Commemorating Slavery 2007: a Personal View from Inside the Museums
katherine.prior{at}talktalk.net
 |
Abstract |
|---|
Attempts by museums to commemorate the 200th anniversary in 2007 of Britain's outlawing of the international slave-trade have highlighted a number of cognitive gaps in the relationship between museums and academic specialists on slavery. In particular, the ability of many academics to provide advice to exhibition curators and outreach workers is compromised by their lack of exposure to the attitudes and information levels of the public. Understanding about how museums communicate with the public is also poor, which often results in university-based scholars viewing a museum’s exhibition on their subject specialization as a ‘dumbed-down’ form of communication. More frequent engagement between academics and museums may speed up the transfer of ideas from the university environment to the public.
The museum activities in 2007 have also revealed that transatlantic slavery and African-Caribbean history in general are not yet considered a normal or ordinary part of a British museum's brief. The perceived difficulties of mounting exhibitions or planning ancillary events on these topics lead to a ‘curating by committee’ approach which undermines bold and imaginative treatments and waters down direct language. These problems appear to be magnified for 'blockbuster' exhibitions involving large amounts of public funding, suggesting that in future scarce resources would be better directed towards smaller, more focused projects.