CAN THE MUSEUM BE RECONCILED?

Breaking the Glass Case | Megan C. Mahon

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Good morning museum friends, and now it’s time for another issue of Here’s How Hard It Is To Decolonize Museums. Not to depress anyone at this late stage in the semester, but I wanted to talk about a trend I’ve been noticing among Canadian museums recently and ask a vital question: do we, as participants in this program, believe that the museum can be reconciled? Not simply decolonized, but reconciled?

Some might argue it’s an issue of semantics. But I believe that, in most cases, decolonization is something that follows reconciliation. In theory, once Canadian museums have reconciled with the Indigenous peoples on whose land they stand, they can continue, with their input, to decolonize the museum - that is, to reimagine and reorganize their content with justice and restitution in mind. However, I fear that “decolonization” is in danger of simply becoming another museum buzzword – a trend that quickly fizzles, rather than a way of operating that all institutions should be committing to for the future. Many Canadian museums are at risk of putting half an effort into their decolonization practices, by not putting reconciliation first. And that will involve a total re-imagination of what “the museum” actually is and should be.

The Royal BC Museum in Victoria, for example, has recently closed its third floor, citing the need to completely overhaul their exhibitions in the name of decolonization. The galleries prepped to close include the “Becoming BC” exhibition and the extremely popular Old Town (which depicts the city of Victoria as it would have looked in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries). They’re also going to close their First Peoples gallery, as they want to feature Indigenous stories that are not based in white settler stereotypes from 1886 (when the museum was founded).

 

The outside of the Royal British Columbia Museum. Source: Michael Klajban. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_British_Columbia_Museum

On the surface, this looks great. These galleries definitely need an overhaul - as Geoff Russ, a member of the Haida community and a Victoria resident, put it, the First Peoples gallery in particular “desperately needs input from Indigenous experts” before it can reopen. The other exhibits also need thorough examination to ensure that they explain history from more than one (white) viewpoint. No, I’m not against gallery overhauls. But I’m also not sure that this gets to the very root of the problem.

The reason the RBCM is making these changes is that past staff members have complained about “a culture of racism and discrimination.” The resignation of Lucy Bell, who had been the head of the Indigenous Collections and Repatriation department, sparked a third-party investigation into internal practices - the results of which were, apparently, “not good.” Put simply? It’s not only the galleries that need an overhaul.

Some artifacts of the First Peoples collection at the Royal BC Museum. Source: Wikimedia Commons. 

Museums are made up of people. While art, objects, and artifacts might be the public face of an institution, people make them run – and it’s the people, not the artifacts, that have to do the work of reconciliation. If the RBCM changes their exhibits and didactics, that’s great. But if the people who make those exhibits and didactics continue to participate in making the museum unsafe for Indigenous folks, then only the surface has changed. The colonial wound has not, in fact, healed at all.

It’s a similar story at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Following their own – oft-repeated and studied by students in this program – blunders, their CEO was fired. They’ve since spent over four thousand hours on employee training (don’t be racist! is it really that difficult?) and instituted Robert Greene as Indigenous Elder-In-Residence. But as new CEO Isha Khan has stated, disrupting the colonial standard in museums “takes really thoughtful and deliberate work and takes a long time.”

She’s right. For once, I have to think the CMHR is taking the right approach. It’s not about changing galleries - although that takes a lot of work, it can happen relatively quickly. Changing people won’t happen overnight.

However, that brings me to the question which is the crux of this article: is the museum too steeped in coloniality to ever be reconciled, no matter how much the people within them may change and grow?

Pondering this question led me to Sumaya Kassim’s famous article “The Museum Will Not Be Decolonized,” which I’m sure most people in this program have read. It details her experiences as a co-curator at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, creating an exhibition that examined the museum’s colonial history. Although her exploration into the history of the museum’s artifacts was fascinating, what’s more relevant to this discussion is her struggle with the overall structure of the museum. As she put it, white supremacy and coloniality are “so embedded in the history and power structures” of cultural institutions that she was doubtful about whether decolonization could ever be achieved. Museums are made by, for, and about white audiences. Before we can think about changing museums, we have to alter their entire structure and purpose.

I’m an eternal optimist: I believe that the museum can be reconciled and, eventually, decolonized. But I think that museums have to change their definition of what that means. For the Royal BC Museum, it means more than simply changing your galleries. For the Canadian Museum for Human rights, it means more than firing your CEO and conducting staff workshops. Of course, these things are all good (especially if your CEO does nothing to combat reports of racism), and they have their place in the reconciliation process. But they also fail to fundamentally disrupt the nature of the museum, which is, I think, the true way to reconcile and decolonize.

This has been a long, deep dive into what museums are doing – and not doing – that works to create safer environments for everyone and to reconcile with communities they have harmed in the past. My final point is that it must happen in layers: change the structure, change the people, change the artifacts. If everything I’ve learned in this program is true, it won’t happen quickly. All of us who work in museums will have to ensure that reconciliation is our primary focus. But, if the end result is safer and anti-colonial museum spaces, it will be worth it. And we aren't averse to hard work, are we?

