Everyone remembers one school trip to a museum: an enticing journey to civilisations before us (or three monotonous hours of being talked to). Many of us also remember the moment the realities behind some museums hit us— public displays of actual departed souls and their belongings looted via colonialism. Kelvingrove Museum’s recent decision to remove mummified remains and consider returning them to Egypt casts the illusion that we’ve put more progress into untying the noose of colonialism. Justified through ethical concerns relating to a lack of informed consent, is this really the benchmark of progress it claims to be?
Now, I don’t think anyone would be thrilled to find their corpse paraded on display for the global public— the final curtain should be quietly drawn at the grave. Some may argue that the display of remains is an endeavor in the name of history; that it is knowledgeable, noble even. Three centuries from today, historians will be fascinated with our mundane hunched postures over laptops, scrambling to submit a dissertation. Would anyone, however, want to be the poor soul whose remains reside behind a glass panel inside a museum? The question of the deceased’s consent touches murky waters, yet it draws the discourse towards the culprit at play: colonialism. Why are remains from Egypt still in Glasgow? Why isn’t Egypt the ultimate arbiter on where its own civilisation is exhibited?
This issue doesn’t pertain to Kelvingrove. The phenomenon of some museums being legalised theft displays which implicitly glorify the cruelties of colonialism is international. I remember walking through the halls of the National Museum in Scotland to be faced with a relief panel from my country of birth. Pride intertwined with a jarring dissonance washed over me. To see the land of my ancestors represented on the other end of the globe signifies theirs was a noteworthy legacy. Yet to realise the piece had only made it here through pillaging left a bitter taste in my mouth. Did the original artists intend for their works to be extracted? Isn’t it more fitting that the hands behind these artefacts intended to immortalise their heritage on their indigenous lands instead?
Museums seldom return any piece to its homeland. When they— once in a blue moon— do, they act as if they’ve courteously bestowed a gift upon them. This attitude towards returning artefacts to their rightful land only further perpetuates the myth that the coloniser is enlightened (and thus ‘worthy’ of conserving history) in contrast to the ‘brazen’ native groups which sculpted said artefacts. These relics should be a birthright to none other than their motherlands.
To truly deconstruct colonial structures, we must first acknowledge the sinister circumstances through which certain pieces were acquired. You can gild the sooted actions under the pretenses of ‘preserving history and culture,’ yet it will never alter the true nature of these exhibits— blatant spectacles of theft and plundering. A first step to condemning the colonialism of the past would be returning all relics to their ancestral nations.
Image by Narciso Arellano on Unsplash.
Related
We’ve Preserved More than Just Mummies
Everyone remembers one school trip to a museum: an enticing journey to civilisations before us (or three monotonous hours of being talked to). Many of us also remember the moment the realities behind some museums hit us— public displays of actual departed souls and their belongings looted via colonialism. Kelvingrove Museum’s recent decision to remove mummified remains and consider returning them to Egypt casts the illusion that we’ve put more progress into untying the noose of colonialism. Justified through ethical concerns relating to a lack of informed consent, is this really the benchmark of progress it claims to be?
Now, I don’t think anyone would be thrilled to find their corpse paraded on display for the global public— the final curtain should be quietly drawn at the grave. Some may argue that the display of remains is an endeavor in the name of history; that it is knowledgeable, noble even. Three centuries from today, historians will be fascinated with our mundane hunched postures over laptops, scrambling to submit a dissertation. Would anyone, however, want to be the poor soul whose remains reside behind a glass panel inside a museum? The question of the deceased’s consent touches murky waters, yet it draws the discourse towards the culprit at play: colonialism. Why are remains from Egypt still in Glasgow? Why isn’t Egypt the ultimate arbiter on where its own civilisation is exhibited?
This issue doesn’t pertain to Kelvingrove. The phenomenon of some museums being legalised theft displays which implicitly glorify the cruelties of colonialism is international. I remember walking through the halls of the National Museum in Scotland to be faced with a relief panel from my country of birth. Pride intertwined with a jarring dissonance washed over me. To see the land of my ancestors represented on the other end of the globe signifies theirs was a noteworthy legacy. Yet to realise the piece had only made it here through pillaging left a bitter taste in my mouth. Did the original artists intend for their works to be extracted? Isn’t it more fitting that the hands behind these artefacts intended to immortalise their heritage on their indigenous lands instead?
Museums seldom return any piece to its homeland. When they— once in a blue moon— do, they act as if they’ve courteously bestowed a gift upon them. This attitude towards returning artefacts to their rightful land only further perpetuates the myth that the coloniser is enlightened (and thus ‘worthy’ of conserving history) in contrast to the ‘brazen’ native groups which sculpted said artefacts. These relics should be a birthright to none other than their motherlands.
To truly deconstruct colonial structures, we must first acknowledge the sinister circumstances through which certain pieces were acquired. You can gild the sooted actions under the pretenses of ‘preserving history and culture,’ yet it will never alter the true nature of these exhibits— blatant spectacles of theft and plundering. A first step to condemning the colonialism of the past would be returning all relics to their ancestral nations.
AI slop is the new dangerous fad of right-wing politics
Image by Narciso Arellano on Unsplash.
Share this:
Like this:
Related