tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/museums-1517/articles
Museums – The Conversation
2024-03-27T20:52:22Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223617
2024-03-27T20:52:22Z
2024-03-27T20:52:22Z
Updated U.S. law still leaves Indigenous communities in Canada out of repatriations from museums
<p>A new amendment to the United States’ <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/12/13/2023-27040/native-american-graves-protection-and-repatriation-act-systematic-processes-for-disposition-or">Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)</a> came into effect in January 2024. The amended law now has some teeth to penalize museums who have thus far been <a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378">very slow to engage</a> with Indigenous communities. It puts pressure on them to create and share inventories of the remains and artifacts they hold.</p>
<p>NAGPRA regulates the repatriation of Native American human remains, funerary and sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony from federally funded agencies to lineal descendants, Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian Organizations. </p>
<p>Museums must now get prior and informed consent from Indigenous communities before displaying and studying cultural objects. They must also <a href="https://theconversation.com/kennewick-man-will-be-reburied-but-quandaries-around-human-remains-wont-59219">incorporate Native American traditional knowledge</a> in the storage, treatment and handling of remains and cultural items. The act now gives museums and other federal agencies five years to “<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/12/13/2023-27040/native-american-graves-protection-and-repatriation-act-systematic-processes-for-disposition-or">consult and update inventories of human remains and associated funerary objects</a>.”</p>
<p>NAGPRA is an important step in a long history of Indigenous Peoples’ struggle to govern their heritage. However, its authority stops at the U.S. border.</p>
<p>We are First Nations historians and professors working in Canada. Our communities are also impacted by the loss of cultural patrimony to museums in the U.S. and the laws covering repatriation. Mary Jane Logan McCallum is a member of the Munsee Delaware Nation and Susan M. Hill is a Haudenosaunee citizen and resident of the Grand River Territory.</p>
<p>The U.S. law provides Indigenous communities in lands claimed by Canada no legal or financial support to repatriate human remains, funerary and sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony held in U.S museums. These institutions <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/object-lives-and-global-histories-in-northern-north-america-products-9780228003984.php">hold many items</a> purchased or obtained by anthropologists and others from communities north of the border.</p>
<h2>NAGPRA</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.doi.gov/ocl/nagpra">NAGPRA became law in 1990</a>, after decades of lobbying from hundreds of Indigenous communities. The law states that museums and institutions receiving federal funding must produce detailed inventories of their collections and notify Native American tribes regarding items connected to their communities.</p>
<p>While those who called for the legislation were undoubtedly aware of the daunting task it would mandate, it is unlikely any would have predicted the extremely slow pace at which it has progressed in the three decades since.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, some museums have unilaterally decided to <a href="https://www.amnh.org/about/statement-new-nagpra-regulations">cover or close displays</a>. This is intended as a first step towards repatriation, however with ongoing limited resources, it is also a tactic to remain compliant with the law and avoid having funding cut.</p>
<p>The newly revised law still upholds inherent inequities in the relationships between Indigenous people and the agencies holding our materials. There is a lack of consistent and adequate funding for Indigenous communities wishing to repatriate items. There is also a lack of expert knowledge of the holdings of museums across the U.S. and human resources and infrastructure for long-term handling of repatriated objects. </p>
<p>In this context of ongoing inequity, museums can continue to hold Indigenous objects, but away from public view, and inadvertently create a narrative of history centred on white stories and white voices with little or no Indigenous content.</p>
<h2>Indigenous communities outside the U.S.</h2>
<p>For Indigenous communities outside of the U.S., the act does not compel museums and institutions to work in good faith to facilitate repatriations, regardless of how much evidence Indigenous communities are able to provide supporting the origins and sacredness of those items. </p>
<p>Indigenous communities in Canada are impacted by the law because these items are important to community-based research of material culture and its connection to intellectual, social and political histories of our nations.</p>
<p>Museums make platitudes about strong commitments to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-as-museums-grapple-with-repatriation-a-cultural-historian-warns-of/">working with and educating about Indigenous Peoples and cultures</a>. However, they are still the ones choosing what gets displayed without consultation with Indigenous communities. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/repatriation-native-american-remains_n_64b97d77e4b0ad7b75f7dd15/amp">the burden is placed on tribes to make requests and pay for repatriation</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, the public loses important opportunities to learn about Indigenous Peoples and the colonial legacies that dispossessed them of the land upon which museums are built and the artifacts they house.</p>
<h2>Indigenous labour</h2>
<p>A further issue with NAGPRA is that it perpetuates an assumption that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7109072">Indigenous labour should be discounted or free</a> and reasserts the inequity faced by Indigenous people when dealing with government.</p>
<p>Small, piecemeal grants covering costs like transportation are available through NAGPRA, but are restricted to federally recognized tribes in the U.S. and Indigenous people are responsible for finding and applying for them.</p>
<p>In Canada, community-based Indigenous scholars can apply for federal funding from the <a href="https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/index-eng.aspx">Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada</a>, however grant applications can be long and difficult, funds received are administered by universities and the grants often do not provide enough money.</p>
<p>Museums have full-time paid staff to make inventories and seek descendant individuals and communities. On the other hand, the Indigenous labour, knowledge and skill that goes into identifying and making meaning of lost cultural patrimony, often goes unpaid and unappreciated. </p>
<p>In addition, those doing this hard work <a href="https://histanthro.org/notes/decolonizing-or-recolonizing/">contend with the anti-Indigenous racism and white supremacy that dominate museums and other cultural institutions</a>. Some museums have prioritized hiring Indigenous staff, but they have not made structural changes that address ongoing systemic racism and colonialism nor made space for Indigenous people. As a result, several have left or <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/investigates/decolonizing-museums-museum-decolonization-part-2-investigations/">resigned in protest</a>. </p>
<p>In 2022, the <a href="https://museums.ca/uploaded/web/TRC_2022/Report-CMA-MovedToAction.pdf">Canadian Museums Association delivered a report</a> that acknowledged Indigenous cultural heritage professionals are often required to work for free or at a very low cost through one-off honorariums. It recommended that museums take on the legal and financial responsibility of new positions for those undertaking this work. We have yet to see this in practice. </p>
<p>The new U.S. regulations still do not address another form of theft from Indigenous people — this time not of Indigenous cultural patrimony, but of Indigenous labour. This should be considered by the <a href="https://osi-bis.ca/">Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools</a> as it considers a new federal legal framework that will govern the treatment of graves and burial sites.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223617/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>
U.S. laws on the repatriation of Indigenous artifacts and remains still uphold inequities in the relationships between Indigenous people and the agencies holding their materials.
Mary Jane Logan McCallum, Professor of History, University of Winnipeg
Susan M. Hill, Director of the Centre for Indigenous Studies; Associate Professor, Indigenous Studies and History, University of Toronto
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221082
2024-02-23T13:49:28Z
2024-02-23T13:49:28Z
The Russia-Ukraine War has caused a staggering amount of cultural destruction – both seen and unseen
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577441/original/file-20240222-24-fymjst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3988%2C2652&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ruins of a church in Bohorodychne, Donetsk district, Ukraine, on Jan. 27, 2024.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-church-destroyed-by-the-war-in-bohorodychne-news-photo/1958547329?adppopup=true">Ignacio Marin/Anadolu via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>War doesn’t just destroy lives. It also tears at the fabric of culture. </p>
<p>And in the case of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now about to enter its third year, the remarkable destruction of Ukrainian history and heritage since 2022 hasn’t been a matter of collateral damage. Rather, the Russian military has deliberately targeted <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7424472">museums, churches and libraries</a> that are important to the Ukrainian people. </p>
<p>It’s impossible to document the full extent of the destruction, particularly in the active military zones in eastern and southern Ukraine. However, as archaeologists and filmmakers, we wanted to do what we could. This meant traveling to liberated villages, museums and churches in northern and eastern Ukraine adjacent to regions with ongoing fighting. </p>
<p>Working closely with Ukrainian colleagues, we ended up making two nine-day trips – one in March 2023 and another in October 2023.</p>
<p>Here is some of what we found:</p>
<h2>Sifting through the ruins</h2>
<p>In liberated parts of Ukraine, the bodies of the dead have long been carried away and, for the most part, buried in local cemeteries. But enter any formerly occupied city or town, and you’ll immediately notice that the scars from battles that took place from March 2022 to July 2022 remain starkly visible. </p>
<p>Driving around Chernihiv, a city in northern Ukraine, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/19/russian-strike-on-chernihiv-ukraine">we witnessed hundreds of burned-out buildings</a>, and many more that are riddled with bullet holes and damaged by shrapnel. </p>
<p>As we wound through small farming villages, we were struck by the ferocity and randomness of modern military firepower: One part of a village could be completely flattened, while a block down the road, the houses were untouched.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman in red coat walking along sidewalk as a destroyed building looms over her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577367/original/file-20240222-30-6vn3xl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577367/original/file-20240222-30-6vn3xl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577367/original/file-20240222-30-6vn3xl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577367/original/file-20240222-30-6vn3xl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577367/original/file-20240222-30-6vn3xl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577367/original/file-20240222-30-6vn3xl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577367/original/file-20240222-30-6vn3xl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Ukraine Hotel in Chernihiv, pictured in March 2023 after it had been bombed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Kuijt</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During a wet day in the middle of October 2023, we drove through small tree-lined roads to see the remains of <a href="https://war.city/tours/chernihiv-region/">the Church of the Ascension</a> in Lukashivka, a small village about 8 miles from Chernihiv.</p>
<p>Previously home to about 300 people, Lukashivka was occupied by the Russians in March 2022 and later recaptured by the Ukrainian military. </p>
<p>Built in 1913 with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfry_(architecture)">two-tiered belfry</a> that can be seen for miles, this large white-brick church is now a shell of what it once was: Its wood flooring has been scorched and its brick roof blown open. In a few sections of the wall, the original plaster and paintings are still preserved.</p>
<p>Inside the place of worship, we traversed the detritus of war, hearing the crunch of spent cartridges, rocket cases, broken bottles and heaps of burned cans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman rides a bike on a wet, cloudy day, past a damaged white church with gold dome." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577368/original/file-20240222-20-wj5qe3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577368/original/file-20240222-20-wj5qe3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577368/original/file-20240222-20-wj5qe3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577368/original/file-20240222-20-wj5qe3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577368/original/file-20240222-20-wj5qe3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577368/original/file-20240222-20-wj5qe3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577368/original/file-20240222-20-wj5qe3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Church of the Ascension in Lukashivka, a small village near the city of Chernihiv, in October 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Kuijt</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We’ll never really know how many soldiers and civilians died fighting over Lukashivka and the church. </p>
<p>We do know, however, that cultural heritage has few friends during war.</p>
<p>The partially preserved church at Lukashivka is one of hundreds of cultural and religious buildings that have been damaged or destroyed over the last two years. This includes <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/russian-air-strike-damages-transfiguration-cathedral-odesa-180982616/">the Cathedral of the Transfiguration in Odesa</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-mariupol-theater-c321a196fbd568899841b506afcac7a1">the Mariupol Drama Theater</a> and the <a href="https://chytomo.com/en/the-bombing-of-kharkiv-damaged-one-of-europe-s-largest-libraries/">Korolenko Kharkiv State Scientific Library</a>, one of the largest libraries in Europe.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tYeLRyce-P0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The authors explore the Church of the Ascension in Lukashivka, where intense fighting had taken place.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>More than meets the eye</h2>
<p>If traveling in Ukraine has taught us one important lesson, it’s that the digging of trenches can erase history. </p>
<p>While the destruction of churches, libraries and museums viscerally evokes a sense of loss, there’s an entire unseen world below the ground surface – filled with untold numbers of artifacts, bones and buried buildings – that are exposed when trenches are created. </p>
<p>In fact, it’s likely that this war has destroyed more history and archaeology buried below the ground than above it. </p>
<p>As armies did during <a href="https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/about-wwi/trench-warfare">World War I</a>, the Ukrainian military built deep trenches and bunkers along rivers and high ground in the early months of the war. Two years later, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2023/nov/07/21st-century-trench-warfare-ukrainian-frontline-in-pictures">these defensive trench systems are a central element of the ground war</a> and demarcate the front lines.</p>
<p>In many cases, the trenches were dug into the remains of buried archaeology sites, most of which were previously unknown and untouched. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in military fatigues peers over the top of a muddy trench." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576221/original/file-20240216-26-cxs6t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576221/original/file-20240216-26-cxs6t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576221/original/file-20240216-26-cxs6t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576221/original/file-20240216-26-cxs6t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576221/original/file-20240216-26-cxs6t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576221/original/file-20240216-26-cxs6t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576221/original/file-20240216-26-cxs6t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Ukrainian officer steps out of a trench network near the city of Kupiansk in eastern Ukraine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainian-officer-steps-out-of-a-muddy-trench-network-as-news-photo/2008690272?adppopup=true">Scott Peterson/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In March 2023, for example, we visited sites around Iripin and Bucha, two villages on the northern edge of Kyiv, to document how medieval and Bronze age sites buried below the surface had been destroyed by trenches or, in other cases, were now blanketed by minefields to stop Russian military units. </p>
<p>We also went to <a href="https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.159">the 11th century archaeology site of Oster</a>. Perched on a small hill southeast of Chernihiv, Oster was an important regional center in the medieval period. It had a brick-and-stone church and a large settlement nearby. As part of the siege of Chernihiv in March 2022, Ukrainian troops built deep trenches and bunkers around the edges of Oster, since the site overlooks rivers and crossing points.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.159">When we visited Oster a year after the invasion</a>, we noticed that the trench system around the church was dug into a large, 11th century settlement and burial ground. Laying exposed on the dirt piles along the trenches we found medieval human skeletal remains. The more we studied the system of trenches and bunkers, which encircles an area of about 650 feet (198 meters), the more human bones we saw.</p>
<p>A crew of archaeologists has returned to photograph the destruction of these burial grounds. But given the ongoing war, it isn’t possible to fully document the destruction, let alone fill in the trenches, which still may be needed by soldiers. </p>
<p>The previously unknown burial ground at Oster is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of similar sites that have been damaged or destroyed in central and northeastern Ukraine.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wl_22GzjUHM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The authors explore a system of trenches that had been built at Oster, an important medieval archaeological site.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>War and the fabric of culture</h2>
<p>Even after the fighting ends, large areas of Ukraine will remain inaccessible for years, given the widespread <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/30/23979758/ukraine-war-russia-land-mines-artillery-humantarian-crisis">use of mines</a> and <a href="https://occup-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12995-023-00398-y">environmental contaminants</a>. </p>
<p>Surviving collections and museum exhibits <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Ukraine">inside and outside of Ukraine</a> have assumed greater importance: They may represent the sole evidence of ancient cultures originating from these damaged territories.</p>
<p>We can confidently say that Europe has not experienced destruction of this magnitude, let alone this quickly, since World War II. </p>
<p>The bombings of churches, libraries and residences have destroyed major areas of Ukraine. As with the Nazis’ pilfering of paintings, bronze sculptures and art <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/world-war-ii-looted-art-turning-history-into-justice-u-s-national-archives/PQXxtIcpKuJmJw?hl=en">in the last few years of World War II</a>, in the first months after the invasion <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/catastrophic-putin-war-wiping-out-ukraine-recent-history-1771314">the Russian army looted museums, stole art and destroyed churches</a> with missiles and tank shells. </p>
<p>Make no mistake: At its core, the Russian full-scale invasion is a military attempt to erase Ukraine’s history, culture and heritage.</p>
<p>Seemingly entrenched in a 1950s geopolitical framework, President Vladimir Putin and other representatives of the Russian state <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/opinion/ukraine-war-national-identity.html">dispute that Ukraine is a sovereign nation</a>. Ukraine’s churches, museums and libraries are a threat to Russia, for they are the material and symbolic fabric that holds together Ukrainian identity and resistance. </p>
<p>That’s why this war is as much about culture as it is about land.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man looks through rubble near a destroyed pink building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577373/original/file-20240222-24-rkxmni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577373/original/file-20240222-24-rkxmni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577373/original/file-20240222-24-rkxmni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577373/original/file-20240222-24-rkxmni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577373/original/file-20240222-24-rkxmni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577373/original/file-20240222-24-rkxmni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577373/original/file-20240222-24-rkxmni.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A children’s library destroyed by a missile attack in the city of Chernihiv.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Viacheslav Skorokhod</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221082/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pavlo Shydlovskyi has received funding from Goethe-Institut. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Kuijt and William Donaruma do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In addition to destroyed buildings, there’s an entire underground world – filled with untold numbers of artifacts, bones and ruins – that are exposed and damaged by the digging of trenches.
Ian Kuijt, Professor of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame
Pavlo Shydlovskyi, Associate Professor of Archaeology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev
William Donaruma, Professor of the Practice in Filmmaking, University of Notre Dame
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222009
2024-02-07T10:26:46Z
2024-02-07T10:26:46Z
Do women have to be naked to get into museums? Why female artists continue to be underrepresented in the art world
<p>We challenge you to name, off the top of your head, a few women artists exhibited in museums. If male names come more readily to mind, it’s not by chance: women, in art as in many other spheres associated with a form of power, influence or prestige, are <a href="https://boutique.centrepompidou.fr/fr/product/10092-pourquoi-t-il-pas-eu-de-grands-artistes-femmes.html">far less recognised, exhibited and studied</a> than their male counterparts.</p>
<h2>Female artists’ feeble presence in museums</h2>
<p>The anger over this state of affairs boiled over decades ago. Back in the 1980s, the <a href="https://awarewomenartists.com/artiste/guerrilla-girls/">Guerrilla Girls</a>, a collective of anonymous women artists, took issue with the lack of representation of women at the MoMa’s <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/guerrilla-girls-do-women-have-to-be-naked-to-get-into-the-met-museum-p78793">“International Retrospective of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture”</a>, which aimed to showcase the biggest names in contemporary art. Of the 169 artists chosen, only 13 were women – less than 8%. The feminists would ask a question that would go on to ring into the 21st century: “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met museum?</p>
<p>According to recent research, there are still few women artists in museums. In the United States in 2019, in the 18 largest museums in terms of visitor numbers, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212852">87% of the artists exhibited in the permanent collections were men</a>. Similarly, in France, a <a href="https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Thematiques/Musees/Les-musees-en-France/Les-collections-des-musees-de-France/Decouvrir-les-collections/Les-femmes-artistes-sortent-de-leur-reserve/Informations-complementaires/informations/Milieu-artistique/Les-sujets">2021 study</a> lists 93.4% male artists in the catalogues of national public museums.</p>
<p>One might retort that a <a href="https://artherstory.net/museum-exhibitions-about-historic-women-artists-2023/">good number of European exhibitions</a> have been devoted to women artists of late. The Parisians will put forward the Centre Pompidou’s <a href="https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/program/calendar/event/OmzSxFv">"Women in Abstraction”</a> (May-August 2021) or the Musée du Luxembourg’s <a href="https://museeduluxembourg.fr/en/agenda/evenement/pionnieres">“Pioneers”</a>, while Madrilenians can boast <a href="https://www.museothyssen.org/en/exhibitions/women-masters">“Women Masters, Old and Modern”</a> (October 2023–February 2024), a retrospective of the period from the late 16th century to the early decades of the 20th century curated by the Spanish art historian Rocío de la Villa. In Hamburg, <a href="https://www.buceriuskunstforum.de/en/exhibitions/geniale-frauen">“Ingenious Women”</a> (October 2023–January 2024) traced the careers of women artists from 16th to the 18th century, placing their works alongside those of their fathers, brothers, husbands, and fellow painters.</p>
<p>In fact, such a proliferation only underscores the problem of gender inequality: male artists do not need to be associated with a specific category to be the subject of thematic or monographic exhibitions. They have had nearly the entire space to themselves for centuries. To correct this inequality, efforts are being made to shine a light on women by creating exhibitions dedicated to them. But as an article in <a href="https://www.lequotidiendelart.com/articles/19939-faut-il-encore-des-expositions-100-artistes-femmes.html"><em>Le quotidien de l'art</em></a> pointed out in 2021:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There is a danger that this kind of initiative will lump together artists who have little in common other than their gender, and reduce them to the same category.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Why are women so rarely represented in museums? The difficulty women artists have in finding their place in art museum catalogues is reminiscent of the difficulty women have in breaking through the glass ceiling in the corporate world.</p>
<p>As this subject is now well documented in management literature, we can attempt to draw parallels with the reasons for the low representation of women artists in museum catalogues and exhibition halls.</p>
<h2>Stereotypes and presumption of unfitness</h2>
<p>A first element of explanation seems to be linked to gender stereotypes, with the presumption that women are unfit to create “official” art. Historically, in France, art was legitimised by the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, created by Cardinal Mazarin in 1648, which organised a salon, an annual exhibition of official artists, validated by judges from the Academy. It was there that the state <a href="https://www.beauxarts.com/grand-format/quest-ce-que-le-salon/">bought works for display in museums</a>. Between 1800 and 1830, women accounted for no less than 14% of exhibitors at the salon, but only 1.74% in the museum catalogues of the time, failing to break the glass ceiling set by the male experts at the Académie.</p>
<p>Nowadays, women’s access to strategic positions in organisations continues to heavily rely on their male counterparts’ assessment. Since the 1970s, a number of studies have shown that “masculine” characteristics are more widely associated with the ideal type of leader. Despite increasing numbers of women in business and academia, these stereotypes are relatively stable, particularly among men who perceive women as unsuitable for <a href="https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-00914558/document">strategic managerial positions</a>.</p>
<h2>“Think artist, think male”</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-cahiers-du-genre-2007-2-page-113.htm">Trasforini</a> notes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In art, we associate the author, the man, the maker, while women are the ‘author’ not of a work but of a useful and often collective product.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our instinctive association of artistic genius with the male gender stems from a broader tendency to link leadership roles with men – a psychological phenomenon known as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2015/jul/15/think-manager-think-man-women-leaders-biase-workplace">“Think manager, think man”</a>. Our <a href="https://www.edhec.edu/fr/recherche-et-faculte/centres-et-chaires/chaire-diversite-inclusion/publications/mars-2018-etude-diversite-inclusion-et-leadership">2018 study</a> concurs with this view, highlighting the qualities of a leader are particularly associated with so-called “masculine” characteristics. In contrast, interviewees thought women lacked the agency (determination, confidence, independence, etc.) to be skilled leaders.</p>
<p>This assimilation of man-leader, man-artist feeds a vicious circle that keeps women away from positions of power in companies and ambitious projects in the art world.</p>
<h2>Differentiated access to opportunities</h2>
<p>Even if a small number of women artists manage to be exhibited in museums, historically, they remain mostly confined to less prestigious painting genres (portraits, still life, miniatures). The Académie established <a href="https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Thematiques/Musees/Les-musees-en-France/Les-collections-des-musees-de-France/Decouvrir-les-collections/Les-femmes-artistes-sortent-de-leur-reserve/Informations-complementaires/informations/Milieu-artistique/Les-sujets">a hierarchy of genres</a>, with history painting, depicting heroic figures, and the “petit genre”, depicting intimate or light subjects, at the top, followed by landscape and still life.</p>
<p>Long sidelined from sculpture, the study of the nude and the major genres of painting, several women artists, such as <a href="https://www.connaissancedesarts.com/arts-expositions/conquetes-feminines-elisabeth-vigee-le-brun-et-les-artistes-femmes-du-xviiie-siecle-11134221/">Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Rosalba Carriera</a>, nevertheless made their mark in portraiture. However, the more women devoted themselves to this “modest” type of art, the less they were exhibited and the less their works were brought to posterity, i.e. displayed in museums.</p>
<h2>Network and influence</h2>
<p>Beyond the gender of the art, the work and the talent, the recognition and quality of a work depend very much on the opportunities it has to meet the public and the financial and human resources available to the artist. <a href="https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Espace-documentation/Rapports/Mission-EgaliteS">The Prat report</a> (2009) underlines this reality, which is not favourable to women because of their limited access to networks that enable the sharing of know-how, means of production and work tools.</p>
<p>Unequal access to professional networks and influential people limits women artists’ opportunities for development, visibility and recognition. <a href="https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Espace-documentation/Rapports/Mission-EgaliteS">Male social networks</a>, which generate active solidarity, have no female equivalent, or only marginal ones. Access to institutions and exhibitions eludes them while they are still alive; and once they are gone, their work has no access to archives, and so cannot arouse the interest of curators.</p>
<p>Similarly, to access strategic positions in companies, it is necessary to be part of networks of influence in order to forge links, build social capital and be able to seize opportunities and emerge as leaders. Compared with men, women have more difficulty accessing professional networks, which <a href="https://www.onufemmes.fr/nos-actualites/2021/3/2/le-leadership-est-il-une-affaire-de-sexe-">limits their access to leadership roles</a>. Studies show that women also have less access to influential sponsors and mentors who can help them accelerate their careers and <a href="https://www.hbrfrance.fr/leadership/le-leadership-feminin-une-construction-sociale-60341">reach senior positions</a>.</p>
<p>Despite equal access to education, opportunities are still unequal: women artists account for <a href="https://haut-conseil-egalite.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/hce_rapport_inegalites_dans_les_arts_et_la_culture_20180216_vlight.pdf">60% of school pupils in France, but only 10% of award-winning artists</a>.</p>
<p>It’s time to break this vicious circle that minimises women both in positions of power and in museums, and to (re)ask the question <a href="https://pba-opacweb.lille.fr/fr/collections/ou-sont-les-femmes">“Where are the women?”</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
Notwithstanding the proliferation of exhibitions devoted to women, the question that feminists asked in the 1980s is more relevant than ever.
