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74

The Politics of Exhibiting Culture:

Legacies and Possibilities

Sh e l ley R u t h B u t le r

Decolonizing the Museum?

In her essay Telling, Showing, Showing OfF

Mieke Bal notes, with regard to the Am erican Mu-

seum of Na tural History, th at the museum is a

product of colonialism in a postcolonial era

(1992:561). She goes on to consider whether it is

possible for the m useum to shift from being a nine-

teenth-century colonial project to a late twenti-

eth-century educationalone. This question is valid

for mainstream museums generally, and it is one

th at this essay explores in relation to two controver-

sial , reflexive exhibitions Into th eHeartofAfrica,

which showed at the Royal Onta rio Museum in 1989

and 1990, andMiscast:Negotiating K hoisan H is-

tory and Material Culture, which showed at the

South African Na tional G allery in1996. Curated re-

spectively by anthropologist Je ann e Cannizzo an d

artist Pippa Skotnes, these exhibits offer insight

into the po tential and inh erent problems connected

with

critical,

reflexive museology*s effortstodecolo-

nize museums.

I conducted fieldwork in Cape Town from Sep-

tember 1997 to June 1998, focusing on museums

and their relationship

to

post-apartheid spatial and

cultural politics.Miscastwas still very much in the

air during this time, especially amongst cultural

workers

who

were

one

of the m ain constituencies

of

my research. Having done previous research

on Into

the H eart of

Africain Toronto(seeButler 1999), Mis-

cast

became a segue forme, linking past and present

research

sites.

In th e case of both shows, a white cu-

rato r attempted to re-present colonial and m odernist

practices of exhibiting cultu re an d objectification in

a critical

light;

and in both cases, the exhibits gener-

ated multiple and complex responses, while touch-

ing upon sensitive issues concerning the re-telling of

traum atic histories in th e settler societies of Canada

and South Africa.As well, the exhibits became occa-

sions for broader discussions about citizenship,

power relations, and identity politics in multicul-

tural and postcolonial cities.

In this paper, I consider these two exhibitions,

and responses th at they engendered, in relation to a

problematic dichotomy th at exists in m useum liter-

atu re between critical and optimistic perspectives

on exh ibiting cu lture . Briefly, critical museology

as-

sociates museum s with a po litics of domination, es-

pecially with regard to questions ofhow the West

exhibits non-western cultures. It focuses on mu-

seum practices of collecting, classifying, and dis-

playing material culture. In contrast, optimistic

accounts of exhibiting culture focus on the role of

museums in public education and in facilitating

conversation between diverse and multi-cultural

citizens.

The first section of th is paper explores this

dichotomy an d suggests that critical museology

fo-

cuses on the politics of vision, while optimistic ac-

counts of museum s depend upon a rhetoric of voice,

calling for museums to become sites for dialogue

and debate. With reference to

Into

th eHeart

of Af-

rica

and Miscast, as well as to other related

exhib itionar y site s, I the n offer exam ples of

curating , performing, and viewing culture tha t add

nuance to th ese ideas rega rding the politics of vision

and th e possibilities of dialogue. On theone

hand,

I

explore how the politics of vision in contemporary

museums potentially involve much more than

objectification and distancing. Museum visitors

viewculture from m any different subject-positions,

opening u p th e possibility of many w ays of looking

at, and engaging w ith, exhibits. As well, the popu-

larity of cultural performances in m useums further

complicates notions of objectification.

In developing these ideas abou t vision, I am in-

spired by the sp irit of critical ana lysis th at informs

Edw ard Snow's article , Theorizing the Male Gaze:

Some Problems (1989). Snow suggests tha t theo-

ries of mascu line vision which focus on such issues

Museum Anthropology23 3):74-92. Copyright 2000 American Anthropological Association.

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75

1. For Crown and Em pire, inst allati on from Into the He art ofAfrica. Photo courtesy of the Royal Ontario M useum .

as voyeurism, objectification, and scopophilia may

be too persuasive for their own good. In stressing

the power of the male gaze, theory risks becoming

an unwitting agen t of the forces of surveillance it

wishes to oppose (Snow 1989:31). In response to

this dilemma, Snow proposes a strate gy of interp re-

tation th at focuses on the fugitive elemen ts of

vi-

sion (1989:31). Without denying the power of

contemporary theory on the male gaze, Snow

changes focus slightly; throu gh a detailed stud y of

Velaquez's

The R okeby V enus ,

he shows how this

painting need not be reduced to a story of male

objectification of women. R ather, Snow traces other

possible trajectories of power, pleasure, and self-

hood that are suggested by the Rokeby Venus's am-

biguous gaze. In a similar vein, I think it imp ortant

to consider the m useum as a postcolonialspacewith

diverse looking relations.

I also explore how ideals of dialogue interact

with broader institutional and societal contradic-

tions,

as when democratizing initiatives co-exist

with processes of exclusion and marginalization

based upon class and race (see Bhabha 1992:208,

Goldberg 1993:4-6). Following thi s. I sug gest th at

calls for the inclusion of new voices in museum ex-

hibits may be overly optimistic, simplistic, and too

detached from in tricate power relation s involved in

institutional projects of decolonization and democ-

ratization. Finally, this essay does not promise an

easy or exact waytotrace the politics of transform -

ing establishment museum s, but it w ill, I hope, re-

veal some of the te xtu re an d com plexities involved.

Silence and Conversation: Museum Theories

In her narrative entitled

Looking for

Living-

stone: An Odysseyof Silence (1991), African Can a-

d i a n w r i t e r M a r l e n e N o u r b e s e P h i l i p a n

important critic ofInto the He art of Africaimag-

ines a woman travelling alone in Africa, who con-

fronts colonial inscriptions on the landscape and

upon the peoples themselves. The woman enters a

M useum of Silence, which houses the ''many and

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76 MUS UM NTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 3 NUMBER 3

2. Africa Room ins tal lati on from Into the Heart of Af-

rica.

