Collections are an obvious cornerstone of museums: since museums were first established, they have revolved around objects as both a means of preserving histories and a method of storytelling to share those histories with a diverse audience. Even as institutions have focused more on their role as an educational venue rather than a repository for curiosities, objects have retained their status as focal points of museums, with permanent collections and revolving exhibitions propelling mission statements and public program offerings. Yet the stories these objects need to tell shift over time as collections practices and sociocultural mindsets evolve. While curators and artists often find creative and engaging ways to share new stories using existing collections, many more objects lie dormant in storerooms, find themselves subject to tumultuous repatriation disputes, or glaringly exclude some histories in favor of others. Museum collections inevitably carry traces of the practices of an institution’s forebears, and what might have been an appropriate and timely approach to collecting 100 years ago no longer finds itself relevant or acceptable today. As a result, museum collections are slower to respond to rapid changes in social values, creating a gap between a museum’s objects and its audience’s needs.
To add to this complexity, museums in the 21st century are being called on to act as arbiters of social inclusion, with a renewed emphasis placed on highlighting untold stories and amplifying unheard voices. As society becomes more self-reflective and inclusive, audiences have come to expect museums to take socially responsible action as well. For institutions whose focus lies in the research and conservation of collections, pursuing a more socially inclusive programme to meet these pressures may be difficult and constrained by the parameters of their collections. With limitations on how and why institutions can deaccession collections (and the time it takes to do so), many collections-reliant museums are not positioned to quickly respond to evolving social climates. In an ever-changing society demanding diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and transparency, how can museums overcome these constraints to more powerfully activate their collections and better serve their audiences and share truth?
James Clifford’s “Museums as Contact Zones” reminds us that objects carry histories outside of the museum context. These histories are often superseded by curatorial narratives once the objects enter the sacred space of the museum, but they can never be fully extricated from the object. As they exhibit these objects with multifaceted histories, museums are transformed into ‘contact zones’ where disparate and sometimes conflicting histories interact, struggle, and develop. Inherent in these interactions is an “ongoing historical, political, moral relationship—a power-charged set of exchanges” which can often be “radically asymmetrical” (Clifford 192). Clifford cautions against heightening this asymmetry by assuming when or where this power imbalance may come into play, noting that it is “important to recognize a range of experiences and not to close off dimensions of agency” in the process of navigating a contact zone such as a museum exhibition (Clifford 200).
The question of who is controlling these contact zones merits significant conversation, especially in the 21st century. While museum collections often contain rich histories, ultimately only a snippet is presented; a partial history through the museum’s interpretive lens, evolved for better or worse over time. These museum-oriented narratives and the idea that an object belongs in a museum rather than in its original context often supplant the narratives carried by the culture who produced the piece. It may be easy for a museum professional to argue that these histories deserve to be shared and accessed by a larger audience, but too often museums speak incorrectly on behalf of the cultures they intend to represent, or remove a sacred object from its ceremonial home under the defense of tenuous provenance or guise of safekeeping, which disempowers the object and its culture.
In this vein, what I call an ‘activated collection’ evokes agency within its objects, honoring the interplay of histories, voices, perspectives, and power, and allowing it to permeate and reshape the collection to resurface hidden truths. Museums tend to emphasize the preservation of culture through material objects, but culture is not truly material – it is the immaterial with which we imbue the material.Object-focused storytelling practices share only one facet of our human experience, and by relying on objects from the past to tell stories in the present, museums often unwittingly exclude audiences whose stories are either misrepresented or erased from the narrative. A deactivated collection fails to harness the true power of its objects by speaking from these limited perspectives and relying on established tropes rather than revealing deeper truths. An activated collection delves into the hidden corners of its history to share its objects in powerful ways to highlight buried truths and share unrepresented perspectives. Activating a collection requires dynamically reshaping objects’ power to storytell and revitalizing audience engagement to amplify these stories.
