Museums and Shared Authority
Guest Speaker: Dr. Michelle Delaney, National Museum of the American Indian
Read
- Amy Lonetree, Decolonizing Museums (remainder)
- Yohann Koshy, “Hey, that’s our stuff: Maasai tribespeople tackle Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum,” The Guardian, 2018
- Jason Farago, “Artwork Taken From Africa, Returning to a Home Transformed,” The New York Times, 2018
- Brian Boucher, “People are calling for museums to be abolished. Can whitewashed American history be rewritten?” CNN, 2020.
Think
How did your understandings of decolonizing museums change or deepen this week with the additional examples Lonetree provided? What are specific examples from the NMAI and the Ziibiwing Center that were successful or not successful (or partially successful) in Lonetree’s perspective? What are the takeaways for museum practices from Lonetree regarding collections, site design, representation, and other course themes? What is repatriation, and how does it relate to these discussions of decolonization?
To Do
- All A-Twitter #4
- Comp Notes #3 on Decolonizing Museums
