Research File
This is the research file I submitted for the module ‘Beyond Boundaries’ in the academic year 2022-2023. Grades, feedback, and my reflections are at the end.
Part 1: Research Proposal
Question: What would de-colonising the museum look like?
Case study: The Atlantic Gallery: Slavery, Trade, Empire, National Maritime Museum (referred to as Atlantic worlds in the museum) and Wellcome Collection
Methodology: Anchoring the research in Anibal Quijano’s ‘Coloniality and modernity/rationality’ and Carmen Morsch’s ‘At a Crossroads of Four Discourses,’ this writing intends to explore the coloniality in the practices of the museum. While also questioning how these practices get continued through the local, national and international geo-political dynamics through gallery education in the museum. How these agendas might get translated, propagated, and mutate in the public sphere leading to the roots of coloniality deepening. To even begin answering the question of ‘What would de-colonising the museum look like?’ we need to first understand how deep the roots of colonisation extend. To what extent and in how many manners.
Theory: This research intends to explore the coloniality of the museum. What it is saying, doing and how it is getting translated in the public sphere. All the while comparing and contrasting how the Atlantic Worlds gallery is grappling with its colonial legacies in relation to Wellcome Collection. Specifically looking at Wellcome Collection’s temporary exhibitions ‘Objects in Stereo’ and ‘The Healing Pavilion’. ‘Objects in Stereo’ and ‘The Healing Pavilion’ had asked the question of thinking about the colonial legacies that the museum carries. Of dynamics in between the staff and the objects. The way these objects are organised and labelled which in itself highlight internalised biases. The role of storage in all of this.
Abstract: To begin answering the question posed, we must first understand the depths of colonisation, and its legacies. The impact it has in our institutions, in-turn on us, our societies, and our histories, now. In both sustaining and furthering the violence that it stands on. What is the museum doing now? Whose history is it telling for the benefit of whom? How do we re-imagine it? Should we re-imagine it? Do we need the museum at all?
Part 2: Annotated Bibliography
Duncan, Carol. “The Art Museum as Ritual.” In Civilising Rituals Inside Public Art and Museums, 7-20. London: Routledge, 2005.
Carol Duncan explores the museum as a liminal space, and the aesthetising gaze of the museum in this paper. However, she begins with the ritual of the museum, its architecture, the spacing of it, the way it imitates places of authority and worship (“palaces or temples”). How it garners a form of respect, and demands a decorum to participate in the learning that is emulated by it.
What this research will focus on is two concepts. One: the Liminal space of the museum where everything is subject to instability and manipulation. Time is warped. Meaning and narratives are the making and deepening of power. Two: the Aesthetising gaze of the museum. Do we need everything to look like an art object even when there is trauma tied to it? Can every object look “aesthetic” (like an art object) just because it is in the museum? Then what happens to historical trauma, does it also become an art object? Something to look at, gape at?
Does it become something we dress up, stay quiet around, absorb and walk away from, never to remember again? And if remembered, only for the beauty of how it is presented?
Lorde, Audre. “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House.” In This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, 98–101. Albany: SUNY Press, 2021.
Audre Lorde is beginning to define intersectionality without the word intersectionality. Where do women of colour, poor women, older women and their experiences with the personal and the political go when they are not even being considered in feminist theory? How can we talk about feminist theory at all if we do not examine these differences? Most of all, the only ones who want to dismantle the master’s house are the people who are deriving no power from- or do not have access to -the master, their house or the tools. The women who do not want to dismantle the master’s house have historically, and continue to, benefit from the master, their house and their tools.
Audre Lorde is talking about race, gender and sexuality needing to be a part of any and all considerations in feminist theory.
What I want to focus on is intersectionalities, who gets ignored, who maintains power from this ignorance. This research intends to highlight that even though the master’s house might not get dismantled through the master’s tools, we still need to thoroughly examine what the master’s house and tools are. Even now we do not entirely understand the machine that is colonisation. The remnants of it in the creation of the person and the nation. The global dynamics of all of it. The mater’s house and the master’s tools, as deplorable as they are, continue to be shrouded in a mystifying gaze that we haven’t unraveled yet, in ourselves and the world around us.
