The Old British Empire 's Influence On Modern Museums Essay

Museums have long served a purpose as cultural staples. For every museum, big and small, careful consideration is used in selecting its contents. When securing new items for a museum, it is most important to consider public appeal, educational value, and cost-effectiveness.

Imperialism has been a topic covered broadly in this class. We have learned about many nations who strive to expand through their military powers. Britain and Germany seem to be the best examples of Imperialism that we have learned about, especially before WW1. The imperialist practices of these huge world powers have created and impacted policies around the globe. From The Origins of the Modern World, we learned that Great Britain was the strongest world power before the war. Britain had possession of Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Most of these colonies were acquired quite easily because of their power. British imperialism was focused on expansion through world trade. Britain had a powerful navy and a large feet of war vessels. By 1914 America was a very imperialistic nation, and had control of the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and islands in the Pacific.

The museum believes in a pastiche and populist pathway, in which the history of all people is displayed. Its interactive viewpoint allows this museum to convey history in a way that would be more accessible to its audience. For example, patrons are given the opportunity to record their own history. However, academics, such as Keith Windschuttle, assert that the NMA is a “profound intellectual waste”. He argues that although it displays accurate history, it’s purpose of entertaining its audience detracts from its value, thus creating “waste”. Although Windschuttle’s view may be extreme, it demonstrates the considerable extent to which the tension between academic and popular historians exist.

Countless art has been sought-after throughout history. Explorers, scientists, art collectors, politicians, and entrepreneurs from Western nations have sought out and removed art from the lands of great civilizations, often with the assistance and participation of local people and governments. Even as cultural property faces immediate danger today in conflict zones like Syria and Mali, there is circumstantial evidence that some nations are awakening to the political and foreign policy benefits that can flow from the repatriation of cultural patrimony. While on a different scale from World War II, historic structures, religious monuments, and other priceless ancient times continue to suffer collateral damage and manipulation in armed conflict. Relics have been stolen, smuggled and sold in what is a reported multibillion dollar underground market. They have become the illicit prizes of private collectors and the subject of legal claims against museums. Of the countless museums subject to legal claims, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City happens to be one of them. “The Metropolitan Museum has acquired thousands of works and objects of art from the antiquities”. “For the past several years, the government of Turkey has warned U.S. and foreign museums (including The Metropolitan Museum of Art), that unless ancient objects from Turkish soil are given up on demand, Turkey will stop lending artworks” (The Committee for Cultural Policy, 2015). Turkey continues to up the

Within such assemblage museums and their unsettled artifacts can be situated as affect- image (83). They are not fixed and static places which contain unsettled objects. They can depart from the common sense world and organize systems that control appearance and relationships and suggest the future. Museums select what they represent and; consequently, excludes parts of history according to their interests. This resembles the white policy which stresses and enlarges a specific trait in the colonized and excludes any implication of positive traits.

When a museum has prestige on a national level, they can be under high scrutiny of exhibits or objects displayed by the public. Controversial topics, for example, the Enola Gay exhibit, has left historians hesitant and confused on how to create exhibits with correct history, but also not upsetting any individual who were involved with said history. Historians have a trying task of addressing both sides of a historical event, even though it might depict individuals in an unflattering way. A historian is not allowed to have a bias for events, this could have an impact on the way an exhibit is created. Another point that was brought to light in Bunch’s article was museums have the ability to educate the public, so difficult topics should not be

I hope to see museums make more concerted efforts to educate the public. Too many exhibits are of the “passive, didactic looking” than like the engaging Object Stories program (Dartt, Murawski). Exhibits should seek to tell untold narratives, and programs should be places of communication and cross-cultural encounters. For too long, difficult confrontations have been avoided, both inside the museum, and by dominant communities

For this museum paper, I went to the Heritage of the Americas Museum at Cuyamaca College. The Heritage of the Americas Museum is a cultural and educational facility featuring the prehistoric and historic art, culture and natural history of the Americas; North, South and Central America. Even though this museum is specializes in housing early inhabitants of the Americas art and artifacts, they do posses some non-western pieces, specifically Chinese, which coincidentally became my favorite item out of all the exhibits and is what I chose to do my research on for this paper. But before I getting into one specific piece out of literally hundreds, I want to rewind back and discuss the Museum’s as a whole, and why I chose this one in particular instead

Imperialism is the domination of a weaker country by a stronger country. For instance Britain dominated India and China in the mid 1880s to the beginning of the 20th century. Imperialism has had both a positive and negative effects on the countries involved. Britain was imperialistic for many reasons, it could dominate because it had the technology and power to do so. They also needed land to acquire raw materials for growing markets.

