2023 Spring Editorial: What Matters in Museums and Cultural Heritage?
Citation: Levick, Emily and Urmila Mohan. “2023 Spring Editorial: What Matters in Museums and Cultural Heritage?” The Jugaad Project, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023, www.thejugaadproject.pub/editorial-spring-2023 [date of access]
(Note - Articles are published weekly, on a staggered basis.)
The cultural sector has undergone profound change and upheaval in recent years, with, among many factors, reduced funding and an increasing need to justify its mere existence. It is perhaps timely, then, that this issue of The Jugaad Project turns the journal’s interest in contexts of material religion and belief to the cultures and practices of Museums as sites for heritage. Previous issues of this online journal have considered a wide range of themes including activism, translocality, re-building, and craft. Here, we take the opportunity to explore some connected threads from the unique perspective of material and visual culture in the GLAM world where museums and images of heritage can take many different shapes and forms.
One might ask: “how does the notion of material religion relate to museums?” The term religion is understood here to incorporate both sacred and secular beliefs and values. In this way, material religion is practiced and reinforced not only through acts of worship and spirituality, but also through methods traditionally associated with these, including ritualistic processes, the use of certain materials in specific ways, and the performance of these practices in defined spaces or contexts. The context in this case is the musaeum, a term dating back to the Greek ancient world[1], connecting library, collection, investigation and exhibition, and the ways in which these modalities of knowledge-making produce (and not merely express) heritage.
The range of papers in this issue provide exciting and important new approaches to questions of decolonization, community engagement, and the display and interpretation of often sensitive media and narratives. A connecting thread through many of the contributions here is that of collaboration. Working with communities, as well as problematizing the idea of community emerges as a crucial element in successful museum projects. Aspects discussed in relation to this theme include ensuring the correct practices of care and conservation of sacred, “living” objects; furthering the decolonizing and Indigenizing efforts of museums ranging from those in North America to India; including contemporary Islamic communities in the interpretation and appreciation of ancient coins; and the joint efforts of curators and collectors from a diverse range of backgrounds to create fresh and stimulating exhibitions. In addition, papers in this issue cover such important topics as heritage-focused activism and iconoclasm, and the political implications of the increasingly popular practice of “museum yoga”.
In “Caring for the Body and Spirit of Altars: An Ethical Exploration”, Emma Cieslik considers the ethical implications of museum definitions of objects as “living” or “non-living”. Through a focus on altars, she discusses the importance for museums of understanding and respecting the traditional, religious, and sacred aspects of objects according to “the belief systems within which these objects were/are created and used”. Before their transferral to the museum context, altars were “living” objects with specific care needs, and which possessed certain powers. As Cieslik argues, it is the responsibility of the museums to which the objects are entrusted that these care requirements are met, and that their power as “living” objects is respected. Emphasis here is on consultation and collaboration between museums and source communities, the latter of whose expertise and knowledge of these objects is crucial in ensuring the correct housing and treatment of such artifacts.
Laura Phillips highlights the importance for museums of questioning and de-centering Euro-Enlightenment values in “(Mostly) Indigenous Readings that Challenge Imposed Euro-Enlightenment (aka Colonial) Perspectives in Museums”. This annotated bibliography presents a range of works from (mostly) Indigenous scholars which Phillips identifies as significant and relevant contributions to the conversation on decolonization in museums. Drawing on the works and words of Indigenous writers, this piece provides both a point of entry and a continuation of the ongoing discussion for museum professionals keen to “understand the errors of the past in our inherited present so we can move towards more equitable, decolonizing and Indigenizing futures”.