Cou rtesy of the Royal Ontario M useum.

vari ed silences of different peoples (Philip

1991:57). She recognizes the cultural artifacts on

display, and challenges the c urators to re tur n them

to their rightful owners. But the cura tors dismiss

her claim:

They told me the silences were best kept there

where they could be labeled, annotated, dated,

catalogued in such and such a year, th is piece

of silence was taken from

the.

You could fill in

any name you wantedwhen and how itwasall

the sam e. It was all the re in carefully regu lated,

climate-controlled rooms. (1991:57)

To reinforce their point, the curators remind

Nourbese Philip's narrator that this museum is

oneof the world's wonders and a site to be proud of

(1991:57). Nourbese Philip's evocation of museu ms

strongly conveys issues relevant to contemporary

critical museology. Consider, for example, the way

in which Nourbese Philip's them es of alienation and

appropriation are central to Ja ne Tom pkins's analy-

sis of museums. Writing about the Buffalo Bill

Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, Tompkins

notes:

We go

and look at th e objects in th e glass cases

and at the paintings on the wall, as if by stand-

ing therewecould absorbintoourselvessome of

the energy th at flowed through thebodiesof the

live thing s represented...A museum . ..caters to

the urge to absorb th e life of ano ther into one's

own life. ..museums are a form of cannibalism

made safe for polite society. (1990:533)

Tompkins's images are echoed by Michael

Ames, who names his collection of reflexive essays

on museums, Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes

(1992).Cannibal Toursisalsoan allusion to Dennis

O'Rourke's

(1987) film of the same

title,

which docu-

ments the seemingly insatiable ap petite for the

primitive of European and Am erican tourists who

travel by boat to villages in Pap ua, New Guinea.

1

Remarkable in thi s film are the images of tourists

aggressively photographing, filming, recording,

and documenting thei r encounters with the na-

tives.

It is easy to imagine the personal museums

that these tourists will create at home; perhaps

they are the mass m arket version of the private

col-

lections owned by European royalty prior to the

emergence of public m useums in the eighteenth and

nine teen th century (see Ames 1992).

None of these representation s of museums and

collecting is complimentary to a cu ltura l institution

th at, un til a decadeago,enjoyed g reat prestige and

authority. Rather, museums are increasingly de-

picted as sterile, highly controlled spaces. More-

over, the image of the collector as cannibal puts

notions of the refined connoisseur and of the de-

tached scientist in a surrea l an d ironic light. It is

th is spir it of questioning and self-examination that

informs the field of critica l reflexive museology, as

well as exhibits such as

Into

the Heart

of

Africaand

Miscast.

2

W ithin th ese depictions of museums as silent,

and silencing, it is ha rd to imagine a space for con-

versationpolite or otherwise. Yet, there is another

voice in museum literature that clearly wants to

talk. It is expressed, for instance, in the claim th at

the museum can be a meeting ground of cultures

(Pierson Jones 1995:262). Similarly, Cannizzo ex-

presses ahopethat museum s can become a bridge

for interc ultural communication (1990:97), and

other commentators note that museums have the

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77

3.Diorama in the South African M useum , Cape Town. Photo courtesy of the South African Mu seum.

raw materials for addressin g contemporary is-

sues related to multiculturalism and transcu ltural

processes (Apter 1995, Dem issie 1995). This opti-

misticperspective on museum sisevident in discus-

s ions concerning such issues as community

consultation, sharing curatorial authority, the de-

mocratization of mu seum s, and the promotion ofre-

spect for o ther cul tures . In contras t to the

epistemological focus of critical museology, this

work is oriented toward refashioning mu seums in

order to make the m more accessible, relevan t, and

accountable to broade r constituencies.

3

A premise

of this workistha t museums are sites where defini-

tions of culture and id entity ar e articula ted and as-

serted (Karp 1992). Moreover, museums are

associated with prestige and statusthey confer

value on particular notions of herita ge, history, art ,

and taste(Ames1992, Clifford 1991). Thus, commu-

nities are often deeply concerned with the way in

which they are, or are not, represented by muse-

ums. These issues regarding the politics of repre-

sentat ion become part icular ly in tense in the

c o n te x t of c o n te mp o ra ry mu l t i c u l tu ra l a n d

postcolonial societies.

While different in focus, these two perspectives

on museu ms often overlap in the rea lm of cura torial

practice. This is

clear,

for instance, in the curatorial

approaches and goals of both Cannizzo and

Skotnes. While Cannizzo is engaged with critical,

reflexive museology, she also presents herself as a

populist who wants to make elitist m useums such

as the Royal Ontario Museum accessible to a broad

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78 MUS UM NTHROPOLOGYVOLUME 3 NUMBER 3

4.View of the m ain roomofMiscast, featuring resin body casts a s well as text by Greg Den ing. South African National

Gallery, Cape Town. Photo courtesy of Pippa Skotnes.

audience (see Butler 1999:16-19). Similarly,

Skotnes conceived of

Miscast

foremost as a critique

of western practices of exhibiting the Khoisan, and

of the complicity of these practices w ith colonialism

and genocide. But she also used Miscastto attempt

to create interest in the aesthetic and hum an

value of Khoisan m ater ia l cul ture (Skotnes

1997:10). The ways in which these various goals in-

teracted with each other, and with broader power

relatio ns and cultu ral politics, becomes clear below.

Post-Colonial C uratorship: The Developm ent

of

Two

Exhibitions

In

Into the Heart of Africa,

curator Jeanne

Cannizzo approached the objects in the ROM's Afri-

can collection as an expression not only of the world

view of those who chose to make and u se them , bu t

also of those who chose to collect and exhibit them

(Cannizzo 1991:151).Thus,Into

the Heart

of Africa

dealt extensively with colonial collecting and vari-

ous ways in which Africa has been represen ted and

appropriated by

others.

The exhibit design included

vaguely ironic displays of imperial icons, such as a

Canadian officer's pith helmet and a Union Jack

flag, as well as archival images of European con-

quest (fig.

