On my visit to the BM this morning I followed most of the museum’s new ‘Collecting and Empire’ trail. I had lots of thoughts, which I’ll attempt to articulate here.
Firstly, I think I partly get what they were trying to do. The stories typically presented about objects are so often dominated by Europeans. These labels introduce some of the many other actors involved in the acquisition of these objects. That is important work. However...
The choice of objects, the language used and so much focus on objects that were ‘legitimately’ acquired means that the overall tone is often one of defensiveness and misdirection. I went around the trail feeling that a huge elephant in the room still wasn’t being addressed.
This label for the Nereid monument, for example, places so much emphasis on the permission obtained by Fellows to remove the monument. This is in the room right next to the Parthenon marbles, which aren’t on the trail. What is the point being made here?
Similarly, this ancestral screen from Nigeria is located near the Benin bronzes (which also aren’t on the trail), with a label explaining that it was entrusted to the protection of a British officer by Kalabari chiefs. Again, what is being emphasised here?
I was really fascinated (although quite confused at first) by the decision to include an object that isn’t actually on display at the museum. This mask is in on long-term to a cultural centre in Canada. However, I found the language used in this label particularly jarring.
I was surprised to see ‘efforts to assimilate First Nations people’ mentioned in such an off-hand, understated way. It made me think about the violence, racism and injustice behind that seemingly innocuous phrase, and how problematic so-called ‘neutral’ language can be.
Those thoughts stayed with me when I checked out the new display on Hans Sloane’s connections to the slave trade in the Enlightenment gallery, which mentions ‘theories of racial difference’ without any real acknowledgement or interrogation of what that means.
All of these efforts are really important, there is some great stuff happening here, and I have so much respect for everyone who’s working on this. But I feel like a lot of this has ‘designed by committee’ all over it.
I think it’s likely that some of the messaging has been diluted as the work has gone through various edits and approval processes, which is unfortunate. I’d like to see the museum keep going on this, and hope they can come to engage with these issues in a much more direct way.
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