a rich life, and the exhibition shows the full scope of his work. <a href="http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/autumn12/obrien-reviews-eugene-delacroix-journal-by-hannoosh">His famous journal</a> reveals a man about town, who immersed himself in literature and life. From the 1830s, the Met exhibition brings us paintings as varied as “<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Young_tiger_playing_with_its_mother.jpg">Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother</a>” (1830) and “<a href="https://imgcs.artprintimages.com/img/print/print/eugene-delacroix-medee-furieuse-or-medea-kills-her-children-1838_a-l-2590501-8880731.jpg?w=550&h=550">Medea About to Kill Her Children</a>” (1838). </p>
<p>During the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Revolutions-of-1848">Revolution of 1848</a>, instead of creating a new “Liberty Leading the People,” the moderate Delacroix produced the vibrant “Basket of Flowers” (1848–49). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236252/original/file-20180913-177935-1sgy3tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236252/original/file-20180913-177935-1sgy3tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236252/original/file-20180913-177935-1sgy3tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236252/original/file-20180913-177935-1sgy3tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236252/original/file-20180913-177935-1sgy3tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236252/original/file-20180913-177935-1sgy3tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236252/original/file-20180913-177935-1sgy3tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236252/original/file-20180913-177935-1sgy3tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eugene Delacroix’s ‘Basket of Flowers’ (1848-49).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WLA_metmuseum_Basket_of_Flowers_by_Eugene_Delacroix.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In focusing on natural beauty, it would seem as though the political warfare roiling the streets of Paris was the last thing on Delacroix’s mind.</p>
<p>Delcroix’s most famous paintings, like “Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi” and “Liberty Leading the People,” arose out of the turmoil of the 19th century and evoke the uncertainties of our present day. </p>
<p>But “Basket of Flowers” may also say something important about finding beauty and equilibrium in the midst of chaos.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102375/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Black McCoy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Through his art and his travels, 19th-century French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix sought to understand the chaos of an era he called ‘the century of unbelievable things.’Claire Black McCoy, Professor of Art History, Columbus State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1026922018-09-05T16:10:28Z2018-09-05T16:10:28ZLesson from Brazil: Museums are not forever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235071/original/file-20180905-45166-epswlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=89%2C0%2C2349%2C1402&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brazil's gutted National Museum now resembles an archaeological ruin itself.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brazil-Rio-Museum-Fire/07aa75d8ffad421d965c7a11b03ffc89/20/0">AP Photo/Mario Lobao</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We now know what history going up in flames looks like. </p>
<p>On Sept. 2, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/world/americas/brazil-museum-fire.html">National Museum of Brazil lit up</a> Rio de Janeiro’s night sky. Perhaps started by an errant paper hot air balloon landing on the roof or a short circuit in a laboratory, the fire gutted the historic 200-year-old building. Likely gone are a collection of resplendent indigenous ceremonial robes, the first dinosaur found in South America, Portuguese royal furniture, ancient Egyptian mummies, a vast library and so much more. In six hours, an estimated <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/09/brazil-rio-de-janeiro-museum-fire/569299/">18 million artifacts</a> were turned to smoke and ash.</p>
<p>The images of the hollowed-out museum are a living nightmare <a href="http://www.chipcolwell.com">for a curator like me</a>. I know that most museum collections are truly irreplaceable. But, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FFy5tMUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">for me</a>, the fire is also a vital reminder that the greatest dangers to humanity’s collective heritage are not natural disasters but human ones. </p>
<p>There’s an important lesson for all of us in the fire’s embers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235045/original/file-20180905-45143-1ftocqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235045/original/file-20180905-45143-1ftocqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235045/original/file-20180905-45143-1ftocqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235045/original/file-20180905-45143-1ftocqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235045/original/file-20180905-45143-1ftocqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235045/original/file-20180905-45143-1ftocqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235045/original/file-20180905-45143-1ftocqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235045/original/file-20180905-45143-1ftocqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">White walls and imposing columns signal that this place is pristine and eternal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/6sfrYaJJSfo">Tamara Menzi/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The perils museums face</h2>
<p>A museum presents itself as permanent and timeless. It’s why so many sport Greek columns, sterile white walls and clean objects under clear glass. The message is that the museum and its treasures should exist beyond the fleeting moment of our visit – connecting past, present and future. Whether displaying dinosaurs or dodos, art or archaeology, the museum is our bank vault for the world’s natural wonders and human achievements. The museum aspires to be a fortress against time. </p>