Monuments carry enormous significance and the public spaces within which they are typically erected reflect power contestations. “Whitewash: Robert E. Lee and the New Iconoclasm” is an art-essay in which Howard Skrill incorporates plein-air and studio works to discuss meanings and implications of the defacement of national monuments in the “racialized landscape of the U.S.” Skrill employs the concept of “whitewash”, which is “an opaque layer that is slathered over what lies beneath so that the latter is no longer self-evident but concealed and, hopefully, in time, forgotten”. Yet, as he points out, “even a cursory inspection often reveals what was meant to remain hidden”. The term “whitewash” is employed here not just as a description of a literal act of defacing—and indeed, de-plinthing—of public monuments, but also as a metaphor for the act of purposeful concealment in the hope of complete erasure. It is in these highly politically charged contexts that mass demonstrations tend to gather, and, as Skrill demonstrates, the monuments themselves can be targeted by iconoclasts who see them as physical representations of the powers that perpetuate oppression, discrimination, and injustice.[2]
Poornima Sardana and Shivangi Pareek engage with issues of representation in “A conversation on difference, Otherness and possibilities in museums”. Considering the ways in which museums often present their collections through the lens of “difference” and “Otherness” rather than focusing on connections between cultures, communities, and practices, Sardana and Pareek discuss their own experiences as, respectively, a museologist and an anthropologist, to “bring together perspectives at the intersection of museum studies and ethnographic work and reflect on plural entanglements within museums”. The authors tackle such issues and topics as the perception of difference and otherness (and the “creative reimaginings” of these concepts) in the museum context; the importance of community engagement; and internal conflict between various communities over museum representation. In post-colonial museums especially, the authors feel that “the idea of discord, difference and dissonance, is not only important but necessary for museums to continue to thrive and stay relevant”. Collaboration with source communities emerges as an important factor in this discussion; and Sardana and Pareek’s argument for inclusion and equity in museum spaces highlights the responsibility of museums “to contextualise visibility and not let it reduce encounters in museums to fleeting interests but a more enduring engagement”.
“Curating Ornament and Textile Exhibitions as Highwire Acts: On Guest Curator Negotiations with Lenders and Museum Directors” by Susan Rodgers also takes up the theme of collaboration in museum exhibits and representations. Discussing her experiences as a guest curator on three separate museum exhibitions of Indonesian artefacts, Rodgers highlights the tensions—as well as the successes—of such collaborative efforts. What emerges here is that while bringing together the diverse expertise and perspectives of collectors, curators, and anthropologists in museums can be challenging, it is also infinitely rewarding and, as demonstrated by the examples here, results in a stronger, more nuanced, and successful exhibition which is capable of reaching audiences on several levels.
In “White Womanhood, Hindutva and Spiritual Bypass: Museum Yoga and the Mass-Participation Spectacle”, Kajal Patel focuses on the recent increase in popularity of what she terms “museum yoga”, asking “what does the use of media, imaging and bodily practices reveal about museum yoga and its socio-political significance in a globalised world?” Tracing its inception to the introduction of International Yoga Day by Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, Patel demonstrates how museum yoga has developed into a global practice attended by mostly white, affluent women, in which she sees “performance as a spectacle of mass participation”. The author highlights the importance of understanding the “socially engaged processes that go beyond the individualistic consumption of museum yoga as a leisurely pursuit”, arguing for a more transparent and responsible approach to “the museum yoga spectacle” which informs practitioners and museum staff of the discourses and political issues surrounding such practices. Without access to this knowledge, Patel argues, those participating in museum yoga are “spiritually bypassing”.
Finally, community involvement is a theme that Sara Ann Knutson brings to the fore in her peer-reviewed “Re-engaging Islamic Materials and their Stories”. Discussing the display and interpretation of Islamic coins in European museums, and focusing on collections in the Bode-Museum, Berlin, in particular, Knutson argues that the value of these materials lies not just in their histories but in their future. Aware of her positionality and keen to present the views of stakeholders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Knutson writes: “Islamic coins are material traces of the past and yet they are also more. These materials hold important contemporary meanings and values that have been overlooked in traditional academic research.” This essay considers the views of various stakeholders on the question of whether they consider ‘Abbāsid (Islamic) coins housed in European museums to be part of their (the stakeholders’) cultural heritage. The results reveal that “instead of asking what academic research can offer local communities, we… must identify specific ways to create space for local community members to be actively involved in research from the beginning, not simply the end.”
Endnotes
[1] Structures and activities with ‘museumlike’ functions can be observed in much longer distant epochs in Asia, Africa and America. Noack, K. (2019). Museum. In Ludger Kühnhardt & Tilman Mayer (eds.), The Bonn Handbook of Globality, Vol. 2, 899-910, Springer Verlag.
[2] The themes raised in this essay also tie in with those of our previously published article by Lindsay Crisp on the toppling of the Colston statue in Bristol, UK, during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
