A Museum Studies Blog @museumstudious - Tumblr Blog

My good friend Amy, who is a trans historian and museum pro has compiled a list of trans museums studies resources on her website!

Check out 'Not Your Average Cistory' here!

nevver

Night at the museum, Nicolas Krief

historyphdnow

I just informed my boyfriend how terrible the pay is in the museum industry and he is SHOOK.

alwaysnewdepths

Being weird together in museums is a love language

wilwheaton

Archivist here, about the Reagan Library. YES he was awful. But these are historical records that expose just how bad he was. This is also part of a profession/administration in an uphill fight to preserve as much of the crazy evidence that comes out of the current administration for history and future generations. Lastly, the people who work there may not have recovered financially from the govt shutdown & panicking about jobs, homes, etc So yes, Fuck Reagan but please keep that in mind

You’re right. Fuck Reagan, but preserve evidence of his cruelty, crimes, homophobia, and bigotry.

theprofessional-amateur-deactiv

I can’t stress enough how shitty Reagan was and the amount of horrible consequences his policies have had. And I absolutely get wanting to burn down his legacy (especially when what most people see looks like a monument to him) and when it is literally surrounded by fire. I get it.

Losing a monument to him is one thing, losing the archives is a whole different animal. Losing this means losing the voices of those who were directly affected by what was happening. Who reached out/pleaded for help or intervention and that maybe didn’t make it. It means losing so much of the hard evidence of what he did. Not the effects of what he did, those scars are all around us, but of the very real decisions he made and consequences he chose to ignore or decided were completely acceptable (or even the point). There are millions of pages, artifacts, and materials. Even working on them since he died the staff wouldn’t have had time to digitize them. The vast majority would be gone.

The human factor is also important. A lot of labor goes into archival collections. A lot of emotional labor goes into collections as well. Keeping the papers and records of anything, but especially of a person or administration, means dealing with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Getting those materials organized and ready for researchers means going through sensitive materials. Every archivist I have ever met has cried at work because of something that has come across our desks. In the last two months alone I have dealt with boxes of materials on hate crimes, school bullying, the Ground Zero Task Force files for the NY state senator that represented lower Manhattan, meaning notes and updates on all the devastating details. I work on a much much smaller and, generally considered, more positive collection. Archivists deal with amazing things but it can also get real dark.

There is also the front of house museum, facilities, and service staff also in this boat. Anyone who has worked any kind of position like this knows it can be rough. Especially if you work at a place dedicated to someone like Reagan. Their feelings about Reagan aside, they have to deal with the general public and a public that probably has strong feelings about Reagan. Now add the stress of possibly losing your job due to it literally burning to the ground and, depending on where staff live in comparison, their homes might also be at risk or already gone.

So to sum up, FUCK REAGAN I hope he spends eternity living the experiences of every person he harmed but with full knowledge that he is the one directly responsible for it, but also my thoughts are with the staff.

saintartemis

Musings of a Museum Science Grad Student.

#18.The best practices of museums today, are trying to make up for the best practices of 50 years ago.

chemicalheart-deactivated202009

There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.

Arundhati Roy

blackbearmagic

Good morning,

museums should repatriate artifacts belonging to living cultures and display reproductions instead

blackbearmagic

Good afternoon,

no one is entitled to the sacred art, tools, or costumes of another culture (save members of the culture itself) and nonsacred reproductions will serve just as well for the purposes of education and appreciation

blackbearmagic

Good evening,

having museums full of reproductions would be even cooler than having museums full of sacred artifacts because when modern craftspeople are able to replicate those artifacts, it’s usually because they still make the same items the same way today

this means that you could have description tags emphasizing that such-and-such item has been made by these people in almost the same way for hundreds of years

having museums full of beautiful reproductions takes the emphasis off of Things and places it on the People who make them, which is really as it should be

justsomeantifas

All art seized by colonialists should be returned to the people and cultures they belong to.

justsomeantifas

Museums are NOT more important than people.

anthropologist-on-the-loose

In my art history class we’re discussing museums and repatriation and I am so fucking angry

Just wait until I have some free time, I’ll post my favorite whiny bitch responses from European museums.

anthropologist-on-the-loose

First, a fun fact: “It is noted in the report that some 90% of African cultural heritage currently exists outside of the continent and is displayed in major Western museums.” So keep that in mind when reading these.

Let’s get this party started, shall we?

“Contrary to the sanctified treatment of objects in these museums, there have been cases in Africa where artworks have temporarily left the museum to be used in rituals.”