CAESAR, WHAT'S GOOD?: THE COMPLICATED LEGACY OF CLASSICAL ART

Breaking the Glass Case | Megan C. Mahon

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In almost every so-called universal museum in the world, the department of classical art takes pride of place. The most well-known museums – like the British Museum, the Louvre, and the Met – are famous for their vast collections of Greek and Roman art, the pinnacle of the classical period. But what does the term “classical” really mean, especially when museums use it to describe a certain form of art? How is this term implicated in creating a hierarchy of artistic achievement?

Figures from the East Pediment of the Parthenon at the British Museum. Image courtesy of author.

The beginning of the answer to that question will be very familiar to Museum Studies students. In a process parallel to the inception of modern museums, the term “classical” was first applied to art during the Enlightenment, when white European scholars were beginning to run into myriad forms of artistic expression in the places they colonized. As a way to enforce the notion of white cultural superiority, these European scholars established their own standard for what the pinnacle of creative achievement should be. Ancient Greek and Roman art – statuary, paintings, mosaics – was positioned as the highest artistic standard, with every other work of art judged in comparison. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, an 18th century antiquarian often named “the father of art history,” even declared that Greek sculpture was “the summit of human achievement, past or present.” Winckelmann had obviously never gazed upon the temples of Angkor Wat, or even eaten a taco. But, more seriously, it’s worth noting that this is the same man who, when speaking of once-painted Greco-Roman statues which faded to white over time, also said “the whiter the body is, the more beautiful it is." Racism has been a part of the classical discipline since its inception.

So, how is this a problem for museums today? Well, in many institutions – the British Museum being a notable example – the “classical world” is set apart from the art and artifacts of other regions and times. Even the title “classic” suggests that this art is separate, other, original, something to aspire to rather than be judged in its own right. It’s also true that few other works of art, even those from the same time period, are deemed classical: only works from Greece and Rome are granted this title. Many museums also place Mediterranean art in the best, most expensive galleries, while many other works of art, particularly those that have a purpose beyond aesthetic value or those which do not come from Europe, are judged as “artifacts” or “ethnographic items” and relegated to less desirable locations. Feel free to argue with me if you’d like, but the truth is that museums have a lot of work to do in unpacking the connections they’ve reinforced between classical art and white European superiority.

Because the fact is that classics and white supremacy are inextricably linked. Mary Beard, a well-known archaeologist and popular non-fiction author, has commented in the past that the classical world is a “vocabulary that can be used for good or ill by would-be emancipators and oppressors alike.” Sure, but isn’t it also true that the classical tradition has been used and re-used by those in power even up to modern day? Dictators and white supremacists across time have used the classical world as an inspiration or a rallying cry for their so-called higher purpose. The discipline itself was started by people with an agenda; museums aren’t neutral, and art isn’t either.

The art world, in many ways, defines itself by what we call the classical tradition, but how can museums move beyond this? How can we remove all defining markers, and display art with no standard, no status quo, and no measure of superiority?

The very first thing to do is to do away with the word “classical” entirely, as it implies a standard by which all other art is judged. Using the terms “ancient Roman” or “ancient Mediterranean” instead will change nothing about the art except for the way that we look at it, and it’s a relatively easy thing to do. The second – and far more difficult – task is to incorporate the voices of Indigenous people into museums, particularly in Canada. When Indigenous art is interpreted by Indigenous people (such as at the Haida Gwaii Museum at Kay Llnagaay), it can be understood outside of the settler-colonial context, and outside settler-colonial, Enlightenment-based hierarchies. Allowing Indigenous people to tell their stories, in their own voices, will create more opportunities for reconciliation in Canadian museums.

The final, and most difficult thing that museums everywhere can do is acknowledge where the importance is placed in their collections. The viewing of ancient Mediterranean art is often seen as an escape from the modern world, a journey back to a time of pure, neutral beauty, removed from everyday politics. This neutral, universalist notion, as we all know, is a shield for white supremacy to hide behind. An obvious way to combat this is to include more Indigenous voices and stories in cultural institutions, so that all art can be understood in its own context. When museums can learn to place all art on the same pedestal, we’ll have true artistic and epistemic equality. Until then? Someone get Johann Winckelmann a taco.



Further Reading

Rachel Poser (2021). “He Wants to Save Classics from Whiteness. Can the Field Survive?” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/magazine/classics-greece-rome-whiteness.html

Denise Eileen McCoskey (2018). “Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts: How Neo-Nazis and Ancient Greeks Met in Charlottesville.” Origins 11, no. 11. https://origins.osu.edu/article/beware-greeks-bearing-gifts-how-neo-nazis-and-ancient-greeks-met-charlottesville.

Krishnan Ram-Prasad (2019). “Reclaiming the Ancient World.” Eidolon. https://eidolon.pub/reclaiming-the-ancient-world-c481fc19c0e3.

