Debates

txt
Anna BrusBernard MuellerBarthélémy Toguo
01/09/22
The Bandjoun Station
DCNtR Debate #3. The Post/Colonial Museum
An Interview with Barthélémy Toguo, conducted by Anna Brus and Bernard Müller This conversation focuses on the local activities and community work of the visual arts centre and museum of contemporary art Bandjoun Station in the West-Cameroon highlands.[1] The project that is run by the Cameroonian artist Barthélémy Toguo goes far beyond the model of […]
more
txt
Silvie Memel-KassiNanette SnoepMartin Zillinger
25/08/22
The Post/Colonial Museum: Rethinking the Past, Collecting the Present
DCNtR Debate #3. The Post/Colonial Museum
A conversation with Dr. Silvie Memel-Kassi, former Director of the Musée des Civilisations, Abidjan, and currently Directrice Générale de la Culture de Côte d’Ivoire, Nanette J. Snoep, Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne and Martin Zillinger[1] Nanette J. Snoep (N.J.S.) & Martin Zillinger (M.Z.): In your work you’ve always stressed that the museum is a space of memory […]
more
txt
Meghan Bill
07/04/22
Decolonizing Provenance Research in Practice. Some Guidelines
DCNtR Debate #2. Thinking About the Archive & Provenance Research
With increased public and professional calls to re-examine collecting, many museums have renewed commitments to provenance research. Provenance research raises pressing ethical questions: to whom should cultural heritage belong? How can museums equitably address unethical historical collecting practices? Provenance cannot necessarily answer these questions but sharing provenance information allows museums to tell more nuanced stories […]
more
txt
Julia SchafmeisterAmir Theilhaber
05/04/22
Collections, Archives, Repositories. Thoughts about Terminology from a Peripheral Ethnological Collection
DCNtR Debate #2. Thinking About the Archive & Provenance Research
As Brian M. Watson recently argued, the “archive” should not “refer to, well, just about anything”. Apart from muddying the waters and confusing what an actual archive is and what the people working there, archivists, do, it is of particular importance for the emerging re-engagement with ethnological museum collections in the context of provenance research. […]
more
txt
Rainer Hatoum
05/04/22
“Sensitivity” at Work. A Double-Edged Sword
DCNtR Debate #2. Thinking About the Archive & Provenance Research
“Cultural sensitivity” has emerged as a central, though ambivalent, concept in my archival work of the past twenty years. Thereby, my experience has been markedly influenced by my regional focus on North America. Here, socio-political changes led to the passing of laws such as the Indian Religious Freedom Act and the Native Grave Protection and […]
more
txt
Marie Hoffmann
05/04/22
Provenance Research before Repatriation: The Limits of Museums’ Archives
DCNtR Debate #2. Thinking About the Archive & Provenance Research
As calls for cultural objects’ repatriations[1] are increasing and museums are being confronted with the colonial aspects of their collections and of the institution itself, one of the responses from the museum world is to highlight the need for research and documentation. The argument is that in order to know what to return, one needs […]
more
txt
Lu Zhang
05/04/22
Archives Research on Chinese Government’s Preparation for the 1935 Royal Academy International Exhibition of Chinese Art
DCNtR Debate #2. Thinking About the Archive & Provenance Research
Fig. 1. The Poster of the 1935 International Exhibition of Chinese Art. Courtesy to the Royal Academy of Arts. The International Exhibition of Chinese Art (hereinafter 1935 Exhibition) was held at Burlington House, London, from 28 November 1935 to 6 March 1936.[1] As “one of a sequence of national art shows” at the Royal Academy […]
more
txt
Larissa Schulte NordholtMarleen Reichgelt
05/04/22
What’s the Use of the Archive? Questions of locality, accessibility, and digitalisation
DCNtR Debate #2. Thinking About the Archive & Provenance Research
Case 1 My (Larissa) first confrontation with issues surrounding the decolonisation and locality of archives between the Global North and South took place in 2018, through my visits to a private Nigerian archive.[1] When I boarded the airplane, I did not know of the existence of this archive yet. Once I had arrived at my […]
more
txt
Samuel Benjamin BachmannMarina Berazategui
05/04/22
Documenting Coloniality
DCNtR Debate #2. Thinking About the Archive & Provenance Research
Ethnographic collecting in the late 19th and early 20th century was a method of colonial knowledge production and served the narrative of European cultural and scientific dominance. We understand ethnographic museums themselves as colonial archives. Although they are always incomplete and biased, as such, they are promising historical sources for the investigation of certain persons’ […]
more
txt
Carl DeußenYagmur Karakis
18/01/22
DCNtR Debate #2
Thinking About the Archive & Provenance Research
In the debate about the colonial past of ethnological museums in Western Europe, provenance research has emerged in recent years as the main method for researching colonial legacies and addressing museums’ need for decolonisation. What has been lacking, however, is a debate about the theoretical implications of this approach – what kinds of knowledge can […]
more