"Museums, Heritage, Culture: Into the Conflict Zone" by Kavita Singh (2015).
"But think for a moment of the history of museums. Think of the way their collections have been built, and the purposes they have served. Think of the violent encounters that often lay behind the collecting of curiosities in the age of exploration; or think of the museums built by missionaries to display pagan gods wrenched away from natives. Think of the vast collections built (and the ways these were built) during the age of colonialism, with entire monuments transported across the seas and re-erected in museum galleries. Think of the nations transformed by revolutions, where treasures were violently wrested away from the church and presented as desacralized avatars in museums".
"Bombing of Gaza has damaged or destroyed more than 100 heritage sites, NGO report reveals" by Sarvy Geranpayeh (The Art Newspaper).
"The human cost of the bombardment of the Gaza Strip in the war with Israel is well documented. What is less well known is how many historic buildings and sites have also been destroyed."
"Several of Gaza’s museums have also been destroyed or damaged. Rafah Museum, located in southern Gaza, published two videos on its Facebook page showing that the building has partially collapsed. Yasin says Palestinian officials have also received reports of significant damage caused to Al Qarara Cultural Museum and Deir Al Balah museum."
Some #murals outside the #ISRO#museum or Vikram Sarabhai #Space Exhibition Center. More than the space stuff, enjoyed the #mural(s) painted on the walls.
Unterwegs! Heute nimmt uns Marlene Rehbein mit auf einen Stadtrundgang durch #Oldenburg Sie macht im dortigen #Stadtmuseum ein #Praktikum. Für uns als Public Historians besonders spannend: Während das neue #Museum gebaut wird, finden unter dem Motto #MuseumFindetStadt Veranstaltungen, Projekte und Ausstellungen im Stadtgebiet, und damit im öffentlichen Raum statt #DoingPublicHistory
Unterwegs! Heute nimmt uns Marlene Rehbein mit auf einen Stadtrundgang durch #Oldenburg Sie macht im dortigen #Stadtmuseum ein #Praktikum. Für uns als Public Historians besonders spannend: Während das neue #Museum gebaut wird, finden unter dem Motto #MuseumFindetStadt Veranstaltungen, Projekte und Ausstellungen im Stadtgebiet, und damit im öffentlichen Raum statt #DoingPublicHistory
Heritage Dynamics. Understanding and adapting to change in diverse heritage contexts by Kalliopi Fouseki (UCL Press, 2022). #OpenAccess
"Kalliopi Fouseki develops a theoretical and methodological framework of ‘heritage dynamics’, which is used as the analytical thread of six heritage contexts: heritage-led transformation in historic urban places; decision-making on energy efficiency and heritage conservation in ‘everyday heritage’ residential buildings; lifecycles of heritage collections; exhibition dynamics and the impact of participation with emphasis of ‘difficult heritage’; dynamics of dissonance on contested museums and the dynamics of ‘intangible heritage’ with emphasis on flamenco."
"The Most Important Network of Art Institutions that You’ve Never Heard of" by Jason Waite (ArtReview).
"Arts Collaboratory is a network of 25 art spaces, mainly from the Global South, including Raw Material Company, Dakar; Kunci, Yogyakarta; Lugar a dudas, Cali; Ashkal Alwan, Beirut; ruangrupa, Jakarta; and Cooperativa Cráter Invertido, Mexico City, among others. It started in 2007 as more of a traditional art network like the long-running Triangle Network, begun in 1982 and with partnerships in 40 countries, only with the difference that its initiators, the Dutch NGOs DOEN Foundation and Hivos and the publicly funded Mondriaan Fund, provided financial support for the art institutions while wanting to ease bureaucracy for their grantees, provide a platform for them to exchange knowledge and foster South-South art institutional connections."
I have read Nnedi Okorafor's novella, Binti, and I found it wonderful (as well as very entertaining). Also, with a witty reflection on the decolonization of museums.
Ich habe das Gefühl, hier einiges zu verpassen und möchte einfach gerne (wieder) eine Timeline, die mit klugen, spannenden und interessanten Beiträgen gefüllt ist. Themen sind #Geschichte#Museum#Archiv#Erinnerungskultur#PublicHistory
Werft mir also bitte und gerne eure Vorschläge für Follows zu 😊.
Ich folge bereits @dorotheegoetze / @LenaOetzel / @dbellingradt usw. aber verstehe die Discovery hier immer noch nicht ganz und bin über eure Tipps sehr froh!
