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The Politics of Exhibiting culture: Legacies and Possibilities

Carol E. Mayer

Thesis/Key issues: The goal of this project is to produce a publication, not a standard catalogue, that will address the problematic dichotomy between what Shelley Butler in her article "The Politics of Exhibiting culture: Legacies and Possibilities" (Museum Anthropology 23(3):74) has identified as "critical and optimistic perspectives on exhibiting culture." 

As a curator, I find myself caught in the middle of this dichotomy. Like many curators, I was caught unprepared when the controversy surrounding the Canadian exhibition "Into the Heart of Africa" initiated (perhaps forced?) some fundamental changes to existing notions of power, authority and voice. Clearly, we are now working in a highly public politicized environment that has required us to be more reflexive about our practice. . Museum professionals have shifted to a much more collaborative approach to public representation and there is a general recognition that the exhibition is not the final word, rather it is a negotiated space where old and new ideas coexist in the spirit of collaboration. 

This project is based on collaboration across vast distances. This has proved to be a significant challenge and has necessitated extensive travel and reliance on e-mail. The Museum of Anthropology’s founding collection of ca 1500 Pacific objects was collected in the late 19th - early 20th century by Canadian writer and traveller Frank Burnett. This collection came to the university in 1927 and to date has not been published or formally exhibited. The initial goal of this project was to rectify this and produce an exhibition and a publication about this unique Canadian collection. However, because the Burnett collection shares similar attributes to the African collection shown in "Into the Heart of Africa" I needed to ensure that history was not repeated. Following ideas associated with critical museology my approach will be to look reflexively at our collecting practices, classification systems and display techniques. To take this a step further, I will introduce transparency by including this reflexivity as part of the publication (and exhibition) text – the idea being to invite dialogue about our practice. However, from the beginning of this project I have also been working with ideas associated with optimistic museology and have found myself in the role of facilitator. Pacific Islanders and descendants of the collector are invited to view the museum as a "site for dialogue and debate." They introduce different viewpoints seldom addressed by those practicing critical museology. One example might be the potential entanglement that could ensue when addressing a collector’s practices both from a critical viewpoint and from a familial viewpoint that reveres his memory. By including this broader constituency I hope to produce a publication that will contribute to a ‘way of seeing’ that enables us to build bridges between critical and optimistic museology. 

References:

Ames M.M. 1981. "Preservation and Access: A Report on an Experiment in Visible Storage" Gazette, Canadian Museum Association, Ottawa, Summer-Fall.

Ames M.M. 1988. "The Spirit Sings and the Lubicon Boycott" MUSE, Canadian Museums Association, pp. 12-25

Anderson M. 1991. "Chipping away at the Foundation of The Museum Community" Artscraft, National Indian Arts and Crafts Corporation. Vol. 2, #4, pp. 16-19.

Bouquet M. 1999. "The Didactics of Exhibition making" Focaal, 34, Nijmegen. Pp. 177-192.

Canadian Museums Association & Assembly of First Nations, 1994. Task Force Report on Museums and First Peoples. Canadian Museums Association, Ottawa.

Cole, Douglas 1985. Captured Heritage: The Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts. Vancouver and Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre. 

Greenblatt Stephen 1991. "Resonance and Wonder" in Karp Ivan and Steven D. Lavine (eds.) in Exhibiting Cultures - The Poetics of Museum Display. Smithsonian Institutional Press, Washington, pp. 42-56.

Halpin M.M. 1990.Fragments - Reflections on Collecting. UBC Museum of Anthropology Note #31.Harrison J. 1988. "The Spirit Sings and the Lubican Boycott" MUSE, Autumn, pp. 12-25.

Hawthorn A. 1976.UBC’s new Museum of Anthropology" Canadian Geographic Journal, October/November, pp. 52-57 

Heron R.P. 1990."Museums: cultural Institutions and Islands of Hope: MUSE, Vol. VIII, #3. Canadian Museums Association, Ottawa.

Kroeber A.L. 1954."The Place of Anthropology in Universities" American Anthropologist, Vol. 56. pp. 764-767.Lawson B. 1994. Collected Curios – Missionary Tales from the South Seas. McGill University, Montreal. 

MacDonald B. 1992. Vancouver – A Visual History. Talonbooks, Vancouver.Maleuvre D. 1999. Museum Memories: History, Technology, Art. Stanford University Press.