1).

Therewerealso re-creations of a Victo-

rian parlor displaying African artifac ts, and of a

Missionary Room th at included a lan tern slide

show enti tled In Livingstone's Footsteps. The ef-

fect of these curatorial strategies was to immerse

visitors in im perial and m issionary ideology. These

displays dominated the exhibition, and overshad-

owed a strangely uninhabited diorama of a tradi-

tional-looking Ovimbundu compound, and a final,

stun nin g Africa Room, where mask s, textiles , an-

cestral figures, and musical instrum ents were dis-

played in the style of an ar t ga llery (fig.

2).

Alsoless

memorable th an the exhibit's colonial imageswasa

small gallery of contemporary photographs of Af-

rica. This was an attempt by Cannizzo to address

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5.Main room ofMiscast. Sou th African N ation al Gallery, Cape Town. Photo c ourtesy of Pip pa Sko tnes.

the fact that museums and galleries rarely ac-

knowledge the contemporary, heterogeneous cul-

tural a nd political lives of Africans.

Reminiscent of Susan Vogel's ground-breaking

exhibit

A rt/Artifact,

which showed at the Center

for African Art in New York in

1988,

Into the He art of

Africa sem phasis upon the contingency and artifice

of exhibiting culture con tras ts w ith th e ideology of

transparent representation that dominates natura l

history and anthropological m use um s. Following a

key

insight of reflexive museology,

Into th e Heart of

Africa

demonstrated th at exhibits are never neu-

tral, and tha t they are informed by the cultu ral, his-

torical, institutional, and political contexts of the

people who make the m (Lavine and Karp 1991).

M is c as t

followed a similar curatorial strategy

by offering a critiqu e ofw estern practices of exhibit-

ing th e K hoisan . Specifically,Miscastresponded to

the famous Bushm an diorama located at the

South African Museum in Cape Town (fig.

3).

4

This

natural history museum is located in the old

colonial precinct of the city, nea r the South African

Cultural History Museum, Parliament, and the

South African National Gallery (where M is c as t

showed).

The

diorama depicts a nine teenth -centu ry

encampment of hunter-gatherers, and is con-

structed by using plaster casts made in the early

1900s in Cape Town. Aesthetically, the display

evokes a sense of both life and death. Its realism

makes the people depicted seem very present; on

the other h and , the display is eerily quiet and still,

just

wax

after

all.

Since th is

is

a natur al history mu-

seum, the diorama is situat ed alongside exhibits of

fossils, skeletons of dino saurs and wh ales, and ani-

mal and p lant specimens. Implicitly, the exhibit re-

inforces popular stereotypes of the primitive as

being prehistoric and unchanging, and as being

linked to animality and nature, as opposed to cul-

ture and history. As Skotnes explains, the diorama

represents Bushmen as cast out of

time.

out of

poli-

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8

MUSEUM NTHROPOLOGY

VOLUME

3

NUMBER 3

tics and out ofhistorymiscast (1996:16). This

mu seological represe ntation of the Kh oisan is

l i n k e d t o E u r o p e a n t r a v e l w r i t i n g t h a t

"deterritorializes" indigenous peoples, by repre-

senting them as having no significant economic,

historical and cultural relationships with their

landscape (see Pratt 1992:51). In contrast, Euro-

pean and settler history is housed in the Cultural

History Museum, which immediately suggests in-

clusion in the body politic.

5

Skotnes conceptualized Miscast as an exhibit

that would present relational histories. As she

writes,Miscast

is not, strictly spea king, about "Bushmen". The

exhibition is a critical and visual exploration of

the term "Bushman" and the various relation-

ships that gave rise to it. These relationships

were conducted on many levels , between

strangers and indigenes, between colonists and

resistance fighters, between researchers and

their objects, and, more rarely, betw een individ-

uals whose mutual respect for each other

brought about mutual understanding. (Skotnes

1996:17)

To

evoke these relationships, Skotn es created a

provocative installation that included displays of

casts of body parts of Khoisan mounted on pedes-

tals ,

which suggested a disarticulated, dismem-

bered version of a rea list diorama. Surrounding th e

installation were fragments of the following text by

Greg Dening, p rinted in bold letters:

There is no Native past without the Stranger,

no Stranger without the Native ... Nor can any-

one speak just for the one, just for the other.

There is no escape from the politics of our

knowledge, but that politics is not in the past.

That politics is in the present (figs. 4 and 5).

6

As with Into the Heart of Africa, Miscast dis-

played in a prominent fashion artifacts and imag es

of colonial control and violence. Picture a stack of ri-

fles,

photos of colonial brutality, images of naked

native bodies on public display, boxes rep resenting

colonial archives with labels such as "Human Re-

mains. Not Suitable for Display," and displays of

medical and scientific instru me nts use d to measure

and codify racial difference. As counterpoints to

the se evocations of forms of colonial violence, there

was a series of cases d isplaying historical exam ples

of Khoisan material culture. The cases were named

after individual Khoisan men and wom en, and after

scholar Lucy L loyd

who,

during the mid-nineteenth

century, recorded Khoisan voices in a remarkable

archive. A second resource room included copies

of

Khoisan rock paintings, contemporary photo-

graphs of the Khoisan by Paul W einberg, as w ell as

a v inyl floor covered in a mon tage of photographs,

documents, and n ewspaper clippings related to the

colonization and exhibition of the Khoisan (fig. 6).

Cameras and mirrors were also included, in a fur-

ther effort to mak e view ers feel self-conscious, and

even compl ic i t , in the hi s tor ies represented

(Skotnes 1997:15).

A major goal for Sk otnes wa s to bring her con-

cerns about genocide against the Kh oisan into the

public consciousnes s. Sh e is correct, I think, in not-

ing that the aura of innocence that surrounds the

Bush man diorama a t the S outh Africa Museum ef-

fectively era ses th is history. As S kotnes state s, the

diorama offers

a

"seductive im age of primitive

inno-

cence [that] has made it possible, even excusable,

for the pub lic and th e governm ent to never have to

confront the crueler, hars her realitie s that exist

be-

yond its horizon" (1997:19).