RESPONSE, REJECTION, RECONCILIATION: EXHIBITING CANADA 150

GREATEST HITS

BY: AMY INTRATOR

Welcome back to the final edition of Greatest Hits 2017! Writing for this column has allowed me to look to the recent past to make sense of developments in the museum world today. With the end of the year quickly approaching, I thought it would be fitting to turn to the very recent past to make sense of the year-long “celebration” that’s about to end: Canada 150.

Official logo for Canada 150. Source. 

The Government of Canada has been planning Canada 150 for years as a celebration of the 150-year anniversary of Canadian confederation. From the very beginning of this project, however, many communities in Canada have rejected this celebratory narrative of Canadian history. The Government of Canada includes reconciliation with Indigenous peoples as one of the themes of Canada 150, but the celebration of Confederation is at odds with most Indigenous peoples’ experience. Indigenous peoples have lived in “Canada” for hundreds of years, so this year marks 150 years of colonial persecution, not nationhood.

Tweet from the artist who designed Colonialism 150 logo, a response to Canada 150. Source.

Where do museums fit into this Canada 150 narrative? Over the past year museums across the country have hosted exhibits that critically reflect on Canada 150. For many curators, artists, and creators, museums have provided a space to stage a counter-narrative and incorporate non-celebratory perspectives on the 150-year anniversary of Confederation. Since there have been so many fantastic exhibits that reflect on Canada 150, for my last Greatest Hits post I have included not one, but three Musings posts, all of which reflect on exhibits that challenge Canada’s sesquicentennial celebration.


Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience 

Miss Chief Eagle Testickle in front of the Fathers of Confederation. The Daddies, Kent Monkman, 2016. Collection of Christine Armstrong and Irfhan Rawji. Photo courtesy of Sadie MacDonald. Source.

In February, Sadie MacDonald reviewed the Art Museum at University of Toronto’s exhibit Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience. The exhibit was on display at the Art Museum from January until March 2017 and is slated to tour museums throughout Canada until 2020. Kent Monkman organized the exhibit, which spanned 300 years and included hundreds of works. I used the word “organized” because Monkman played the role of creator, artist, and curator in this exhibit as several of his own paintings, dioramas, and other pieces were included, but he also put these objects in dialogue with pieces from museums across Canada. I had to visit the exhibit four times to completely take in the exhibit’s objects and text. Sadie’s review of the exhibit immediately picks up on the fact that Monkman organized a narrative that responds to Canada 150 by exploring the Indigenous experience with colonizers that began long before 1867. Even the timeline in the exhibit is a commentary on Canada 150, as Monkman cleverly begins his narrative 150 years before confederation in 1717. Monkman uses the museum as a stage for his narrative that contests Confederation as the beginning of life in Canada.


Jane Ash Poitras: New Acquisitions of Contemporary First Nations Art

Buffalo Seed by Jane Ash Poitras. Photo courtesy of Natania Sherman. Source.

In March, former Musings Editor-in-Chief Natania Sherman reviewed a display at the ROM entitled Jane Ash Poitras: New Acquisitions of Contemporary First Nations Art. Unlike Monkman’s exhibit which spanned centuries and included numerous works, the display Natania reviewed was extremely small in scale. The display included four new acquisitions by the Indigenous artist, Jane Ash Poitras, and while this form of display is common, Natania examined how the works were positioned to stage an anti-colonial dialogue. Poitras paintings feature colonial symbols, like the Hudson’s Bay stripes, in dialogue with symbols of traditional Indigenous knowledge. The paintings themselves were staged next to objects like a school desk and a basket to gather herbs to create a dialogue between the art and the ethnographic objects in the ROM collection. Natania’s thoughtful review of a small exhibit proves that there are many ways to challenge Canada 150 narratives in museums.


Witness Blanket

An unknown boy in from of the Chesterfield Inlet Residential School (top). Photo courtesy of Sadie MacDonald. Source.

For the final exhibit review I’m including in my Canada 150 retrospective, we’re returning to Sadie but leaving Toronto. In June, Sadie reviewed Witness Blanket after visiting the exhibit at Museum London. The exhibit has been touring Canada since 2015, and currently the exhibit is slated to continue touring the country until 2021. The exhibit is composed of 887 artifacts from residential school survivors, which were collected by Carey Newman, a Kwagiulth sculptor and carver. Together, the hundreds of pieces create a patchwork of lost narratives from survivors of the schools, and in the process hundreds of narratives of loss and pain emerge. Sadie’s review examines the power of these objects curated together, both as a way for residential school survivors to heal and remember, but she also examines the power of this exhibit for the non-Indigenous population of Canada. The exhibit may have begun touring two years before Canada 150 celebrations began, but the powerful counter-narratives take on another layer of significance when remembering confederation. 

I tried to provide a brief snapshot of some of the important, challenging, and brave exhibits that have responded to Canada 150. If you have the time please read the amazing reviews of each exhibit! The exhibits take different approaches to staging a counter-narrative in the museum, from a small display of new acquisitions, to creating a dialogue between artifacts and contemporary art, to creating a collage of objects of trauma. These counter-narratives in museums are likely to continue for years to come, especially with many of these exhibits touring years into the future. Museums may help shift the legacy of Canada 150 from a celebration of nationhood to a rejection of colonial glory.