<p>The reality is that time is inexorable and relentless. Museums are locked in a constant struggle against decay and an almost absurdly wide-ranging array of natural and human threats. There’s even a formal list of the evil-sounding “<a href="http://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/Ten_Agents_of_Deterioration">agents of deterioration</a>” that museums use to evaluate risks to their collections, ranging from bugs to temperature to water to fire.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235072/original/file-20180905-45139-1b3tmm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235072/original/file-20180905-45139-1b3tmm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235072/original/file-20180905-45139-1b3tmm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235072/original/file-20180905-45139-1b3tmm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235072/original/file-20180905-45139-1b3tmm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235072/original/file-20180905-45139-1b3tmm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235072/original/file-20180905-45139-1b3tmm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235072/original/file-20180905-45139-1b3tmm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sometimes looted pieces, such as the ‘Warka Mask,’ a 3100 B.C. Sumerian artifact taken from Iraq’s National Museum as Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed, are recovered. Oftentimes they are not.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-Iraq-IRAQ/770b9fcdb9e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/3/0">AP Photo/Samir Mezban</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These risks are constantly evolving. War might turn a museum overnight into <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/looting-iraq-16813540/">a looter’s paradise</a>, as in the case of the National Museum of Iraq. Market forces or colonial revenge may spur thieves to steal artifacts, as recently seen with <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/the-great-chinese-art-heist">a pandemic of thefts</a> of Chinese art. Some are even adding <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/climate-change-museums-plan-of-action-1049993">climate change to the menaces</a> facing collections, such as the Bass Museum along Miami Beach, as it prepares for rising sea levels. </p>
<p>For museum curators, a terrifying range of hazards could devastate the treasures we are appointed to safeguard. Tragically, fire has long been at the top of the list. As early as 1865, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. – “America’s attic,” as it is famously known – <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/smithsonian-fire">caught aflame</a>, resulting in what was then called a “national calamity.” In more recent years, infernos destroyed Madagascar’s <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/nairobi/about-this-office/single-view/news/unesco_begins_project_to_help_restore_the_collections_of_the/">royal palace museum</a>, Delhi’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/26/massive-fire-guts-delhis-natural-history-museum">natural history museum</a> and a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/06/13/619567294/fire-sweeps-through-museum-of-history-in-kurt-cobains-hometown-of-aberdeen">history museum</a> in Washington state, which housed rare artifacts from the late musician Kurt Cobain. </p>
<p>Despite the known risk of fire, reports suggest that Brazil’s National Museum was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/world/americas/brazil-museum-fire.html">woefully unprepared</a>. It apparently lacked a fire suppression system. Nearby fire hydrants went dry. </p>
<p>The spark that started the fire was perhaps an unforeseen event, but the conflagration that followed was not.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235073/original/file-20180905-45175-3czvit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235073/original/file-20180905-45175-3czvit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235073/original/file-20180905-45175-3czvit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235073/original/file-20180905-45175-3czvit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235073/original/file-20180905-45175-3czvit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235073/original/file-20180905-45175-3czvit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235073/original/file-20180905-45175-3czvit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235073/original/file-20180905-45175-3czvit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Holding off decay can rely on expensive technical resources.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Mideast-Egypt-New-Museum/cb2140c6ce0242e98694bb63a6638869/1/0">AP Photo/Nasser Nasser</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Collections don’t care for themselves</h2>
<p>Most hazards that endanger museums can be mitigated. Conservation programs can hunt artifact-eating bugs, storage rooms can control temperature and humidity, security systems can prevent burglary and more. But implementing such protections requires serious resources.</p>
<p>By all accounts, this is where <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/south-america/politicians-are-responsible-fury-after-brazil-s-past-turns-to-ashes-20180904-p501nq.html">Brazil’s caretakers failed</a>. As a national museum, Brazil’s elected officials were responsible for directing the appropriate funds to the museum. Instead, they underfunded the museum and allowed it to fall into disrepair. With the proper buildings and equipment, Brazil’s museum fire would likely not have been so disastrous. </p>
<p>Such indifference is not limited to Brazil. For example, a 2016 report found that Canada’s six national museums are underfunded by about <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/national-museums-underfunded-by-up-to-78-9m-a-year-heritage-officials-admit">US$60 million each year</a>. In the United States, President Trump’s 2019 fiscal year budget sought to <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/76047-trump-renews-bid-to-eliminate-library-funding-nea-and-neh.html">entirely eliminate</a> three <a href="https://www.neh.gov/neh-matters">vital federal agencies</a> – the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts and Institute of Museum and Library Services – that preserve much of the country’s cultural heritage in museums. Congress, however, passed a spending bill in 2018 that <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/76441-nea-neh-imls-get-budget-bumps.html">modestly increased funding</a> for all three agencies.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Walls alone can’t protect what’s inside.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/ab80p262fFM">Scott Webb/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From Brazil, those holding the purse strings on citizens’ behalf must learn that museums are not forever. Collections are never permanently safe. They require focused investments and proactive stewardship to ensure their survival long into the future. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before the next fire.</p>
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<p><em>This article has been updated to clarify 2018 U.S. budget allocation for museum-related agencies.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102692/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chip Colwell has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is participating on projects funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. He is also a senior curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.</span></em></p>It’s a comforting falsehood that once an artifact joins a museum’s collection, it’s safe for eternity. Museums face many foes in the fight to preserve – a lack of funds might be the biggest.Chip Colwell, Lecturer on Anthropology, University of Colorado DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.