Abstract
This paper shares fresh insights and findings from recent qualitative research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2017) that critically examines/deconstructs the use of colonialist icons, symbols, and ideologies (Anderson, 2012; Marstine, 2005; MacKenzie, 2010), and occlude/make absent any representation of indigeneity, in the logo of a Canadian online museum. The author highlights the importance/value of disrupting glorifications of colonization in the branding of museums—in the interest of expanding space for more accurate, dignified, socially just and inclusive museums that contest colonialism whilst ushering new social imaginations/imaginaries about museums in occupied lands (Tuck & Yang, 2012; Tuck, McKenzie & McCoy, 2016). Attendees will learn about a museum’s struggle to interrupt conventional colonial narrative contents pervading its logo (Dickinson, Ott & Aoki 2013, p. 21) and ultimate embracement of more ethical subjectivities. Drawing on branding scholars (Rose-Redwood, Alderman & Azaryahu (2010), I argue that designing/creating logos are performative practices that call forth geographic locations and their representations (p. 454). There is indeed synergy between place/geography and branding where branding (via logos) is a political process/practice. Committed to pedagogies of possibilities (Simon, 1987, 1992), and using focus groups (Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2005; Morgan, 2018) researcher and research participants, as cultural workers, interrogated symbols contained in a logo to better reflect/enact an enhanced politics of justice, respect and inclusion of indigeneity.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Museum ethics, Museum logos, Decolonization, Deconstruction, Re-imagining, Pedagogy-of-possibilities
Digital Media
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