Eleventh International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

A collection is somewhere between order and disorder, arranging the world in specific ways. Originating as “cabinets of curiosities,” museum collections inherently participate in colonialism, taking objects from people and displaying them in a way that showcases them as “other” and “exotic”. In this way, museums are actually critical agents in reproducing colonial violence and sustaining it across time well after the initial colonial moment. A Museum of Capitalism is explored in this session. This traveling exhibition counters popular colonial traditions of display and knowledge present in most institutions. It appears in everyday public spaces as an interactive exhibition that takes the museum outside the museum. We interrupt current spatial and pedagogical methods of normalizing socio-economic situations, and create a space for critical and imaginative conversations. We examine the creation of cultural knowledge through everyday objects that most people are intimately familiar with. The museum looks at the way objects are produced, distributed, used, talked about, and where they are placed (or “belong”) in order to understand our present moment. Though we curate the collection through a framework highly critical of capitalism, the museum doesn’t present anything objectively. It is meant to prompt discussion of the roles objects play in our everyday lives as actors and vessels for dominant ideologies. The museum doesn’t exist without visitors- they are not passive viewers, but collaborators who nominate objects for the museum and submit writings to the catalogue. A Museum of Capitalism challenges hierarchies of knowledge, situating everyday people as experts.