Reading these pieces made me think a lot about how museums shape the way we understand history and how that process is anything but neutral. Museums don’t just preserve objects; they decide which stories get told and which ones don’t. That’s why curating difficult knowledge is such a powerful and sometimes uncomfortable task. Whether it’s Fred Wilson’s Mining the Museum, Peter Morin’s Museum Disappeared, or Roger Simon’s thoughts on shock and trauma in exhibitions, all of these works challenge the idea that museums are passive spaces. Instead, they show how museums are active participants in shaping public memory.
What struck me most was how each reading approached the idea of disruption. Wilson’s Mining the Museum forced visitors to confront history in a way that couldn’t be ignored—placing slave shackles next to silverware or a whipping post beside a fancy chair (BmoreArt, 2017). It exposed the hidden violence behind objects that people might otherwise view as neutral. Peter Morin, on the other hand, took a different approach—he literally made his museum disappear (Duffek, Morin, & Benbassat, 2019). By slowly removing objects from the space (which I thought was brilliant) he made us feel what Indigenous people went through: dispossession.
This connects to Roger Simon’s discussion of Without Sanctuary, an exhibition of lynching photographs, and the ethical dilemmas around displaying traumatic images (Simon, 2011). He questions whether showing violent histories actually leads to understanding—or if it just risks turning suffering into spectacle. This made me think about how often we see shocking images in the media today. Does simply seeing a disturbing image change anything? Or does it risk making people numb to violence? and I saw this happen in the Gaza Genocide where people just decided it be better to scroll past people livestreaming their extinxtion.
What I found really interesting in Morin’s work was his Museum Manifesto, where he completely rethinks what a museum should be. “If you can’t laugh or talk in the museum, then you are not in the museum” (Duffek et al., 2019). That line stuck with me because it’s the opposite of what we’re used to—museums are supposed to be quiet, serious places where knowledge is “imparted” to visitors. But Morin makes a case for museums as living spaces, where knowledge isn’t just displayed. I feel like it would depend on the type of museum we are talking about, sometimes silence in Museums comes of as a sign of respect to the experiences of people being displayed there.
All of this raises bigger questions about who gets to tell history and how it’s told. Museums hold so much power over how we remember the past, and the way they choose to frame difficult histories can either challenge dominant narratives or reinforce them. If museums are really supposed to help us learn from history, they can’t just be places where we passively look at things—they have to create active spaces for conversation, discomfort, and change.
Should museums aim to give people a clear, structured version of history, or should they focus on making visitors uncomfortable orcing them to sit with uncertainty, contradiction, and difficult truths? How do we prevent difficult knowledge from becoming just another thing to consume without real engagement?
I never really thought about the actual meaning of curation, which is as Milton mentions, to “care for.” Reading this made me think more about the intricacies and significance of curation as a foundation for transforming museums into reparative spaces and places for collective memory and participation, rather than “narrow ideological projects” (Wilson, 2017) or mere showcases of artifacts behind glass (Daffek et al.).
“… to “care for” the past is to make some- thing of it, to place and order it in a meaningful way in the present rather than to abandon it. But how does one “care for” the past? What custodial or curatorial practices and decisions are involved? How do we—as scholars, curators, artists, activists, survivors, descendents, and other stakeholders—attempt to bear witness, to give space and shape to absent people, objects and cultures, to present violent conflict without perpetuating its logic?”
There is no monolithic answer as to how ‘one’ or ‘others’ or ‘us collectively’ can care for the past but I do agree with the problematizations of having museums rely on mere ‘loving knowledge’ rather than engaging in “difficult knowledge,” which seeks to acknowledge that painful ‘pasts’ transcend into the present and collective futures. In reflecting on the concept of “difficult knowledge,” I couldn’t help but think about exhibitions like Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photographs, exhibited at the Warhol Museum to ‘confront’ viewers with the ongoing realities of systemic racial violence. It is true that photographs and images elicit affective responses in ways that words often cannot. Yet, the deep sense of helplessness and traumatization that many visitors experienced after viewing the lynching photographs/postcards raises questions about the purpose of revealing violent imagery in museum spaces when the outcome in mind is just to witness ‘violence’ and leave.
Although I have not seen Without Sanctuary myself, the images remain engrained in my mind, which makes me question the internal dialogue, curational process, and the importance of representation in museums. The fact that it was white privileged folks in charge of portraying the ‘realities’ of lynching in America underscored the inherently problematic nature of the exhibition.
