Based on the Danish National Museum's only exhibit on the country's colonialist past (forgetting entirely that it also has a colonialist present), here is a quick guide on How Not To Make an Exhibit On Colonialism:
DO NOT
and I cannot believe I have to say this, use actual silly carnaval costumes in your PR:
DO NOT
start to use tshirts that say 'WE SHOULD HAVE KEPT IT' about a former colony in the West Indies, when your carnaval costumes get criticised:
DO NOT
use as your poster girl a nanny who plays into the Mammy caricature and whom you aren't even certain was enslaved:
DO NOT
hide away your testimonies from actual people whose lives have been touched by colonialism behind a heavy technology-wall
DO NOT
let your only mention of corporal punishment be a random whip and force-feeder behind glass with three lines of text
DO NOT
focus entirely on testimonies from the late colonial period, leading to a misguiding image of colonialism as 'not so bad'
DO NOT
perpetuate the 'Grateful Savage' stereotype in any way, shape or form, such as by showing smiling inuit, showcasing how we 'gave them infrastructure', or skipping entirely over the cultural and actual genocide and active enslavement of entire demographic groups.
And finally
DO NOT
call your own colonialism an *insert nation here* 'presence'. Call it oppression, occupation, rule, anything else. 'Presence' implies beneficion. The only ones benefitting from colonialism was the coloniser:
