Thirteenth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

One of the roles of museums is to mediate the past, present and also the future. Nevertheless, museums can also be a mirror of power, in the sense that the memory conveyed by such museums is the official memory in the sense that remembrance and forgetfulness are processed through inclusion and exclusion. This paper examines how the historical museums owned by the Indonesian government represent different national identities. The museums to be examined are the Proclamation Manuscript History Museum with a Japanese colonial context and the Multatuli Museum with a Dutch colonial context. The results of the study show that the two national history museums have two different paradigms in the construction of national identity, namely an attempt to erase the colonial memory, and an admiration for the colonial times and a desire to retain the colonial memory. The conclusion of this paper reveals that historical museums in Indonesia are still shackled within the framework of colonial construction, and are not yet fully willing to implement decolonialization in their roles as national museums.