Europeans, clutching their pearls: But it is Art, it cannot be soiled by the hands of the masses who created it!!

Then I read a big long paragraph from a French museum director that in summary reads: Hey everyone, let’s start from scratch and pretend colonialism never happened. That good? Does that work for everyone? Awesome.

“…cultural objects from the area which is now Iraq are being used to promote BP [Oil], which supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”

So y’all just gonna an oil company sponsor an exhibit of dubiously obtained Iraqi artifacts? Cool, cool, no colonialist undertones there.

“[D]irector of the British Museum Hartwig Fischer said that while the museum’s trustees were open to all forms of cooperation, “the collections have to be preserved as whole.””

You mean, all those collections donated from wealthy individuals who pillaged the entire world? If you really believe this I’ve got a simple solution for you: return the entire damn collection.

“Unlike Nazi-looted art, what was taken in the former colonies are not recognized as criminally obtained under international law.”

Hi yeah what the actual fuck

Then there’s the Parthenon Marbles, and if you don’t know, it’s a whole big Thing with a near comical backstory. But this post is long enough as is, and I don’t want to bore you. In short: Britain has bunch of the carvings and statues that were left in the Greek Parthenon, and Greece wants them back. Here are some choice bits from the British Museum’s current official stance on the marbles:

“Archaeologists worldwide are agreed that the surviving sculptures could never be re-attached to the structure.”

That is??? Not the issue??? No one is suggesting this???

“acting with the full knowledge and permission of the Ottoman authorities”

Really? You sure about that? Because it seems like no one else agrees with you on that. Also, even if there was clear permission, saying “The empire that conquered Greece told us we could take them” doesn’t exactly strengthen your case.

“the Greek authorities have now removed all the architectural sculptures from the Parthenon to the Acropolis Museum. They have thus completed a process begun by Lord Elgin 200 years ago”

Are… are you suggesting that Greece only wants to preserve its heritage because you wanted to first? Seriously? I’d be damn careful about touting yourself as paragons of historical preservation, Britain.

“The Museum is a unique resource for the world: the breadth and depth of its collection allows the world’s public to re-examine cultural identities and explore the connections between them.”

And how did your collection get so big, might I ask? Oh, you don’t know? Because you’re not willing to do the research on how most of these artifacts were acquired? Fascinating.

“This display does not alter the Trustees’ view that the sculptures are part of everyone’s shared heritage and transcend cultural boundaries.”

Guys I’m dying they sound like an entitled white boy in an intro to philosophy class

By the way, this document that is less than 1,000 words mentions that the public can view the them “free of charge” no less than 3 times.

Fun times.

Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x)

thenerdyanthrohistorian

I actually was given a C minus in this class in my undergrad for calling out museums for being whiney about repatriation. My professor HATED me and we would get into heated arguments about how stolen artifacts needed to be returned. God those were the days….lol FYI this professor Dr.Wilson got mad one day and told me to go back to Mexico and asked me if I was legal. I know this anger…lol

helliotthehellion

Greece’s Acropolis museum is literally a huge fuck you to the British Museum. The New Acropolis Museum opened in 2007. It looks amazing

Since you can’t dig anywhere in Greece (especially right by the Acropolis) without hitting ruins or artifacts, they built a glass floor so that visitors can see the ruins below the building.

A huge part of the design for the new building was to emphasize that Greece is ready and capable of caring for the Elgin Marbles (a huge defense the British Museum will give is that colonized countries don’t have the resources to care for the artifacts properly). So they went out of their way to make this as clear as possible.

The top floor of the building is entirely devoted to the metopes and friezes around the Parthenon. Like, so devoted that they even oriented the top floor to align with the actual Parthenon

So if you walk around the floor, everything is oriented as if you were walking around the actual Parthenon.

So the two ends of the floor are dedicated to the two pediments. And they were very particular with how they’re displayed.

Wow there sure are a lot of things missing.

They left space for where the Elgin Marbles should be. All of the pieces are labelled. For all of the missing pieces, there is a sign saying that that piece is in the British Museum. It’s pretty hard to miss when entire sections are not there.

That entire floor is just to show that they all belong together. The pediments need to be back together. Get your shit together British Museum

anthropologist-on-the-loose

You missed my favorite part of the museum:

They have separate room devoted to these statues, with a spotlight shining on the empty spot where the sixth one is supposed to be. It was the saltiest museum I have ever been to, and I was living. My favorite part was when the tour guide pleaded to us to write to the British Museum and ask them to return the artifacts, and an older man from India muttered under his breath, “Ha! Good luck with that.”

That aside, it’s also one of the most beautiful museums I have ever been in. The architecture is stunning. If you ever get a chance, absolutely go to it.

For those who don’t know the story behind why all these Greek statues are in Britain, buckle up for a wild ride.

The Parthenon has a storied history, obviously, as it is was an incredible temple in a major Mediterranean port. It had started to show wear and tear over the years, and different people had attempted at various points to “save” it, or at least save the carvings. Most of the time, these attempts did more harm than good.

Then along comes Thomas Bruce, a Scottish nobleman more commonly know as Lord Elgin. Between 1799-1803 he acts as British ambassador to the Ottoman empire, which controlled the entire region that is now Greece. He gets really interested in the old works of the classical civilizations and asks the Sultan of the Ottoman empire if he can undertake an extensive study and recording of the art at the Acropolis in Athens. Not only does the Sultan say yes, his agreement states that Elgin can “take away any pieces of stone with old inscriptions or figures thereon.” It is agreed by all parties who are not the British Museum that the Sultan was referring only to the various pieces that were scattered across the ground, but not anything still standing.

Elgin interpreted this wording to mean, “Take anything you want. Go absolutely hog wild.” So he did. He sawed many of the marble carvings off the building to make them easier to transport, which did damage to both the carvings and structure of the building itself. Here’s my favorite part: one of the ships he was using to transport the marbles sank. When Elgin found out, he sent a letter to local authorities asking them to retrieve the cargo, which he referred to as “stones of no interest to anyone but myself.”

He took literal metric tons of artwork, which he wanted to use to decorate his home back in Britain. Except he poured so much money into this project that he went into debt and had to sell the marbles. Parliament bought them (which was not a popular decision at the time) and put them in a public museum. Then in 1832 Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire, and the marbles have been a point of contention in Greek-British relations ever since.

Here’s another quote from the British Museum displaying an astonishing degree of ethnocentrism!

“The public display of the sculptures from spring 1807 encouraged Hellenists in their love of ancient Greece while, at the same time, it inspired the Philhellene movement in its sympathy for the inhabitants of modern Greece and their struggle for independence.”

The most recent volley in this fight was Britain saying, “well, we can’t give you the marbles, your museum is too dinky to display them in their full splendor.” In response, Greece built the above museum.

As many people mentioned in the comments, Black Panther was fantastic in that it brought the issue of museums and repatriation into the public view. Now with more voices joining in, hopefully change can happen more quickly.

tarvek-sturmvoraus

You left out the part where the document giving Elgin permission to take them may or may not be a forgery, also!

anthropologist-on-the-loose

This was a part of this I was not familiar with! And wow! I looked into it, and there is decent evidence that the agreement from the Sultan was faked! This story just keeps getting better and better!

teaboot

Went to the Aboriginal artifact exhibit in Chicago. And it’s interesting. How many blankets and masks and totem poles say ‘unknown source’, because every five seconds my mom would stop and point to something and say. “Pauline’s grandmother made that,” or, “That belongs to Mike’s family, I should call him” because. It’s all stolen

teaboot

“These artifacts were excavated by archaeologists from a burial site in the 1970’s. The remains were returned for reinterment” Okay cool, cool cool. So you just, like. Dug up the grave of a respected family member, stripped them naked, mailed their body back to their family and kept everything they were lovingly put to rest in. Like a graverobbing bastard

toothmuncher3000

Reminds me of the time when of the elders from my hometown started touching a totem pole in the Museum of Anthropology out at UBC and got yelled at by the staff, only to tell him that the pole had been stolen off of the front of her bighouse when she was ten years old.

Museum collectors did the equivalent of kidnapping a family member when they were away fishing.

cocainesocialist

one of the most annoying things about royal weddings is all the middle class liberals who come out with their tepid takes about how they ‘don’t mind the royals, actually’ as if a liberal having no problem with unearned wealth and privilege is some massive shocker

upsettingandunfortunateclasshate

Innit. Especially now these two are ‘socially conscious’, the mc liberals can really give that royal arse a good tonguing. The Queen knows what she’s doing, she’s adapting the monarchy to the times. They could go on for another 50 years like this.

veteranmortal

The royal family existing is profitable for the UK as a whole, because it basically funds half the tourism industry. They’re obnoxious, but getting rid of them would actively harm the working class in many of the places most hostile to the working class. Get off your bloody high horse.

cocainesocialist

actually socialising their wealth would benefit the working class directly and we’d get even more tourists when the palaces are fully open to the public, like in the other countries that have done the sensible thing and gotten rid of their monarchies.

bosmer

In 2016/2017 just under 2,000,000 people visited ‘royal properties’. Meanwhile in 2015/2016, 7,000,000 people visited the British Museum alone. In 2015 nothing related to the monarchy came close to the top 10 most visited attractions in the UK. The ‘monarcy bring money in’ is a myth, in 2016 Flamingo Land was visited more than any palace.