Critical scholarship has explored the relationships between object, story, and audience over the last thirty years, laying the groundwork for interpretation of these dynamics as the 21st century continues evolving. Museologist Stephen Weil and historian Steven Conn have both observed the transformation of the museum as an object-focused cabinet of curiosities to audience-focused educational institutions. Weil’s 1999 analysis concluded that museums have “the opportunity to be of profound service…to use their competencies in collecting, preserving, studying, and interpreting objects to enrich the quality of individual lives and to enhance their community’s well-being,” citing the crucial role collections can play in audience engagement (Weil 188). But in 2010, Conn pointed out that even while museums continue to exhibit objects, they also now house an abundance of other attractions (such as gift shops, cafes, and compelling architecture) that distract audiences from the objects on display. He also interestingly notes that museums display fewer objects in exhibitions than ever before, creating “alternative museums with the bulk of material they don’t exhibit, a parallel museum universe, access to which is generally quite restricted” (Conn 23). Conn suggests that these rich storerooms of objects often have as much, if not more, to share as the objects on exhibition.
Both Conn and Weil agree that museums play a crucial role in their communities, and that objects still play an important role in the museum, though perhaps in different capacities. So if objects are still the feature presentation, how do collections become deactivated? In 2022, curator and anthropologist Margareta von Oswald explored how curatorial practices, shaped over many years and social environments, have impacted representations of culture within ethnographic museums. Rather than actively working to repair what Clifford would deem ‘contact zone’ relationships as social values have shifted, von Oswald argues that ethnographic curating has stagnated, remaining collections-focused as a form of gatekeeping. While von Oswald’s case study focuses specifically on the Ethnographic Museum in Berlin, her assessment that curators are often deemed the “legitimate and sole authority over the representative collections” helps foreground one potential avenue that results in static and exclusive institutions that cannot keep up with society’s rapid evolution toward inclusion (von Oswald 241). If curators are curating in a relative vacuum, perhaps with too many responsibilities and a limited understanding of the depth of the full collection or history at hand, it is difficult to share a robust, inclusive story that activates the collection and the audience.
Von Oswald offers an interesting examination of the shifts that need to occur within curatorial culture to help facilitate the activation of collections, but her analysis focuses more on the structural and organizational integrity of the institution itself than the challenges inherent to collections themselves. As we approach 2023, Weil and Conn’s perspectives are still relevant, but they require updating as the dynamics between object, story, and audience continue to evolve. The COVID-19 pandemic and escalating sociopolitical tensions are reshaping conversations around diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and equality almost daily, both within museums and beyond. It is no longer enough for museums to simply be for somebody, they also need to include somebody. It is more important than ever for audiences to see themselves equally and accurately represented within the museum space, and it is less acceptable than ever for institutions to maintain a neutral stance regarding their deactivated collections. With escalating sociocultural unrest, this decade serves as a call to action for museums to directly engage in the conversation by activating their collections and sharing forgotten histories, even if those histories are difficult.
We can begin exploring how museums might activate their collections by looking at how artists, curators, and museums have subverted traditional collections and curatorial approaches over the last thirty years. In the early 1990s, artist Fred Wilson’s Mining the Museum installation at the Maryland Historical Society (MHS) flipped the script on the institution’s collection by exhibiting the exclusion inherent within it (Corrin). Wilson used the curatorial control he was granted by his free access to the MHS collection to pull from deep within the institution’s storeroom, surfacing objects that had remained buried and forgotten as MHS continued to collect (Corrin). Wilson then removed these objects from their established museological narratives, using them to emphasize the negative space held by the nonexistent objects that were omitted (or perhaps purposely not collected) from the narrative, creating space for the missing African American and Native American histories of Maryland to permeate and expand beyond the limitations of the existing colonial collection (Corrin). Wilson’s resulting installation made the powerful statement that sometimes truth and history lie not in a collection’s objects, but the spaces between them. The exhibition also highlighted how housing too many objects within a museum’s collection can precipitate a deactivated collection, as forgotten objects lose the opportunity to share, expand, and connect others with their histories. By unburying these objects and exhibiting them in new ways, Wilson activated the collection, surfacing a new dynamic of representation that directly includes a new audience in the narrative by accentuating their exclusion and sparking conversation.
