Museum Collections and the Legacies of Imperialism: Curating Colonial Violence at the Horniman

法国总统马克龙在2018年11月的归还报告中强调，欧洲博物馆馆长有必要在其机构内公开表达他们对殖民遗产的立场。随着道德博物馆实践的重新思考，通过殖民遭遇、暴力和剥夺得来的藏品受到了重新审视。虽然这主要集中在出处研究和通过与出处社区的共同策展和合作来分散博物馆叙述的中心，但当代关于制度性非殖民化和结构性种族主义的辩论正确地质疑当前的方法是否足够？该项目通过考察Horniman博物馆在殖民军事行动和直接暴力中获得的藏品的历史来源和背景，直接解决了这种紧张关系。至关重要的是，它试图批判性地思考这类研究进行、公开传播和采取行动的实践。该项目将帮助博物馆批判性和反思性地思考帝国文物知识被创造和传播的过程，如何在地方和国家层面上促进新的公共对话、辩论和关系，以及如何将其付诸行动，以解决英国暴力殖民历史的深层次结构性遗产。该研究将以当前关于帝国主义的恢复和赔偿历史的学术辩论为框架。

French President Macron's restitution report of November 2018, highlighted the need for museum directors in Europe to publicly articulate their position on the colonial legacies within their institutions. As ethical museum practice is now rethought, collections derived through colonial encounters, violence and dispossessions have come under renewed scrutiny. Whilst this has focused on provenance research and de-centring museum narratives through co-curation and collaboration with communities of provenance, contemporary debates about institutional decolonisation and structural racism rightly question whether current approaches go far enough?This project directly addresses this tension by examining the historical provenance and context of collections acquired through colonial military campaigns and direct violence held at the Horniman Museum. Crucially, it seeks to think critically about the practice through which such research is conducted, publicly communicated and acted on.The project will help the Museum think critically and reflexively about the processes through which knowledge of imperial artefacts is created and disseminated, how it may be used to foster new public conversations, debates and relationships, at both a local and national level, and how it might be put to action to address the deep structural legacies of Britain's violent colonial past. The research will be framed by current academic debates on restitution and reparative histories of imperialism.