Skotnes also wanted to challenge the tradi-

tional division th at exists b etween museum collec-

tions accessible only to researchers and curators,

and wha t is presented to the public; her goal was to

place the arch ive and th e storeroom in the public

do-

main. This raised sen sitive issu es since, included in

museum collections in Europe and Africa are hu-

man remains such as heads of Khoisan, and casts

and photographs of male and female genitals. In

fact, Skotnes did not receive permission to display

the heads. And despite concerns about the public

display of representations of nudity raised by peo-

ple interested in her project, Skotnes chose to pro-

ceed with this aspect of

Miscast.

Finally, Skotnes

notes her interest in attracting diverse viewers to

Miscast,and

in

generating interest

in

the "aesthetic

and hum an value" (1997:10) inherent in Bushmen

artifacts.

While I have calledIntotheH eart of Africaand

Miscast postcolonial in order to stress the way in

which both exhibitions responded to colonial lega-

cies,

it is important to note th at e ach w as also influ-

enced by theories of representation associated w ith

postmodernism. In the case ofInto the Heart of Af-

rica,C annizzo's use of quotation n tarks

to

highlight

suspec t words such as "dark continent" and "spoils

of war" m irrored postmodernism's culture of reflex-

ivity that can be characterized as a "complicitous

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81

6. The second room ofMiscast. South African N ational G allery, Cape Town. Photo courtesy of Pippa Skotne s.

critique (Hutcheon 1989:2). In re-p resenting colo-

nial vocabularies and images, Cannizzo's goal was

to challenge

them,

bu tshemay also have reinforced

their authority. Visitors read the exhibit in differ-

ent ways, and m uch depended upon th eir points of

view and subject-positions.Ire tur n to this below. In

a similar vein, Skotnes' re -presentation of images of

Khoisan nudity w as conten tious, and provokedsup-

portive, oppositional, and amb ivalent responses. It

is by paying attention to these kinds of divergent

readings of each exhibition th at theories of the poli-

ticsof vision can become m ore nuanced, and enable

an exploration of identity politics th at are at once

personal and political.

Exhibiting, Performing, and V iewing

Culture: Other Politic s and P oetic s

Responses to

Into th e He art ofAfrica

and toM is -

cast cannot be characterized as a debate between

two

monolithic

sides.

Nor did responses follow

obvi-

ous racial or political lines. This heterogeneity sug-

gests the complexity involved in producing critical

exhibitions in mainstream establishment muse-

ums and galleries.

Both

Into the Heart of Africa

an d

M is c as t

re -

ceived many positive reviewsbyvisitors and critics

who

gained an aw areness of forms of colonial domi-

nation. For instance , in Toronto, journali st C hristo-

pher Hume

wrote: More

tha n any show

I

can recall,

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82 M U S E U M

ANTHROPOLOGY

VOLUME 23 NUMBER 3

this

one

dealt openly and h onestly with the 'cultural

arrogance'these are the words used in the dis-

playof our well-intentioned but misguided an ces-

tors"

(1990). And in C ape Town, archeologist Paul

Lane describes how in viewing

Miscast,

he experi-

enced the "recontextualization of [his] professional

'culture,' and all the mixed emo tions of pain, disbe-

lief and denial that can accompany an encounter

with another's view of one's identity" (1996:5).

These comments suggest that white spectators

need not necessarily reproduce dominant looking

relations.

In

fact, Lane is probably

an"ideal"

viewer

of

Miscast.

As Patricia Davison, Assista nt Director

of the South African Museum explains, the goal of

Miscast was to "set up a dialogue, as it were, w ith

the diorama" (1996 :11). In thi s case, we s ee how "di-

alogues" in museum spaces may be interior ones,

generated by the "inner speech that accompanies

[gallery] spectatorship" (Burgin in Bhabha and

Burgin 1994:455). This is not surprising when we

consider that museums are general ly hushed

spaces, where one is

as

likely to hear th e echo of foot-

steps as the echo of other voices.

However, many viewers ofboth Into the H eartof

Africa

and

Miscast,m issed th e curators' critical in-

tention s. For instance, w hile visitingIntotheHeart

of Africa,Iwa s intrigued by the way in whichtwoel-

derly (white) women responded to the reconstruc-

tion of the Victorian sitting room that featured a

prominent display of African wea pons. W hile

Cannizzo sought to comm unicate som ething about

the life histories or trajectories of the weapons,

these women were admiring and identifying with

the Victorian furn iture. This is a form of "imperial-

ist nostalgia," in which warm sentim ent for an ele-

gant era masks relations of domination (Rosaldo

1989).

Significantly, this problem is also evident at

Co-

lonial Williamsburg, a vast living-history museu m

tha t reconstructs th e capital of Virginia during the

eighteenth century. Since the late 1970s, Colonial

W illiamsburg h as enga ged in efforts to include pre-

viously excluded histories of women, working

classes, and African-Americans in its narratives

and presen tations of the past. H owever, Eric Gable

and Richard Handler note how one satisfied visitor

reports that w hat sh e most enjoys at the site is the

service, such as when a waiter unobtrusively he lps

her put sugar in h er coffee. In other words, it is a

"black waiter's silent skill"not revisionist public

historythat m akes the site special for this visitor

(Gable and Handler 1996:573).

These anecdotes suggest that viewers will be

viewe rs, interpreting exhibitions as they p lease. Is

there a point to critical curating and pedagogy if

this is the case? My response is

yes,

for I think it use-

ful to acknowledge that curating, like teaching,

should never be an auth oritative exercise that im-

poses view s on oth ers. It is also important to recog-

n i ze tha t cura t i ng , l i ke t ea ch i ng , i s nev er

value-free, and some critical approaches (whether

in the classroom or the mu seum) are more compel-

ling and stronger than others. Stronger exhibits

will have

more

imp act on visitors; but, in any exhibi-

tion, curators cannot expect to receive uniform re-

s po ns es . A udi ences a re he tero g eneo us , a nd

spectatorship is both individual and highly contex-

tual.