The ‘royal family’ cost about £350,000,000 a year, which is an unjustifiable amount of money considering that since 2010, people using food banks has jumped from 41,000 to 1,200,000.

crocky-wock

Reblogging for the last.

ianvs-deactivated20241214

I mean, the overwhelming majority of the artifacts in the British Museum were stolen from other countries. What no one wants to admit is that you cannot disentangle the British culture industry from its histories of class and imperialism.

just-over-it-all-deactivated202

Locking your wheelchair lift and requiring disabled people to find an employee to unlock AND OPERATE it is a direct violation of the ADA.

“The [ADA] Standards require ‘unassisted’ entry and exit from lifts (§410.1). Situations in which platform lifts are locked and require users to request or retrieve a key for operation will not satisfy this requirement for independent operation.”

“Attendant operation, although recognized by the ASME A18.1 Standard, is expressly prohibited by the ADA Standards. Platform lifts must provide ‘unassisted entry and exit from the lift’ (§410.1).”

(Source)

Smells like a lawsuit waiting to happen…

quadraxic-expression-deactivate

This is not great, but it’s likely because people are fucking stupid and will screw around with it if it’s not locked up.

just-over-it-all-deactivated202

[ID: @gavrielabrahams “It’s probably because people were peeing in it.”]

You think people were peeing. In an open wheelchair lift. In the middle of a museum. With public toilets around the corner.

I think not.

But even if people had been peeing in it or otherwise misusing the lift… It. Doesn’t. Matter. It’s not just “not great.” It’s ILLEGAL. It is just as illegal to lock off a wheelchair lift as it is to not provide one to begin with.

The correct response to people peeing in an elevator is never to lock the elevator. It is to provide a toilet. If you think the correct response to any problem is to violate the civil rights of an entire group of people by denying them access, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Disability rights are civil rights.

just-over-it-all-deactivated202

You want to know exactly how this went down? Let me tell you a tale.

I was visiting the museum with friends. They went on around the corner while I finished looking at the previous exhibit. I then followed them around the corner only to find I couldn’t get up to the exhibit because the museum AS PART OF THEIR POLICY had illegally locked the lift. My friends didn’t know the lift was locked (why would the lift be locked?) and had no idea that I couldn’t get to them.

Now I, the disabled person, am forced to travel halfway around the building to the front desk to find someone to unlock the lift for me, wait for them to finish what they’re doing, and then travel all the way back to the lift. This was bad enough in a wheelchair. Who else uses lifts? Oh yes. People who struggle to walk. Can you imagine, as a person who struggles to walk, being forced to walk halfway around a building, and then back again, just to access an exhibit? You wouldn’t do it. You’d skip the exhibit. You’ve just been completely denied access.

So finally the museum employee unlocks the lift and then operates it (because yes, they’ve made it so I can’t operate it myself, which is also illegal). I finally get to the top probably ten minutes later, only to find that my friends have finished looking at the exhibit and are heading down again, wondering what has happened to me.

After I’ve gone to all the trouble to get up there, fuck it if I’m not going to look at the damn exhibit. So I look at it, then head back to the lift to go back down, only to find they’ve locked the lift with me at the top and gone back to the front desk.

If one of my friends hadn’t stayed up there with me, I’d probably still be up there. As it was, my friend had to go down the stairs, back around to the front, find an employee, and get them to come back and let me down. Leaving me sitting up there. Alone. For another five minutes.

Now imagine if I had gone to the the museum by myself. Or what if there had been an emergency? You think if there was a fire some museum employee who couldn’t be assed to leave the damn lift unlocked until I had come back down would really have run back into the building to unlock the lift so I could get down? I think not.

Locking an accessibility feature is never the right solution. It is denying access to an entire class of people. Which is ILLEGAL and a CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION.

Disability law is civil rights law.