Episode II: The Phantom Menace
Ethnological museums in the last decades have undergone various change of names like Museum of World Cultures, Museum of Five Continents and so on, however they still carry the burden and the reverberations of Europe’s past and its difficult relationship with cultures and people that European nations had colonized.
One of the most striking differences that distinguish ethnological museums from art museums is the differentiation between artwork and artifact. This distinction sheds some light on the subliminal and latent theoretical assumption that only Europe has produced artwork, while non-European civilizations have produced – objects. This is reflected in the museological distinction between content and context. While European artworks are used as objects of aesthetic contemplation, non-European artifacts are often used as objects documenting foreign cultures.
This raises multiple questions: How does the museum respect the object’s particular significance and the role it had played in its culture of origin? The provenance of objects; have they been stolen? Have they been purchased on fair terms according to the customs and mores of the time of the acquisition? Is there anything like a “fair term” possible between the colonizer and the colonized? What should happen to objects that have little scholarly, academic or aesthetic relevance, but play an important role in the spiritual and religious life of their culture of origin, where they are sorely missed? How can digital media be used to take away the urge to have the physical object in the museum? How do societies deal with the idea of internal colonization and the display of ‘lower art’?
Many debates center on the question of repatriation of objects, documents and artworks. While it seems understandable at first glance, it becomes problematic very rapidly. Who should the work be returned to if it is not possible to identify a legal successor of the former owner? What could be the solution if there is no infrastructure in place, where the returned object could be held safely? What happens in the case of “repatriation without patria” (Kavita Singh)?
Ethnological museums could serve as institutions, in which knowledge gets produced; interest, understanding and empathy for different ways to live, to love, to raise children, to pray and to die is engendered. They may indeed exemplify the idea that what is human belongs to the entirety of humankind, but needs caretakers to save the richness of human cultures for the future. How can this humanist claim be reconciled with the often legitimate legal and moral claim of nations and peoples to receive the testimonies of their culture back?
This conference is the second episode in a series of discussions focusing on the role of museums.
Public Talks
Museum of the Future
Episode II: The Phantom Menace
Monday, 27 & Tuesday, 28 November 2017, 18:30 (both days)
Library, Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai, K. Dubash Marg, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400 001
Monday, 27 November 2017, 18:30
Nanette Snoep in conversation with
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
Nanette Snoep is director of the three ethnographic museums of the State Art Collections, Dresden – Grassi Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig, Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden, Völkerkundemuseum Herrnhut.
Shuddhabrata Sengupta is an artist, writer and curator, who has been working with the Raqs Media Collective since it was founded, in 1992 in New Delhi, India.
Tuesday, 28 November 2017, 18:30
Prof. Naman P. Ahuja in conversation with
Prof. Romila Thapar
Naman P. Ahuja is a curator of Indian art, Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Editor of Marg Publications.
Romila Thapar is Emeritus Professor of History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
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