Hager Jemel-Fornetty, Associate professor, EDHEC Business School
Guergana Guintcheva, Professeur de Marketing, EDHEC Business School
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222312
2024-01-30T17:26:36Z
2024-01-30T17:26:36Z
V&A’s decision to loan looted Asante gold back to Ghana has implications for other British museums
<p>The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has announced a loan agreement with the Manhyia Palace Museum in the Asante region of Ghana to return gold and silver royal regalia that were looted from the country by the British in 1874 and 1895. The decision <a href="https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2024/01/va-and-british-museum-to-loan-asante-gold-to-ghana/#">was announced</a> on the 150th anniversary of a sequence of wars of aggression, waged by the British empire against the Asante kingdom in Africa’s Gold Coast (modern day Ghana).</p>
<p>This agreement is part of a renewable framework of exchanges agreed not with the Ghanian government but with the current monarch of the Asante kingdom, a constitutionally protected region of the state of Ghana. The exact length of the agreement is unclear but <a href="https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/british-museum-and-va-to-loan-asante-gold-looted-from-ghana-1234694073/#:%7E:text=The%20British%20Museum%20and%20the,collection%20of%20the%20Asante%20king.">most accounts suggest</a> that this is a three-year deal. </p>
<p>The agreement concerns <a href="https://vanda-production-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/01/25/10/35/55/e42169b6-3bd9-4ed0-b409-d344609a4688/GHANA%20RELEASE%20FINAL.pdf">17 objects held at the V&A</a> and <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/asante-gold-regalia">15 objects from the British Museum collection</a>. These include a sword of state and a gold peace pipe. </p>
<p>British forces took the treasures when plundering the Asante capital Kumasi during the third and fouth <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/anglo-ashanti-wars-1823-1900/">Anglo-Ashanti wars</a> (1873–74 and 1895-96). The looting was an act of opportunism but also served a political function to humiliate the residents of the Asante kingdom. </p>
<p>Today, these artefacts are seen in Ghana as <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/334763/ghana-uk-returning-looted-gold-artefacts-to-asante-king-on-loan/">missing parts of the country’s national heritage</a>. They bear great spiritual value for the Asante people.</p>
<p>The director of the V&A, historian Tristram Hunt, presented this loan deal as a template for <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/culture/2024/jan/27/vas-return-of-looted-ghana-gold-is-a-new-way-to-tackle-britains-painful-past">the solution</a> to the “contested colonial heritage” of items in European museums. Hunt suggested that contemporary Asante goldsmiths could be commissioned to create artworks that would “fill the gap” left in the collection by the loaned artefacts.</p>
<p>The V&A has been at pains to argue that this deal and other similar initiatives <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/restitution-and-repatriation">do not constitute repatriation agreements</a>. This is important because such an agreement would contradict <a href="https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/reviewing-the-national-heritage-act-1983/">the National Heritage Act of 1983</a>, which prohibits national museums from repatriating antiquities in their collection.</p>
<p>The agreed framework of exchange allows the state of Ghana to reap the benefits of the temporary return of the Asante treasures without having to make concessions on the question of legal ownership of the artefacts. In short, having the treasures return to Ghana on a loan deal with a regional partner allows the Ghana state authorities to continue arguing for repatriation and restitution.</p>
<p>This is perhaps why Hunt argued that this partnership “<a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/culture/2024/jan/27/vas-return-of-looted-ghana-gold-is-a-new-way-to-tackle-britains-painful-past">allows us to move beyond the Parthenon sculptures debate</a> – a reference to the requested repatriation of several sculptures extracted from the Parthenon in Greece in the early 1800s. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-parthenon-marbles-george-osborne-wants-to-return-the-statues-to-athens-but-can-he-a-legal-expert-explains-197364">The Parthenon marbles: George Osborne wants to return the statues to Athens, but can he? A legal expert explains</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How the agreement might impact other cases</h2>
<p>This agreement suggests that since national museums in the UK are banned from returning controversial cultural artefacts to their places of origin, loan deals and dynamic exchanges are the way forward. </p>
<p>The British Museum and the Greek government currently pursue this line of thinking. Despite the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67551732">recent diplomatic episode</a> in which Rishi Sunak cancelled a scheduled meeting with the Greek prime minister in response to the latter’s comments about the Parthenon sculptures, the Greek government has changed its approach on the Parthenon marbles question. </p>
<p>Officials are now presenting the problem not as one of ownership and restitution but as one of reunification. This means that they are open to solutions along the lines of the Asante case. But the key difference is that in the Greek case the agreement would have to be between two national museums – the British museum and the Parthenon Museum – with the involvement of the Greek state. The extent to which such a solution would be popular with the Greek public remains to be seen.</p>
<p>This deal may have implications for other cases around the world. The other obvious example is that of the <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/benin-bronzes">Benin bronzes</a> – a cluster of 16th century statues looted in 1897 from the west African kingdom of Benin, now part of the Nigerian state – currently held in the British Museum. Despite the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/04/arts/design/benin-bronzes-nigeria-ownership.html">complex Nigerian cultural politics</a> the Asante loan agreement will impact the debate on the status of these artefacts. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/restitution-and-repatriation">"Renewable cultural partnerships”</a> – an elegant term to describe loans – are by no means enough. The elephant in the room is the existing legal framework, forged in period of decolonisation and diminishing western influence, that forbids the repatriation of antiquities. </p>
<p>Over 60 years on from when a ban on repatriation was <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24/contents">first introduced</a>, the world is a different place. Big European museums have nothing to fear from repatriation requests and agreements. The enormity of their collection guarantees that there will almost never be a void to fill.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Georgios Giannakopoulos 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 elephant in the room is the existing legal framework, forged in period of decolonisation and diminishing western influence, that forbids the repatriation of antiquities.
Georgios Giannakopoulos, Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College London/ Lecturer in Modern History, City, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220361
2024-01-07T12:34:50Z
2024-01-07T12:34:50Z
Artists bring human richness at times of strife — and need to be allowed to speak about the Israel-Hamas war
<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/artists-bring-human-richness-at-times-of-strife-and-need-to-be-allowed-to-speak-about-the-israel-hamas-war" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The current Israel-Hamas war has dominated the news for the past few months. As reports of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-hamas-war-day-79-1.7069133">military machinations</a> and <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mideast-ministers-in-ottawa-to-discuss-israel-hamas-war-with-joly-trudeau-1.6680868">diplomatic efforts</a> have gained attention, the art world has struggled with responses to the horrors of this war. </p>
<p>For example, controversy and calls for transparency and accountability followed <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ago-review-policies-criticism-indigenous-curator-departure-1.7045717">the departure of Anishinaabe-kwe curator Wanda Nanibush</a> from the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). The departure was apparently related <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-indigenous-curator-ago-wanda-nanibush/">to her expressed opinions on the war</a>. </p>
<p>After the Royal Ontario Museum tried to change a Palestinian American artist’s work, <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/11/06/royal-ontario-museum-censorship-palestinian-art-death-exhibition-israel-hamas-war">Jenin Yaseen staged a sit-in</a> and others protested. </p>
<p>I have been teaching and writing about the <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520256361/art-worlds-25th-anniversary-edition">“art world”</a> — what sociologist Howard Becker calls the network of artists, art institutions, funders, patrons and audiences — for years, and researching <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003134022-9/policy-performance-lowell-gasoi">how artists navigate their thorny relationship with contentious political moments</a>. </p>
<p>Policies and regulations can serve artists, but can also engender a lack of trust and create administrative burdens that impact the healthy functioning of artists and organizations.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1718429595622379541"}"></div></p>
<h2>Endeavouring to speak truthfully, meaningfully</h2>
<p>The <em>Globe and Mail</em> reported some Canadians “active in a support group of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem” expressed concern <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-indigenous-curator-ago-wanda-nanibush">to the AGO, and that one signatory to a letter said the letter didn’t call for Nanibush’s departure</a> but rather for “antisemitism training and for the AGO to make use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism.”</p>
<p>If the gallery did try to silence Nanibush, critics have reason to be concerned about how they reacted as the curator and others in the art world endeavoured to speak truthfully and meaningfully in a time of crisis. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://ago.ca/press-release/open-letter-stephan-jost-director-and-ceo">statement, the AGO’s director and CEO</a> Stephan Jost expressed the gallery’s support for Indigenous artists and a need to “reflect on our commitments to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report …” </p>
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<p>He acknowledged cultural institutions are “being asked to better define the rights and limits of political and artistic expression in a locally diverse but globally complex environment” and that “intense discussion” also raises questions about good governance.</p>
<p>Rights, limits, regulation and the purpose of artists’ work are what is at stake in this discussion. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ago-review-policies-criticism-indigenous-curator-departure-1.7045717">An investigation is underway</a> to see how the gallery’s policies may have impacted the board’s decision-making.</p>
<h2>People trying to create and speak truth</h2>
<p>How people assess the value of policies and regulation affecting the art world depends on how much they feel the art world should, or should not, reflect political realities. </p>
<p>Some might suggest that artists <a href="https://art.art/blog/art-protest-and-politics-do-they-really-go-together">should entertain and enlighten us</a> but stay away from contentious issues.</p>
<p>I believe artists have a unique role, different than that of journalists, political leaders or even <a href="https://www.israelismfilm.com/screenings">documentary filmmakers</a>. Beyond parsing the facts of a situation or deliberating and brokering political solutions, artists work to bring human richness and complexity to experiences like conflict and strife. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-israel-gaza-conflict-is-so-hard-to-talk-about-216149">Why the Israel-Gaza conflict is so hard to talk about</a>
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<h2>Art and our lives</h2>
<p>Thinking about “art worlds” as “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520256361/art-worlds-25th-anniversary-edition">patterns of collective activity</a>,” as Becker does, helps us to think about art in relationship to our social and political lives, and the conditions under which artists create.</p>
<p>Art schools, professional organizations, galleries and performance spaces all play a part in enabling some artists and their messages to shine, whether through financial support, attention or time — while constraining or even silencing others. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A Canadian flag seen atop a museum." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568074/original/file-20240105-20-qq30p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568074/original/file-20240105-20-qq30p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568074/original/file-20240105-20-qq30p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568074/original/file-20240105-20-qq30p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568074/original/file-20240105-20-qq30p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568074/original/file-20240105-20-qq30p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568074/original/file-20240105-20-qq30p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Museums and galleries are frequently dependent on government funding. The Royal Ontario Museum seen in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Museum and gallery spaces, frequently dependent on government and philanthropic funding, curate and elevate certain artworks and in so doing <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Birth-of-the-Museum-History-Theory-Politics/Bennett/p/book/9780415053884">mediate relationships and foster cultural dialogue between governments and pluralistic communities of citizens</a>. At the same time, they prescribe behaviours and actions that constrain both artists and the public perception of their work.</p>
<p>In this way, the support systems around artistic work have political implications, just as much as the art itself may have.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/eco-activist-attacks-on-museum-artwork-ask-us-to-figure-out-what-we-value-193575">Eco-activist attacks on museum artwork ask us to figure out what we value</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Discipline via funding</h2>
<p>As I examined in my doctoral research, <a href="https://repository.library.carleton.ca/downloads/mp48sd86j">the Summerworks Theatre Festival briefly lost funding from Canadian Heritage in 2011</a> after staging playwright <a href="https://catherinefrid.com/homegrown/">Catherine Frid’s controversial play <em>Homegrown</em></a>. </p>
<p>The play critiqued the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/play-takes-sympathetic-look-at-toronto-18/article_c95893a7-29a5-572c-8f5d-60b309b3ee58.html">reach of the Anti-Terrorism Act and the use of solitary confinement as it examined the story of one man convicted of participating in a terrorist group</a>. This was after a high-profile 2006 RCMP investigation saw 18 Muslim individuals accused of terrorism. (<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto-18-key-events-in-the-case-1.715266">Charges against seven people were stayed or dropped, while four people were convicted)</a>. Some accused the play of being pro-terrorist.</p>
<p>Artists responded to <a href="https://nationalpost.com/arts/homegrown-to-have-staged-readings-across-the-country-in-support-of-summerworks">this institutional censure by staging readings of the play to support the festival</a>. </p>
<p>The art world will find pathways to speak its own truth in the face of such pressures. </p>
<p>For instance, as the <em>Globe and Mail</em> reported, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/article-vancouvers-push-festival-stands-up-for-the-runner-as-victorias-belfry">the Belfry Theatre in Victoria made a recent decision to cancel its run of the Israel-set play <em>The Runner</em></a>. But Vancouver’s PuSh Festival is sticking by plans to run the play as a part of its <a href="https://pushfestival.ca/#program">program along with other works</a>, including the immersive installation <a href="https://pushfestival.ca/shows/dear-laila/"><em>Dear Laila</em></a> that depicts a model of one artist’s former home in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1742880197295374556"}"></div></p>
<p>When political pressure closes one door, the art world will often seek to open another, though we have yet to see how this might play out in the case of the AGO and Nanibush.</p>
<h2>What do we want from our artists?</h2>
<p>In the face of numerous wars, the climate emergency, housing and food insecurity, this is a challenging time. People around the world face what <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4483556">some scholars and activists have called a “polycrisis</a>.” </p>
<p>Artists represent and reflect this social and political upheaval. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/style/article/banksy-ukraine-murals/index.html">Banksy scrawls murals</a> on the blasted Ukrainian cityscape. Theatres across the world stage performances or screenings — <a href="https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-off-broadway/article/THE-GAZA-MONOLOGUES-Comes-to-the-Noor-Theatre-This-Week-20231128">like <em>The Gaza Monologues</em></a> — to try to represent Palestinian voices. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/theatre-shows-how-the-art-of-inclusion-can-help-build-a-better-canada-150488">Theatre shows how the art of inclusion can help build a better Canada</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.policymagazine.ca/canadas-growing-problem-with-trust-in-government/">Especially in a time when trust in our political leaders and institutions continues to wane</a>, artists, arts leaders and policymakers face daunting but critical questions about making ethically sound decisions. </p>
<p>If the public trusts the art world to do their work with rigour and honesty, artists and arts institutions can be a community of voices expressing diverse perspectives on our collective humanity, <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/2658867568/">reflecting suffering and the power of resistance to violence in this polarizing conflict</a>. </p>
<p>We must critically assess the value of the arts and of artists to perform this important work. And we should be mindful of desires to discipline the art world at a time when its voices are so deeply needed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220361/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lowell Gasoi 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>
Especially in a time when trust in political leaders and institutions wanes, arts leaders, patrons, policymakers and artists face daunting but critical questions about the value and role of artists.
Lowell Gasoi, Instructor in communication studies at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, Carleton University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216978
2023-12-07T22:50:53Z
2023-12-07T22:50:53Z
Could visiting a museum be the secret to a healthy life?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557354/original/file-20231016-28-1a079n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C1%2C986%2C655&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Does the simple fact of being in contact with art have any specific effects?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s Saturday morning. You are barely awake, with a cup of coffee in your hand, and your gaze wanders to the window. It’s raining. So you make up your mind. This afternoon, you will go to a museum.</p>
<p>But what if, without realizing it, you just made a good decision for your health?</p>
<p>That’s the hypothesis put forward by the <a href="https://www.medecinsfrancophones.ca/a-propos/lassociation/">Association des Médecins francophones du Canada</a> in 2018, when it launched the <a href="https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/news/museum-prescriptions/">museum prescriptions program</a> in partnership with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The project, now completed, has enabled thousands of patients to get a doctor’s prescription to visit a museum, either on their own or accompanied. The aim of the prescription was to promote the recovery and well-being of patients with chronic illnesses (hypertension, diabetes), neurological conditions, cognitive disorders or mental health problems. The decision to write the prescription was left to the discretion of the doctor.</p>
<p>Five years in, this pioneering initiative has inspired other innovative projects. So we are now seeing an increasing number of museum-based wellness activities ranging from <a href="https://museumlondon.ca/yoga-at-the-museum">museum yoga</a> to <a href="https://agakhanmuseum.org/programs/mindfulness-and-education-sessions">guided meditations</a> with works of art, as well as the practice of <a href="https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/your-collection/the-art-of-slow-looking-a-painting-by-jean-paul-riopelle?_gl=1*ys4kk2*_ga*MTY5MjQ1NTg3Mi4xNjk5NTUxNTQ3*_ga_83BW334MD2*MTY5OTU1MTU0Ni4xLjAuMTY5OTU1MTU0Ni4wLjAuMA..">slow contemplation</a> or “slow looking.” </p>
<p>There’s no shortage of possibilities, and they all help to reinforce the same idea, that art is good for us.</p>
<h2>Beyond first impressions</h2>
<p>These initiatives have recently made headlines in national media on both sides of the Atlantic, in <a href="https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/museotherapie-je-crois-que-nous-sommes-dans-un-moment-de-bouillonnement-2414180">France</a> and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-museum-fine-arts-medecins-francophone-art-museum-therapy-1.4859936">Canada</a>, and are gaining in visibility in the general public. Because of the popularity of these activities, more and more claims are being made that a visit to the museum can have “powerful anti-stress properties,” be a “miracle cure for stress,” or have other “incredible benefits.”</p>
<p>Talk about enthusiasm!</p>
<p>Yet, as a certified neuroscientist, I can’t help but wonder why, given the extraordinarily relaxing effects that are being claimed, crowds aren’t flocking to our museums every day. </p>
<p>And that gives us all the more reason to look at the scientific reports and studies that have recently been published on the subject.</p>
<h2>Is art good for you? From intuition to observation</h2>
<p>In 2019, the World Health Organization published an extensive report compiling evidence on the role of arts and cultural activities <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/329834">in promoting health and well-being</a>. The authors of this report attempted to move away from the sweeping claim that the benefits of art could constitute a universal solution to health problems, like a type of home remedy. </p>
<p>Instead, they encourage new, more precise and rigorous approaches to looking at the question, based on observation of the psychological, physiological and behavioural responses induced by certain specific components of artistic activity (aesthetic engagement, sensory stimulation, physical activity, etc.).</p>
<h2>Actor or spectator?</h2>
<p>What’s specific about a museum visit is that it is a so-called receptive artistic activity – in other words, it is not about producing art (painting, drawing, composing). It does, however, have the advantage of being accessible and already well established in our collective habits, making it a good candidate for health prevention.</p>
<p>The question is whether art exposure, alone, is enough to reap its benefits. In other words, does the simple fact of being in contact with art have specific effects?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554091/original/file-20231016-15-yh6rw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman in a museum" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554091/original/file-20231016-15-yh6rw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554091/original/file-20231016-15-yh6rw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554091/original/file-20231016-15-yh6rw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554091/original/file-20231016-15-yh6rw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554091/original/file-20231016-15-yh6rw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554091/original/file-20231016-15-yh6rw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554091/original/file-20231016-15-yh6rw2.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">Could exposure to art lead to healthier aging?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Healthier consumers of culture</h2>
<p>Research has been carried out in England on samples of several thousand individuals whose long-term health indicators were monitored, and who were asked for 10 years to report on their habits in terms of <a href="https://www.elsa-project.ac.uk">cultural and artistic activities</a>.</p>
<p>This research shows that individuals who regularly (every two or three months, or more) visit cultural venues (theatres, opera houses, museums, galleries) have a 50 per cent lower risk of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/cultural-engagement-and-cognitive-reserve-museum-attendance-and-dementia-incidence-over-a-10year-period/0D5F792DD1842E97AEFAD1274CCCC9B9">dementia</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6429253/">depression</a>, and a 40 per cent lower risk of developing a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/75/3/571/5280637">geriatric frailty syndrome</a> (age-related decline in health and loss of functional independence).</p>
<p>Does that mean that exposure to art could lead to healthier aging?</p>
<p>Perhaps, but whether cultural involvement is the cause of the improvement in health markers observed in these studies, has yet to be confirmed. To do this, cohort studies and <a href="https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/48952.html">randomized controlled trials</a> are required. However, this type of study has yet to be done.</p>
<h2>In search of the active ingredients</h2>
<p>There is one other question, and it’s a big one! It’s the question of <em>why</em>.</p>
<p>Why would art, and visual art in particular, do me good? What happens in my body when I encounter a work of art, and how does this contact transform me and help to keep me healthier – if this is the case?</p>
<p>This was the question Mikaela Law, a psychology researcher at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and her colleagues asked in 2021. They <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/6/e043549.abstract">reviewed the scientific literature</a> for studies on the physiological response to the visual arts and its effect on self-reported stress. </p>
<p>Some of the studies listed in her work show that contact with artwork can lower blood pressure, heart rate and the cortisol secreted in saliva. Such changes reflect a reduction in the body’s state of guardedness, also called stress. This change appears to be perceived by the individual, reflected by the reduction in the stress he or she feels after exposure.</p>
<p>Other studies, on the other hand, have observed no effects. </p>
<p>So, if contact with visual art is likely to bring about physical and psychological relaxation for the viewer, it may not be a sufficient condition for improved health.</p>
<p>This conclusion invites us to qualify our conclusions and reflect more deeply on what happens at the moment of an encounter with a work that might condition its effects on an individual’s psyche.</p>
<p>Today is Saturday…</p>
<p>You’ve decided you’re going to the museum. </p>
<p>This decision will likely be good for your health. </p>
<p>It’s also likely to depend on the museum you choose, and how you visit it. </p>
<p>However one thing’s certain: going to a museum means you will greatly increase your chances of having a pleasant day!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216978/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Dupuy works in partnership with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and has received funding from MITACS, the Université de Montréal and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec.</span></em></p>
Can a trip to a museum help cure mental dullness? Here’s what the science has to say.