A num ber of visitors to Miscastalso appeared to

miss Skotnes' reflexive agenda. In particular, some

viewers longed for a traditional diorama-style ex-

hibit that would depict the Khoisan as pristine

hunter-gatherers. For examp le, one woman stated

that she wanted to see "bushmen in their natural

environment" (Robins 1996). She would perhaps

agree w ith the visitor in Toronto who thanked the

Royal Ontario Museum for a lovely show

on

"primi-

tive Africa" (Crean 1991:26). Why do so many peo-

ple desire ima ges of an "authentic" Africa, which is

understood as being pristine and "natural"? First,

these expectations reflect, I think, the enduring

presence of colonial stereotypes and primitivist

tropes in public visual culture. Think of films such

as The Gods Must Be Crazy>fashion shows that

bring "the tribal" to Fifth Aven ue, and B enetton bill-

boards hovering over cityscap es. It is also not sur-

prising that audiences would expect such images in

exhibit ions given that museums are typical ly

thought of as institutions that represent different

cultural worlds in an authoritative and celebratory

manner. In the case of classic ethnographic dis-

plays, the diorama h as a special appeal since itap-

pears to offer visitors unm ediated access to another

"s l i ce o f l i f e" i ns er ted i n to the m us eum

(Kirshenblatt-Gimb lett 1998:20). The museum di-

orama constructs static represen tations of cultural

difference in a very powerful (and even compelling)

way. Consider the "confession" of African art h isto-

rian Sidney Kasfir w ith regard to the diorama at the

South African Museum:

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83

Like m annequ ins from some fashion show of an

ideal So uth African past, they are both sumptu-

ous in their beads, textiles, b askets, and weap-

ons,and truly timeless. Utterly ahistorical and

fictionalized,

yes,

but this is the kind of image

everyone (including their present-day descen-

dants, the museum-going public, the govern-

ment, and this author) frankly loves. (1997:8)

I will return to this important point about th e

ionship of descendants of the Khoisan to the di-

and

toMiscastbelow. First,

I

want

to

further

In his paper T h e World as E xhibition," Timo-

desire

to

establish a splendid museum where

nts would be able to feel transported as if by

inth e process of objectification.Onthe one

edthe other is fixed as a silent object of the

holar's stud ies. It is this distance th at allows m u-

ors to view others from a voyeuristic, au-

ewer sees, but is not seen .

A n ex t rem e ex a m pl e o f th i s pro ces s o f

ly twentieth-centur y exhibitions. A famous case

Saartje Baartm an,

a

Khoi woman

who

was

who

became known as the H ottentot

Ve-

Natu ralists, p athologists, travellers, and pop-

and aristocratic audienc es were fascinated by

man's protruding bu ttocks, which w ere inter-

as well as an indication of the hype rsexuality

Baartman became the object of pathologist

es Cuvier's anatom ical stud ies and , until re-

l'Hommein

reduced to a collection of sexual parts.

tes Ludm illa Jordanova's

"scientific" vision of the other (1989 :34).

Audience desires to encounter "the primitive*

are most directly exploited by safaris, where visi-

tors pay to view "traditional" cultures in "natural

settings" (Little 1991). At Kagga Kamma Park in

South Africa, a "meeting ground" is created, where

San sit in a semi-circle and "visit" with the tour ists.

This encounter is highly mediated by the resident

anthropologist, but tourists leave w ith the feeling of

having been honored guests of the San (Buntman

1996:277). Similarly, at M ayers Ranch in Kenya, it

is clear that the white owners who curate the site

are strict gatekeepers who, for instanc e, would not

allow anthr opologists to see the M aasi (see Bruner

and Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1994:462). The lines

be-

twe en coercion an d consen t are difficult

to

untangle

at these exhibitionary sites where indigenous peo-

ples'livelihood is derived from serving th e desires of

tourists. Given the broad unequal power relations

of these situations, I am reminded of the refrain

tha t hau nts Suzan Lori-Parks's play about Saartje

Baartman, en titledVenus(1996). As her life as an

exhibit takes form, Saartje continually ask s the en-

trepreneurs and doctors who control her destiny the

question: "Do I have a choice?" She never receives

an answer.

In fact, residents from Kagga Kamma came to

the op ening ofMiscast in traditional dress, creating

the sort of photo-op the med ia loves. The Johan nes-

burg Mail and Guardian showed a photo of a

Khoisan woman from Kagga Kamma standing with

her son on the floor montage, w hile two other visi-

tors speak in the background; the caption reads,

"Crossing paths: The exh ibition provides a m eetin g

place" (Roussouw 1996). This caption reveals the

Utopian ideals of dialogue discussed above.

The M ail and G uardian photo is reminiscen t of

an anecdote offered by Fred Myers in his descrip-

tion of the experience of two Australian Aboriginal

painters, Michael Nelson and Billy Stockman, who

spent two days constructing a sandpainting at the

Asia Society Gallery in New York in 1988. While

Myers's account of the sandpainting performance

stresses the way in wh ich the ar tists found th e expe-

rience empowering, there were momen ts when the

Aboriginal m en were tu rned into "exotic sign vehi-

cles,"such as when theNew York Timesphotogra-

pher "shot" them w ith their faces painted , sta ndin g

outside a zoo and interacting with frightened chil-

dren (1994:688).

Museums,

too,

are quick to use exotic im age s for

the sak e of advertising. As they compete with other

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84

M U S E U MANTHROPOLOGY

VOLUME 23 NUMBER 3

exhibitionary sites for audiences, and with educa-

tion system s for public funding, many m useu ms are

becoming hybrid institution s, and crossing the for-

merly sep arate domains of public education, shop-

ping, tourism, and en tertainment.