Li, Janice. “Collective Healing through Confrontation in Safety." Wellcome Collection. Published 2022. https://wellcomecollection.org/pages/Y2pruxEAAP-0fgBZ.
This piece of writing explores Grace Ndiritu’s ‘The healing Pavillion’. What is the exhibition doing? More importantly, which legacies is the exhibition trying to unravel in the context of the museum through Wellcome Collection? Grace Ndiritu presents two archival images in the form of large scale tapestries exploring the power dynamics in-between objects in museum collections, and staff handling the same. Ndritu’s question: what kind of histories and historical violences do these images show, however bloodless they might be. Creating and holding a space for contemplation, meditations, sharing.
It informs the research in the way it explores the power dynamics that are being made in the stores. Colonial legacies that are carried forward through these dynamics. How dependent de-colonising the museum is on these extremely temporary human presences (the staff) and their own personal inclinations towards the same.
Mörsch, Carmen. “At a Crossroads of Four Discourses: Documenta 12 Gallery Education in between Affirmation, Reproduction, Deconstruction and Transformation .” In Documenta 12, 1st ed., 9–32. Zürich: Diaphanes, 2009.
In this piece of writing, gallery education is divided into four categories. Affirmative discourse is a form of creating an expert audience. An effective outward communication of the museum’s mission. Reproductive discourse is a form of creating future audience. Introducing art to people who might not come to exhibitions or interact with art at all. A form of indoctrination. Deconstructive discourse is a form of analysis of the art, how it is placed, contextually, inside and outside the institution/exhibition space. The institution allows for space to get questioned, might even question itself. Transformative discourse is a form of discourse that is transformative for both the audience and the institution. It is quite similar to deconstructive, just a step forward, a more continued and profound impact on everyone.
There is a distinction between gallery education that happens through gallery educators, and the institution. What is unearthed, taught and continues to get taught depends on various stakeholders in the gallery. A form of conflicted zone while continuing to influence how, to whom and for whom history is told.
The way this particular piece informs my research is through this very zone of flux; no gallery is truly propagating a single form of gallery education. For example, the Atlantic worlds gallery is a complex form of affirmative and reproductive while disguising itself to be deconstructive and transformative. While Wellcome Collection is attempting to be deconstructive and transformative, however, is this motivated by political rightness? How deep does the want to be transformative extend? How much change does it bring about in the institution? Inversely, the Atlantic worlds, is the disguise of deconstructive and transformative essential for being affirmative and reproductive?
I want to explore this and the idea of reproductive being a form of indoctrination towards a specific way of telling history.
Quijano, Aníbal. 2007. “COLONIALITY and MODERNITY/RATIONALITY.” Cultural Studies 21 (2-3): 168–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601164353.
In Anibal Quijano’s essay there is a distinction drawn in-between Colonisation and Coloniality. Colonisation is the physical occupation of foreign land. Coloniality is the institutionalisation of racist, exploitative generalisations created. The labour (and knowledge) extracted during the colonial project as the fundamentals of the current systems of daily operations and wealth extraction, globally.
To simplify, Coloniality is the current occupation of minds- and to a large extent, wealth -of the colonised by the coloniser. That is to say that, Colonisation is still present, even if it doesn’t adhere to the strictest sense of the word.
The future research project will explore this idea of coloniality in the context of museums. Specifically in the context of where most of the “art objects” come from, who creates the narratives around said art object. What does this say about power structures (global geo-political dynamics) that are created and sustained through colonial violences? How does coloniality sustain itself, in the context of the museum, its narratives, its audiences and what it is teaching its audience?
Royal Museums Greenwich. “The Atlantic Gallery: Slavery, Trade, Empire.” Accessed March 21, 2023. https://www.rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum/attractions/atlantic-gallery-slavery-trade-empire.
This is the Atlantic Gallery webpage. The story of “exploitation, trade, war, enslavement and resistance,” is created and narrated. A little below, in the same page, there is a section called “work in progress.” It talks about the absence of the legacies of transatlantic slavery and black voices. This is accompanied by a video of young artists invited to create a one day intervention in the gallery space to show the tension of these narratives.
