Remembering Geneva in the Colonial World (Museum of Ethnography, Geneva) by Julia Binter Chandigarh Architecture Museum (Chandigarh) by Neha Khetrapal Historia za Tanzania (Humboldt Forum, Berlin) by Mareike Späth Grand Egyptian Museum, Cairo by Heba Abd el-Gawad Post-Future/Astana: Venice/GEN1 (National Museum of Kazakhstan) Hanlin Yang Memory of the White Mountains and Pine River (Jilin Provincial Museum) by Zheng Zhang Ku a Lanakila! Expressions of Sovereignty in Early Territorial Hawai‘i, 1900–1920 (Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu) by Halena Kapuni-Reynolds
Katarzyna Puzon (KP): Thank you for speaking to me, Chantal. Maybe we can start by talking about your background and museum career, and then we move on to the origins and history of the University of Antananarivo's Institute of Civilizations Museum of Art and Archaeology [Institut de Civilisations Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie—(ICMAA)], where we are currently speaking on the occasion of the transfer of sound recordings made with Malagasy prisoners of war in Germany during the First World War. This is also the reason why I am here, that is, to hand over digital copies of these recordings, which until recently were stored exclusively in the Lautarchiv of the Humboldt University in Berlin. We will discuss this in more detail later in the conversation.
Abstract This article examines a university–museum collaboration centered on the collections of the Museum of European Cultures (Museum Europäischer Kulturen [MEK]), which include objects often considered “difficult” to display within the museum's current curatorial framing of “Europe.” Drawing on two student-led projects that engaged the MEK's collections through speculative, embodied practices of making, crafting, and fabulation, we explore how such process-oriented and collaborative experimentation can open new paths for reshaping long-standing curatorial habits. We argue that by embracing the messiness and uncertainties inherent in such multimodal collaborations, we may begin to challenge existing curatorial frameworks, and generate possibilities for institutional unlearning.
Abstract For archaeologists and anthropologists, human remains offer direct insight into the past. In museums, there is hardly an “artifact” more visceral and informative than the remains of the dead. Ethical concerns over their excavation, collection, and display have grown, particularly regarding remains obtained through racial and colonial violence. Drawing on mortuary archaeology, museum studies, death studies, forensic anthropology, and legal theory, this article develops an integrative framework for understanding how the public encounters human remains in a single case study: the Hyrtl crania at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Through this example, the article explores how institutions might navigate the enduring ethical challenges posed by human remains in museums and how processes of learning and unlearning can guide more responsible stewardship.
Abstract The opening of the Narinder Singh Kapany & Satinder Kaur Kapany Sikh Art Collection Gallery at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts provides a timely opportunity to explore alternative modalities of caring and curating by giving voice to alternative sense-making. This article conveys some reflections born out of the interactions with diasporic artists who tied their own stories to the historical corpus that was conceived through the collector's own bias and mission. Adopting Sikhi (continuous learning) may provide a meaningful curatorial approach that allows contemporary diasporic artists to assert their agency and modes of self-representation, as in the case of Keerat Kaur's Sweet Speech exhibition.
