Museum Origins: From Curiosities to Colonial Legacies

The 1970 UNESCO Convention is an international treaty designed to combat the illegal trade of cultural property, defining cultural property as anything of scientific, historical, artistic, and/or religious significance. The convention was signed on November 14, 1970, and came into effect on April 24, 1972. The United States signed in 1983. The museum community and dealers have broadly interpreted this convention to mean that cultural property should have left their countries of origin by 1970. This standard became crucial in evaluating the provenance of the Phoenician Ivory alabaster, which was purchased in 2006 with documentation claiming it had been in the US since the 1960s.

The 1970 UNESCO Convention, with 131 state parties including major art market states, is the most important international agreement for deterring illegal trafficking in cultural objects (estimated at $6 billion annually, with only 2-5% recovery). It provides the first detailed definition of cultural property as material designated by states as important for archaeology, prehistory, history, literature, art, or science, falling within 11 categories. Key provisions include: mutually enforceable export certifications; emergency measures to prohibit importation of jeopardized cultural property; requirements to return stolen property from museums and monuments; prevention of illegal acquisitions by museums; penalties for violations; and international cooperation for inventories. Contraband is recoverable with compensation to innocent purchasers.

The United States has been actively implementing the 1970 UNESCO Convention since 1983. The convention was not self-executing in the US, so Congress passed implementing legislation called the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act. The US Senate report concluded that the demand for cultural artifacts has resulted in the irremedial destruction of archaeological sites and articles of cultural property, depriving other countries of their cultural patrimony and the world of important knowledge of its past. The US interest in the convention extends beyond its import market and interest in fostering careful study of foreign cultures. The increasing interest in Native American, Hawaiian, and Alaskan artifacts has spurred the pillaging of US historic sites, giving rise to a profound national interest in joining other countries to control the trafficking of such articles in international commerce.

Major international agreements protect cultural property across borders. The Hague Convention of 1954, first such agreement, protects cultural property during armed conflict, with 133 parties but limited Second Protocol ratifications. The 1970 UNESCO Convention prohibits illicit import/export and enables bilateral agreements, with 140 ratifications. The UNIDROIT Convention (1995) aids recovery of stolen objects, with 58 ratifications but no US participation. The 2001 UNESCO Underwater Heritage Convention addresses shipwreck looting. The US has ratified some conventions late (Hague in 2009) and not others (UNIDROIT). These agreements require domestic enabling legislation, creating implementation challenges that museums can address through advocacy.

NAGPRA requires federal agencies and institutions receiving federal funding to return Native American cultural items to lineal descendants and culturally affiliated American Indian tribes, Alaskan native villages, and native Hawaiian organizations. Cultural items include human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. The Act establishes procedures for inadvertent discovery or planned excavation of Native American cultural items on federal or tribal lands. Penalties for violations include 12 months imprisonment or a $100,000 fine. The Department of the Interior amended NAGPRA in 2023 to clarify that museums and federal agencies must defer to Native American traditional knowledge of lineal descendants, Indian tribes, and native Hawaiian organizations. The video argues that NAGPRA's true objective is to gatekeep information and new discoveries, putting a firewall between the public and archaeological findings.

This seminar explores practical approaches to decolonising museum practice through the lens of Birmingham Museums Trust's 2017 exhibition 'The Past is Now: Birmingham and the British Empire,' which challenged colonial narratives through collaborative co-curation with external community members, demonstrating that effective decolonisation requires ongoing institutional commitment, transparent power-sharing arrangements, and sustained investment in community relationships rather than one-off projects.

The speaker identifies three key points for decolonization: (1) Critical review of collections - museums should critically examine all their collections, (2) Review of museum graphics and design tasks for permanent exhibitions, and (3) Cooperation and inclusion - museums cannot solve mammoth tasks in the 21st century without cooperation and inclusion. The speaker emphasizes that museums need to learn to work beyond their own possibilities and invite people, persons, and institutions who do not necessarily belong to their repertoire to co-create and explore new paths.

Decolonizing work requires examining multiple institutional dimensions simultaneously. Collections demand finding humanity behind objects by incorporating culturally appropriate protocols, traditional knowledge labels, and involving indigenous community members in acquisitions. Land acknowledgment requires understanding whose homeland the institution occupies and engaging local indigenous communities, with the Abbey's process taking nearly two years of collaboration. Narratives must confront difficult histories rather than avoiding them for audience comfort. Gift shops can support decolonization by prioritizing native-owned businesses and offering only books by native authors. The interpretive model of disruption, resistance, and resiliency provides a framework for telling full complex narratives: disruption includes settler colonialism and violence; resistance includes indigenous countermeasures like protests and defense; resiliency includes continuity, survival, and adaptation. For example, examining Wabanaki basketry shows disruption through reduced access to traditional hunting grounds, resistance through basket makers becoming independent businesspeople, and resiliency through basket making continuing today as fine art sold for thousands through intergenerational investment. Institutional transformation extends to policy revision, hiring practices addressing exclusion of BIPOC from leadership, acquisitions moving beyond NAGPRA compliance to genuine partnership, and reparative justice actively repairing historical harms.