Emma Dupuy, Postdoctoral researcher, cognitive neuroscience, Université de Montréal
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215599
2023-12-04T23:32:48Z
2023-12-04T23:32:48Z
At HOTA, sneakers find their well-deserved place in art galleries at last
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563135/original/file-20231203-15-2rftik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C1600%2C1074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">PUMA X RIME NYC Luxe Sky Wedge (2013), Ed Reeve, Design Museum London.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Sneakers were once traditionally associated with what fashion academic Naomi Braithwaite describes as “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-sneakers-from-commodity-to-cultural-icon-127268">athleticism</a>”: they were only considered in their relationship to sports. </p>
<p>But things have changed in one of the most significant yet overlooked style revolutions of our times. In the late 20th century, sneakers became the footwear of choice for youth and subcultures. In the 21st century, they are the defining footwear of our era. </p>
<p>Sneakers are ubiquitous: on the feet of elite athletes, icons of street cultures, super models on prestigious runways, and ordinary people for exercise, leisure and work. Global sales hit <a href="https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/sneakers-market-report">US$79 billion</a> in 2021.</p>
<p>With such diverse consumer identities and needs, how have designers responded over the years? And what stories are behind the success of certain sneakers? </p>
<p>Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street at HOTA, Home of the Arts, attempts to answer these questions with an impressive collection curated by Ligaya Salazar from the Design Museum in London, with some local additions.</p>
<h2>An engaging journey</h2>
<p>This exhibition offers an engaging journey of exploration in two parts. The first is Style. We step into a gallery of aeroplane hanger proportions. Sneakers are in glass cases with text highlighting their importance as historical pieces; there are giant photographs of youth cultures and icons wearing fashionable “kicks” on the walls; a basketball court with bean bags to watch short films. </p>
<p>There is no one “sneaker culture”. Subcultures are often hyper-fashion conscious and brand obsessed. </p>
<p>A timeline of sneaker history traces their rising status in youth cultures in New York during the 1970s, then in the basketball and hip-hop worlds where sneakers transformed from sports shoe to fashion statement.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563137/original/file-20231203-15-v0428h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563137/original/file-20231203-15-v0428h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563137/original/file-20231203-15-v0428h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563137/original/file-20231203-15-v0428h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563137/original/file-20231203-15-v0428h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563137/original/file-20231203-15-v0428h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563137/original/file-20231203-15-v0428h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563137/original/file-20231203-15-v0428h.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">Converse All Star (1930). Ed Reeve, Design Museum London.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Shiny white runners worn by Run-DMC are set side-by-side with Michael Jordan’s famous shoes. Icons and the shoes they made famous are given a good dose of reverence, but in a way that is accessible. You can get up close and admire the shoes, read some of the history through the wall texts, and absorb the historical significance of the shoes through the photographs accompanying each case.</p>
<p>There is an impressive section on skate culture including <a href="https://www.vans.com/en-us/company/about">VANS</a>, which was founded in 1966 and one of the leading shoes for skateboarders. The exhibition perceptively understands the culture as well as the shoes. </p>
<p>Photographs of well-known skaters from the 1970s and 1980s sit alongside a nod to Thrasher magazine and insight into how skaters “destroy” shoes as part of their practice. Deteriorating and ripped shoes can be a badge of honour, as one demolished pair of VANS once worn by a seasoned skater in the exhibition shows.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563136/original/file-20231203-27-6iiwgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563136/original/file-20231203-27-6iiwgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563136/original/file-20231203-27-6iiwgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563136/original/file-20231203-27-6iiwgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563136/original/file-20231203-27-6iiwgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563136/original/file-20231203-27-6iiwgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563136/original/file-20231203-27-6iiwgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563136/original/file-20231203-27-6iiwgj.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">Installation view, Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street at HOTA Gallery. Credit Milk and Honey Creative.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HOTA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Scientific advances</h2>
<p>The second part of the exhibition is Performance, detailing the scientific research – from shoes that measure temperature to ones designed to be more sustainable.</p>
<p>There is a chance to better understand how the feel and performance of sneakers have been developed, and how basketball sneakers have benefited from input by Chuck Taylor. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563140/original/file-20231203-29-ogevti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563140/original/file-20231203-29-ogevti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563140/original/file-20231203-29-ogevti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563140/original/file-20231203-29-ogevti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563140/original/file-20231203-29-ogevti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563140/original/file-20231203-29-ogevti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563140/original/file-20231203-29-ogevti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563140/original/file-20231203-29-ogevti.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">Onitsuka Tiger TG4 Marathon (1968 - 72). Ed Reeve, Design Museum London.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are interesting concept-driven shoes by Puma, including self-lacing shoes, and shoes designed to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/puma-mit-shoes-can-breathe.html">read biological information</a> of the wearer.</p>
<p>However scientifically advanced these shoes are, they are not always aesthetically appealing – some by Puma remind me of fancy Crocs.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gen-z-grew-up-in-a-world-filled-with-ugly-fashion-no-wonder-they-love-their-crocs-200718">Gen Z grew up in a world filled with ugly fashion – no wonder they love their Crocs</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Cultural vibrancy</h2>
<p>The exhibition features a photo of Tommie Smith and John Carlos with Norman Williams from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute">1968 Olympics in Mexico City</a>. While Smith and Carlos wore only black socks in the most famous photo of their Black Power salute, they wore <a href="https://www.nssmag.com/en/fashion/23815/puma-suede-limited-edition-tommie-smith">Puma</a> shoes in the race that won them the medals, later infamously stripped from them.</p>
<p>Beside the famous podium photograph are a pair of the same style of Puma shoes, an example of how sneakers are embedded with social meanings and sometimes politically shape tensions beyond their intended purpose for high performance sport.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563139/original/file-20231203-18-lmlt5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563139/original/file-20231203-18-lmlt5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563139/original/file-20231203-18-lmlt5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563139/original/file-20231203-18-lmlt5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563139/original/file-20231203-18-lmlt5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563139/original/file-20231203-18-lmlt5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563139/original/file-20231203-18-lmlt5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563139/original/file-20231203-18-lmlt5g.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">Adidas NMD HU Pharrell Human Race ‘Yellow’ (2016). Ed Reeve, Design Museum London.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sneakers Unboxed aims to celebrate the cultural vibrancy and design milestones of the sneaker world, rather than ddress its failures and shortcomings. But there is an effort to acknowledge issues. A <a href="https://hota.com.au/whats-on/live/talks-and-ideas/sneakers-unboxed-women-in-sneakers-panel">Women in Sneakers</a> panel (which I spoke at) looked at how the industry can improve gender equity and social inclusion. Short films highlighting scenes in the Global South highlight voices that rarely get a platform. </p>
<p>Sneakers have a global appeal and different communities and locations shape the culture. A section on grime – a rap movement from the early 2000s predating the harder hitting drill music from Chicago that spread to the United Kingdom ten years later – highlights how Black youth in the UK are creating their own forms of pride, identity and belonging.</p>
<p>The sneaker industry has ties to many social issues including colonialism and labour exploitation. None of the big brands are without serious critique. More conversations like the ones in the panel and short films are valuable and needed to keep up the momentum to push brands to improve and do better.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563141/original/file-20231203-27-esyf9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563141/original/file-20231203-27-esyf9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563141/original/file-20231203-27-esyf9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563141/original/file-20231203-27-esyf9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563141/original/file-20231203-27-esyf9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563141/original/file-20231203-27-esyf9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563141/original/file-20231203-27-esyf9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563141/original/file-20231203-27-esyf9q.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">Sneaker Archaeology. 2021. Artist: Helen Kirkum. Ed Reeve, Design Museum London.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If you love sneakers and are a die-hard fan, this is the exhibit for you. However, those totally oblivious to the cultural relevance of sneakers will also enjoy learning about the history of sneakers in music and subcultures, fashion, the world of collectors and high-performance sport.</p>
<p>This exhibition opens the door on the sneaker world and our love of this footwear. It is up to all of us – but especially industry – to commit to finding ways to be more responsive to local and global issues and ongoing efforts to move forward towards kicks with ethics.</p>
<p><em>Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street is now on at HOTA on the Gold Coast.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-sneakers-from-commodity-to-cultural-icon-127268">The history of sneakers: from commodity to cultural icon</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215599/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Indigo Willing was a speaker on the Women in Sneakers Panel hosted by HOTA.</span></em></p>
Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street is now on at HOTA on the Gold Coast.
Indigo Willing, Social Science Fellow, The Sydney Social Science and Humanities Advanced Research Centre, The University of Sydney. Adjunct Research Fellow, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214263
2023-11-20T19:00:38Z
2023-11-20T19:00:38Z
Timeless allure: why Australia is filled to the brim with exhibitions on ancient Egypt
<p>Closing last month, this year WA Museum Boola Bardip in Perth was host to a major exhibition <a href="https://visit.museum.wa.gov.au/boolabardip/discovering-ancient-egypt">Discovering Ancient Egypt</a>.</p>
<p>The Australian Museum’s “once-in-a-lifetime” <a href="https://australian.museum/exhibition/ramses/">Ramses & The Gold of the Pharaohs</a> exhibition featuring 181 objects from ancient Egypt opened last week in Sydney.</p>
<p>Just four weeks after that exhibition shuts, the 2024 “winter masterpieces” exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne will be <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/pharaoh/">Pharaoh</a>, featuring 500 objects in the largest international loan ever from the British Museum. </p>
<p>Why is there such an intense fascination with a civilisation so far removed from our time and place?</p>
<h2>Centuries of Egyptomania</h2>
<p>Few historical cultures seem to have such a hold over the minds of the general public. </p>
<p>Awe-inspiring temples, elaborate mummification rituals, beliefs in afterlife, and contributions to <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=g1ooDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP17&dq=ancient+Egyptian+engineering&ots=KkhNGELDL3&sig=myeyhg75-cNDxdZhP8uf25AQmqo&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=ancient%20Egyptian%20engineering&f=false">science, technology, engineering</a> and <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Egyptian_Medicine/">medicine</a> left an indelible mark on the course of human progress.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559220/original/file-20231114-23-ceqaiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559220/original/file-20231114-23-ceqaiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559220/original/file-20231114-23-ceqaiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559220/original/file-20231114-23-ceqaiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559220/original/file-20231114-23-ceqaiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559220/original/file-20231114-23-ceqaiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559220/original/file-20231114-23-ceqaiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559220/original/file-20231114-23-ceqaiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Napoleon in Egypt (Jean-Léon Gérôme),, 1953-78.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/24513.">Image courtesy of the Princeton University Art Museum.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Egyptomania”, a term coined to describe the West’s fascination with Egypt, can be traced back to Napoleon’s expedition in the late 18th century. <a href="https://www.napoleon.org/en/young-historians/napodoc/bonaparte-in-egypt-2-the-scientific-expedition/">Scientific discoveries</a> and <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/napoleon/facts-and-figures/napoleon-in-egypt.html">illustrations</a> from that expedition fuelled worldwide curiosity about the secrets of this ancient land. </p>
<p>A key figure of the Egyptomania was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-Battista-Belzoni">Giovanni Battista Belzoni</a> (1778–1823), an Italian explorer and strongman (and con-man) whose daring adventures and discoveries – including removal of colossal Egyptian statues – added fuel to the fire. </p>
<p>This cultural phenomenon influenced fashion and design. Egyptian motifs, such as lotus flowers, scarabs and sphinxes became popular decorative elements in clothing, jewellery and <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/erev/hd_erev.htm">home decor</a> during the 19th and early 20th centuries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559224/original/file-20231114-25-84pk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559224/original/file-20231114-25-84pk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559224/original/file-20231114-25-84pk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559224/original/file-20231114-25-84pk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559224/original/file-20231114-25-84pk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559224/original/file-20231114-25-84pk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559224/original/file-20231114-25-84pk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559224/original/file-20231114-25-84pk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armchair featuring Egyptian-inspired designs, attributed to Pottier and Stymus Manufacturing Company ca. 1870–75.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/237">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Agatha Christie (who was married to archaeologist Max Mallowan and spent many years working on excavations in the Middle East) sent her famous detective Hercule Poirot into the world of mummies and pharaohs in <a href="https://www.agathachristie.com/en/stories/death-on-the-nile">Death on the Nile</a> and set <a href="https://www.agathachristie.com/en/stories/death-comes-as-the-end">Death Comes as the End</a> on the Western Bank of Thebes.</p>
<p>Ancient Egypt’s grip on our collective consciousness manifests <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Ancient_Egypt_in_the_Popular_Imagination/bqPVFW-0B3MC?hl=en&gbpv=0">throughout popular culture</a>. Films such as The Mummy and Cleopatra, games such as Assassin’s Creed Origins and popular cartoon TV series <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386986/">Tutenstein</a> blend historical facts with creative storytelling, perpetuating the mystique and wonder of this lost civilisation. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2wmzRZzGRtc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Ancient Egypt is a staple in schools. For many Australians, their first introduction to a world beyond their immediate surroundings often comes in the form of ancient Egyptian history in the <a href="https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/humanities-and-social-sciences/history/?strand=Historical+Knowledge+and+Understanding&strand=Historical+Skills&capability=ignore&priority=ignore&year=12318&elaborations=true&cd=ACOKFH003&searchTerm=ACOKFH003">national curriculum for year 7</a>. </p>
<p>This portal to history and foreign cultures opened in childhood often results in lifelong fascination. You might ask: how much Egypt can Australians take? It seems the answer is “a lot”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-a-story-of-treasures-revisiting-tutankhamuns-tomb-100-years-after-its-discovery-193293">More than a story of treasures: revisiting Tutankhamun's tomb 100 years after its discovery</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A long line of exhibitions</h2>
<p>These latest exhibitions follow a long, near continuous, list of Egyptian exhibitions in Australia. </p>
<p>In 2007, the National Gallery of Australia showcased <a href="https://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/egyptian-antiquities-from-the-louvre/">Egyptian Antiquities from the Louvre: Journey to the Afterlife</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-10-30/tutankhamuns-treasures-heading-to-australia/2317636">Tutankhamen And The Golden Age Of The Pharaohs</a> was at the Melbourne Museum in 2011. The Western Australian Museum hosted <a href="https://museum.wa.gov.au/whats-on/afterlife">Secrets of the Afterlife: Magic, Mummies and Immortality in Ancient Egypt</a> in 2013. <a href="https://artsreview.com.au/egyptian-mummies-exploring-ancient-lives/">Egyptian Mummies: Exploring Ancient Lives</a> was at Sydney’s Powerhouse in 2016.</p>
<p>In 2012, the Queensland Museum hosted items from the British Museum in <a href="https://recollections.nma.gov.au/issues/volume_8_number_1/exhibition_reviews/mummy_secrets_of_the_tomb">Mummy: Secrets of the Tomb</a>. The same museum hosted British Museum artefacts again in 2018 in <a href="https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/egyptian-mummies-digitally-unwrapped-in-brisbane-20180315-p4z4jm.html">Egyptian Mummies: Exploring Ancient Lives</a>. In between, the Queensland University Museum hosted <a href="https://www.uq.edu.au/events/event_view.php?event_id=12181">Egypt: Land of the Pharaohs</a> from 2016–18.</p>
<p>From an <a href="https://www.sydney.edu.au/museum/whats-on/exhibitions/the-egyptian-galleries.html">impressive gallery</a> in Chau Chak Wing Museum in Sydney to the small – and in need of a serious update – gallery in the <a href="https://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/ancient-egypt-gallery">South Australian Museum</a>, each state also proudly displays its own permanent collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts.</p>
<p>Despite this extensive exhibition history, Australia’s interest in ancient Egypt seems to show no signs of waning.</p>
<h2>Shifting Egyptology</h2>
<p>The new exhibition in Sydney gives a <a href="https://australian.museum/exhibition/ramses/">window into the life and accomplishments of Ramses II</a> who ruled Egypt for 67 years.</p>
<p>The National Gallery of Victoria’s exhibition will aim to deepen visitors’ understanding of ancient Egyptian culture, allowing them to see <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/20/national-gallery-victoria-pharaoh-exhibition-egypt-2024-winter-masterpieces">beyond the opulence</a>.</p>
<p>This is part of a broader shift in Egyptology, archaeology and history towards emphasising understanding of <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/research/themes/egypt/">the lives of everyday people</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559227/original/file-20231114-17-ul1ah1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559227/original/file-20231114-17-ul1ah1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559227/original/file-20231114-17-ul1ah1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559227/original/file-20231114-17-ul1ah1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559227/original/file-20231114-17-ul1ah1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559227/original/file-20231114-17-ul1ah1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559227/original/file-20231114-17-ul1ah1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559227/original/file-20231114-17-ul1ah1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Painting from the tomb chapel of Nebamen, 1350BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/244305001">© The Trustees of the British Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For a long time, Egyptology was centred on grand monuments, temples, tombs, pharaohs and the elite. We now recognise that to understand a civilisation we need to also explore the lives, activities and contributions of ordinary people.</p>
<p>But these major exhibitions coincide with rising debates about the provenance and repatriation of artefacts. A Tutankhamen exhibition which toured the world just before the COVID pandemic and which was scheduled to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/sydney-s-blockbuster-king-tut-show-cancelled-for-good-20210317-p57bjb.html">appear in Sydney</a> has, amid <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-53342665">some controversy</a>, finally settled back at home, in the Grand Museum in Cairo, Egypt, where it will – hopefully – remain forever.</p>
<p>Repatriation of artefacts is a sensitive issue that has been gaining momentum in recent years and questions are being raised, even more loudly now, whether institutions such as <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341767/the-brutish-museums/">the British Museum should even possess</a> such artefacts. </p>
<p>Zahi Hawass, former minister of antiquities for Egypt, has called for repatriation of stolen heritage and accused western museums of <a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/should-british-museum-return-its-egyptian-collection?ssp=1&setlang=en-AU&safesearch=moderate">continuing imperialistic practice</a> by purchasing new artefacts and refusing to return them to their country of origin. Some large travelling exhibitions are already moving away from displaying these artefacts towards immersive digital experiences with great examples in <a href="https://www.visitlisboa.com/en/events/mysterious-egypt">Lisbon</a>, <a href="https://www.oebb.at/en/tickets-kundenkarten/freizeit-urlaub/oebb-plus/wien/tutanchamun">Vienna</a> and <a href="https://visit-gem.com/tut">Cairo</a>. </p>
<p>For now in Australia, though, it is not just artefacts and treasures that will be on display. It is a celebration of human spirit, ingenuity and quest for knowledge. The sands of time have failed to bury our fascination in ancient Egypt.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-discovery-of-the-lost-city-of-the-dazzling-aten-will-offer-vital-clues-about-domestic-and-urban-life-in-ancient-egypt-158874">The discovery of the lost city of 'the Dazzling Aten' will offer vital clues about domestic and urban life in Ancient Egypt</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna M. Kotarba-Morley receives funding from Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
A new exhibition in Sydney is just the latest in a long, near continuous, list of Egyptian exhibitions in Australia. How much Egypt can we take?
Anna M. Kotarba-Morley, Lecturer in Museum and Curatorial Studies, University of Adelaide
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214788
2023-10-18T13:48:08Z
2023-10-18T13:48:08Z
Evolution revolution: how a Cape Town museum exhibit is rewriting the story of humankind
<p>Picture your typical human evolution museum display. You walk into a dimly lit space with glass boxes on white plinths or roped off areas. There are lots and lots of bones. Maybe a bit of history on how those bones were collected, and pictures of the famous people – usually men – who collected them. Often there are reconstructions of what these human ancestors might have looked like: dark-skinned and hairless ape-people, walking, mostly naked, holding stone tools, or even being hunted. </p>
<p>But where are <em>you</em>? How does such an exhibit show you who you are and how you came to be? We don’t think it does. So, in 2018 we were among a group of human evolution researchers who decided it was time to do things differently. The result is Humanity, a new human evolution exhibit that opened in September 2023 at <a href="https://www.iziko.org.za/museums/south-african-museum/">Iziko South African Museum</a> in Cape Town.</p>
<p>The exhibit offers a close look at the problematic history of palaeoanthropology; it also attempts to decolonise the story of human origins. To do so, it looks at how human evolution has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-and-race-in-south-africa-lessons-from-old-bones-in-boxes-179774">portrayed in the past</a>, in ways that reinforce western biases and alienate and dehumanise living Africans. Then it works to remove those biases and make our understanding of human evolution scientifically accurate, broadly relevant and inclusive. </p>
<p>This is part of a broader reckoning happening in <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-accurately-portray-histories-museums-need-to-do-more-than-reimagine-galleries-189109">museum practice globally</a>. Many institutions are reconsidering their collections and their roles as participants in colonial practice, including theft of artefacts and bodies. It is essential to consider how museums continue to alienate precisely the people who are owed reparations.</p>
<p>We learned an enormous amount while developing this exhibit, which is now a permanent fixture at the museum. Our hope is that these four central lessons could help other institutions locally and internationally to reconsider how they portray human evolution – and to understand why it matters.</p>
<h2>A learning process</h2>
<p><strong>1. Make the co-creation process as inclusive as possible:</strong></p>
<p>The Humanity exhibit was created through a collaborative process involving curators, researchers, collections managers, designers, conservators, educators, artists, heritage practitioners, community members, public participants, procurement specialists, service providers and administrators. </p>
<p>In this process, our plans changed often, when a diversity of lenses showed us where content and design missed the mark. The product is radically different from what we thought we would create. It is richer for that. </p>
<p><strong>2. Lose the “great white explorer” narrative:</strong> </p>
<p>The history of human evolution is traditionally told as a story of white male exploration and discovery. South Africans learn in school and through the media about <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/raymond-arthur-dart">Raymond Dart</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/robert-broom">Robert Broom</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/professor-emeritus-phillip-tobias">Phillip Tobias</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lee-Berger">Lee Berger</a> and other mostly foreign, English-speaking white men who are associated with important fossil discoveries in the country. </p>
<p>In contrast, we centred the exhibit’s story on the diversity of people in South Africa and how that diversity came to be. </p>
<p>This was done through portraiture, genetic testing and interviews about cultural identity to explore, through individuals, what makes them “them”. Interviewees spoke in the South African languages of their choice. This exploration of our collective humanity was used as an inroad for understanding how evolution has worked to shape us into what we are today.</p>
<p><strong>3. Own the problematic past:</strong></p>
<p>Early South African palaeoanthropologists didn’t only find fossils: they also <a href="https://theconversation.com/archaeology-is-changing-slowly-but-its-still-too-tied-up-in-colonial-practices-133243">often engaged in colonial, racist science</a>, studying and measuring living people as models for our “primitive” ancestors. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/archaeology-is-changing-slowly-but-its-still-too-tied-up-in-colonial-practices-133243">Archaeology is changing, slowly. But it's still too tied up in colonial practices</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Even the iconography of human evolution has racist, colonial overtones. A Google Image search for “human evolution” will turn up a trove of images depicting evolution as a line of hominins transitioning from more ape-like to more human-like. Often the earlier ones are more hunched, hairier, and darker, suggesting <a href="https://theconversation.com/comparing-black-people-to-monkeys-has-a-long-dark-simian-history-55102">a link between black bodies and primitiveness</a>, while the end product is a striding white man. </p>
<p>We put in place a number of interventions to deal with this legacy. The exhibit openly discusses race and racism, as well as the history of palaeoanthropology and institutions like Iziko Museum in propping up racist science. This is crucial because, although <a href="https://bioanth.org/about/position-statements/aapa-statement-race-and-racism-2019/">racial categories are meaningless biologically</a>, they have had adverse social effects.</p>
<p>The theme of human connection is threaded through the whole exhibit. This shows how human evolution is not linear, but rather a braided stream – a view <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=nztLth2ZCZpvVf2J&v=5Iy5mt7F_N4&feature=youtu.be">consistent with cutting-edge science</a>. It also shows how the origin of our species is pan-African, and includes <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-homo-sapiens-the-sole-surviving-member-of-the-human-family/">contributions from beyond Africa</a>, and how this has made humanity more variable and more resilient.</p>
<p><strong>4. Break the glass boxes:</strong></p>
<p>Probably the biggest surprise as we developed this exhibit, at least for those of us raised going to museums, was how alienating museums actually are to most people. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/museum-cultural-institution">Museums are a western notion</a>. Putting heritage objects behind glass and on pedestals in sterile spaces is not only alienating, it can be downright offensive. The Humanity exhibit does not fit traditional museum aesthetics. </p>
<p>Instead, visitors are drawn into a welcoming space enveloped in a reed structure that resembles a giant basket, or a hut, staring up at the African sky. A wall of 100 handaxes is there to be touched, as are some important fossil casts. Gone are the scientific illustrations and realistically painted past landscapes. Instead, stories are communicated using art that is familiar to everyone – photographs, videos, animations, comic strips and graffiti. </p>
<h2>Everyone’s story</h2>
<p>The story of humanity is everyone’s story. A story of migration and mixing, and adapting to new contexts. It is a story of the connection of people along the long braided stream of our shared origins. It is important that we tell it that way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>We are grateful for the many voices and helping hands in the development of this exhibition. HUMANITY received funding from: Department of Sports, Art & Culture (DSAC); National Research Foundation (NRF) Human & Social Dynamics platform; University of Cape Town, #AdvancingWomen Grant; GENUS Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (CoE-Palaeo); Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST). European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB), and Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Ackermann 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 exhibit offers a close look at the problematic history of palaeoanthropology.
