Intersectional Explorations
Didactics and their Discontents: The Tacit Coloniality of Museological and Archaeological Narratives
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Erhan Tamur
Recent work on critical museology and decolonization has established the various ways in which the formation of encyclopedic or universal museums in Europe and the United States was intertwined with histories of colonialism and racism. However, much work remains to be done in reimagining both the form and content of exhibition didactics, especially with an eye towards questioning the assumed neutrality of the empirical knowledge presented to the public and highlighting the pervasive power relationships between institutions and their visitors. In this paper, I take as an example the foundational and still resilient narrative of the Mesopotamian “discovery” featuring a European archaeologist operating single-handedly in a presumed terra incognita. I argue that the enlistment of the putatively self-evident notion of “discovery” as an explanatory model in museological and archaeological narratives has served to gloss over the millennia-long histories of local engagement with ancient Western Asian sites. By critically engaging with the didactics of several permanent and temporary exhibitions and with my own work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I stress that even those exhibition didactics that are designed to convey objective, empirical facts are eventually prone to conceal more than they reveal.
The Psychological Impact of Extreme Weather Events: Caring for the Caretakers of Cultural Heritage
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dana Murray
This research explores the psychological impact of extreme weather events on gallery, library, archive, and museum (GLAM) professionals as they seek to fulfil their professional duty to their collections in times of crisis. The concept of professional duty as experienced by GLAM professionals will be explored through the framework of care ethics and emotional and affected labour. As with other forms of emotional labour, GLAM professionals are expected to regulate their emotions to meet the requirements of their job. Even during a disaster, this regulation is expected by employers and often requires the suppression of emotions such as distress. However, given the close relationship between GLAM professionals and the collections under their care, this emotional work cannot be so easily separated from the personal. To date, professional guidance for emergency preparedness and response focuses on the well-being of the collections but has little to say about the personal situation of staff. The use of a care ethics framework, which stresses the importance of emotions such as compassion and empathy in responding to the needs of others, seeks to emphasize and promote the well-being of care-givers (GLAM professionals) and care-receivers (collections and community members) in a network of social relations and circumstances. This research seeks to advance understanding of the incompatibilities between personal and professional duties in times of crisis and to establish evidence-based guidelines for protecting GLAM professionals before, during, and after emergency situations.
Reducing Inequality for Artists: SDG 10 and the Applied Philosophy of Art
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Andrew Corsa, Cesar Santalo
Our paper asks two questions. (1) Why is it valuable for art museums to support SDG 10 – the tenth sustainable development goal articulated by the United Nations – which calls for reducing inequality within and among countries? (2) How can museums which showcase digital artworks effectively support SDG 10? We focus on the Lynn University NFT Museum as a case study. James O. Young (2001) argues that illustrative artworks often provide audiences with novel perspectives about the people and events they represent. When audiences determine that these perspectives are right, the audience's own perspectives might change. John Dewey (2008) implies that beholding artworks sometimes leads audiences to experience personal growth that positively affects their everyday lives (cf. Stroud, 2014; Leddy & Puolakka, 2023). Artworks by people in marginalized communities might present perspectives to their audiences that they would otherwise never consider. Understanding these perspectives may better enable their audiences to work together with marginalized groups. Lynn University NFT Museum helps artists, including those from marginalized communities, build their works’ audiences and expand the influence of their work. Because the museum focuses on digital artworks, it can display work by artists in developing countries without securing the budget necessary to ship, insure, and display traditional paintings and sculptures. Because the museum partners with a local office park and hotel, and displays artworks on monitors in both sites, the museum brings the work of artists from marginalized communities to audiences who might otherwise rarely visit traditional museums or view artworks online.
Reimagining the Museum: An Exploration of the Anacostia Community Museum
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Katherine Lightfoot
This paper explores the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum (ACM), which strives to uncover and promote local narratives from the Greater Washington, D.C. region. Located in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., this community museum reflects its name in that it is positioned off the tourist’s path, away from the National Mall in a residential area. The historic neighborhood east of the Anacostia River is home to predominantly Black residents who have been disproportionately faced with environmental injustices. Brett Williams’ and Madeleine Dwyer’s research foci of pollution and its effects not only on the Anacostia River but also upon community inhabitants support my argument that race, gender, and environmental justice in Anacostia, and in general, are inextricably linked. My focus is on the exhibition: “To Live and Breathe: Women and Environmental Justice in Washington, D.C.” and I aim to understand how this museum site functions as an alternative to the traditional hegemonic institution of the museum and how (successfully) it applies a “decolonial lens” in curating exhibits. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of environmental injustice and community museum responses in the Anacostia and greater District area. I first contextualize and discuss the development of the ACM, then move to an analysis of the exhibition and critically frame the museum’s position as a postcolonial entity. More specifically, I inquire how the museum frames the narratives of traditionally marginalized people and how it remembers the activists who fought for environmental and social justice.