I want to focus on the language used in the entirety of the webpage (and the exhibition). Whose story is being told, by whom, for the benefit of whom? How superficial is the one day intervention if no continued changes are made? Facade of deconstructive gallery education while actually perpetuating reproductive with the promise of future transformation that may never show up. While also asking the ethical question of who gets to tell what stories when de-colonising the museum.
Solomon, Nanette. “The Art Historical Canon: Sins of Omission.’” In The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, edited by Donald Preziosi, 344–55. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
What Solomon does in this paper is to draw a trajectory of the way the art historical canon was constructed to the artist, art critique and the audience while establishing who can occupy each pair of shoes. For example, the role of women as the painted nude object rather than autonomous male painter subject. The exclusion of women as makers in the art historical canon was analysed by Solomon through the way art history was canonised by a line of art critiques (Vasari to Janson). The question of who can make art constantly answered through who and whose art is included in the said story of art history.
In the future essay, applying Audre Lorde’s writing on intersectionality to this paper, analyse the sins of omission in the context of the global art historical canon. How that gets transferred to the museum.
What Solomon is probably inferring, with a great amount of subtlety, is that the making of the art critique, the artist, the painted object, and the audience is a direct reflection of what is seen in the museum. All the stake holders of the museum now have a story and a shoe to fill and fit. De-colonisation is internal and external. It needs to happen in the self for the institution, in the institution for the public.
Thomas, Nicholas. 2019. “What Are Museums Really For?” Apollo Magazine. September 23, 2019. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/defining-museums-in-the-21st-century/.
Thomas explores the idea of museums as networks, “they are made up of relationships, as well as physical sites and stuff.” Through the process of sharing academic knowledge, international collaborative practices and exhibition loans, they become active centre points of cultural sharing. One of the things that Thomas talks about in their essay is how the global south (or the colonised, very broadly speaking) “bought into” the idea of wanting to present their culture in western museums. Making the argument that conflicts surrounding provenance might be a myth.
Thomas seems to ignore that these centre points of cultural sharing were made through violent extractive practices, i.e. colonisation. Which led to the privileging of, and lack of access to, certain cultures. Privileging of certain ways of collecting and passing down histories.
The way this informs the research is this precise ignorance on the part of the author of the article. The process of “buying into” the idea of wanting to present their culture in western museums is a very specific form of soft power coloniality where even after land has been reclaimed, we consider our land inferior.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. “The Power in the Story.” In Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, 1–30. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2015.
Trouillot engages with this idea of silences, something that enters at various stages of the story (history) making process: “… any historical narrative is a particular bundle of silences… .” Silences can be understood as biases, discriminations. Making silent of someone, their culture, their stories. The story of history is just the institutionalisation of silences, a specific way of writing and narrating the story of history. Silence for someone becoming Power for another. Power is not concentrated, it enters the process of history making at various different points.
Trouillot also talks about how we as humans participate in this story making. We are not as passive as we assume to be. Even if we don’t actively take part, we are still a part of the history making process. Trouillot talks about actors and narrators, however, it cannot be quite as simplistically binary as that. How do we define actors? The active denial of silences from a person is a form of an actor, isn’t it? Or is the role of actor and narrator stable? If the actor narrates their version of the story do they still remain an actor?
This is in the context of the archive, what goes in, what comes out, and how everything is filtered through the various stakeholders of the archive. However, it holds true even for the museum.
Consider a few changes to the above question:
What goes in to the stores, what comes out of the stores, what is filtered through the various stakeholders of the stores? Most of all, what is the story that is told in the museum through the filtering of the stores?
Wallis, Brain. “Selling Nations: International Exhibitions and Cultural Diplomacy.” In Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, edited by Daniel J. Sherman, 265–81. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1994.
Wallis enquires into the process of nation making for the outside, in this context, for the international exhibition. The role that culture plays in this nation making for natives and foreigners. A quote that distills the entire paper is, “whose version of the national culture is being shown? What is not shown? And why?” This is especially interesting when international audiences are a part of this dynamic. Does this particular form of historical narration and the making of a specific form of iteration play a role in how a country, its culture, is made palatable for another one? In this context, America. Are Mexico and Turkey unfathomable if they don’t self orientalise to be understood? Will they not gain economic growth if they do not sell themselves to the American people? What happens to the curators whose nationality plays a role in the way they understand the cultures they are “curating” in this exhibition? Even when the oriental wants to step away from the orient- a myth sold and institutionalised through colonisation -is it allowed to?