Rebecca Ackermann, Professor, Department of Archaeology and Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town
Wendy Black, Chief Curator of Art & Social History, Iziko Museums of South Africa
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215500
2023-10-12T12:40:28Z
2023-10-12T12:40:28Z
Fortnite’s new in-game Holocaust museum shows us a virtual future for education
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553460/original/file-20231012-28-md9l1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C1905%2C1077&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A player in Fortnite visiting the Holocaust museum and learning about the Jews of Tunisia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luc Bernard</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve played Fortnite, you’ll probably know it as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_royale_game">battle royale game</a> in which you fight it out with around 100 other players until there is only one left standing. And you might be surprised to hear the game has just launched a new experience for players: <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/10/02/fortnites-holocaust-museum-and-how-video-games-are-addressing-history">a Holocaust museum</a>. </p>
<p>Called Voices of The Forgotten, the museum serves as a virtual educational experience enabling players to learn about the history of the Holocaust. Spread across two floors, the museum contains photographs and details of the Holocaust, events that occurred during it, and historical figures from the era with their stories documented for all to see.</p>
<p>The memorial was built by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Bernard">Luc Bernard</a>, the British game developer behind <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/jun/10/the-light-in-the-darkness-review-a-sobering-free-educational-game-that-confronts-the-holocaust">The Light in the Darkness</a>, about a family of Polish Jews in France during the Holocaust, and the unreleased <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2013/9/4/4695298/imagination-is-the-only-escape-holocaust-game">Imagination is the Only Escape</a>, an educational title aiming to teach children about the Holocaust. Bernard has long been a prominent advocate for Holocaust education, and the role of video games as a medium for this. </p>
<p>Bernard also uses his digital presence to advocate against antisemitism and Holocaust denial. In a tweet, <a href="https://twitter.com/LucBernard/status/1709081893470138598">he stated</a>: “Yes, having a Holocaust museum within Fortnite is important. And yes, @EpicGames allowing us to build one will help us push back on extremism and hate that is rising worldwide.”</p>
<p>It might seem like an unusual decision for Epic Games to approve the addition of the museum, but it’s not the first time a Holocaust museum has appeared in a virtual space. </p>
<p>In 2008, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum created a virtual museum exhibit in Second Life (a virtual online world that allows its users to create their own content) called <a href="https://secondlife.com/destination/747">Witnessing History: Kristallnacht, the 1938 Pogroms</a>. And earlier this year, a virtual scale model of <a href="https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/article-729670">Yad Vashem</a>, the world Holocaust remembrance centre, was constructed in the computer game Minecraft. Now, with the addition of Fortnite, it is becoming clear that virtual environments are providing new opportunities to preserve history and educate on complex matters.</p>
<h2>The limits of metaverse museums</h2>
<p>In compliance with the Epic Games policy regarding no graphic or disturbing content in Fortnite islands, the museum doesn’t feature imagery of death or suffering. The photographs on display show people prior to the Holocaust – the lives they lived and who they once were.</p>
<p>Emotes (actions that can be used by players, such as dances and poses) and weapons – two of the hallmark features of Fortnite – are disabled in the museum. Although players may visit using the appearances of superheroes and anime characters, they are unable to play in this area. In the museum, the game begins to transition into its own metaverse – a virtual platform for users to create their own content and experiences for other players to explore.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The front of the Fortnite's Holocaust Museum Voices of the Forgotten ." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553459/original/file-20231012-27-7zsn0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553459/original/file-20231012-27-7zsn0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553459/original/file-20231012-27-7zsn0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553459/original/file-20231012-27-7zsn0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553459/original/file-20231012-27-7zsn0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553459/original/file-20231012-27-7zsn0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553459/original/file-20231012-27-7zsn0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fortnite’s Holocaust museum, Voices of The Forgotten, is not allowed to show any violent imagery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luc Bernard/wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Where Fortnite’s museum and other platforms’ exhibits differ from those in real-world museums lies within the constraints applied to each metaverse, and what the desired result is for their creators.</p>
<p>Some real-world museums, such as the Imperial War Museum in London, don’t shy away from showing the gruesome reality of the Holocaust, including imagery of concentration camps. Other museums avoid depicting this at all, and instead focus on the history of the Holocaust or its emotional aspects. For example, the <a href="https://www.jmberlin.de/en/libeskind-building">Libeskind Building in Berlin’s Jewish Museum</a> doesn’t include any imagery, and instead seeks to evoke an emotional response from visitors with its unusual architecture and aesthetics.</p>
<p>But museums in virtual spaces operate by a separate set of rules. In the case of Fortnite, Epic Games don’t permit gory or traumatising content to be placed within creations, so would limit any exhibits aspiring to communicate the full horror of the Holocaust.</p>
<p>Second Life exhibits have more freedom with content that can be included. However, depending on where you’re playing, there are different maturity ratings and strict policies regarding what type of content can be depicted in your region. Although this may allow for more gruesome aspects of the Holocaust to be depicted, it comes with the restriction that younger audiences would be unable to visit the exhibit.</p>
<h2>New frontiers of education</h2>
<p>Despite these limitations, computer game worlds offer new opportunities that would be logistically implausible or otherwise impossible for real-world museums. Large-scale exhibits that use rail networks to guide you through exhibitions, as well as flight or even teleportation, are entirely possible within games engines. </p>
<p>Aspiring creators would, however, do well to heed prior advice regarding the creation of such experiences, to ensure they are informative, factual, and handle the subject in a respectful manner. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has provided a <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/teach/fundamentals/guidelines-for-teaching-the-holocaust">set of guidelines for teaching about the Holocaust</a>, including making responsible choices for designing a learning exercise.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1691342422213857280"}"></div></p>
<p>Although Fortnite and Minecraft may be popular games for all age groups, there can be no denying that their primary target audiences are children and teenagers. With their vibrant colour palettes and cartoonish approaches to violence, the developers of both games have meticulously created gameplay that is appropriate for, and appealing to, children.</p>
<p>It can therefore be argued that it is young audiences who are the most likely to engage with these virtual exhibitions, and who may stand to learn from them. Indeed, Bernard has gone as far as to <a href="https://twitter.com/LucBernard/status/1708265684919255549">tweet</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>At this point, having a Holocaust museum within Fortnite and releasing The Light in the Darkness in Unreal Engine will be educating people more about genocide than schools will be able to.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Traditionally, schools, textbooks and real-world museums have been the primary sources of knowledge on most subjects. However, in an era where the internet is intrinsically woven into daily life, and education has new ways of engaging with learners, are metaverse learning experiences going to be the new frontier of education?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/survey-finds-shocking-lack-holocaust-knowledge-among-millennials-gen-z-n1240031">In a study from 2020</a>, adults in the US below the age of 40 were shown to have a poor understanding of the basic facts and figures of the Holocaust. Learning opportunities in platforms such as Fortnite, Second Life and Minecraft, and emerging virtual worlds like Meta’s Metaverse, offer exciting potential for using innovative approaches to engage learners. These educational avenues allow users to explore and learn from the comfort of their own homes and devices, inside the games they know and love. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<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">
<figcaption>
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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/215500/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Challenor 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>
It might seem odd but it’s not the first museum in a video game or metaverse.
Jennifer Challenor, Lecturer of Games Art, Staffordshire University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214265
2023-10-09T19:09:59Z
2023-10-09T19:09:59Z
Behind the scenes of the Voice referendum, Australia’s museums are already collecting the history of tomorrow
<p>Australians are being flooded with information in the lead-up to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum. </p>
<p>Corflute signs, printed T-shirts, graffiti and leaflets from both the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2023/sep/18/indigenous-voice-to-parliament-referendum-australians-march-for-yes-campaign-rally-pictures">yes</a>” and “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-23/voice-to-parliament-no-rallies-held-in-major-australian-cities/102889222">no</a>” campaigns are everywhere. </p>
<p>While this is happening, our museums are working to document the event in real time, to create the historical collections of the future.</p>
<p>But what should our museums collect from the sea of information and imagery to represent how Australians feel about the referendum? What obligations and challenges do our national museums face in collecting today for tomorrow?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/7-rules-for-a-respectful-and-worthwhile-voice-referendum-212974">7 rules for a respectful and worthwhile Voice referendum</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Collecting political action</h2>
<p>Libraries, archives and museums are charged with collecting, preserving and exhibiting historical material relevant to the Australian nation. This includes collecting contemporary materials, sometimes categorised by museums as “ephemera”.</p>
<p>These institutions undertake the difficult task of documenting political activities in real time. They cannot know in advance which protests or demonstrations will result in a nationally significant outcome or change, and which events will fade away without impact, meaning their collections may end up <a href="https://mgnsw.org.au/sector/resources/online-resources/collection-management/deaccessioning-and-disposal/">deaccessioned</a>.</p>
<p>Referendums provide a unique opportunity for museums to collect materials with certainty the event, whatever the outcome, will be historically relevant. </p>
<p>The period of pre-referendum debates and scheduling allows museums to fully document the processes and views expressed in the lead-up to the vote. It gives them more time to plan a targeted collecting strategy than when they have little advance knowledge about an action or protest. </p>
<h2>What should museums collect?</h2>
<p>The materials associated with collecting from contemporary political campaigns are usually everyday items of low financial value. These are more often mass-produced than individually handmade. </p>
<p>As surviving items become more difficult to source over time, they become more expensive, so it makes sense for museums to collect them in the moment.</p>
<p>The National Library of Australia is calling for Australians to <a href="https://www.nla.gov.au/stories/blog/donate-your-2023-referendum-campaign-material">donate</a> letters, “how to vote” cards, posters, pamphlets, badges, stickers, T-shirts and hats. Campaign material from all perspectives about the Voice to Parliament debate is sought, including official “yes” and “no” campaign materials and government education materials. </p>
<p>They also seek materials from lobby groups and local events, including those produced by First Nations Australians, from rural and regional communities, and materials in languages other than English.</p>
<p>Later, the materials collected from this campaign will not only tell the story of the Voice referendum, but also be used to create strong links between and across discrete collections and across political convictions and campaigns. </p>
<p>A great example of an item a museum might be looking to to collect is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/22/indigenous-voice-to-parliament-referendum-miss-wagga-wagga-quest-badge-yes-campaign">Poppy Vandermark’s unofficial “yes” badge</a>. Vandermark wore the badge, designed by a local artist, when she entered the Miss Wagga Wagga Quest. Following backlash for wearing the badge, she withdrew from the event. </p>
<p>The badge is not only a symbol of the “yes” campaign, but also can be used to tell the story of how the “yes” and “no” campaigns are debated in local communities. </p>
<p>Despite their lack of traditional value, the storytelling potential of these everyday items is enormous. Badges are small (don’t require much storage space), sturdy (don’t require specialised preservation), disposable (cheap to acquire) and expressive.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1705000921854591368"}"></div></p>
<p>The earliest examples in <a href="https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/15186">Museum Victoria</a> and <a href="https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/379817">the Powerhouse Museum</a> date from the very early 1900s. From the 1960s, badges came to define direct action collective movements, especially around sexual politics, nuclear power and the environment, the war in Vietnam and Indigenous land rights. </p>
<p>A tangible expression of the democratic right to freedom of speech, badges offer accessible entry points into an exhibition or collection from which curators can direct audiences to more complex or challenging subject matter or perspectives. </p>
<h2>Shaping history</h2>
<p>Addressing current political events also gives museums a reason to speak to the public about their role in producing historical narratives, and the obligation democratic institutions – including museums – have in documenting the human experience. </p>
<p>Recording how Australians move through decision-making processes is no less important than documenting the outcome of the vote. </p>
<p>To do this museums need to share their storytelling responsibilities with the Australian public. Talking to people about why museums want to collect their materials and agreeing on how they will be used is a good start. </p>
<p>Museums are generous in recording stories of national heroism and resilience, as in the case of <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/explore/blog/contemporary-collecting">Australia’s “Black Summer” bushfires</a>. Managing the ethical difficulties of collecting material on contested topics, like the range of opinions on COVID, is <a href="https://blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/insidemhs/the-ethics-of-contemporary-collecting/">much more difficult</a>.</p>
<p>But museums must be open about letting the public in on the role that they play in producing history. This means thinking about whose voices they record, and how to represent dissenting opinions.</p>
<p>Most importantly, museums need to spend the last week of the campaign visibly out in the community and engaging with people about what they think. Because, in the end, a single badge or T-shirt or sign can never be a full surrogate for a vote.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-badges-to-ball-gowns-how-fashion-took-centre-stage-in-the-1967-and-2023-referendums-212693">From badges to ball gowns: how fashion took centre-stage in the 1967 and 2023 referendums</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214265/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kylie Message has received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
What should our museums collect from the sea of information and imagery to represent how Australians feel about the referendum?
Kylie Message, Professor of Public Humanities, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212755
2023-09-06T15:08:00Z
2023-09-06T15:08:00Z
Missing objects leave British Museum facing historic crisis of custodianship – but case is far from unique
<p>Since mid-August, the British Museum has been mired in a controversy over the theft of up to 2,000 objects from its collections. The theft is suspected to be an inside job that took place over a period of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/25/artefacts-stolen-from-british-museum-may-be-untraceable-due-to-poor-records">20 years</a>. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66582935">Alerted</a> to the sale of alleged stolen items in 2021, the museum did not take action until earlier this year. </p>
<p>This is not the first time the Museum has come under fire and its custodianship has been <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-the-british-museum-thefts-stolen-goods-vf7tf2wt6">questioned</a> (paywall). This article turns its attention to some notorious incidents involving the curation of its collection. </p>
<h2>The Duveen scouring</h2>
<p>There can be little doubt that the most notorious of them is the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26357-6_6">Duveen scouring scandal</a>, so-named after Joseph Duveen, an ultra-rich art dealer of dubious ethics and benefactor of the British Museum. For a long time, museum officials had argued that the Parthenon marbles had better remain in Bloomsbury, because the Greeks were unable to care for them. That argument was abandoned sometime after it was revealed that back in the late 1930s the museum had scraped the marbles with abrasive tools, destroying their historic surface, its pigments and traces of toolmarks. </p>
<p>Ancient Greek temples were richly painted but remnants of colour were not to Duveen’s liking. A trustee of the British Museum <a href="https://books.google.fr/books/about/The_Crawford_Papers.html?id=55RnAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">described</a> Duveen’s attitude at the time:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘Duveen lectured and harangued us, and talked the most hopeless nonsense about cleaning old works of art. I suppose he has destroyed more old masters by overcleaning than anybody else in the world, and now he told us that all old marbles should be thoroughly cleaned – so thoroughly that he would dip them into acid. Fancy – we listened patiently to these boastful follies …’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Duveen’s men were given free access to the museum and were even allowed to give orders to staff. Soon, in a misjudged attempt to whiten what remained of the originally polychrome decoration, they started to scrub the marbles. The ‘cleaning’ lasted for fifteen months before it was stopped in September 1938. An internal board of enquiry convened at the time came to the conclusion that the resulting damage <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26357-6_6">‘is obvious and cannot be exaggerated’</a>. </p>
<p>Tactical considerations prevailed: it was important to avoid a blow to the museum’s reputation, so it kept quiet and denied that anything untoward had occurred. Documents related to the affair became, to all intends and purposes, classified. The marbles were later placed in the Duveen Gallery, named in honour of the man responsible for the damage to their historic surface.</p>
<p>The cleaning was kept a secret for 60 years until it was <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lord-elgin-and-the-marbles-9780192880536?cc=fr&lang=en&">exposed</a> by the British historian William St. Clair in 1998. Previously in favour of the retention of the marbles in the British Museum, St. Clair became one of the most vocal proponents of their repatriation.</p>
<p>The Duveen scouring was not the only modification of the marbles to cause consternation. A series of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26357-6_6">letters</a> published in <em>The Times</em> as early as 1858 expressed concern about ‘scrubbing’ of the marbles and blamed the museum for ‘vandalism’. It is probable that, if these early warnings had been headed, the Duveen scandal could have been avoided.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The painting ‘Pheidias showing the Frieze of the Parthenon to his friends’ by Lawrence Alma-Tadema gives an idea of what the decorative scheme of the original frieze may have looked like. For instance, it is thought that the background of the frieze was probably blue, as imagined by the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1868_Lawrence_Alma-Tadema_-_Phidias_Showing_the_Frieze_of_the_Parthenon_to_his_Friends.jpg">Creative Commons/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Other controversies</h2>
<p>Other incidents have tarnished the British Museum’s reputation. Documents released under freedom of information legislation show that in the 1960s and 1980s members of the public and a work accident <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1490023/Revealed-how-rowdy-schoolboys-knocked-a-leg-off-one-of-the-Elgin-Marbles.html">permanently damaged</a> figures from the Parthenon’s pediments. </p>
<p>During a 1999 conference in the museum, a sandwich lunch was served in the Duveen Gallery, and the delegates were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/dec/01/maevkennedy">encouraged to touch</a> the ancient sculptures. Many among those present found the gesture so inconsiderate that they walked out of the gallery. A journalist writing for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/02/world/london-journal-on-seeing-the-elgin-marbles-with-sandwiches.html"><em>The New York Times</em></a> commented: ‘On Seeing the Elgin Marbles, With Sandwiches’.</p>
<p>Another controversial incident was the 2014 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/world/europe/elgin-marbles-lent-to-hermitage-museum.html">secret loan</a> of the pedimental statue of the river god Ilissos to the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, at a time when Europe had imposed sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea. The loan was not announced until the statue had been transferred to Russia.</p>
<p>A controversy of a different kind concerns contested objects in the museum’s collection that are the object of repatriation requests. In contrast with other institutions, such as the V&A, the British Museum has been facing a chorus of restitution claims concerning very specific objects in its collection. The Museum has staunchly refused to engage in the debate, although since the beginning of the year it has been attempting to convince Greece to accept a <a href="https://theconversation.com/debate-sorry-british-museum-a-loan-of-the-parthenon-marbles-is-not-a-repatriation-199468">‘loan’</a> of the Parthenon marbles, apparently considering this to count as entering the repatriation debate. </p>
<p>Of course, the Museum is bound by the 1963 <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24">British Museum Act</a>, which prevents the museum from deaccessioning (disposing of) objects in its collections except on limited grounds, but that is a discussion for a different article. </p>
<h2>The museum’s current troubles</h2>
<p>Now the British Museum is trying to repair the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-the-british-museum-thefts-stolen-goods-vf7tf2wt6">dent to its reputation</a>, which comes at an inconvenient time when the museum is hoping to <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-british-museum-interim-boss-revealed-and-what-he-really-thinks-about-the-elgin-marbles-9s6zvgxnq">raise £1 billion</a> for much-needed renovation work. </p>
<p>About half of the museum’s <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/fact_sheet_bm_collection.pdf">8 million</a> items are <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection">uncatalogued</a> and this lack of an inventory has certainly facilitated the thefts. The fact that it took so long to discover the thefts also raises the question of what else might have gone missing without a trace. </p>
<p>Yet one can’t help but wonder: Do the museum’s current woes have other museum directors fretting with anxiety? How many museums have uncatalogued items in their storerooms? When a museum such as the Louvre explains that its database has entries for <a href="https://collections.louvre.fr/en/page/apropos">almost 500,000 works of art</a>, is that its entire collection or just a percentage of its collection? In a great number of cases, we simply don’t know. </p>
<p>The British Museum has yet to announce the exact number of stolen objects. But how does one know the exact number of what has gone missing without an inventory? More challenging still, how does one identify the objects, let alone <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/25/artefacts-stolen-from-british-museum-may-be-untraceable-due-to-poor-records">prove ownership</a>? </p>
<p>The secrecy is highly unusual. Sharing information about stolen objects helps identify and recover these objects. Interpol maintains an accessible database of stolen artworks precisely for that reason. But in order to enter an object in the database, it has to be <a href="https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Databases/Stolen-Works-of-Art-Database">‘fully identifiable’</a>. And the issue here is that the museum is probably still trying to identify what has gone missing. How do you fully identify an uncatalogued unphotographed object?</p>
<p>The secrecy could be attributed to another cause too. What if some of the identified stolen items are contested items that have been the object of restitution requests? For the time being, we can only speculate. </p>
<h2>Crisis as an opportunity</h2>
<p>Every crisis is an opportunity, and here too there is an opportunity. After the resignation of the director Hartwig Fischer, an interim director, Mark Jones, has been appointed. The permanent post is up for grabs. Among those <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-british-museum-interim-boss-revealed-and-what-he-really-thinks-about-the-elgin-marbles-9s6zvgxnq">mooted</a> for the museum’s top job is Tristram Hunt, the Director of the V&A, who appears to have been behind the initiative to revise museum deaccessioning laws. The selection of the next Museum Director is a crucial step in moving towards a modern British Museum that not only renovates its galleries but rebuilds its image in accordance with the new values of the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catharine Titi ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
From ill-thought renovation schemes to the latest row over the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles, this is not the first time the British Museum reckons with a custodianship crisis.