The Palace Museum in Ghana (now known as Manhyia Palace) presents a different approach that focuses on the stories shared by objects rather than their authenticity. In 1995, a planning committee opted to convert the royal palace into a museum as the permanent monument commemorating the Asante king’s silver jubilee (McLeod 474). Although museums in Ghana do not carry the same cultural importance as museums in America, the committee recognized the financial benefits of museum tourism and the opportunity for the Asante to share their history, with both their local community and international visitors (McLeod 475). As they designed the museum, housing a collection was deemed out of the question, as even kingly regalia are considered to be “‘working’ objects, objects which exist to perform some function in the continuing operation of the system of kingly rule” (McLeod 476). While the committee could not justify maintaining a piece of original regalia that was no longer in service to a king as a working object, they agreed to replicate these objects for the purpose of sharing their history and culture without alienating the local community (McLeod 476). Replicas of royal objects were already commonplace in Asante culture, as objects past their useful life were replicated and used as new originals, so creating replicas in this museological context was an acceptable solution (McLeod 476). McLeod astutely notes that “the Asante decided that collecting, and the care of collections, had virtually nothing to do with what they were attempting to achieve. Re-creating the past had to be done in other ways” (McLeod 477). Ultimately, the Asante reimagined the idea of a museum collection, using a ‘collection’ of replicas to activate it and connect with their disparate audiences.
Another example of a uniquely activated collection comes from the Grasslands of Cameroon, where museums run by the Centro Oreintamento Educativo serve as lending libraries for their local communities (Jones 6). In this model, museum and object embody a mutually impactful relationship, where the object becomes multifaceted but not empowered when housed within the museum (Jones 6). Conversely, objects gain power and intention when they are borrowed from the museum and used for their original purpose (Jones 18). The museum transforms into a “living museum” where objects are held, cared for, and shared, but it is considered a community resource rather than the permanent home for these objects (Jones 7). Local communities who hold relationships with the objects stored within the museum are eligible to borrow them, as one might a library book, for ceremonies, performances, and public displays (Jones 7). The objects are blessed by the borrower to return their potency and power, ensuring they are ready for ceremonial use (Jones 8). There are no stipulations or penalties surrounding care of the objects while in use outside of the museum, and when returned, the museum simply restores the object back to working condition if damage did occur (Jones 8). In this model, objects retain their ceremonial significance while adding another facet to their history, which benefits the museum without disempowering the culture who created the object. This perspective offers a unique potential model of activating a collection through a form of collaborative repatriation that places the museum in partnership with the cultures whose objects it cares for. It also opens opportunities for new types of collaboration that could expand a museum’s public programs, were cultures open to sharing their ceremonies, rituals, and objects in such a way.
These case studies highlight a few ways global institutions have successfully activated their collections by thinking beyond the constraints of traditional curation and collections practices. But how might an institution just starting its activation journey begin? A set of eight best practices can help initiate the conversation:
- Decide whether the object truly needs to be exhibited. Can you achieve the same effect by hosting a workshop? By creating an educational series around a topic raised by the object? What about moderating a conversation with someone more learned about the subject than yourself? Just because something can be displayed does not mean it should, nor does it mean a tangible display is the best way to share that story – perhaps a public program or first-person experience would be a better avenue.
- Determine whether replicas can substitute for the original object. This is especially relevant when discussing objects such as those deemed highly sacred in their originating culture, where it would be disrespectful to display those objects in a museum setting. If a replica will serve just as well as the original object, can the original be repatriated?
- Explore ways to storytell using the intangible human experience. In situations where a topic is still fresh (such as the COVID-19 pandemic and heightened racial relations in the United States), sharing the story using dialogue and interaction more actively conveys the story without relying on the passivity of objects. Whose stories can you highlight in this way? How can those stories be shared in a meaningful way?
