Staging the gaze in museum ethnography
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Twitchin, Mischa. 2024. 'Staging the gaze in museum ethnography'. In: Anthropology and Education - Royal Anthropological Institute 2024 Conference. Senate House, University of London, United Kingdom 25-28 June 2024. [Conference or Workshop Item]
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The museum apparatus does not simply exhibit ethnographic objects, but stages the ethnographic as its own object (even if hidden in plain sight), as its “epistemological technology” (Preziosi, 2006: 75) reproduces a supposed knowledge by means of, precisely, exhibitions. Making this a visible concern of and for ethnographic (or museological) enquiry has often been done by employing artists to make (temporary) “interventions” (as by Fred Wilson) – where, nonetheless, curatorial understanding of the institution remains largely unaffected. In this presentation, I explore ongoing debate at the Humboldt Forum’s Africa Galleries – at least, that aspect which is staged publicly. At one end of the current exhibition, Chris Marker and Alain Resnais’ film, "Les Statues Meurent Aussi", plays on a loop, exemplifying the anthropological heritage that Marc Augé called its “double relativity” (“for, as we know, others also define what is for them ‘the other’” [1998: xvi]); and, at the other end, there is a gallery addressing the ethics of photography (as an instance of the gaze in ethnography), under the indicative curatorial title “omissions”. The distinctly temporary feel of these galleries – with questions concerning how and why (and for whom) the museum’s Benin artefacts are “presented” in the rooms in-between – testifies to an unravelling of the Humboldt Forum’s “mission” as a so-called World Museum. Intended for a global tourist gaze (“edutainment”) this is challenged here, becoming an object of and for theoretical reflection (Lippard, 1999) in the ostensibly paradoxical project of a (potentially) decolonial curatorial practice (Mignolo, 2011).
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Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
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| Event Location: |
Senate House, University of London, United Kingdom |
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| Date range: |
25-28 June 2024 |
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| Item ID: |
37202 |
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| Date Deposited: |
04 Jul 2024 13:41 |
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| Last Modified: |
04 Jul 2024 13:41 |
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