Catharine Titi, Research Associate Professor (tenured), French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/210645
2023-07-31T20:00:00Z
2023-07-31T20:00:00Z
Ned Kelly’s descendants claim cultural heritage rights over the site of his last stand. The Supreme Court disagrees
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540085/original/file-20230731-241351-66s59j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6809%2C4709&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 6 meter tall Ned Kelly stands on the main street of Glenrowan, Victoria.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Victorian Supreme Court <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/we-re-still-hunted-ned-kelly-family-descendants-lose-legal-bid-for-cultural-protections-20230725-p5dr5z.html">has determined</a> the descendants of Ned Kelly’s family are not a distinctive cultural group with the right to protections of their “<a href="https://ich.unesco.org/en/what-is-intangible-heritage-00003">intangible cultural heritage</a>”.</p>
<p>The Kelly clan’s bid for recognition was provoked by a <a href="https://www.wangaratta.vic.gov.au/Development/Our-projects/Glenrowan-Heritage-Project">proposed tourist development</a> at Glenrowan, the site of the outlaw’s last stand in 1880. The new centre will look at the story of the Kelly gang in the context of Glenrowan’s broader history.</p>
<p>Kelly’s grand-niece, Joanne Griffiths, argues the new structure and landscaping will “disrespect” her family’s “human rights” as cultural “custodians”.</p>
<p>Justice Melinda Richards found Griffiths and the family could not prove practices that would distinguish them as a cultural group. The redevelopment continues as proposed.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/we-re-still-hunted-ned-kelly-family-descendants-lose-legal-bid-for-cultural-protections-20230725-p5dr5z.html">Griffiths has claimed</a> the court’s decision is a continuation of the “persecution” meted out to the Kelly family: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we were Indigenous this wouldn’t be happening.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The case raises fascinating questions about the definition and evidence of White cultural heritage in Australia – and the way we treat sites of colonial history.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-a-gonzo-press-gang-forged-the-ned-kelly-legend-136232">Friday essay: how a 'gonzo' press gang forged the Ned Kelly legend</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is White cultural history?</h2>
<p>Glenrowan is tucked inside the south-eastern boundary of <a href="https://yynac.com.au/yorta-yorta-country/">Yorta Yorta Country</a>, where the Ovens River floodplains meet the rising foothills of the Victorian Alps. </p>
<p>In 1998, the Yorta Yorta were denied <a href="https://www.justice.vic.gov.au/your-rights/native-title">native title</a> because, according to <a href="http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/1998/1606.html#">Justice Howard Olney</a>, “the tide of history has undoubtedly washed away any traditional rights” to their lands and waters. </p>
<p>The Kelly descendants made no claim to native title. But by invoking their cultural heritage they tasked themselves with the same burden of proof required of First Nations people in fighting for land rights.</p>
<p>The Kelly descendants were not claiming the site as one of public significance. They were instead claiming a familial connection.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540087/original/file-20230731-25-ld4w50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three men on horseback." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540087/original/file-20230731-25-ld4w50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540087/original/file-20230731-25-ld4w50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540087/original/file-20230731-25-ld4w50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540087/original/file-20230731-25-ld4w50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540087/original/file-20230731-25-ld4w50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540087/original/file-20230731-25-ld4w50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540087/original/file-20230731-25-ld4w50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Kelly gang around 1870.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136417098/view">Trove</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no doubt Ned Kelly’s descendants share a unique emotional relationship with Glenrowan. That needs no justification or proof. </p>
<p>Many non-Indigenous people like myself feel close to certain places in Australia. </p>
<p>Historian James E Young coined the term “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300059915/the-texture-of-memory/">collected memory</a>” rather than “collective memory”. </p>
<p>“A society’s memory,” he says, “might be regarded as an aggregate collection of its members’ many, often competing memories.”</p>
<p>Several Australian authors have explored this collected memory. Luke Stegemann’s <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/amnesia-road/">Amnesia Road</a> investigates the entanglement of Stegemann’s life and work in the colonial histories of Queensland and Andalusia. Dean Ashenden’s <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/telling-tennant-s-story">Telling Tennant’s Story</a> examines how the place of his upbringing embodies the impacts of settler colonial legislation. </p>
<p>Collected memory is also enacted in memorials – the statue of politician William Crowther in nipaluna/Hobart is being removed so <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-11/signage-to-explain-removal-of-william-crowther-statue-hobart/102586560">only the plinth</a> will remain, with signage explaining his contentious history – and in public rituals like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/26/overwhelmed-hundreds-attend-first-dawn-service-to-be-held-on-australia-day">Survival Day Dawn Services</a>.</p>
<p>As well as lacking recognition of the Yorta Yorta struggle, the Kelly family’s bid overlooks the ongoing critique by historians like David Dufty of Ned Kelly’s story as a tale of “persecution”. </p>
<p>Anti-Irish racism notwithstanding, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/nabbing-ned-kelly/13797054">Dufty highlights</a> Kelly’s ruthless violence, use of terror in taking hostages and incoherent politics. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/true-history-of-the-kelly-gang-review-an-unheroic-portrait-of-a-violent-unhinged-colonial-punk-128463">True History of the Kelly Gang review: an unheroic portrait of a violent, unhinged, colonial punk</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540088/original/file-20230731-241351-z8jzbj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chared building remains." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540088/original/file-20230731-241351-z8jzbj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540088/original/file-20230731-241351-z8jzbj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540088/original/file-20230731-241351-z8jzbj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540088/original/file-20230731-241351-z8jzbj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540088/original/file-20230731-241351-z8jzbj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540088/original/file-20230731-241351-z8jzbj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540088/original/file-20230731-241351-z8jzbj.jpeg?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">The Glenrowan Hotel was burned down during the last stand of the Ned Kelly Gang in June 1880.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/PhotoDetail.aspx?Barcode=11453344">National Archives of Australia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By asking what is distinctive about the Kelly descendants’ right to cultural protections, we are echoing a question posed by Gunditjmara artist <a href="https://assemblepapers.com.au/2018/04/26/paola-balla-blak-matriarchy/">Paola Balla</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tell me what it means to be a white person […] beyond a notion of racial superiority.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>White cultural heritage in Australia is made of many memories and histories that intersect with one another, with settlers of colour and with First Nations people.</p>
<h2>How we commemorate colonial history</h2>
<p>Cases like these raise interesting questions about how we identify – and memorialise – shared heritage.</p>
<p>If the Kelly family took a more nuanced position, they could have opened a public conversation about how we commemorate colonial history, the nuances of historical Irish-Blak solidarities, and a deeper sense of White allyship to First Nations people’s human rights.</p>
<p>With its Big Ned, bark hut museum and janky animatronic diorama, Glenrowan is currently a prime example of what writer and artist Melody Paloma defines as “<a href="https://www.kingsartistrun.org.au/program/kitsch-sites/">settler kitsch</a>”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ANIaKNQmYvk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In Australia, the development of monuments to colonial history continues to be a work in progress. </p>
<p>The proposed development is a chance for a more complex presentation of colonial heritage. The <a href="https://www.sovereignhill.com.au/about/master-plan/">Sovereign Hill living museum</a> is working to illuminate the culturally diverse stories of Ballarat. The <a href="https://www.tmag.tas.gov.au">Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</a> has also sought to face its past by recentering its public program and exhibition spaces around First Nations and particularly Palawa art and culture.</p>
<p>Photographer Jon Rhodes has spent decades <a href="https://ccc-canberracriticscircle.blogspot.com/2022/11/book-review-whitefella-way-by-jon-rhodes.html">documenting</a> the curious histories of municipal and community treatment of sites of First Nations’ cultural heritage, and colonial violence. </p>
<p>An outlier, the <a href="https://myallcreek.org">Myall Creek Massacre Memorial</a> offers a deeply affective model of how such sites of shared cultural heritage can be rebuilt and maintained by White and Blak communities together. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540090/original/file-20230731-15-bx0wlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540090/original/file-20230731-15-bx0wlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540090/original/file-20230731-15-bx0wlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540090/original/file-20230731-15-bx0wlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540090/original/file-20230731-15-bx0wlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540090/original/file-20230731-15-bx0wlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540090/original/file-20230731-15-bx0wlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540090/original/file-20230731-15-bx0wlo.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Myall Creek Massacre Memorial is deeply affective.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1844_-_Myall_Creek_Massacre_and_Memorial_Site_-_Bronze_plaque_commemorating_the_massacre_(5056626b4).jpg">Wikimedia Commons/State of New South Wales and Office of Environment and Heritage 2019</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps Glenrowan will come to be understood as one such place: always Yorta Yorta; for a moment a place of complicated anti-colonial, White-on-White rebellion; later, a carnival of settler kitsch; and eventually, maybe, a thoughtful site of ongoing history-telling, embedded in Country.</p>
<p>Developments like the one coming to Glenrowan could create tangible answers to the question of what an inclusive and informed experience of White cultural heritage might look like.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-taking-a-wrecking-ball-to-monuments-contemporary-art-can-ask-what-really-needs-tearing-down-140437">Friday essay: taking a wrecking ball to monuments – contemporary art can ask what really needs tearing down</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bonny Cassidy 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 Victorian Supreme Court has determined the descendants of Ned Kelly’s family are not a distinctive cultural group with the right to protections of their ‘intangible cultural heritage’.
Bonny Cassidy, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199951
2023-07-17T12:25:03Z
2023-07-17T12:25:03Z
International African American Museum in Charleston, S.C., pays new respect to the enslaved Africans who landed on its docks
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537383/original/file-20230713-21-9njk23.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the exhibits of notable Black people on display at International African American Museum.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.world-architects.com/en/architecture-news/headlines/iaam-in-pictures">courtesy of v2com/International African American Museum</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before Congress <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/slave-trade.html">ended the transatlantic slave trade</a> in 1808, the Port of Charleston was <a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/news/special_reports/slavery-in-charleston-a-chronicle-of-human-bondage-in-the-holy-city/article_54334e04-4834-50b7-990b-f81fa3c2804a.html">the nation’s epicenter</a> of human trafficking. </p>
<p>Almost half of the estimated 400,000 African people imported into what became the United States were brought to that Southern city, and <a href="https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/sectionii_introduction">a substantial number</a> took their first steps on American soil at <a href="https://www.preservationsociety.org/locations/gadsdens-wharf/">Gadsden’s Wharf</a> on the Cooper River.</p>
<p>That location of once utter degradation is now the hallowed site of the <a href="https://iaamuseum.org/">International African American Museum</a>. Pronounced “I Am” and <a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-charleston-celebrates-a-new-museum-a-new-day/article_316fd1e0-0fad-11ee-a08a-7b6f11f64bdc.html">opened in June 2023</a>, the US$120 million project financed by state and local funds and private donations was 25 years in the making and is a memorial to not only those enslaved but also those whose lives as free Black Americans affected U.S. history and society through their fight for full citizenship rights. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://asalh.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/BIOGRAPHY-POWERS.pdf">a historian</a> and founding director of the College of Charleston’s <a href="https://studyslaverycharleston.cofc.edu/">Center for the Study of Slavery</a> in Charleston, I served as the museum’s interim executive director and know firsthand how difficult the road has been to build a museum focused on African American history. </p>
<p>The museum’s mission is to honor the untold stories of the African American journey and, by virtue of its location and landscape design, pay reverence to the ground on which it sits.</p>
<h2>America’s widespread historical illiteracy</h2>
<p>Many Americans don’t know much about the nation or its history. </p>
<p>In the 2022 “<a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/civics/2022/">Nation’s Report Card</a>,” the National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed ongoing deficiencies in <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/03/history-civic-test-results-covid-schools">eighth grade students’ knowledge</a> of U.S. history and civics. </p>
<p>Only 20% of test-takers scored proficient or above in civics, and, for American history, only 13% achieved proficiency.</p>
<p>The adult population shows similar deficits. </p>
<p>A 2018 <a href="https://woodrow.org/news/american-history-report/">Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation</a> survey shockingly revealed only <a href="https://citizensandscholars.org/resource/national-survey-finds-just-1-in-3-americans-would-pass-citizenship-test/">36% of people who were born in the U.S.</a> knew enough basic American history and government to pass the citizenship test.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/politics/woke-2024-gop-primary/67-ad81efcb-860c-4663-b04c-a06452961284">conservative political candidates</a> are working to prevent current students from learning key information about the country’s founding and development by mischaracterizing the teaching of slavery and civil rights as <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05">critical race theory</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A small advertisement with large black letters gives the details on the sale of 25 Black people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536689/original/file-20230710-29-mw77lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536689/original/file-20230710-29-mw77lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536689/original/file-20230710-29-mw77lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536689/original/file-20230710-29-mw77lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536689/original/file-20230710-29-mw77lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536689/original/file-20230710-29-mw77lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536689/original/file-20230710-29-mw77lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An advertisement details the auction sale of 25 enslaved Black people at Ryan’s Mart in Charleston, S.C., on Sept. 25, 1852.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/broadside-by-louis-de-saussure-of-a-sale-of-25-enslaved-sea-news-photo/1457493575?adppopup=true">Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though critical race theory is typically taught in graduate and law schools, <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/22525983/map-critical-race-theory-legislation-teaching-racism">at least 36</a> states had banned or tried to ban lessons on Black history from public K-12 classrooms. </p>
<p>In this highly politicized environment, efforts to restrict how race can be discussed in public schools have led to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/authors-color-speak-efforts-ban-books-race/story?id=81491208">widespread calls from parents and politicians</a> for the censorship of certain books on race. </p>
<p>These new restrictions have had an impact on public education, according to the <a href="https://ncheteach.org/post/How-do-we-Navigate-the-Culture-Wars-in-History-Classrooms-this-Year">National Council for History Education</a>. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-3.html">2022 survey of teachers</a> conducted by the <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-7.html">Rand Corp.</a> showed the restrictions “influenced their choice of curriculum materials or instructional practices,” as many “chose to or were directed to omit the use of certain materials” deemed “controversial or potentially offensive.”</p>
<h2>South Carolinians’ overlooked national impact</h2>
<p>One of the first things visitors see at the museum is an <a href="https://iaamuseum.org/building-and-garden/">African Ancestors Memorial Garden</a>, which includes a graphic stone relief depicting <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p277.html">captive Africans during the Middle Passage</a>.</p>
<p>But the museum is not just a memorial site of enslavement. </p>
<p>Exhibits show how the lives of Black people and their resistance to enslavement helped shape state, national and international affairs.</p>
<p>For example, South Carolina’s 1739 <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p284.html">Stono Rebellion</a>, in which fugitive slaves attempted to escape to Spanish Florida, precipitated conflict between Spain and Great Britain. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An image of a black man is shown near docks on a river." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537401/original/file-20230713-25-t9p97g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537401/original/file-20230713-25-t9p97g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537401/original/file-20230713-25-t9p97g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537401/original/file-20230713-25-t9p97g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537401/original/file-20230713-25-t9p97g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537401/original/file-20230713-25-t9p97g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537401/original/file-20230713-25-t9p97g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An exhibit detailing African people’s migration around the Atlantic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://iaamuseum.org/news/surface-mag-the-long-awaited-international-african-american-museum/">courtesy of v2com/International African American Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many Americans know about white abolitionist <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/john-browns-raid.htm">John Brown’s 1859 attack</a> against the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which led to the Civil War. </p>
<p>But few know that <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479802753/the-untold-story-of-shields-green/">Shields Green</a>, a South Carolina fugitive slave, assisted in the planning and execution of the fateful attack.</p>
<p>Even fewer know of <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2cxx8zq">South Carolina’s role</a> in the Civil Rights Movement.</p>
<p>Many know the name Rosa Parks, but it was Charleston’s educator and activist <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/clark-septima-poinsette">Septima Clark</a> who inspired Parks and led the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern educational and voting rights initiatives. </p>
<p>In fact, King <a href="https://avery.cofc.edu/the-legacy-of-septima-p-clark-by-kangkang-kovacs/">once called Clark</a> “the mother of the movement” and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09612029900200193">considered her to be</a> a “community teacher, an intuitive fighter for human rights and leader of her unlettered and disillusioned people.”</p>
<h2>A monument to freedom</h2>
<p>The museum’s educational goals are ambitious. </p>
<p>It is an interdisciplinary history museum, where educators plan to work with teachers and administrators around the world to make sure students in American schools – and everyone who lives in the U.S. today and in the future – learns about South Carolina’s significant role in U.S. history. </p>
<p>In my view, that collaboration will likely be challenging, given the efforts to sanitize the nation’s racial history and teachers’ apprehensions about teaching supposedly controversial subjects. </p>
<p>“This is a site of trauma,” Tonya Matthews, CEO and president of the museum, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/international-african-american-museum-charleston-south-carolina-trauma-triumph/">told CBS News</a>. “But look who’s standing here now. That’s what makes it a site of joy, and triumph.”</p>
<p>Indeed, the International African American museum is, by design, a monument to freedom – and an honest engagement with America’s troubled racial past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199951/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bernard Powers is a board member of the International African American Museum. </span></em></p>
The new museum opened at a time when the teaching of Black history is under attack by conservative politicians.
Bernard Powers, Professor of History Emeritus, College of Charleston
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208557
2023-06-29T15:03:50Z
2023-06-29T15:03:50Z
Listen — Indiana Jones’s last ride: A legacy to celebrate or bury?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534185/original/file-20230626-19-s9axwz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=36%2C1%2C1257%2C721&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' comes out in theatres on June 30. The fifth in a series over 42 years, many of its originating ideas are taken from 19th-century racist archaeology. Will this iteration be different?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Walt Disney Pictures)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/8f4853b0-cd33-48af-9d8a-77c625f697b0?dark=true"></iframe>
<p>I love watching a good adventure movie, especially at the start of summer. I have some great memories of eating popcorn in the local suburban movie theatre while we watched aliens take over a spaceship or a group of kids hunt for long-lost treasure in an underground cave.</p>
<p>At the same time, even as a kid, I remember thinking how awful some of the racial and gender stereotypes were. </p>
<p>I specifically remember watching <em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</em> and cringing at the representations onscreen, especially, the <a href="https://scroll.in/reel/805944/temple-of-doom-is-the-indiana-jones-movie-that-indians-wont-forget-in-a-hurry">ruthless and flat-dimensioned South Asian characters and the ridiculous idea that Indians ate monkey brains</a> — and then there was little Short Round, Indy’s child guide and sidekick played by the young Ke Huy Quan.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The late Amrish Puri played the critically acclaimed villain in ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Lucas Films)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the series, filmmakers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg showcased nostalgia for the early mid-century with Indiana Jones, the humanitarian Hunter College professor turned adventurer at the centre. Indy outran all kinds of harrows to ensure the ancient artifacts he chased ended up where he thought they belonged: “in a museum.” (Another now famous line is from <em>Black Panther</em> when Erik Killmonger asks a museum curator: “How do you think your ancestors got these?”)</p>
<h2>Guilty pleasure or irredeemable Orientalism?</h2>
<p>Well, the final Indiana Jones movie, <em>Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny</em> is coming out tomorrow, 42 years after the first movie was released. </p>
<p>As the series comes to an end, we explore Indy’s complicated legacy — and his famous line: “it belongs in a museum.” </p>
<p>Will <em>Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny</em> reflect the changes in anthropology departments and <a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378">the growing movements from Indigenous</a> and Global South communities to return <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-accurately-portray-histories-museums-need-to-do-more-than-reimagine-galleries-189109">stolen objects and ancestors from western museums</a>? Will it consider that <a href="https://theconversation.com/protecting-heritage-is-a-human-right-99501">Eurocentric notions of what holds heritage has finally expanded beyond the artifact</a>?</p>
<p>Will this new movie be full of highly problematic stories? Or a guilty pleasure? Or, can it be both?</p>
<p>Historian Christopher Heaney has spent a lot of time thinking about this. He’s written a book <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780230112049/cradleofgold">about the “original” Indiana Jones</a> and wrote <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/burying-indiana-jones">“Burying Indiana Jones” for <em>The New Yorker</em></a>. He’s a professor of Latin American History at Penn State University and he joined me on <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/indiana-joness-last-ride-a-legacy-to-celebrate-or-bury"><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a> — our last episode of the season, and just in time for summer blockbuster season — to unpack everything Indiana Jones.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rcN_InsZCKY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘How do you think your ancestors got these?’ ‘Black Panther’ offers a response to ‘it belongs in a museum.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Read more</h2>
<p><a href="https://mronline.org/2023/05/04/indiana-jones-hollywoods-chief-colonial-pilferer-is-back/">“Indiana Jones, Hollywood’s chief colonial pilferer, is back”</a> (<em>Monthly Review</em>)</p>
<p><em><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/empires-of-the-dead-9780197542552?cc=ca&lang=en&">Empires of the Dead</a></em> by Christopher Heaney (Oxford University Press)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/how-to-fake-an-alien-mummy/535251/">“The Racism Behind Alien Mummy Hoaxes”</a> (<em>The Atlantic</em>)</p>
<p><a href="https://blackgirlnerds.com/it-does-not-belong-in-a-museum-indiana-jones-colonizer-legacy/">“It does not belong in a museum”</a> (<em>Black Girl Nerds</em>)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newarab.com/features/can-indiana-jones-overcome-its-orientalist-past">“Can Indiana Jones overcome its Orientalist past?”</a> (<em>The New Arab</em>)</p>
<p><em><a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807837153/decolonizing-museums/">Decolonizing Museums</a></em> by Amy Lonetree (UNC Press)</p>
<h2>From The Conversation</h2>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-accurately-portray-histories-museums-need-to-do-more-than-reimagine-galleries-189109">To accurately portray histories, museums need to do more than ‘reimagine’ galleries</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
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>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/protecting-heritage-is-a-human-right-99501">Protecting heritage is a human right</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/belize-shows-how-local-engagement-is-key-in-repatriating-cultural-artifacts-from-abroad-171363">Belize shows how local engagement is key in repatriating cultural artifacts from abroad</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378">Museums are returning indigenous human remains but progress on repatriating objects is slow</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Our recs: Kids adventure movies/shows</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUTtJjV852c&ab_channel=ParamountPictures"><em>Dora the Explorer and the Lost City of Gold</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://animatedviews.com/2019/director-juan-antin-talks-about-pachamama-on-netflix/"><em>Pachamama</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/81023618"><em>Finding Ohana</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://etcanada.com/news/951562/mira-nair-on-the-non-white-america-in-national-treasure-edge-of-history-love-it/"><em>National Treasure: Edge of History</em></a></li>
</ul>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eQfMbSe7F2g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Lucas Films) ‘You’ve taken your chances, made your mistakes, and now, a final triump,’ Phoebe Walter-Bridge says to Jones.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208557/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The final Indiana Jones movie is coming out June 30. The fifth in a series over 42 years, many of its ideas are taken from 19th-century orientalist and racist archaeology.
Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207375
2023-06-12T15:00:40Z
2023-06-12T15:00:40Z
Colonialism has shaped scientific plant collections around the world – here’s why that matters
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531254/original/file-20230611-84609-t8xxx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=36%2C0%2C4813%2C3228&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Digitizing plants preserved in the herbarium at La Sapienza University in Rome.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rome-la-sapienza-museum-complex-herbarium-museum-the-news-photo/1401716985">Mimmo Frassineti/AGF/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some of the <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/articles/the-15-most-visited-museums-in-the-world/">world’s most popular museums</a> are natural history collections: Think of dinosaur fossils, gemstones and preserved animals. Herbaria – collections of pressed, dried plant specimens – are a less-known but important type of natural history collection. There are some <a href="https://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/ih/">400 million botanical specimens</a> stored across over 3,500 herbaria around the world, but most are not widely publicized and rarely host public exhibits. </p>
<p>I study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BF2WtIYAAAAJ&hl=en">biodiversity and global change</a>, and these collections have fueled my work. My collaborators and I have used herbarium collections to study how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0394">flowering times respond to changes in climate</a>, how dispersal traits and environmental preferences <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.13227">affect the likelihood that plants will become invasive</a>, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03876-7">how fires affect tropical biodiversity</a>. </p>
<p>I have had easy access to specimens from every corner of the world, but most researchers are not as lucky. This is partly because herbaria as we know them today are largely a European creation. And like other natural history collections, many of them grew as imperial powers expanded their colonial empires and <a href="https://digpodcast.org/2018/04/29/natural-history-museums/">amassed all kinds of resources</a> from their colonies. Today, over 60% of herbaria and 70% of specimens are located in developed countries with colonial histories. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/6XV5DyOTlV/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link\u0026igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>My colleagues and I wanted to understand how many herbarium specimens <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01616-7">are not where the plants originated</a> and are housed in former colonizing countries instead. Our international team of researchers from herbaria on every continent analyzed over 85 million plant specimen records from the <a href="https://www.gbif.org/">Global Biodiversity Information Facility</a>, the largest online repository of biodiversity data, and also surveyed physical herbarium collections across the world. </p>
<p>We found that many former colonial powers have more plant diversity in their herbarium cabinets than they do in nature. Our data suggest that this is not the case, however, for former colonies, whose herbaria often house fewer plant species in their collections than are found naturally in the region. This disparity can limit former colonies’ capacity for botanical research. </p>
<h2>A persistent colonial legacy</h2>
<p>Herbaria are centers of botanical discovery and research, and are critical for understanding the diversity of plants and fungi around the world. The specimens they hold were originally collected to document and classify species. Today scientists use them for additional purposes, such as reconstructing plant evolutionary history, tracking pollution trends and identifying potential new drugs. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bKcRUloQm0M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Researchers at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh explain how the collection supports biodiversity research and conservation projects around the world.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Botany was <a href="https://www.plantsandculture.org/botanical-gardens-and-colonialism">the science par excellence of colonial empires</a>. Botanists moved numerous living and preserved plant specimens to institutions in colonizing nations which sought to exploit their colonies’ biological resources. </p>
<p>For instance, physician and naturalist <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/sir-hans-sloane">Hans Sloane</a>, often credited as the inventor of chocolate milk, acquired numerous plant specimens from overseas colonies via his connections with the slave trade. His collections formed the basis of Britain’s <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/">Natural History Museum</a>. Well-known scientists, including <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/charles-darwin-botanist-orchid-flowers-validate-natural-selection-180971472/">Charles Darwin</a> and <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/departments-and-staff/library-and-archives/collections/linnaean-collection.html">Carl Linnaeus</a> and their disciples, relocated large numbers of plants from across the globe to European museums and collections.</p>
<p>Our analyses of online specimen records suggest that botanical collection trends over the past four centuries have been shaped by colonialism. Even though overt colonialism ended after World War II, specimens have largely continued to move from Africa, Asia and South America to institutions in Europe and North America, with a few exceptions.</p>
<p>Similarly, when we examined physical herbarium collections, we found that those in developed nations in the Global North that were former colonizers housed a higher proportion of internationally collected specimens on average. Herbaria in the U.S. and several European nations house specimens of over twice the number of species that naturally occur in these nations. </p>
<p>In nature, plant diversity is typically greatest in regions near the equator and decreases northward and southward toward the poles. Our data suggest that centuries of colonialism had the opposite effect: Plant specimens were moved away from countries with high natural plant diversity to collections in countries where fewer plant species occur naturally. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531255/original/file-20230611-201874-wx78ok.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dried plant with four large leaves and a flower, captioned with a scientific description." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531255/original/file-20230611-201874-wx78ok.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531255/original/file-20230611-201874-wx78ok.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531255/original/file-20230611-201874-wx78ok.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531255/original/file-20230611-201874-wx78ok.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531255/original/file-20230611-201874-wx78ok.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531255/original/file-20230611-201874-wx78ok.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531255/original/file-20230611-201874-wx78ok.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Ruellia tubiflora</em>, a tropical plant collected from Venezuela in 2001, preserved in the collection of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://plantidtools.fieldmuseum.org/en/rrc/catalogue/322388">Field Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The digital divide</h2>
<p>As herbaria digitize their specimens and share data online, they are becoming somewhat more decentralized and democratic. Open-access data repositories, such as <a href="https://www.gbif.org/">the Global Biodiversity Information Facility</a>, allow researchers from around the world to query aggregated specimen metadata and images over the internet. This reduces the need to ship fragile specimens over long distances, and to take extensive and costly research trips. </p>
<p>But digitization requires large investments in equipment and personnel, which small institutions and developing countries often can’t afford. Stable internet connections are not always widely available in developing countries either. Further, our survey of herbaria indicates that digitization still has a long way to go. </p>
<p>We estimated that in general, fewer than 30% of physical collections have information online that at least describes when and where specimens were collected, and fewer than 10% have digital images available online. Most herbaria that responded to our inquiries were located in developed countries, so these figures probably overestimate the state of specimen digitization. The disparity in access to herbarium collections exists in the digital realm as well.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1654573880160157696"}"></div></p>
<h2>Making global plant collections more inclusive</h2>
<p>Many natural history museums and other cultural institutions are working now to <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/culture/museum-restitution/">address their colonial legacies</a>. This often includes acknowledging items in their collections that were acquired <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/harvard-museum-apologizes-for-owning-700-hair-samples-of-native-american-children-180981135/">unethically</a> or <a href="https://projectarchaeology.org/2021/03/19/modern-issues-in-archaeology-the-illegal-artifact-trade/">illegally</a>, and sometimes returning them to their original sources. But botanical collections have received less attention, maybe because few of them offer public displays. </p>
<p>Our study shows that there is a large disparity between where plant diversity naturally exists and where it is artificially housed and cataloged. As a result, many countries rely on botanical knowledge and resources housed outside of their own borders. </p>
<p>My colleagues and I believe that herbaria should be part of the ongoing movement to decolonize cultural institutions, natural history museums and related scientific practices. Key steps would include:</p>
<p>– Openly acknowledging the colonial legacy of herbarium collections, and communicating their history;</p>
<p>– Improving access to the vast information held in herbaria worldwide; and</p>
<p>– Building capacity in previously colonized countries by sharing knowledge and resources for contributing to research. These could include, for instance, supporting the local collection and study of plant diversity by providing training for local scientists. </p>
<p>In our view, the science that comes from botanical collections is globally relevant, so access to these resources should be within reach of the global community. Herbarium collections are critical to modern understanding of the world’s plants, and they have played key roles in numerous scientific discoveries and advances. Imagine how much more would be possible if these invaluable resources were available to all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207375/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Park 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>
The colonial era profoundly shaped natural history museums and collections. Herbaria, which are scientists’ main source of plant specimens from around the world, are no exception.
Daniel Park, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Purdue University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/205409
2023-06-01T01:49:59Z
2023-06-01T01:49:59Z
A new virtual museum reveals 600 million years of Australian fossils in unprecedented 3D detail
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529254/original/file-20230531-23-7wcrs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=362%2C188%2C1808%2C1176&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Virtual Australian Museum of Palaeontology</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/disciplines/palaeontology">Palaeontology</a> is the study of evolution and prehistoric life, usually preserved as fossils in rocks. It combines aspects of geology with biology and many other scientific disciplines. </p>
<p>But a lot of palaeontology really is about rocks. For 200 years, hammers and chisels have been some of its most commonly used tools. </p>
<p>However, advances in modern scanning technology are revolutionising the way we do palaeontology. Precise scans of the internal and external features of fossils let us see them in new ways.</p>
<p>And these digitised scans can readily be made available to the public online. At the new <a href="https://sites.flinders.edu.au/vamp/">Virtual Australian Museum of Palaeontology</a>, we offer free access to 600 million years of digital Australian fossils, from enigmatic early lifeforms to gigantic extinct marsupials.</p>
<h2>How do palaeontologists learn about the past?</h2>
<p>There are many different types of fossils. For example, a dinosaur leg bone can become a fossil, but so can a leaf from a tree, the footprint of an extinct kangaroo, poo from a shark, or even geochemical traces preserved in ancient soils. </p>
<p>The field of palaeontology was formally solidified into scientific enquiry by people such as Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Cuvier was a French naturalist and zoologist sometimes referred to as the “founding father of palaeontology”. Others such as the Scottish geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875) gave us the geological framework through which fossils could be classified and compared. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man digging up fossils" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527172/original/file-20230519-29-hgzees.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527172/original/file-20230519-29-hgzees.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527172/original/file-20230519-29-hgzees.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527172/original/file-20230519-29-hgzees.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527172/original/file-20230519-29-hgzees.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527172/original/file-20230519-29-hgzees.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527172/original/file-20230519-29-hgzees.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">Palaeontologist Aaron Camens digging up fossils.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aaron Camens</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Palaeontology has come a long way in the past 200 years. </p>
<p>Records of long-extinct animals also survive in the rock art and oral traditions of First Nations peoples. These are increasingly being recognised as an important complement to traditional Eurocentric approaches. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/of-bunyips-and-other-beasts-living-memories-of-long-extinct-creatures-in-art-and-stories-113031">Of bunyips and other beasts: living memories of long-extinct creatures in art and stories</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How to scan a fossil</h2>
<p>Different kinds of scanning technology are playing an increasing role in palaeontology. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CT_scan">Computed tomography</a>, or CT scanning, uses x-rays to create three-dimensional models of the internal and external features of dense objects.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526921/original/file-20230517-23-hksywx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four images showing stages of creating a 3D model of a fossil fish" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526921/original/file-20230517-23-hksywx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526921/original/file-20230517-23-hksywx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526921/original/file-20230517-23-hksywx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526921/original/file-20230517-23-hksywx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526921/original/file-20230517-23-hksywx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526921/original/file-20230517-23-hksywx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526921/original/file-20230517-23-hksywx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&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 photo of a fossil fish (far left), an x-ray image (middle left), a ‘tomogram’ or slice through the scan data (middle right), and a 3D virtual model (far right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alice Clement</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other imaging methods include <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry">photogrammetry</a>, or surface scanning using lasers or projected patterns of light. These methods capture the external three-dimensional shape of an object or site, sometimes with colour and textural detail. They also have the advantage of being more portable and can often be taken directly to the fossil.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A photo of a man holding a device that illuminates a fossil with a bright purple light" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526919/original/file-20230517-22090-5xhdxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526919/original/file-20230517-22090-5xhdxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526919/original/file-20230517-22090-5xhdxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526919/original/file-20230517-22090-5xhdxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526919/original/file-20230517-22090-5xhdxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526919/original/file-20230517-22090-5xhdxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526919/original/file-20230517-22090-5xhdxc.png?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">Palaeontologist Jacob van Zoelen using a surface scanner on a fossil marsupial skull.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alice Clement</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most powerful scanning methods are the synchrotron and neutron imaging. A synchrotron works on the same principles as CT scanning, using radiation to look inside an object, but uses much stronger radiation. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_tomography">Neutron imaging</a> uses neutrons instead of x-rays or other radiation, and it can be useful for particularly dense or large objects. </p>
<p>These advances in scanning technology are opening up whole new avenues for exploring, sharing and analysing Australia’s unique fossils. Now what to do with all our digital palaeontology data?</p>
<p>That’s where the <a href="https://sites.flinders.edu.au/vamp/">Virtual Australian Museum of Palaeontology</a> comes in. </p>
<h2>About the museum</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526922/original/file-20230517-12177-2p1a5i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photo of a woman standing outdoors holding two pieces of rock containing a fossil" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526922/original/file-20230517-12177-2p1a5i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526922/original/file-20230517-12177-2p1a5i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526922/original/file-20230517-12177-2p1a5i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526922/original/file-20230517-12177-2p1a5i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526922/original/file-20230517-12177-2p1a5i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526922/original/file-20230517-12177-2p1a5i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526922/original/file-20230517-12177-2p1a5i.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Palaeontologist Alice Clement in the field with a new fossil discovery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alice Clement</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are a group of researchers at Flinders University, working with the South Australian Museum, the Western Australian Museum, and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Between us, we have spent many hours scanning, processing and uploading hundreds of three-dimensional virtual models. </p>
<p>Australia is geologically old with a rich fossil heritage. We are fortunate to have captured high-quality examples spanning nearly 600 million years of evolution on our continent. </p>
<p>We have scans of some of the earliest complex life from Ediacaran and Cambrian sites from over 500 million years ago. We have exquisite examples from <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/jgs/article/179/1/jgs2021-105/608194/The-Gogo-Formation-Lagerstatte-a-view-of-Australia">the best ancient fish deposit in the world</a>, and many amazing extinct megafauna not known from anywhere else.</p>
<p>Examples include the marsupial lion <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208020"><em>Thylacoleo</em></a>, the giant wombat-like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diprotodon"><em>Diprotodon</em></a>, and huge short-faced kangaroos such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sthenurus"><em>Sthenurus</em></a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Reconstructions of common Australian megafauna in an open bush setting" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528478/original/file-20230526-17-dub84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528478/original/file-20230526-17-dub84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528478/original/file-20230526-17-dub84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528478/original/file-20230526-17-dub84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528478/original/file-20230526-17-dub84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528478/original/file-20230526-17-dub84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528478/original/file-20230526-17-dub84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many giant creatures that once roamed Australia are now known only from fossils.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Trusler</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the pilot phase of this project we have digitised more than 500 fossils across more than 30 genera. Some highlights include: </p>
<ol>
<li>one of the world’s most complete marsupial lion skeletons (almost every bone from the skull to the toe bones)</li>
<li>one of the only known bones of a pterosaur (flying reptile) from South Australia</li>
<li>scans of one of the oldest known sharks in the world</li>
<li>fossil mammal footprints that are now known only from our digital data, as the original trackways have been destroyed.</li>
</ol>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526925/original/file-20230517-10717-icqnfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A collage shows six digital models of fossils accompanied by silhouette drawings of the animals they came from" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526925/original/file-20230517-10717-icqnfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526925/original/file-20230517-10717-icqnfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526925/original/file-20230517-10717-icqnfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526925/original/file-20230517-10717-icqnfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526925/original/file-20230517-10717-icqnfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526925/original/file-20230517-10717-icqnfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526925/original/file-20230517-10717-icqnfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Six digital models of scanned fossil specimens from the museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Virtual Australian Museum of Palaeontology</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You can explore the <a href="https://sites.flinders.edu.au/vamp/">VAMP website</a> yourself. All you need to dig into a world of 3D fossil scans is a computer or a smartphone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205409/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Clement receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is employed by Flinders University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Camens works for Flinders University. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacob van Zoelen is employed by Flinders University.</span></em></p>
Digital scanning offers a new window on Australia’s unique fossil history, from early multicellular lifeforms to gigantic ‘marsupial lions’.
Alice Clement, Research Associate in the College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University
Aaron Camens, Lecturer in Palaeontology, Flinders University
Jacob van Zoelen, PhD Candidate, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202646
2023-05-10T15:58:21Z
2023-05-10T15:58:21Z
Blockbuster exhibitions: how France is organising to tackle their mammoth environmental footprint
<p>On the website of the Rijksmuseum, the blockbuster exhibition on Johannes Vermeer (10 February – 4 June 2023) is branded <a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-on/exhibitions/vermeer/story/the-largest-vermeer-exhibition-ever">“the largest exhibition ever”</a>. However, visitors’ hopes are soon dashed by a note informing them the show is sold out. “All of Vermeer’s works can still be admired via the online discovery tour,” the homepage volunteers.</p>
<p>Often monographic, blockbuster exhibitions typically bring together a single artist’s iconic works, achieving record attendance thanks to a new value proposition. They are spectacular exhibitions with flamboyant scenographies that target mainly occasional visitors.</p>
<p>In terms of attendance, they represent an undeniable success. In France, the last exhibition of this type at the Musée d’Orsay, which ended on 22 January (<em>Munch: A Poem of Life, Love and Death</em>) broke the institution’s attendance record with 720,000 visitors in four months. Some other French blockbuster examples are <em>Tutankhamun, the Pharaoh’s Treasure</em> at the Grande Halle de la Villette with 1.4 million visitors in 2019; <em>Leonardo da Vinci</em> at the Louvre: 1.1 million visitors in 2020; <em>The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art</em> at the Fondation Louis Vuitton: 1.2 million visitors in 2022.</p>
<p>Aside from France and the Netherlands, other famous European museums are also marketing their temporary exhibitions as “once in a lifetime” events. Take the recent <a href="https://www.palazzostrozzi.org/en/archivio/exhibitions/donatello/"><em>Donatello: The Renaissance</em></a> in Florence in 2022 at Palazzo Strozzi, bringing together around 130 works from 60 locations from all over the world, or the Tate London exhibition <em>Cezanne</em> presented as an <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/press/press-releases/the-ey-exhibition-cezanne">“once-in-a-generation exhibition”</a>.</p>
<h2>Successful attendance but environmental failure</h2>
<p>The problem is that this type of exhibition comes with a hefty environmental bill. Elsa Boromée, a Corporate Social Responsibility manager at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, reckons her institution’s temporary exhibition on <a href="https://www.mnhn.fr/fr/exposition-evenement/especes-d-ours">bear species in 2017</a> consumed the water of 454 Olympic swimming pools, the annual energy of 23 French households and emitted the greenhouse gases of 74 round trips by plane from Paris to Marseille.</p>
<p>Such figures are pushing cultural industry players to review their business model by integrating exhibitions’ environmental footprint, as professional clusters emerge to instigate change. The Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, for example, has spent the past two years organising workshops on the topic of museum sustainability.</p>
<h2>Initiate a sustainable development process</h2>
<p>Poring over the speeches of 54 professionals who took part in a workshop on museum sustainability in Lille, January 2022, we found there is a broad consensus in France on the need for greener exhibitions. To this end, the group recommended curators rethink the very concept of the temporary exhibition and its life cycle, which spans pre-design, exhibition and dismantling times.</p>
<p>This entails reconsidering traditional notions of aesthetic and scientific excellence. Exhibitions are currently ranked according to the volume of original artworks on display, with a typical show featuring between 100 to 150 pieces. It was also advised that different museum departments involved in the preparation of the exhibition consult each other over eco-friendly alternatives, including digital projection of original artworks, sustainable scenography and lighting.</p>
<p>Moreover, museums will also have to contend with the challenge of reusing as many elements of the scenography as possible, or/and of recycling them with institutions working in the creative sector. Choosing local alternatives for donating exhibition furniture (e.g., art schools, NGOs) could also help cap transport-related emissions.</p>
<h2>Deeply rooted preconceptions</h2>
<p>The exhibition phase is the moment when the public encounters the exhibition’s narrative. And here we come up against another paradox: visitors we interviewed perceived an eco-designed exhibition as “greenwashing” and of poor aesthetic quality. One visitor observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“An exhibition with an ‘ecological’ label… I’d be suspicious, I’d consider it ‘greenwashing’ it’s just for marketing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This verbatim illustrates the feelings of visitors interviewed six months before the installation of the eco-designed exhibition <a href="https://www.grandpalais.fr/en/node/51590"><em>The Goya Experience</em></a> at the Palais des Beaux-arts in Lille. It raises questions about visitors’ ability to sacrifice their aesthetic pleasure for the common good. To some extent, this can be explained by the general public’s lack of knowledge about the behind-the-scenes work involved in putting on an exhibition. For example, when respondents were asked about the number of works expected for a temporary exhibition, they mentioned a maximum of 40. There is therefore a discrepancy between the aesthetic ambitions of the curators and the expectations of visitors.</p>
<p>More broadly, visitors don’t tend to perceive sustainability as a priority for museums, in contrast to other industries:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I think it’s a bit sad to ask the question of reducing the carbon footprint when it comes to culture when there are many other sectors that are worse examples. I don’t think that culture is a sector where we should be making savings. […] Culture is not the sector where the ecological balance is the heaviest.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, the public and their movements represent the largest impact in the carbon footprint of a temporary exhibition.</p>
<h2>“The Goya Experience” at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille</h2>
<p>It is essential cultural institutions educate visitors on their sustainable choices. The Palais des Beaux-arts in Lille, for example, chose to clearly brand the <em>Goya Experience</em> as its first “eco-conceived” exhibition. In an extensive information campaign, it trumpeted the ecological value of centring its exhibition around two works belonging to to the museum, <em>The Old Ones</em> and <em>The Young Ones</em>. Out of the 40 works on display, all came from Europe, and only two were ferried over by plane. 65% of the set design was reused for the following exhibition, <em>The Magic Forest</em>.</p>
<p>The feedback from visitors was particularly positive:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I was very surprised by the tour, the set design foregrounding the creation process behind the two works, the evolution of Goya’s painting, as well as the final highlight of the two paintings of the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille. The rhythmic and grave music helps us to immerse ourselves in Goya’s dark world.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Technology and digital reproductions helped to replace the missing original pieces in the scientific narrative of the exhibition tour.</p>
<p>Visitors interviewed at the exit of the exhibition said they appreciated the exhibition’s multimedia dimension:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I was taken aback by the [exhibition’s] various screenings, musical atmospheres, lighting as well as its completely digitalized gallery. I believe the set design is crucial for this [artistic] experience – yes, the exhibition ‘Goya Experience’ lives up to its name.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Launched on 22 March, the Natural History Museum’s <em>Félins</em> (“Felines”) exhibition has followed the same eco-design approach, according to its curator, Mathilde Chikitou, and set designer, Sacha Mitrofanoff. Be it the floor, furniture, display cases or partitions, the lifecycle of every item has been thoroughly assessed, from the sourcing of their raw materials to their potential to be reused or recycled. The works on display are mainly sourced from Parisian collections.</p>
<p>The examples above are proof there needn’t be any trade-offs between sustainable exhibitions and spectacular crowd-pleasers. To help professionals slash their show’s carbon footprint, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM) has produced a special <a href="https://cimam.org/news-archive/toolkit-on-environmental-sustainability-in-the-museum-practice/">toolkit on environmental sustainability in the museum practice</a>. Awaiting full-blown eco-conceived shows, there are simple and immediate steps can museums take to help the planet, including extending the duration of the exhibition, privileging its tour within the country, calculating its impact throughout its life cycle, and working with certified suppliers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guergana Guintcheva has received research funding from the city of Lille.</span></em></p>
Record numbers of visitors are flocking to blockbuster exhibitions. Behind all the excitement, there are difficult questions over how to address their carbon footprint.
Guergana Guintcheva, Professeur de Marketing, EDHEC Business School
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202011
2023-04-05T12:24:51Z
2023-04-05T12:24:51Z
Racist 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>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xz8bsX2rWt4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<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>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2aFfDooTIVQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<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>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mMVzPCOut1w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<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 University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197854
2023-03-22T11:28:09Z
2023-03-22T11:28:09Z
Van Gogh Museum at 50: how galleries are challenging the ‘tortured genius’ narrative
<p>At the time that Vincent van Gogh was creating his acclaimed work, <a href="https://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starry-night.html">The Starry Night</a>, he was hospitalised at Saint-Paul de Mausole asylum. He painted the vivid night sky from his room without the bars of his window, editing out the institution. Yet, in the case of museums, it is often the institution who edits out the patient.</p>
<p>In collections, objects and stories relating to mental health have largely been presented through a medical model, viewing patients as subjects and silencing their voices. </p>
<p>Where mental health is part of an artist’s story, their creativity may be wrongly credited to their suffering. Often, these narratives sit uncomfortably close to spectacle, an echo of the Victorian freak show in the digital age.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.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>This article is part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/vincent-van-gogh-31028">Van Gogh Museum at 50</a> series. These articles mark the 50th anniversary of Amsterdam’s pioneering gallery and explore evolving cultural perceptions of one of the world’s most famous artists.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, museums are grappling with how best to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-wellcome-closed-its-medicine-man-exhibition-and-others-should-follow-suit-196171">expose and address biases</a> and gaps in collections and programming.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en">The Van Gogh Museum</a> first opened 50 years ago. A pioneer of the single artist approach, it formed a keystone of Amsterdam’s tourism strategy.</p>
<p>Outside of the museum, approaches to mental health (although greatly advanced from van Gogh’s time) were still disempowering. Lobotomies – a Nobel Prize-winning invention in the 1940s – had experienced a post-war boom, but public opinion towards them had become distinctly unfavourable by 1973 after the <a href="https://www.glensidemuseum.org.uk/psychiatric-hospital-1861-1994/mental-health-timeline/">high-profile death of a patient</a> a few years before.</p>
<p>Throughout his life, van Gogh experienced poor mental health. His <a href="https://journalbipolardisorders.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40345-020-00196-z">complex symptoms</a> caused episodes of intense psychosis, hallucinations and cognitive dysfunction. During one such episode, he famously cut off part of his ear. He died in 1890, by probable suicide. </p>
<p>Van Gogh’s battle with mental health is well known but our perceptions of his story are often less critically evaluated. This highlights a long history of misconceptions around mental health. Since the time of Aristotle, <a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/are-genius-and-madness-related-contemporary-answers-ancient-question#sthash.nOak4JW7.dpuf">illness and creativity have been thought to be connected</a>. Van Gogh rejected this idea, considering <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/ey-exhibition-van-gogh-and-britain/van-gogh-challenging-myth">“madness an illness like any other”</a>. </p>
<p>The concept of the “tortured genius”, which sees suffering as a necessary part of creativity, is unhelpful yet deeply embedded. Think of the narratives we hold for <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/creativity-mental-illness-health_n_5695887">Kurt Cobain, Sylvia Plath and Robin Williams</a>.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ejsp.1999?saml_referrer">2014 study</a> even discovered that van Gogh’s work was perceived as higher quality by viewers exposed to his mental health story. In promoting suffering over seeking help and recovery, the topic of mental health becomes a spectacle rather than a vehicle for social change.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"967808171925491712"}"></div></p>
<p>“<a href="https://theboar.org/2020/07/artistmentalhealth/">Everybody has their yellow paint</a>” – a meme originally posted on social media site Tumblr – neatly illustrates this point by positioning van Gogh as a “beautiful tortured soul” who ate toxic yellow paint to coat his insides with sunshine. </p>
<p>His potential suicide attempt is reframed as a misunderstood quirk. Yet, as tragic stories of social media-inspired self harm demonstrate, the misinterpretation of mental health issues has real impact.</p>
<h2>Rethinking mental health</h2>
<p>Several institutions, including the Van Gogh Museum, are now working with audiences in order to reevaluate their perspectives on wellbeing.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.museumnext.com/article/wellbeing-with-vincent/">Discussions</a> between the Van Gogh Museum and young people experiencing mental health vulnerability highlighted the opportunity for the museum to normalise mental illness and to encourage people to seek support where needed.</p>
<p>The community of young people suggested progressive ways for the museum to become a safe space for engagement in which people could tell their own stories. </p>
<p>The resulting project, <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/about/organisation/inclusion-and-accessibility-policy/open-up-with-vincent">Open Up with Vincent</a>, has created online and onsite activities such as meditation films, material for school pupils and collaborations with healthcare institutions.</p>
<p>A key part of the museum’s findings was that, in having an uncertain diagnosis, van Gogh’s story resonated with young people as it did not probe his struggles through a medical model. Narratives around his art and life could, instead, open dialogue on mental health and support audiences to consider their own relationships with mental health and wellness. </p>
<p>In the UK, the Tate galleries, working with the mental health charity, <a href="https://www.mind.org.uk/">Mind</a>, have challenged existing approaches in order to create a more useful dialogue. Finding that 50% of people experiencing mental health problems noted the shame and isolation as worse than the illness itself, they created a <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/ey-exhibition-van-gogh-and-britain/van-gogh-challenging-myth">more factually accurate portrayal</a> of van Gogh’s mental health through animation. His story becomes a powerful reminder that we should not be defined by our mental health.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dFqAKp6xmLg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The animation that resulted from Tate’s collaboration with the mental health charity, Mind.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As museums develop their institutional perspectives on healthcare from a medical model to a social model, they are evolving into agents of radical change. Co-production with communities has vast potential to develop healthier societies by exploring the intersections of creativity and wellbeing.</p>
<p>The Van Gogh Museum is celebrating its 50th year by “treating audiences” to a “splendid party” and “special activities”, in a nod to the Dutch tradition of being generous to others on your birthday. However, particularly in the context of continued funding crises, we need to be mindful that culture is more than just a “treat.” It is an essential tool in tackling the mental health crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197854/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Pratley 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 have pushed the narrative of Vincent van Gogh as a ‘tortured genius’ for decades, but in its 50th year the Van Gogh Museum is questioning this approach.
Charlie Pratley, Senior Lecturer in Museum Studies, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201597
2023-03-10T15:24:09Z
2023-03-10T15:24:09Z
David Chipperfield: how the 2023 Pritzker prize winner creates buildings that last
<p>The British architect David Chipperfield <a href="https://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/sir-david-alan-chipperfield-ch">has been announced</a> as the winner of the 2023 Pritzker Architecture Prize, arguably the <a href="https://theconversation.com/lacaton-and-vassal-how-this-years-pritzker-prize-could-spark-an-architectural-revolution-157636">highest international honour</a> in <a href="https://theconversation.com/diebedo-francis-kere-how-first-black-winner-of-architectures-top-prize-is-committed-to-building-peaceful-cities-179483">the discipline</a>. In its <a href="https://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/sir-david-alan-chipperfield-ch#laureate-page-2511">citation</a>, the jury highlighted the elegance, restraint and permanence that have consistently characterised Chipperfield’s oeuvre, “an architecture of understated but transformative civic presence”. </p>
<p>Born in London in 1953, Chipperfield graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 1980, after undergraduate studies at the Kingston School of Art. He started out working for seminal British architects <a href="https://www.building.co.uk/focus/five-great-architects--youve-never-heard-of/3039656.article">Douglas Stephen</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/03/lord-norman-foster-i-still-get-the-same-buzz-from-designing-buildings-">Norman Foster</a> and <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2021/12/19/richard-rogers-architecture-projects-top-10/">Richard Rogers</a>, before founding his own firm in London in 1985. With additional offices now in Berlin, Shanghai, Milan and Santiago de Compostela, his output has spanned civic, cultural, academic and residential buildings, as well as urban planning throughout Asia, Europe and North America. </p>
<p>Chipperfield’s driving ethos, as the Pritzker jury members emphasised, has always been to choose the tools needed for the project at hand. As opposed to the “starchitect” impulse to create something iconic and instantly recognisable – to stamp their mark on a place – architecture, for him, is a vehicle to pursue civic and public good, even if that means <a href="https://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/sir-david-alan-chipperfield-ch#laureate-page-2511">“almost disappearing”</a> behind it. Here are five projects that embody that classic imperative: to achieve something that will stand the test of time in serving the people who need it. </p>
<h2>1. Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2007-2009</h2>
<p>Housing one of the first collections of modern art in Germany, founded in 1902, this museum organised a competition to extend its 1960s premises in 2007. Museums have been a consistent focus for Chipperfield. Here, he recognised the <a href="https://www.archdaily.com/174772/museum-folkwang-david-chipperfield">importance of working with</a>, but not overwhelming, the museum’s history. He added six simple structures, clad in slabs of glass, and four inner courtyards, an ensemble that <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2010/02/03/museum-folkwang-by-david-chipperfield/">flows so seamlessly</a> from the original building, it becomes almost invisible. </p>
<p>The jury citation put it plainly:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We do not see an instantly recognisable David Chipperfield building in different cities, but different David Chipperfield buildings designed specifically for each circumstance. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>2. The Neues Museum Berlin, Germany, 1993-2009</h2>
<p>Here Chipperfield reinstated the original use of the Neues Museum Berlin, “a <a href="https://www.arct.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/chs-vol.15-pp.39-to-55.pdf">masterpiece</a> of Prussian classicism”, according to German construction historian Werner Lorenz, that was partially destroyed in the second world war. His <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42393019.pdf">minimalist intervention</a> included <a href="https://www.archdaily.com/127936/neues-museum-david-chipperfield-architects-in-collaboration-with-julian-harrap">an archaeological restoration</a> of the original building, which had been left exposed to the elements for decades, and new volumes added in pale cement and recycled brick. The result is a <a href="https://www.psa.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Austausch%20Vol%201,%20Issue,%202,%20Oct%20Souto.pdf">history lesson</a>, the different layers of the building made visible, from 19th-century colonnades to 1940s bullet holes and scorch marks. </p>
<p>It is modern without being overpowering and it showcases Chipperfield’s concept of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/feb/06/david-chipperfield-turner-contemporary-hepworth-wakefield">permanence</a>. As he <a href="https://www.holcimfoundation.org/article/david-chipperfield-keynote-holcim-forum">put it</a> in 2013: “In this age of throwaway and the redundancy of everyday things, taking care of, valuing, and treasuring seem old-fashioned concepts.” Permanence, for him, is “a declaration of lasting priorities. The organisation of buildings and their integration in a larger whole give shape and solidity to our vague ideas of society”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An internal monumental staircase." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514702/original/file-20230310-18-930irz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514702/original/file-20230310-18-930irz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514702/original/file-20230310-18-930irz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514702/original/file-20230310-18-930irz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514702/original/file-20230310-18-930irz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514702/original/file-20230310-18-930irz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514702/original/file-20230310-18-930irz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The grand staircase in the Neues Museum Berlin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Grand_escalier_du_Hall_du_Neues_Museum_%28Berlin%29_%286098967815%29.jpg/1024px-Grand_escalier_du_Hall_du_Neues_Museum_%28Berlin%29_%286098967815%29.jpg">Jean-Pierre Dalbéra/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>3. Inagawa cemetery chapel and visitor centre, Inagawa, Japan, 2013-1017</h2>
<p>“Good architecture provides a setting,” Chipperfield <a href="https://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/sir-david-alan-chipperfield-ch#laureate-page-2501">has said</a>. “It’s there and it’s not there. [It] is something which can intensify and support and help our rituals and our lives.” </p>
<p>In Inagawa he demonstrated the importance of learning from the past – of understanding the essence of rituals and making them relevant to contemporary contexts. Located on a steep hillside in the Hyogo prefecture, north of Osaka, he created a <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2018/07/18/david-chipperfield-visitor-centre-inagawa-cemetery-architecture/">pink-hued concrete structure</a> around a courtyard, with a monumental staircase leading up the hill to the shrine. </p>
<p>The building connects directly with the topography of the landscape. The materials used are subtle and the design is minimal. As a whole, it promotes reflection and contemplation. It is architecture that is almost not there, precisely attuned to its function. </p>
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<h2>4. The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK, 2003-2011</h2>
<p>This <a href="https://architecturetoday.co.uk/david-chipperfield-the-hepworth-wakefield/">purpose-built gallery</a>, located on the river Calder within the Wakefield waterfront conservation area, embodies Chipperfield’s approach to sustainability, which the Pritzker jury citation <a href="https://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/sir-david-alan-chipperfield-ch#laureate-page-2506">defines</a> as striving for “pertinence”. Chipperfield eliminates the superfluous, and creates “structures able to last, physically and culturally”.</p>
<p>Skylights and floor-to-ceiling picture windows allow visitors to engage with the post-industrial riverside setting from subtle, luminious interiors. The <a href="https://hepworthwakefield.org/our-story/our-history/our-architecture/">pigmented concrete</a> of the structures was mixed on the site, giving the whole a sculptural feel, in celebration of Barbara Hepworth, the Wakefield-born artist and museum’s namesake. The building uses the river for its heating and cooling system. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A building in front of a body of water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514700/original/file-20230310-763-db9lli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514700/original/file-20230310-763-db9lli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514700/original/file-20230310-763-db9lli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514700/original/file-20230310-763-db9lli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514700/original/file-20230310-763-db9lli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514700/original/file-20230310-763-db9lli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514700/original/file-20230310-763-db9lli.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Hepworth Wakefield.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/400000">Stephen Bowler</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>5. Fundacion Ria, Galicia, Spain, 2017</h2>
<p>In recent years, Chipperfield has extended his work to support further engagement with local communities, learning about their needs and their contexts, moving away from global solutions. In 2017, he <a href="https://davidchipperfield.com/fundacion-ria">founded</a> Fundacion Ria, a private, non-profit that sponsors <a href="https://www.fundacionria.org/en/la-fundacion/vision">research</a> and future development in Galicia, northwestern Spain, one of the poorest regions in the country. </p>
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<p>The foundation’s exploratory projects encompass planning (<a href="https://www.fundacionria.org/en/actividad/integracion-urbana-del-frente-maritimo-de-palmeira">integrating the seafront</a> into the urban fabric of the region’s small seaside towns) and sustainable land management (setting up an “ecosocial laboratory” to study how local farmland has been managed, historically). As the foundation’s website puts it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Essentially, what we have to hope now is that the environmental crisis makes us reconsider priorities of society, that profit is not the only thing that should be motivating our decisions.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ana Souto 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>
Chipperfield is not interested in creating something iconic or instantly recognisable as his. Instead, he sees architecture as a service, a vehicle for civic and public good.
Ana Souto, Senior Lecturer in Architectural History, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199683
2023-02-22T19:05:05Z
2023-02-22T19:05:05Z
Returning a name to an artist: the work of Majumbu, a previously unknown Australian painter
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509932/original/file-20230214-28-slyox6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C3968%2C1336&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Large painting of a crocodile attributed to Majumbu along with two child hand stencils.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph courtesy of the Melbourne Museum, object 019930, object size 2.94m by 1.03m</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Arnhem Land rock and bark paintings have fascinated people across the world since the early 1800s. Rock art was <a href="https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/news/cave_art_paintings.php?number=1&start_from=128&category=6">first recorded</a> by Matthew Flinders and his onboard artist William Westall at Chasm Island in January 1803 while they were circumnavigating Australia. </p>
<p>In the early to mid-1800s, there was interest in Arnhem Land paintings on sheets of bark used to form hut-like shelters by visitors to Port Essington. In the late 1800s, some visitors to Arnhem Land collected barks for museums.</p>
<p>The names and stories of the individuals who made most Aboriginal rock art and the earliest collected bark paintings are not known. </p>
<p>We have recently begun to address this. We have identified various artists <a href="https://theconversation.com/paddy-compass-namadbara-for-the-first-time-we-can-name-an-artist-who-created-bark-paintings-in-arnhem-land-in-the-1910s-180243">who made early bark paintings</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-dads-painting-is-hiding-in-secret-place-how-aboriginal-rock-art-can-live-on-even-when-gone-157315">recent rock paintings</a>.</p>
<p>Today, in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2023.2177949">Australian Archaeology</a>, we announce the identification of another artist, Majumbu, also known as “Old Harry”.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/paddy-compass-namadbara-for-the-first-time-we-can-name-an-artist-who-created-bark-paintings-in-arnhem-land-in-the-1910s-180243">Paddy Compass Namadbara: for the first time, we can name an artist who created bark paintings in Arnhem Land in the 1910s</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Painting in Oenpelli</h2>
<p>From 1912, anthropologist Baldwin Spencer and buffalo-shooter Paddy Cahill collected 163 bark paintings at Oenpelli (now Gunbalanya), Arnhem Land, near present-day Kakadu. </p>
<p>We used Cahill’s and Spencer’s notebooks and letters that identify a clan patriarch “Old Harry” as an artist who painted one of the spirit bark paintings and another, now missing, with three fish.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509925/original/file-20230213-24-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509925/original/file-20230213-24-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509925/original/file-20230213-24-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509925/original/file-20230213-24-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509925/original/file-20230213-24-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509925/original/file-20230213-24-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1719&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509925/original/file-20230213-24-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1719&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509925/original/file-20230213-24-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1719&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bark painting of a male human-like figure that only ‘Old Harry’ could see according to Paddy Cahill, made in 1914 and part of the Spencer-Cahill Collection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph by P. Taçon, Melbourne Museum, object 26381, object size 1.695m by 0.750m</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By scouring ethnographic records and constructing genealogies, we realised Old Harry’s Aboriginal name was Majumbu, and he also made rock paintings.</p>
<p>We analysed Majumbu’s characteristic art style from the known spirit bark painting and looked for evidence of the same features in the rest of the collection, identifying a further five paintings as well as another overseas.</p>
<p>With Aboriginal research partners, including two of Majumbu’s great grandchildren, we reviewed the paintings held in the Melbourne Museum and identified some of Majumbu’s known rock paintings to confirm him as the artist behind six of the works in Melbourne Museum’s collection of barks, and a seventh in the Museé du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, in Paris. </p>
<h2>A majestic sight</h2>
<p>Cahill established Oenpelli near the East Alligator River as a base camp settlement in 1910, employing Aboriginal people for buffalo hunting and agriculture.</p>
<p>Spencer first encountered bark paintings in July 1912 during his two-month stay with Cahill at the Oenpelli homestead. Spencer described in his notebooks the very positive impression the barks made on him and also commissioned a series of works from some of the most skilled artists.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509926/original/file-20230213-28-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509926/original/file-20230213-28-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509926/original/file-20230213-28-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509926/original/file-20230213-28-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509926/original/file-20230213-28-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509926/original/file-20230213-28-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509926/original/file-20230213-28-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509926/original/file-20230213-28-kb2qti.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1912 Baldwin Spencer photograph ‘Gembio Family, Man with Six Wives’ believed to be Majumbu and his family.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph courtesy of the Melbourne Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Majumbu and his family were Kunwinjku language speakers from an area east of Oenpelli. He and his six wives and several children were frequent visitors to Oenpelli.</p>
<p>Majumbu was described by visiting journalist Elsie Masson in 1913 as a “grey-bearded warrior” who</p>
<blockquote>
<p>was a majestic sight, as he stalked, tall, gaunt, and solemn, across the yard, with his small son and heir perched high on his shoulders.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509924/original/file-20230213-26-74bn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509924/original/file-20230213-26-74bn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509924/original/file-20230213-26-74bn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509924/original/file-20230213-26-74bn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509924/original/file-20230213-26-74bn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509924/original/file-20230213-26-74bn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509924/original/file-20230213-26-74bn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509924/original/file-20230213-26-74bn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photograph of man said to be Old Harry (Majumbu) and his family by Elsie Masson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, object 1998.306.60, 1913</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Distinctive features</h2>
<p>Majumbu’s artwork has distinctive stylistic features. </p>
<p>The bark paintings we identified all have similar hatch infill (<em><a href="https://redkangaroogallery.com.au/blogs/news/cross-hatching-or-rarrk-painting">rarrk</a></em>) which features gently curving parallel lines of varying thickness. This is characteristic of Majumbu’s style, but not of other bark or rock artists from the area who painted parallel hatch lines of uniform thickness.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509935/original/file-20230214-18-qm8f5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509935/original/file-20230214-18-qm8f5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509935/original/file-20230214-18-qm8f5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1608&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509935/original/file-20230214-18-qm8f5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509935/original/file-20230214-18-qm8f5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1608&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509935/original/file-20230214-18-qm8f5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=2021&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509935/original/file-20230214-18-qm8f5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=2021&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509935/original/file-20230214-18-qm8f5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=2021&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kulunglatji (Kunwinjku) bark painting of a spirit called Mununlimbir.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph courtesy of the Melbourne Museum, object 019921, registered on 22 September 1914; object size is 1.845m by 0.830m</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of the human-like figures in Majumbu’s paintings have an extra digit on their hands. He also often painted an X on hands and feet of human-like and some animal figures. </p>
<p>When eyes are shown, they are on stalks or are represented as rectangles. Human-like figures have diamond patterning for some of their infill and there is a central division of limbs and bodies.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509939/original/file-20230214-28-uzhs0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509939/original/file-20230214-28-uzhs0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509939/original/file-20230214-28-uzhs0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509939/original/file-20230214-28-uzhs0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509939/original/file-20230214-28-uzhs0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509939/original/file-20230214-28-uzhs0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1746&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509939/original/file-20230214-28-uzhs0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509939/original/file-20230214-28-uzhs0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1746&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nuojorabipi, the ‘Debil-Debil’ that eats the flesh of dead natives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph courtesy of the Melbourne Museum, object 020055, registered on 22 September 1914, object size 1.414m by 0.775m</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The largest bark in the Melbourne Museum’s Spencer-Cahill Collection is dominated by a painting of a crocodile that measures 2.94 metres by 1.03 metres. It is almost identical to a rock painting known to have been painted by Majumbu in a rock shelter where his family regularly camped.</p>
<p>With Gunbalanya community members, we relocated his crocodile rock painting in September 2022. The crocodile is significant because of the key role they play in regional ceremonies. </p>
<p>As with the spirit being paintings, it reaffirms Majumbu’s connection to his traditional land.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509933/original/file-20230214-28-ysqkey.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509933/original/file-20230214-28-ysqkey.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509933/original/file-20230214-28-ysqkey.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509933/original/file-20230214-28-ysqkey.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509933/original/file-20230214-28-ysqkey.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509933/original/file-20230214-28-ysqkey.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509933/original/file-20230214-28-ysqkey.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509933/original/file-20230214-28-ysqkey.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">Gunbalanya community members below Majumbu’s rock painting of a crocodile after re-finding the Djimuban rock shelter on September 26 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph by P. Taçon.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Priceless heritage</h2>
<p>We are indebted to the early bark painters of western Arnhem Land for creating such an extraordinary assemblage of paintings, and to Baldwin Spencer and Paddy Cahill for recognising their importance and having the foresight to collect them at a time when Aboriginal art was not valued by outsiders.</p>
<p>We are now able to learn about some of the Aboriginal artists behind this collection, their families and their lives, adding new life and significance to these early bark paintings not only for interested people across the globe but also for the artists’ descendants, most of whom still live at Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) today.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-dads-painting-is-hiding-in-secret-place-how-aboriginal-rock-art-can-live-on-even-when-gone-157315">'Our dad's painting is hiding, in secret place': how Aboriginal rock art can live on even when gone</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul S.C.Taçon receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Jalandoni receives funding from Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joakim Goldhahn receives funding from Rock Art Australia and The Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Taylor receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally K. May receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kenneth Mangiru 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>
Majumbu’s work sits in the Melbourne Museum, but until now he has not been named as the artist.