HERITAGE, THE POWER OF THE PAST, AND THE POLITICS OF (MIS)RECOGNITION by Laurajane Smith (2022).
"Heritage is a political resource; no matter how this concept is defined, “heritage” is charged with representing individual and group identity, sense of place and belonging".
"This paper will illustrate how heritage and museum visiting, as a leisure activity, facilitates or impedes recognition and redistribution in direct and indirect ways. Drawing on extensive qualitative interviews with visitors to 45 heritage sites and museums in the USA, Australia, and England, the paper demonstrates the importance of emotions in mundane struggles over recognition and misrecognition. How emotions uphold or challenge investments in heritage narratives are examined."
DIGITAL ARCHIVES AND COLLECTIONS
CREATING ONLINE ACCESS TO CULTURAL HERITAGE by Katja Müller (2021) (Made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license).
"Museums and archives all over the world digitize their collections and provide online access to heritage material. But what factors determine the content, structure and use of these online inventories? This book turns to India and Europe to answer this question. It explains how museums and archives envision, decide and conduct digitization and online dissemination. It also sheds light on born-digital, community-based archives, which have established themselves as new actors in the field".
PHILADELPHIA’S MÜTTER MUSEUM IS REVIEWING ITS COLLECTION OF HUMAN REMAINS. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS FOR DISABILITY REPRESENTATION by Riva Lehrer (Art in America, 2023).
"The Mütter joins medical and natural history museums around the world who are debating the ethical treatment of human remains. There is the question of provenance: at the Mütter, some specimens may have been accepted into the collection under dubious or outright unethical circumstances. Mütter curator Anna Dhoty has written about one unclear holding. Other provenance issues have recently been resolved after decades of negotiation. And in some instances, there is virtually no paper trail at all.
All this gets at a deeper, more troubling question: can it ever be ethical to own, or exhibit, someone else’s body? And if so, how should those bodies be displayed?"
THE CARE/REPATRIATION OF HUMAN REMAINS HELD IN MUSEUMS.
As @ricketson points out, this is a problem that has been tirelessly debated for many years. And it is a multifaceted problem. Some examples (there are, of course, many more):
For #FannyFriday I bring you a special photo I took on my #museum trip yesterday: #Aphrodite inspired by the Aphrodite of #Knidos — copies were forbidden by the Knidonians! She is special to me because not only is she beautiful and wears a cool arm ring, the artist has also added a slit to the pubic triangle. I very rarely see this and it filled me with excitement and joy when I discovered it 🥰
So I'm back from my #museum trip. I am severely disappointed by all of the statues having been vandalised. The only intact phalloi I could find were on a relief and a modern reconstruction. I DID meet a beautiful statue of #Aphrodite, though! She even still has a visible slit! I will share the images on Friday, the Day of Aphrodite.
As a sneak peek, enjoy this beautiful bum!
I am now going to #Leipzig to visit our exhibition, which will be officially opened on 1 September: Fairs, cities and merchants (1350-1600)
Come and join us in the Leipzig city #museum Old town hall, 1 September - 15 October 2023
I want to let everyone who voted in this poll know that I am travelling to a museum today to take photos and attend a guided tour on the subject of ideal nudity in ancient art.
I will share photos and write about the tour on my blog ☺️
REVEALING THE SMITHSONIAN’S ‘RACIAL BRAIN COLLECTION’ by Nicole Dungca and
Claire Healy (The Washington Post, free access).
A must-read text of horror and racism.
"Nearly 100 years later, Sara’s brain is still housed by the institution, wrapped in muslin and immersed in preservatives in a large metal container. It is stored in a museum facility in Maryland with 254 other brains, amassed mostly in the first half of the 20th century. Almost all of them were gathered at the behest of Hrdlicka, a prominent anthropologist who believed that White people were superior and collected body parts to further now-debunked theories about anatomical differences between races."
"Most of the brains were removed upon death from Black and Indigenous people and other people of color."
COMMUNITIES AND MUSEUMS IN THE 21ST CENTURY. EDITED ByKaren Brown, Alissandra Cummins, Ana S. González Rueda (Routledge, 2023, CC BY-NC-ND).
"Communities and Museums in the 21st Century brings together innovative, multidisciplinary perspectives on contemporary museology and participatory museum practice that contribute to wider debates on museum communities, heritage, and sustainability."
"With its focus on global societal challenges, this book will appeal to museologists and museum practitioners, as well as those working in heritage studies, cultural studies, memory studies, art history, gender studies, and sustainable development."