The interpretation and appropriation of culture within museums came under attack starting in the 1960’s. Native American groups raised questions about the biases and agendas of curators and museums and demanded that their voices be heard in the political arena. Many Native American organizations argued that if Whites are the ones interpreting and appropriating other cultures, then it is actually their culture on exhibition.(King 1998: 96, Stocking Jr. 1985: 88, Patterson 2014: 52). Deidre Sklar, a researcher of Native American artifacts, stated that: “Time and space in a museum, are defined in terms of the confines of the collection, not of the context from which [the collection is] drawn. Visiting hours from ten to five and the glass exhibit case define EuroAmerican, not Native American time and space” (Weil 2004:3). In response to this outcry, the Museums of the American Indian Act was created and signed on November 28, 1989, enabling the creation of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). The NMAI is arguably the most famous native-run institution and acts as a living memorial to Native Americans and their traditions (King 1998: 106).

Imperialism is the advocacy of power and domain by acquiring territory or gaining political and economic control of an area (“Imperialism”). British Imperialism was motivated by the nation’s success during Industrialization. The Industrial Revolution was a time period between 18th and 19th centuries where predominantly agrarian, rural societies in Europe and America became industrial and urban (“Industrialization”). Industrialization sparked an urge in the British nation to modernize the non industrialized countries. Britain’s economy improved as a result of the industrialization so they started to accumulate feeling of racial superiority against the non industrialized countries. The British justified their racial superiority by using a changed

Imperialism was a policy that extends a nation’s power through military force which is one that England is notorious for, as they were one of the biggest powers in the world for a very long time. “British schoolchildren are taught about the abolition of slavery. They hear less about the key role that slavery played in the British economy in the eighteenth century” (Abbott 2). Slavery was important in Imperialism because it was how their economy thrived. They were the ones who conquered most of Africa and then brought the slaves over to America, although they kept some for themselves as household servants. As time progressed, they began to marry into the British families and have children, which changed things.

The manner in which a spectator responds to art and objects in a museum will differ, but what remains true is that each individual’s experience will undeniably remain their own (pg. 30). Conversely, the viewer may not be aware that the items on display have been carefully curated, sometimes in a way that places emphasis on visual interest rather than cultural significance. In Svetlana Alpers essay, The Museum as a Way of Seeing, she argues that museums establish their own way of seeing an object, something she refers to as the Museum Effect (p. 27). When an object is removed from its original provenience and placed in a museum, for display and consideration by others, the museum attaches artistic value and context to that item by making it an object of visual interest, rather than focusing on cultural importance (p. 25). In contrast, Carol Duncan and Allan Wallach’s reading, The Universal Survey Museum, contend that early museum models were built similar to ancient Roman temples and cathedrals becoming places of public spectacle that took great consideration to recognize state power. (p. 52). As a result, museums today continue to share these important characteristics, displaying works of art in a ritualistic manner, with their primary function being to impress upon those who visit it society’s most illustrious beliefs and values (p. 52).

Positioned alongside Central Park within the heart of New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest and most influential art museums in the world. The Met houses an extensive collection of curated works that spans throughout various time periods and different cultures. The context of museums, especially one as influential as the Met, inherently predisposes its visitors to a set of understandings that subtly influence how they interpret and ultimately construct meanings about each individual object within a museum. By analyzing two separate works on exhibit at the Met, I will pose the argument that museums offer a unique expression of a world view that is dictated through every element of its construction.

‘Imagine you were in charge of a museum’s collecting policy. What would you chose to collect and how would you justify these decisions?’