Paul S.C.Taçon, Chair in Rock Art Research and Director of the Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit (PERAHU), Griffith University
Andrea Jalandoni, Research Fellow, Griffith University
Joakim Goldhahn, Rock Art Australia Ian Potter Kimberley Chair, The University of Western Australia
Kenneth Mangiru, Danek Senior Traditional Owner, Indigenous Knowledge
Luke Taylor, Adjunct Fellow, Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit, Griffith University
Sally K. May, Associate Professor, University of Adelaide
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196171
2022-12-16T12:00:16Z
2022-12-16T12:00:16Z
Why Wellcome closed its Medicine Man exhibition – and others should follow suit
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499556/original/file-20221207-25-khi4s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4030%2C2463&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Wellcome Collection gallery in central London.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-january-2018-view-entrance-wellcome-797225785">William Barton</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In November the Wellcome Collection closed their Medicine Man gallery. In a <a href="https://twitter.com/ExploreWellcome/status/1596091202381975552">Twitter thread</a>, they acknowledged that “the display still perpetuates a version of medical history that is based on racist, sexist and ableist theories and language.”</p>
<p>Medicine Man <a href="https://inews.co.uk/culture/arts/wellcome-collection-director-melanie-keen-challenged-relics-colonialism-racism-578335">told history</a> from a narrow, <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/pages/YLnsihAAACEAfsuu">eurocentric perspective</a>. As such, the Wellcome’s decision to rethink its gallery is not a matter of erasing history, but of deepening it.</p>
<p>As they rethink their collections, Wellcome and others like it must remember that <a href="https://clas.osu.edu/sites/clas.osu.edu/files/Tuck%20and%20Yang%202012%20Decolonization%20is%20not%20a%20metaphor.pdf">decolonisation is not a metaphor</a>, and that this move must be followed up by more concrete action.</p>
<h2>Henry Wellcome and his collection</h2>
<p>Henry Wellcome (1853-1939) was an American collector who amassed a fortune through his pharmaceutical firm.</p>
<p>Through a network of collecting agents, Wellcome accumulated millions of objects over the course of his career.</p>
<p>In 1912, collecting agent Charles Thompson <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ervknb4k">wrote a letter</a> to his colleague Paira Mall advising that he should not come home until “India is completely ransacked.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499573/original/file-20221207-3544-liif7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sepia portrait shows Henry Wellcome with short hair and a huge handlebar moustache." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499573/original/file-20221207-3544-liif7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499573/original/file-20221207-3544-liif7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499573/original/file-20221207-3544-liif7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499573/original/file-20221207-3544-liif7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499573/original/file-20221207-3544-liif7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499573/original/file-20221207-3544-liif7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499573/original/file-20221207-3544-liif7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry Wellcome photographed in 1890.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/eb8jgc9m">Henry van der Weyde</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTiHMadfw5o">Colonial thinking</a> was a fundamental part of the feverish collecting in Wellcome’s company. The Medicine Man gallery is the culmination of this effort.</p>
<p>15 years old, it housed a selection of Wellcome’s collection, focusing on the collector, with scant context regarding how the objects were acquired. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://societyhistorycollecting.org/forum/shc-caa-decentering-collecting-histories/">myth of the heroic European male collector</a> is pervasive in personal collection museums. Collectors are often portrayed as pioneering men with a <a href="https://pmj.bmj.com/content/93/1102/507">“passion for exploration”</a>.</p>
<p>Museums have been slow to tackle this narrative, which omits the networks of collectors that often relied upon <a href="https://natsca.org/sites/default/files/publications/JoNSC-Vol6-DasandLowe2018.pdf">indigenous labour and knowledge</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499552/original/file-20221207-11275-tzl53c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Nail-studded container for nkisi force, carved wooden figure with mirrored container, Bakongo people, west-central Africa, 1882-1920. Front three quarter view. White background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499552/original/file-20221207-11275-tzl53c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499552/original/file-20221207-11275-tzl53c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499552/original/file-20221207-11275-tzl53c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499552/original/file-20221207-11275-tzl53c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499552/original/file-20221207-11275-tzl53c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499552/original/file-20221207-11275-tzl53c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499552/original/file-20221207-11275-tzl53c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=953&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 nail studded wooden statue from the Democratic Republic of the Congo dated between 1882-1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/fvvpmxfm/items">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This portrayal also mutes histories of violence ubiquitous in 19th century collecting. </p>
<p><a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/fvvpmxfm">One object in the gallery</a>, a nail studded statue from the Democratic Republic of the Congo is dated between 1882-1920. This encompasses 22 years of the <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/belgian-king-establishes-congo-free-state">Congo Free State</a>, a notoriously violent regime that decimated over half of the country’s population.</p>
<p>Displaying this object without context for its creation and acquisition allows the violence of this history to continue. </p>
<p>Decontextualising objects suppresses public awareness of colonial violence, facilitating historical whitewashing that allows for continued <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/belgian-king-returns-mask-congo-symbolic-gesture-restitution-2022-06-08/">denial of accountability.</a></p>
<p>Thousands of objects in Wellcome’s collection, among millions in UK museums, were <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv18msmcr?turn_away=true&seq=3">acquired in violent, colonial contexts</a> and put on display for audiences to gawk at or walk past, unbothered. Many objects are sacred, intimate, personal. Many contain human remains.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499553/original/file-20221207-15956-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sepia portrait of Paira Mall in suit, with strong dark moustache." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499553/original/file-20221207-15956-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499553/original/file-20221207-15956-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499553/original/file-20221207-15956-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499553/original/file-20221207-15956-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499553/original/file-20221207-15956-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499553/original/file-20221207-15956-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499553/original/file-20221207-15956-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paira Mall received a letter from fellow collecting agent Charles Thompson stating that he would not come home until ‘India is completely ransacked’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/u3msy3uj/images?id=daqcnh8t">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prior to the closing of Medicine Man, Wellcome <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/event-series/Yv5GQhAAAILuA2Mb">attempted to introduce</a> new perspectives into the gallery: alternative labels, artistic responses to objects and critical engagements led by the Visitor Experience Team.</p>
<p>These interventions showed an evolving attitude. Though, as the museum <a href="https://twitter.com/ExploreWellcome/status/1596091202381975552">acknowledged</a>, this did not change the wider narrative of the gallery. </p>
<p>The pivot from a Wellcome-centric narrative towards “the narratives and lived experiences of those who have been silenced” is a necessary step forward.</p>
<h2>The state of colonial collections in Britain</h2>
<p>Wellcome has had relative freedom within the museum world thanks to its access to private funding.</p>
<p>In 2020, former UK culture secretary <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/letter-from-culture-secretary-on-hm-government-position-on-contested-heritage">Oliver Dowden wrote</a> to national institutions threatening to cut funding if they took “actions motivated by activism or politics”. </p>
<p>As a result, alternatively funded museums such as Wellcome, <a href="https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/">Pitt Rivers Museum</a> and the <a href="https://powell-cottonmuseum.org/">Powell-Cotton Museum</a> have taken the lead over national ones in confronting their collections.</p>
<p>Though it is important to diversify perspectives in galleries, true decolonial action must stem from the <a href="https://decolonialdictionary.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/return/">active return</a> of <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/new-zealand-toi-moko-repatriation">human remains</a> and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/on-display-here-wanted-by-india-1988002.html">objects</a>. </p>
<p>Looting was a tool of colonial violence, and it is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/looted-benin-bronzes.html">only through this process</a> that justice can begin.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Exhibitions in the Medicine Man collection are shown, including a display case with artificial limbs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499555/original/file-20221207-12-9otzao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499555/original/file-20221207-12-9otzao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499555/original/file-20221207-12-9otzao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499555/original/file-20221207-12-9otzao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499555/original/file-20221207-12-9otzao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499555/original/file-20221207-12-9otzao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499555/original/file-20221207-12-9otzao.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">The now closed Medicine Man collection gallery at Wellcome.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:One_of_the_halls_of_the_Wellcome_Collection,_London.jpg">Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Wellcome has a history of returning human remains, fulfilling claims from <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/pages/WyjZcCgAAKgALCuN">Māori/Moriori</a> and <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/pages/WyjbTCgAAKgALDPr">Hawaiian</a> communities. Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum has set up a <a href="https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/features/2020/11/a-new-approach-to-repatriation/">partnership</a> with Maasai representatives to discuss objects of Maasai origin and London’s Horniman museum <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-63783561">sent back</a> 72 objects to Nigeria in November.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.returningheritage.com/case-studies">More institutions</a> must follow these examples.</p>
<p>Those sceptical of restitution have asked – what would happen to museums if their collections were all returned? For most, this is not a realistic risk.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/fact_sheet_bm_collection.pdf">The British Museum</a> has 80,000 objects on display at any one time – just 1% of their entire collection. </p>
<p>If any museum <em>was</em> emptied through returns, this would be a reflection on the historical injustices in the collection and a major success in accountability.</p>
<p>This question circles back to the Wellcome Collection’s original <a href="https://twitter.com/ExploreWellcome/status/1596091202381975552">tweet</a> - “What’s the point of museums?” It is the job of museum professionals and audiences today to grapple with this, and broaden their perspectives and imagination.</p>
<p>Smaller, emerging museums, such as the <a href="https://www.museumofbritishcolonialism.org/">Museum of British Colonialism</a>, the <a href="https://www.migrationmuseum.org/">Migration Museum</a> and <a href="https://queerbritain.org.uk/">Queer Britain</a>, have risen to the front lines as agents for social change that help <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53014592">represent</a> and respect all the histories that reflect the British community.</p>
<p>Museums are not neutral - the stories they tell and the objects they display are always an active and powerful choice.</p>
<h2>A long way to go</h2>
<p>Despite Wellcome’s positive steps, they must do more internally to ensure their dedication to addressing racism. A <a href="https://wellcome.org/news/insufficient-progress-anti-racism-wellcome-evaluation-finds">summer report</a> revealed that the Wellcome perpetuated <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-systemic-racism-and-institutional-racism-131152">systematic racism</a> and outlined a pattern of discrimination, harassment and <a href="https://theconversation.com/microaggressions-arent-just-innocent-blunders-research-links-them-with-racial-bias-145894">microagressions</a> faced by staff.</p>
<p>The report reflects broader <a href="https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/anti-racism/museums-and-anti-racism/">structures of institutional racism in the heritage field</a>.</p>
<p>The heritage sector has a lot of work to do before they can genuinely claim anti-racist progress. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-systemic-racism-and-institutional-racism-131152">Explainer: what is systemic racism and institutional racism?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Museums must strengthen their commitments to creating more equitable and just societies. This includes following the <a href="https://openrestitution.africa/reclaiming-restitution-report/">advice of activists</a> in repatriating colonial collections and fostering equitable environments in their own communities.</p>
<p>Closing the Medicine Man gallery was a good step forward, but there is still a long way to go.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anaïs Walsdorf is a previous employee of the Wellcome Collection.</span></em></p>
Closing racist exhibitions is a good step, but it doesn’t go far enough to decolonise our museums – an expert explains.
Anaïs Walsdorf, PhD candidate, History, University of Warwick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191299
2022-12-11T13:41:48Z
2022-12-11T13:41:48Z
NFTs in the art world: A revolution or ripoff?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486288/original/file-20220923-10674-ahh3cj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C2%2C986%2C556&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many NFT creators come from a practice of 3D modelling, graphic design, animation or video game design. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital objects that represent something else, such as a work of art, a video or even a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/14/twitter-nft-jack-dorsey-sina-estavi">tweet</a>. They certify the existence and the ownership of this item through a data recording on a blockchain (a <a href="https://www.cpacanada.ca/en/business-and-accounting-resources/other-general-business-topics/information-management-and-technology/publications/introduction-to-blockchain-technology">distributed ledger technology</a>).</p>
<p>Since the emergence of NFTs in 2016, many artists have experimented with this new digital device to market their creations. NFTs are most often bought and resold via auction sites, where payments are made in cryptocurrency (such as <a href="https://ethereum.org/en/eth/">ether currency</a>). It is this notion of a certificate registered on a blockchain that distinguishes an NFT from a standard digital work.</p>
<p>The public and media discourse about NFTs is polarized: in the eyes of their strongest enthusiasts, NFTs represent the future of art, while their detractors consider them a vast ripoff and waste of energy.</p>
<p>How can this NFT phenomenon be characterized? To what extent does it challenge the established codes of contemporary art?</p>
<p>As a researcher specialized in media studies and sociology of culture, I am providing a brief overview of the situation.</p>
<h2>Crypto-evangelists and crypto-skeptics</h2>
<p>On one hand, there is the camp that can be described as crypto-evangelists: they adhere to a discourse that present NFTs as a radical revolution that will change everything.</p>
<p>This is precisely the discourse surrounding the sensational 2021 sale of a work by the artist Beeple (a collage of vignettes created by digital software) at the prestigious auction house Christie’s for nearly US$70 million. According to the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/beeple-how-i-changed-the-art-world-for-ever-tggbx99vm">two main buyers</a>, the purchase was “emblematic of a revolution in progress,” and marked “the beginning of a movement carried out by a whole generation.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1361670588608176128"}"></div></p>
<p>On the other side, there are the crypto-skeptics. This is the position of Hito Steyerl, a widely recognized media artist. She believes that NFTs are the “equivalent of toxic masculinity,” and owe their development to “the worst and most monopolistic actors” who are “extracting labour from precarious workers” and “<a href="https://www.holo.mg/stream/hito-stereyl-nfts-like-toxic-masculinity/">take up way too much attention and use up all the oxygen in the room</a>.”</p>
<p>This polarization means that the real potential of NFTs, as well as their flaws, which are also very real, tend to be overshadowed by caricatured positions of principle. However, within this ecosystem of NFTs, there exists a set of rich and plural artistic practices.</p>
<h2>Emerging creative scenes</h2>
<p>The NFT format definitely represents a new type of object being traded. It is based on a new type of contract (known as “smart”), which is itself the result of the innovation of blockchain technology. In this way, the NFT format has given rise to the emergence of a new creative scene. Or, rather, scenes, in the plural, which are characterized by a great effervescence — but also by certain contradictions.</p>
<p>The “native” scenes of the NFT format, that is to say, those born with the invention of this format, are characterized by a strong media visibility, a volume of far-reaching financial investment, and, for some of its actors, a will to reshuffle the cards of the art world by criticizing its established order.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1541993095218307073"}"></div></p>
<p>A large portion of NFT creators come from a practice of 3D modelling, graphic design, animation or video game design — in other words, from the creative industries sector. In recent decades, this sector has generated a very large pool of skills, whose <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07053436.2004.10707657">creative surplus</a> finds a mode of expression in the NFT format, but also a source of additional income to cope with the often precarious conditions of creative work.</p>
<p>Many figures of the native NFT scenes are, to use the expression of the <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Outsiders/Howard-S-Becker/9781982106225">sociologist Howard S. Becker</a>, outsiders (neophytes) in comparison to the established art world. That is, they socialize in circles other than those of the institutional art world, and they transgress its rules in many respects.</p>
<h2>A more egalitarian art world?</h2>
<p>The discourse of the main purchasers of Beeple’s sensational work is very enlightening in this sense. MetaKovan and Twobadour (two investors of the crypto world, both of Indian origin) reveal in an interview:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have been conditioned, from a very young age, to think that art was not for us. <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/beeple-how-i-changed-the-art-world-for-ever-tggbx99vm">…We have always been against the idea of exclusivity. The metaverse is all inclusive. … A metaverse in which everyone will have the same rights, powers, will be legitimate. … It is particularly egalitarian.</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, there are major contradictions between the discourse of egalitarianism they are advocating here, and its implementation in the projects of these two investors. For example, during the technological art event <a href="https://www.dreamverse.life/ticketing.html">Dreamverse</a> that they organized in New York in 2021, the price of admission to the evening varied between US$175 and $2,500 — an unaffordable cost for many amateurs. This hierarchy of prices leads, rather, to the reproduction of a logic of exclusivity that favours the most fortunate.</p>
<h2>Museums are cautious</h2>
<p>The gap between the market value of NFTs and their value in museums is unprecedented. The former is reaching unprecedented heights, while the latter is still at rock bottom. Indeed, the collection of NFT by museums remains, to this day, a very marginal practice. Only a handful of NFTs are integrated into museum collections. Some of them are acquired following an exhibition in a museum, where they are presented on digital screens hung on the wall.</p>
<p>Cultural legitimacy is affected by the disintermediation (elimination of intermediaries) and reintermediation (introduction of new intermediaries) that characterize the world of NFTs. In its disruptive impulse, the proclaimed revolution of NFTs cuts itself off from a chain of well-established, legitimate intermediaries — the gallery owners, curators, art critics, conventional collectors and public subsidies.</p>
<p>It has replaced them with new intermediaries, primarily “whales” — investors who have made a fortune in cryptocurrency — or popular culture celebrities. These new intermediaries overinvest in financial capital in the production of NFTs with the aim of gaining a position of prestige as a collector, or to enrich themselves by increasing the value of works. But they often lack the social and cultural capital to find a way to access museums and their exhibition spaces and their collections.</p>
<h2>In search of legitimacy</h2>
<p>However, these works are publicly accessible, as all NFTs are freely searchable on their buyers’ e-wallets. Some collectors buy works only to speculate. Others gain visibility by displaying their NFTs in a metaverse (a virtual world) such as <a href="https://decentraland.org/">Decentraland</a> or <a href="https://www.tryspace.com/">Space</a>.</p>
<p>And for others, still, the quest for legitimacy goes further: in the spring of 2022, a group of artists, curators, collectors and NFT platforms organized a <a href="https://decentralartpavilion.io/">Decentral Art Pavilion</a>, in parallel to the Venice Biennale. Remaining outside the official program, the exhibition aimed to position NFTs in the orbit of this key contemporary art event.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1527990090319790080"}"></div></p>
<p>But the presence of NFTs remained marginal in this edition of the biennial. Only the <a href="https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2022/cameroon-republic">Cameroon pavilion</a> exhibited NFTs under the leadership of a curator with a <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/outrage-kenyan-pavilion-venice-biennale-281137">shady reputation</a>, and the result was disappointing.</p>
<p>The recognition of the NFTs by the consecrated art world will perhaps come about by other avenues, like the more experimental practices presented at the <a href="https://documenta-fifteen.de/en/">documenta art exhibition in Kassel, Germany</a> this year, or through artistic movements from developing countries, like the <a href="https://balot.org/">Balot project</a>, which used an NFT to criticize the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/feb/19/congolese-statue-loan-legal-battle-nfts-colonial-rule-us-museum">appropriation of a work originating from the Republic of the Congo by an American museum</a>.</p>
<p>So recognition could come through the margins. But in these cases, the marginal players could more easily access the established art world because they share its codes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191299/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathalie Casemajor ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
Creators of NFT art are organizing themselves into new art scenes, but they are still searching for cultural legitimacy while museums remain skittish.
Nathalie Casemajor, Professeure, Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/194273
2022-11-10T11:51:44Z
2022-11-10T11:51:44Z
Why stolen objects being returned to Africa don’t belong just in museums – podcast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494469/original/file-20221109-11-ojxf6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=137%2C82%2C4256%2C2773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Benin Bronzes: 944 objects looted in the 19th century from the Kingdom of Benin are in the British Museum in London. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-july-2018-architectural-detail-benin-2175043265">Mltz via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Momentum is growing for objects stolen during the colonial era that are now held in museums in Europe and North America to be returned to the places and communities that they were taken from. In this episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a> podcast, we talk to three experts about what happens to these objects once they’re returned and the questions their restitution is raising about the relationship between communities and museums in Africa. </p>
<iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/60087127b9687759d637bade/636ccbd22b51320012e7b6a9" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="190px"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-561" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/561/4fbbd099d631750693d02bac632430b71b37cd5f/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The Benin bronzes are at the centre of the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1b32105e-428a-49e8-b2f2-d3ba381c4c65">restitution movement</a>. Many of these objects, made of brass, ivory, wood and other materials as well as bronze, were looted in 1897 when British soldiers invaded the Kingdom of Benin in what is today Benin City in Nigeria. Since then, they’ve been scattered in museums and collections around the world. </p>
<p>In early November, a new website was launched called <a href="https://digitalbenin.org/">Digital Benin</a> cataloguing the location of 5,246 bronzes across 131 institutions in 20 countries. It comes as a number of collections are now moving to return the objects to Nigeria. In July, Germany signed a landmark agreement to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-signs-deal-give-ownership-benin-bronzes-nigeria-2022-08-25/">transfer ownership of 512 Benin bronzes to Nigeria</a>. A few have already been returned from the <a href="https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/metropolitan-museum-of-art-returns-two-benin-bronzes-1234595399/">Metropolitan Museum of Art</a> in New York, as well as from the universities of <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/15479/">Aberdeen and Cambridge in the UK</a>. </p>
<p>Nigeria plans to build a new museum in Benin City, the <a href="https://www.emowaa.com/">Edo Museum of West African Art</a>, to house some of the returned objects. But some researchers think conversations about the objects’ future should extend beyond the national government and the present-day Oba, or king, of Benin. “There is a need to go beyond the elites and get to the members of the descendant communities whose ancestors produced and used many of these [objects] within their cultural context,” explains John Kelechi Ugwuanyi, a senior lecturer in the archaeology and tourism at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. </p>
<p>Involving communities in the way artefacts are used and displayed is a longstanding issue for African museums, even for objects that were never taken abroad. Farai Chabata, a visiting lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe and senior curator of ethnography at the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, told us part of this stems from the history of some museums on the continent. For example, he says the Museum of Human Sciences in Harare, where he’s based today, was founded when Zimbabwe was a British colony with the primary objective to understand the colony. “What you then see is a museum which was not actually serving the community in its inclusive form, but these were very exclusive, elitist museums that largely served a colonial white minority,” explains Chabata.</p>
<p>If objects are displayed in museums as works of art, it can <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02580136.2021.1996140">also strip them of their sacred meaning,</a> according to Aribiah David Attoe, a philosopher at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. “Some of those objects still retain their purpose or their usefulness in traditional societies,” says Attoe. “Perhaps we should give these objects their rightful place as religious objects, as sacred objects, not just artworks that can be displayed in museums, whether in Africa or in Europe or anywhere,” he says. </p>
<p>Listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly to find out more. </p>
<p>This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. The executive producer was Gemma Ware. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aribiah David Attoe receives funding from the Global Philosophy of Religion Project Grant, facilitated by the John Templeton Fund. He's received funding in the past from the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare and the Global Excellence Stature fund for Doctoral research, facilitated by the University of Johannesburg. He's a member and senior research fellow of the Conversational Society of Philosophy (CSP), Nigeria.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Kelechi Ugwuanyi is also a postdoctoral research fellow at the Global Heritage Lab at the University of Bonn. He's recevied funding from Nigeria’s Tertiary Education Trust Fund and the American Council of Learned Societies and the Overseas Research Scholarship at the University of York. Farai Chabata is senior curator of ethnography for the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, based at the Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences in Harare.</span></em></p>
Momentum is growing for the restitution of objects, such as the Benin Bronzes, stolen during colonialism. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
Daniel Merino, Associate Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
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