Museums worldwide are transforming from spaces of singular Western perspectives to polyphonic spaces with multi-vocality and multi-perspectivity. This involves overcoming colonial-era approaches by incorporating multiple viewpoints. Effective approaches include working with representatives from source communities (where objects originate), engaging diverse local neighborhoods, creating advisory boards for exhibition development, involving communities as authors of exhibition texts, and conducting co-creation workshops. Museums must also address decolonization through transparency about difficult object biographies, shifting from object-focused narratives to action-oriented perspectives, and creating exhibitions from the perspective of colonized peoples rather than colonizers.

Museums must critically examine their own narratives, particularly regarding colonial legacies. The case study of Reggio Emilia's ethnographic collections demonstrates how museums can: (1) integrate collections with other museum holdings to tell community stories, (2) maintain historical collections while acknowledging their etnocentric heritage, (3) extend participation to multicultural communities, and (4) use collections as inspiration for creative projects. This approach transforms museums from repositories of colonial artifacts into spaces for dialogue and reflection on contemporary issues.

3D scanning technology offers potential solutions for repatriation disputes by increasing access to contested artifacts. While returning physical artifacts remains the primary goal in repatriation cases, providing access to 3D scans could offer interim solutions that benefit communities seeking to reconnect with their cultural heritage. This represents an opportunity to expand the scope of cultural heritage access beyond traditional repatriation frameworks.

When physical object return is not possible due to governmental agreements, customs fees, and special requirements, museums can create three-dimensional scans as an alternative method of repatriation. While this is not the original object, it provides a way to start new conversations about cultural heritage. This approach acknowledges the limitations of physical return while still enabling cultural communities to access and engage with their heritage through digital means.

Digital repatriation represents a new approach to returning cultural objects to their communities. This process involves creating 3D scans of original objects, including all aspects such as imperfections, and then printing exact replicas in materials like plastic. These copies are then sent back to communities where local artists complete them based on a mix of customary and invented protocols. The original objects remain in museums, but the newly authenticated copies have truly come home. This approach allows museums to show their copies in their place while returning the original objects to their communities. The process addresses the historical issue of museums poisoning objects with arsenic, which created a false narrative that objects were 'toxic' and couldn't be returned.

Technology offers a solution to cultural repatriation through digital means. Artist Nora Al-Badri published 3D printing data for the Nefertiti bust online without museum permission, allowing anyone with a 3D printer to create their own copy. This challenges museums' monopoly over cultural heritage and allows for symbolic returns, such as when a copy was buried in the Egyptian desert.

3D scanning technology addresses the tension between repatriating culturally significant objects to their communities of origin and maintaining scientific access to those objects. By creating high-fidelity digital replicas, museums can satisfy both obligations: returning original objects while providing researchers with digital access. This approach was successfully demonstrated with Native American ceremonial objects like killer whale hats, where digital replicas enabled continued scholarly study while honoring tribal requests for repatriation.

The 1960s and 1970s saw the emergence of Institutional Critique as a major art movement, driven by artists like Hans Haacke, Daniel Buren, Michael Asher, and Marcel Broodthaers who challenged the neutrality and authority of museums and galleries. These artists exposed how institutional frameworks shape artistic meaning and value, often facing censorship from powerful institutions. Haacke conducted real-time social experiments like his MoMA poll and Sapolsky project to reveal economic and political connections; Buren used architectural interventions to demonstrate how context frames perception; Asher removed gallery partitions to expose administrative realities; and Broodthaers created the faux Museum of Modern Art Department of Eagles to question what constitutes art and institutional legitimacy.

Institutional critique is an academic term describing art that actively critiques the structures it lives in, such as museums, galleries, and auction houses. This concept emerged after institutions started collecting more ephemeral and performative works made by artists in the 1960s and 1970s who strategically tried to avoid traditional art spaces. Despite artists' efforts to evade these spaces, museums were happy to matriculate these evasive works and include them in their histories of art. The art world loves being questioned and criticized, which has become almost like a kind of high-class teasing or 'negging.'

Contemporary artists frequently critique art institutions and political systems. Martin Creed's work of throwing paper balls in galleries questions the value systems of galleries and collectors. Ai Weiwei, arrested in China for political criticism, created installations at Tate Modern symbolizing Chinese submission to leadership. Damien Hirst places objects in glass vitrines, with his preserved shark selling for over 10 million dollars. Jeff Koons creates giant-scale everyday objects, with his 'Puppy' selling for over 50 million dollars, challenging art world conventions.

Institutional critique is an artistic practice where artists challenge the power structures, biases, and assumptions of cultural institutions like museums and galleries by exposing how these institutions construct meaning, value, and authority. Artists such as Hans Haacke, Andrea Fraser, Fred Wilson, and the Guerrilla Girls have created works that reveal the political and economic interests embedded in cultural institutions, questioning whether institutions can ever be truly neutral. This form of artivism transforms institutional criticism into artistic practice, often resulting in controversy, exhibition cancellations, or institutional resistance, but ultimately serving as a powerful tool for social and political commentary.