7

These tensions

are evident, for instance, in the way in which Into

the H eart of Africawas ad vertised. The promotional

image was a picture of an unnamed female dancer

from Z aire, photographed by a Can adian m ission-

ary sometime before 1930. The woman's face is

painted whiteonone side,andher ex pression is poi-

gnan t. She looks "traditional," in the se nse th at she

wears a grass skirt and beads, and her body has

scarification marks. A cropped version of this image

wa s sen t as a postcard toEquinoxreaders, with the

following "handwritten" invitation, to come to the

ROM:

Have you ever wondered what it must have

been like to explore unknown Africa over 100

years

ago?

Find out take a journey

INTO

THE

HEART

OF

AFRICA, a special ex hibition at the

Royal Ontario Museum from November 16,

1989 to July 29, 1990, highlighting the collec-

tions made by Canadian military men and mis-

sionaries.

As you travel INTO THE HEART

OF

AFRICA,

you'll visit a village compound, hear traditional

African m usic

and

follow

In

L ivingstone's Foot-

steps" with a narrated lantern-show.

I hope you'll join us for INTO TH E HEART OF

AFRICAa celebration of the vitality of Af-

rica's many peoples and cultures

Sincerely,

Dr. Jeanne Cannizzo

Curator

It goes without saying that t he Africa being ad-

vert i sed here i s untouched by co lonia l and

post-colonial politics. Rather, this invitation mim-

ics the rhetoric of safari brochures that p resent Af-

rica as a mysterious destination, waiting to be

discovered.

This tendency for museums and the media to

highlight the exotic undermines the idea of muse-

um s as being space s for critical enga gem ent an d di-

alogue. In his article "The Third Space," Homi

Bhabha describes how the "sign of the 'cultured' or

the 'civilized' attitude is the ability to appreciate

cultures as a kind ofmusde

imaginaire;

as though

one shou ld be able to collect and appreciate them"

(1992:208). But, as Bhabha shows, this focus on

cultural diversity occurs in lieu of a recognition of

histories of dispossession, difference, and domina-

tion. In

a

similar vein, Catherine Lutz and Jane

Col-

lins (1993:59-61) show how "timeless" values of

universalism and humanism inform the popular

travel mag azine National Geographic,which might

be seen as a portable museum.

Ironically, many critics ofInto the H eart of Af-

ricaappeared

to

reject Cannizzo's reflexive strategy

and demand a celebratory exhibition about Africa.

This w as espec ially evident in the discourse of the

Coalition for the Truth About Africa (CFTA), a

group of protestors ofInto the Heart o f Africamade

up largely of African C anadians. Expr essing his

dis-

appointment with the exhibit, Ras Rico, a founder of

the CFTA, told me that "Cannizzo did not even get

close to th e h eart of Africa." The following excerpt

from a pamphlet produced by the CFTA offers in-

sight into the

gap

betw een Cannizzo's curatorial

in-

tentions and the expectations of a number of

visitors to the ROM:

The ROM is currently pre senting an exhibit en-

titled "Into the Heart of Africa." An exhibit,

which according to the ROM, is a portrayal of

African history. Yet the exhibit represents a

clear and concise attempt to mislead the public

and to further tarnish the image of Africa and

African people.

The entire world, museums, curators, et al.

have become aware of the immense contribu-

tions made by A frica, and by people of African

heritage to humanity. These gifts have been

made from the d awn of timeinevery area of

cre-

ativityin the art of action and in the sphere of

thought. These contributions have continued

even under situations of the gravest duress

which Africa, and people of African descent

have experienced in the last five hundred years.

Without any doubt, the ROM must be aware of

these experiences and contributions of Africa,

and Africans. How then, can the ROM carry

such trite and condescending texts as found

within this exhibit?

It is hardly surprising that many members of

the CFTA expected a different kind of exhibition

than Cannizzo offered, for promotion of Into the

Heart of Africa undermined its reflexive approach

to exhibiting culture. The invitation discussed

above, as w ell as brochures forInto the Heart

ofAf-

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85

placed as mu ch emp hasis on the promise ofdis-

considera tion of colonialism and

ecting. Yet, a s noted earlier, the exhibition w as

, and imm ersionin ,colonial

It i s not clear exactly how much control

zzo had over a spects ofInto the Heart of Africa

to

its promotion. But Can nizzo defended th e

rior' or 'chief of the popular

astarving or destitute refu-

iar from television new s coverage of

ent famines i n

Africa"

(1991:152). This state-

mited, for she does not recognize the g endered po-

ader one, which is sim ply that C annizzo did not

lways appreciate the way in w hich asp ects of her

t reproduced colonial objectification (see B ut-

r 199 9:39-40).

None of this was helped by the fact that

annizzo and the ROM made very little effort to

eek advice, ideas, and feedback from mem bers of

he African C anadian comm unity and other people

ho might be considered to be stakeholders in an

xhibit likeInto the Heart of Africa. In fact, it was

y after a ten se reception for leaders of the black

ty that th e ROM made any effort to listen

feedback from com munity critics. The

ROM

then

ods Gordon Managem ent Con sultants to orga-

OM

succeeded only in creating a co nsultation

pro-

l. In this sen se, strateg ies of comm unity consul-

on and sh aring curatorial authority can

be

com-

tics of containm ent and p aternalism.

Critics of exhibitions m ay also refuse inclusion,

to bebrought into the fold. Consider, forin-

Miscast.

WhileMiscast did not

of Africadid, there was a forum mark-

ing the opening of the exhibition. It generated dis-

cussion between Skotnes and participants and, sig-

nificantly, b etw een different groups of people who,

in the post-apartheid era, identify the m selves as de-

scendants of South Africa's indigenous peoples.

Yvette Abrahams, a Ph.D. student in History at the

University of Cape Town and a member of the

IHurikamma C ultural Movem ent, describes her ex-

perience of the event:

My people had left little for me to say, so all I

wanted to do was to ask Skotnes to remove the

casts.I couldhardly believe my ears whenIheard

her begin to enumerate reasons why she could

not. Instead she offeredtoadd the recording of our

protests

to

the exhibition.