Selling nations literally means selling nations. Making an advertisement for the nation, its culture becoming a part of that advertisement. An extremely vital part. It is the very basis of everything to be sold. Wallis talks about this in the international context with the international exhibition. What about the local context? How does the museum sell its own nation? How does it form nation through the inferiority or superiority of its people and “other” people?
Questions about the selling of the nation in these geo political dynamics, in the context of museums, is something that needs to be explored.
Wellcome Collection “Jim Naughten, Objects in Stereo.” Wellcome Collection. Accessed February 20, 2023. https://wellcomecollection.org/pages/Y0fcjREAAImM42e8.
This is a press release for the temporary exhibition ‘Objects in Stereo’ by artist Jim Naughten in the museum Wellcome Collection. Jim Naughten was one of the last people to access Blythe House, the storage facility for the items in Wellcome Collection’s care. Exhibition mainly consists of large scale photographs of the items being stored. Some objects that are considered too fragile to bring out made available through stereoscopy. The core theme of the exhibition is to highlight the inherited biases in museum storage facilities. Highlighting the burden of colonial legacies on institutions. And most of all, to give a glimpse into the- what is essentially -behind the scenes of the museum making process. One might even call this a form of transparency.
I wish to explore both my personal experience of the exhibition itself and directly engage with some of the questions that the exhibition is forcing audiences- and the self on the institution’s part -to confront. What is the role of the storage here? What does the museum become if the narratives are being created in the storage? If 90 percent of the objects in the museum collection are not exhibited, who chooses what is to be exhibited and not? What kind of power making is that? What kind of history making is that? Most of all, do the people who work in the museum even know how vast their collection is? What all is in their collection? If they do not, then are they further tied down to the colonial legacies, forced to perpetuate coloniality, its violences, even though they do not want to?
Grades and Feedback
Grade: 64/100
Graded on: 20 April 2023, 12:21 AM
Feedback comments: Your research file focuses on an important and timely problem, Divya - the issue of decolonisation of museums. You ground your research in the work of Quijano and Morsch. Your research file suggests that instead of focusing on one case study (as it was specified in the assessment requirements), your research is a 'comparative' study (comparing Atlantic Worlds gallery to Wellcome Collection). Your bibliography features relevant sources (covering both literature from museum studies and decolonial studies). In addition to authors discussed in the module, it also lists authors such as Audre Lorde, demonstrating that you have done independent research to compile this file. Well done!
However, there is also space for improvement. Most importantly, this involves the research question which, as it is stands now, is too broad. The research file would also benefit from explaining why you chose to propose a comparative study rather than exploring one case study: What led you to this decision and what are the advantages of this approach, what would comparison allow you to explore that you could not do with one case study? Finally, pay more attention to presentation, including editing and proofreading, making sure that your sentences are complete and grammatically correct. I would also consider, in terms of writing style, using less questions. Questions are a great and powerful tool especially for academic writing that is explicitly political (like yours). They interpolate, 'capture' the reader (so to speak) and they carry urgency, but these effects weaken when questions are used too often.
My Reflections
I want to start by saying that I agree with the feedback and did end up wholeheartedly taking it into consideration. However, this was one of those assessments where the assessment requirement and grading criteria were not clear. The tutors also waited till two weeks before the deadline to break down the assessment requirement and their expectations. What I realised after reading the feedback is that my research file is in a much more formative stage than their expectations.
The first time I read the feedback, it frustrated me a lot. The feedback aligns more with a properly finished essay rather than a research file. Research files have more questions than answers, or maybe this is very specific to my research practice. At the research file stage, I do not yet have fully formed thoughts. I did agree that there were far too many sentence fragments and grammatically incorrect sentences. I chalk this up to having had a gap year the year before, during which I was refining my creative writing practice. The second year was a practice in learning that my writing needed a sharp stylistic change to pursue the kind of writing I wanted to achieve.
I had never properly read this feedback till this moment, while crafting this blog post. I agree with everything stated regarding my writing; however, I do still think that the tutors should have sat down with the students and clearly explained the assessment requirements much earlier than two weeks before the deadline.