- Understand the ripple effects past events still have on current communities, and speak to those ripples. This may be especially true in communities with active repatriation claims concerning objects in a museum’s collection. Sometimes the best way to activate a collection is by repatriating it and directly involving that community in the conversation.
- Explore the potential of discovering new objects through conversation. What objects exist in the world that may serve as a better representative of a story or experience than an object currently housed in the museum’s collection? How can you discover those objects? Deborah Tulani Salahu-Din’s concept of “rapid response collecting” explores how objects might be added to a museum’s repertoire in real-time, offering new perspectives that activate the collection (Salahu-Din 102).
- Build relationships with living members of communities whose past is represented within the museum’s walls. Cultivate trust, collaboration, and open discussion that reinstates the community’s authority over these objects and their narratives to ensure anything displayed is done so respectfully and in alignment with their practices and beliefs.
- Research smaller institutions and local cultural centers to see who may have objects or stories that can be incorporated into any exhibitions or programs in progress. Collaboration amplifies the storytelling potential and shares a platform with smaller institutions while building a stronger network of museum professionals. A stronger cultural network also opens the possibility for creating an intertwined lending library that expands knowledge, resources, and perspectives.
- Co-curate with your community. Actively involve your audience in the exhibition creation process, and actively incorporate their feedback. Opening dialogue to include audience opinions can introduce positive, meaningful shifts in curatorial content and strengthen cultural connections.
These best practices will not activate a collection overnight, but they will encourage active and constant institutional self-reflection and intentional curation. These conversations can serve to realign museums to their mission, vision, and values, and offer an opportunity for updating policy and institutional process. Creating circumstances that allow for critical and productive dialogue among the institution’s staff and the local community will also ensure diverse perspectives are truly heard. A possible end goal might be the thoughtful deaccessioning of tangible objects in favor of intangible stories, with the intention of establishing a more fluid institution with an activated collection that can rapidly respond to cultural change. But even taking the accessible step of building an interconnected lending library of institutions and cultures can facilitate and strengthen collaboration and community among disparate museums and often appropriated cultures. This potential for greater exchange of ideas and information extends beyond the limits of a museum’s collection, activating both the collection and its audience.
Works Cited
Clifford, James. “7. Museums as Contact Zones.” Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 188-219.
Conn, Steven. Do Museums Still Need Objects? The Arts and Intellectual Life in Modern America, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Corrin, Lisa G. “Mining the Museum: Artists Look at Museum, Museums Look at Themselves.” Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts, 2nd ed., edited by Bettina Messias Carbonell, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, pp. 329-346.
Jones, Erica P. “A Lending Museum: The Movement of Objects and the Impact of the Museum Space in the Grassfields (Cameroon).” African Arts. Vol. 49, No. 2, Art and Patrimony in the Cameroon Grassfields, Summer 2016, pp. 6-19.
McLeod, Malcolm. “Museums Without Collections: Museum Philosophy in West Africa.” Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts, 2nd ed., edited by Bettina Messias Carbonell, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, pp. 473-477.
Salahu-Din, Deborah Tulani. “Documenting the Black Lives Matter Movement in Baltimore through Contemporary Collecting: An Initiative of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.” Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, Vol. 15, No. 2-3, 2019, pp. 101-112.
von Oswald, Margareta. “Chapter Eight Repairing representations: Curatorial cultures and change in the Ethnological Museum.” Working Through Colonial Collections: An Ethnography of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, Leuven University Press, 2022, pp. 235-256.
Weil, Stephen. “From Being About Something to Being For Somebody: The Ongoing Transformation of the American Museum.” Reinventing the Museum: The Evolving Conversation on the Paradigm Shift, 2nd ed., edited by Gail Anderson, AltaMira Press, 2012, pp. 170-189.
Originally written December 2022.
Art with an Opinion 