I

could not believe wha t

Skotnes had justsaid.

Our

deepest emotions were

to be turned into instant art. The response to our

attempt at empowerment was to immediately

disempower us by, yet again, making us part of

the objects on exhibit. (Abrahams 1996:15)

Interestingly, Abrahams did, up to a certain

point, sympathize w ith Skotnes. As Abrahams ex-

plains, Letme cross the bridge for a mom ent. As an

academic

I

strongly resent any attemp t

to

get me to

change m y finished work. I could see Skotn es' point

of view" (1996:15). This comment sug gests the com-

p l ex i ty a nd co ntex tua l na ture o f i nd i v i dua l

spectatorship. This predicament is well described

by Dorinne Kondo who, in her e thnography

Crafting Selves, suggests that "conflicts, ambigu-

ities,

and multiplicities in interpretation, are not

simply associated w ith different p ositionings in so-

ciety...but exist within a 'single' self (1990:45).

Abrahams's ultimate concern was with her

sense thatMiscast victimized the Khoisan. The dis-

play of casts, nudity, and imag es of colonial hu milia-

tion were deeply sensitive issu es for descendan ts of

the K hoisan, reinforcing feelings of sham e and dis-

honor. Consider the following statement issued by

the people of Schm idtsdrift, N amibia:

Showing th ese naked bodies is a very, very bad

thing. You get many women from other tribes

who also look like that. Why should they have

shown our bodies without respect? Do they not

know that it is like insulting us if they

dothat?

8

Abrahams situated these concerns in the con-

text of broader power relations. Writing about the

process of producing academic work, Abrahams

noted that

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87

Skotne s used Christian iconogra-

ng in a last supper. As she explains, the col-

ficed in the inter ests of pervasive displays

a collective racial type" (Skotnes 1997:12).

Skotnes did include more critical interpreta-

Christianity's role in Africa; for instan ce, a

y brick structure at the centre of the ma in room

oke "fort, jail and tomb as w ell as a

n Jackson and Stev en Robins (forthcoming),

suggest th at S kotnes' identi f ication with

e, this C hristian sub text to Miscast was largely

iced by visitor s,

or,

if it w as remarked upon, it

seen as problematic. Th is may

be

related to

fact tha t many people who w ere previously clas-

fied "coloured" by the apar theid governm ent, and

Miscast s story, are deeply

to

criticism w as not nearly as defensive as

of Cannizzo and the ROM (see Butler 1999).

It is also impo rtant to note tha t respo nses from

Miscast wer e also often

g s ta tem en t pre s en ted by the peo p l e of

To show these things here is just as bad as the

people who did those thin gs long ago. It is con-

tinuing the bad thing...We are not angry with

the people who are show ing us the se thing s, but

with the people who have done it to us.

Perhaps the most important aspect of this

e of our people, even today."

This comment draws attention to the way in

t h e l e g a c y of c o l o n i a l i s m i n f o r m s

the Kh oisan are severely impoverished

toemerge as these people organize to

aim the ir indigenou s roots. (Their predicament

her complicated by their role in the South Af-

Forces during the apartheid era.) In

fact many descendants of the Khoisan appreciated

the visibility tha tMiscast gave to their struggle. As

Hunter Sixpence of the K uru Development Fund in

Botswan a said with regard to the exh ibition,

Although we are shocked and it is painful, we

think it is good that people should see it. It

strengthen s our young people to stand up . This

should never happen again.

For some groups from th e S outhern A frican re-

gion, the opening ofMiscast provided an opportu-

nity to create new political networks and to make

public statements about their concerns. For in-

stance, a representative of the group from Kagga

Kamma stated:

We are very grateful to those who provided t his

opportunity for the Bushmen from different

places to me et each other. We appreciate it. We

wish

to

preserve our language an d would like to

meet these people again.

We would greatly appreciate a piece of land

where we can bringupour children in their tra-

dition. Kagga Kamma is the place where we

earn a living, and it is n ot our home.

This statement is interesting for the way in

which it reveals something of the parameters of

these peoples' relationship with Kagga Kam ma,

where th ey live and perform for tourists , doing wh at

they call "Bushmen

work

(Whyte 1985:34). Signifi-

cantly, people from Kagga Kamma also express a

desire to establish an independent tou rist ventu re

which l ike ly wi l l s t i l l present images o f the

Bushm en as traditional and close to nature (Whyte

1985:52). The point is to gain control over su ch cul-

tural productions and performances, and over the

money th at flows from them .

The Kagga Kamma example raises a broader

point , which i s that independent projects o f

self-exhibition can present op portunities to critique

and shift dominant looking relations in powerful

ways.

Consider, for example, Ojibwe artist Rebecca

Belmore's protest aga instThe Spirit Sings: Artistic

Traditions of Canada s First Peoples, a major ex-

hibit that showed at the Glenbow Museum in Cal-

gary during the 1988 Winter Olympic Games.

Boycotts of this exhibit focused on the fact that it

was sponsored by Shell Canada, a major drilling

presence in an area where the Lubicon Lake Cree

continue to negotiate land rights.

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88 MUSEUM NTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 3 NUMBER 3

As the Olympic torch was carried through

Thund er Bay, Ontario, Belmore s at silently inside a

large fram e, w hich wa s lab elled "Artifact #67 IB

1988" (#67

IB

is the O ntario Liquor Control Board's

product number for a brand of inexpensive wine)

(Fisher 1993/94:31). In this way, Belmore used ex-

hibiting conventions to point to the irony of cele-

bra t i ng na t i v e her i ta g e w hi l e i g no r i ng the

contemporary dispossession of native p eoples. Her

strategy is relevant to Johann es Fabian's idea that

the "refusal of coev alness" can be an "act of libera-

tion" (1983:154). By framing herself a s an artifact,

Belmore creates a position of autonomy which is

premised notondialogue, but rather upon a "refusal

of coevalness." Silence and separation become

strateg ies for condemning m ainstream society's ig-

norance of the socialandeconomic conditions of

con-

temporary native peoples.

