I went along to the panel discussion Museums: Panacea or Provocateur at the National Museum of Australia last Tuesday looking for controversy. Here were Elaine Gurian, former deputy director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Richard West, director of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian, and our own Dawn Casey, director of NMA. Surely from this mix of Jewish, Cheyenne and Aboriginal, provocation would be the order of the day.
I copped it, from Ms Gurian, who complained that the media only look for the bad news, when there is also small news, big news and especially good news which is news too. This arose from the case of the Enola Gay exhibition which, the Smithsonian was told, should be a celebration, not the horrible truth they had planned on showing. I suppose celebrating dropping an atom bomb on thousands of people is like celebrating the more recent September 11 suicide hi-jack bombs, which also became part of the discussion.
This led to good news indeed: how museums in USA "thought for the first time" that this event "had something to do with them". Gurian explained, as examples, how NY citizens went to see the Islam collection at the Metropolitan and children's museums took on a counselling role, seeing these as a good sign "even if the numbers were small" of change in museums away from places of the fusty dead towards what West called "civic spaces".
Somehow the panacea and the provocative merged into the idea of museums as a safe means for all to "engage in broader discourse", as "forums" which to be effective "need to be inclusive so that everybody should feel safe because this enlarges discourse". The Americans were so nice about it all, even though as West, the Cheyenne lawyer, had previously mentioned, the Bush administration could have consulted the Native Americans "who have a great deal of experience of being attacked in their own homeland." And so our Dawn stirred things up by bringing the issue home: "Some people would argue that this (the NMA) is not a safe place" because they find some exhibits disturbing, or believe the truth is not being told.
The philosophical theme settled on the museum - as educational, entertaining, multilayered rather than linear, catering for all communities and differing world views - as an institution whose object is to open minds, not to be a provocateur for its own sake. As more countries become multicultural, each cultural community needs "a place to stand". Geoffrey Blainey and John Mulvaney were mentioned as reaching agreement that the National Museum of Australia should not give coverage to communities according to how long they had been here, but each should have their own exhibitions. Otherwise, by my calculations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders would have 99.6% of the Museum or 99.75%, according to which theory you follow: 45,000 or 80,000 years in Australia.
It was Casey who was upfront: "If we didn't offend anyone, we would be a very bland museum indeed"; and it was an astute questioner who recalled how public perception is still stereotyped, represented by the Prime Minister exclaiming at the opening of NMA "It's not at all like a museum!", which she thought was a "very positive view - for him."
Led by the ABC's Michelle Rayner (hear the full thing on Hindsight, Radio National 2pm Sunday March 13) the discussion ranged over how a "collection" has to be redefined according to who is the authority and who is responsible. When Hopi people came to see their objects in the National Museum of the American Indian, they took the opportunity to ceremonially scatter pollen and seeds, while according to West, two conservators fainted at the thought of mice in "their" exhibit.
In the end this slight representative of the media found the session rather more bland than he had hoped for. As Ms Rayner concluded, it's an "ongoing debate" - except that all three speakers agreed with each other on almost every point. If only there had been someone to stand up for the musty and fusty, for the old-style "cool" museum rather the "hot" modern monstrosity, to defend the ancient and bent researchers of the past who, like some librarians I have known who wouldn't let you touch the books, were described by Mr West as "too proprietary".
So, let the revolution roll on. I wonder if the Prime Minister will go back to see how they treat the Tampa and the "children overboard" episode (as part of the great migration story according to Dawn Casey). And I wonder how they will exhibit the Governor General, the Queen and the special CHOGM goblets. I think I could get quite excited by a "hot" museum, after all.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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