A particularly strong appropriation of w estern

traditions of colonial collecting is offered by perfor-

mance artists Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-

Pena in their piece entitled Two Undiscovered

Amerindians, which travelled to museum s in Chi-

cago, New York, London, Madrid, Buen os Aires, and

Sydney in 1992. The performance was staged as a

counter-commemoration to Columbus Quincente-

nary C elebrations, and w as a part of a broad coun-

ter-cultural even t called The Year ofheW hiteBear.A

video,

The ouplein the Cage: A G uatinaui O dyssey,

by Coco Fusco and P aul Heredia, docum ents

TwoU n-

discovered Amerindians. In the performance, Fusco

and G omez-Pena are displayed in a cage as a special

exhibit of natives

who

have ju st been discovered and

captured by Westerners. They speak an unknown

langua ge and the style of their clothing and accesso-

ries might be described as postmodern native (pic-

ture "tribal" m otifs jumbled with TV, sun glass es, and

a laptop com puter). The parody of western practices

of collecting and classifying others proved to be both

a success and a failure.

A

surprising number of visi-

tors took the exhibit seriously and reacted in a vari-

ety of ways, ranging from condescension and

amusement to outrage, hurt, and shame. Thus, the

performance may hav e pushed some visitors to think

critically about the cruelty of objectifying others. But

for some, th e parody was m issed,

and

dominantlook-

ing relations were reproduced (Mannheim in B ehar

and Mannheim 1995:126). This mixed outcome is

sugg estive of both the en during force of coloniallook-

ing relations, and the small cracks that can be

opened to destabilize them .

Even conventional exhibitions of cultural dif-

ference m ay have more diverse effects tha n the ories

of objectification, exploitation, and commodifica-

tion recognize. Consider, for instan ce, Fred Myers's

description of the experiences of Aboriginal paint-

ers Michael Nelson and B illy Stockman, m entioned

earlier, during their p ainting d emonstration at Asia

Society

Gallery.

T heir performance w as linked to an

exhibition entitled Dreamings:TheArt ofAborigi-

nal Australia. The painters sat on a raised stage

where, after brief introductions by anthropologist

Chris Anderson

and

the director of performances at

the gallery, they sp ent the afternoon painting.

Some 700 visitors watched the artists during

the two-day period. The sandpainting ritual was

adapted for the gallery in various w ays; for exam-

ple, the artists worked in silence, even though in

their home community the event is social and in-

volves plenty of casual talking. Myers notes that

one visitor complained that the performers were

spatially separated from the audience, and that

questions were answered

by

anthropologists rather

than by the artists, w ho did not speak. The visitor

felt that the event was "like a diorama" (Myers

1994:687). Clearly, the visitor feared that the Ab-

original a rtists were b eing rendered passive, like so

many artifacts behind gla ss.

9

But th is was not the

case. In fact, Nelson and Stockman asked the an-

thropologists to answer the audience's questions.

Moreover, Myers shows th at the artists viewed the

cultural event a s personally empow ering,

as

well as

an opp ortunity

to

com municate aspects of their cul-

tural ide ntity to a broad audience.

In this situation, th e audience's gaze wa s expe-

rienced not as subjection, but as "authentication"

(Myers 1994:694). Thus, performance can offer the

opportunity to gain cultural recognition bybecom-

ing visible on a prestigious stag e. Protests outside

mu seum s have the similar effect of mak ing visible

(a nd a ud i b l e ) co n cern s o f m i no r i ty a nd

marg inalized com mu nities. Here, vision becomes a

m edi um o f eng a g em ent , ra ther tha n o ne o f

objectification.

We

begin,

too,

to recognize agency in

the context of inequality. Protests ou tside of muse-

ums can alsobethought ofinthis light; w eekly dem-

onstrations a gainstInto the Heart of Africa

and

the

ROM

certainly brought issues such

as

police brutal-

ity and m arginalization of blacks in Canadian cul-

tural institutio ns into the public domain.

Even in sites that cater to nostalgia for em-

piresuch as Mayers Ranch in Kenyavisitors

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90

M U S E U M

ANTHROPOLOGYVOLUME 23 NUMBER 3

5. David Theo Goldberg also me ntions this South African

examp le of racial knowledge in hisbook,Racist Cul-

ture: Philosoph y and the Politics of M eaning

(1993:160). For a discussion of similar issues in rela-

tion to the National Museum of American History and

the National M useum of Na tural History in Washing-

ton, see Michael Blakey (1990).

6. This text is quo ted fromMr.

Bligh s Bad Language:

Pass ion, Powe r and The atre on the Bounty, by Greg

Dening(1992).

7. For a discussion of these tensions within mu seum s see

Richard Handler and Eric Gable (1997).

8. I would like to tha nk the South African Nation al Gal-

lery for providing me w ith copies of public sta tem ents

made by various groups in response to

Miscast.

9. This occurred at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto

in1995,when a curator

who

was introducing a concert

of Indian music referred to the musicians on stage as

artifacts (Sun 1995).

R e f e r e n c e s

Abra ham s, Yvette

1996 Review of

Miscast. Southe rn African Review of

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1992 Cannibal Toursa ndGlassBoxes .Vancouver: Uni-

versity of British Columbia P ress.

Apter, Andrew

1995 Reading the Africa Exh ibit.

Ame rican Anthropolo-

gist

97(3):564-66.

Bal, Mieke

1992 Telling, Showing, Showing Off.

Critical Inquiry

Spring

(18):

556-94.

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1995 In Dialogue: The Couple in the

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1995

The Birth of the M use um: History, Th eory, Politics.

New York and L ondon: Routledge.

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1992 The Third Space. Interview withHomiBhabha. In

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