Recently, I read a novel titled Landscapes, in which the author grapples with unresolved trauma from a sexual assault. The author, who I was able to speak with in class, said she intentionally never explicitly details the assault itself. This made me reflect on how artists intentionally leave out violence while also allowing us viewers/readers to understand the degree of violence enacted. Thus, this made me reflect on how the absence of explicit detail can sometimes be a more powerful narrative tool, inviting the audience to confront emotions and ‘truths’ in a less sensationalized and retraumatizing but equally impactful ways.
This leads me to also think about The Zone of Interest, a film that seeks to ‘redefine’ how the Holocaust is portrayed in cinema and consumed in popular culture. Unlike traditional depictions that focus on revealing the violence perpetrated on bodies, The Zone of Interest shifts the narrative to mirror the trauma and moral dissonance of the Holocaust through the mundanity of its perpetrators’ lives. Although I have only seen the trailer, I found its approach as food for thought as it avoids explicit depictions of the horrors of Auschwitz, instead conveying them through sound effects like gunshots, screams, barking dogs, and visual cues, such as smoke – a different way of ‘participatory witnessing.’
The main issue with exhibitions and museums is that those curating and presenting the work often do not belong to the represented communities. As a result, their perspectives do not depart from the realities of the oppressed. This is why I really liked Morin’s et.al quote when talking about his exhibition: “This space is designed to demonstrate Indigenous knowledge. Indigenous knowledge is like a river” representing its dynamic, fluid, and affective nature. It reflects the experiential, ongoing, and collective process of his work and what it means to live and create as Tahltan.
When can images be used as reparatory avenues in exhibitions? Where do we draw the line and who gets to decide?
This week’s readings have me reflecting on the role of museums as spaces for facilitating the public’s engagement with “difficult knowledge.” The concept seems particularly relevant when thinking about Palestine, where we are bearing witness to an ongoing genocide. The Palestinian genocide is one of the most well-documented in history, with a massive archive that preserves records of violence, displacement, resistance, and resilience. Yet, what does it mean for us to bear witness to this live and ongoing genocide, and how might future curations of Palestinian liberation take shape?
Lehrer and Milton raise a critical question: for whom are these histories curated, and for what purpose? They explain that public exposure to violence and complicity can foster accountability, but it also risks losing its impact in an age of media saturation (1). In the case of Palestine, the global audience is already saturated with images of suffering—graphic footage circulates constantly. But what does this visibility mean? Lehrer and Milton suggest that graphic depictions alone are insufficient to prevent future crimes, and this feels painfully true when thinking about the lack of accountability for the ongoing violence in Palestine.
The archive on Palestine is not only massive but contested. It exists as a site of struggle against dominant narratives that often erase or distort Palestinian experiences. The question of “for whom” museums curate is critical here. Should curation focus on fostering global solidarity, or does it risk reinforcing passivity and voyeurism? Should it address complacent publics, or does that inadvertently prioritize educating the oppressors over Palestinian voices? These questions are essential to consider when imagining the future role of museums in representing Palestine.
I also am always critical of the accessibility of museums. When you look at the demographics of museum visitors in the Global North, it’s clear that these spaces are widely inaccessible to many communities (cost, location, physical accessibility, etc.). This raises another critical question for me: who is being excluded from the opportunity to engage with difficult knowledge? If museums are to serve as spaces of accountability, dialogue, and empathy, they must address their systemic inaccessibility.
What I find particularly compelling is the shift Lehrer and Milton point to: moving beyond confrontation and toward cultivating empathy, dialogue, and action. In the context of Palestine, this might mean curating not just the suffering but also the resistance, the resilience, and the hopes for liberation. Bearing witness to a live genocide is a profoundly different responsibility than engaging with historical atrocities.
What would an exhibition of Palestinian liberation look like? How can it serve not only as a space for memory but also as a vision for justice? These questions stay with me, especially as Lehrer and Milton remind us that the work of engaging with “difficult knowledge” is never neutral—it is always a political act (15).
During my undergraduate degree, I was part of a seminar that organized, curated, and hosted the first-ever film festival on my college campus, The Bates Film Festival. There were only 14 students in the class, and together with our professor’s guidance, we crafted a mission statement, curated the selection of films, established event partnerships, hosted festival guests, and programmed workshops and Q&A sessions following film screenings. In addition to “fostering an appreciation for the artistry of screen media,” I pushed for the festival to “serve as a platform for productive discussions that engage topical social and political issues.”
While the final program of films included both documentary and fictionalized films, spanning from the horror genre to a drama about aging, we programmed powerful documentaries on topics about climate change, child marriage, anti-black racism, and sexual assault. In presenting these films, we organized panels with subject matter experts to unpack and reflect on some of the key learnings and potential criticisms in the films. This experience was one of the highlights of my college experience because I felt that there was a larger purpose in curating films that presented opportunities for learning and reflection about past and present ongoing injustices.
After graduating, this experience inspired me to find jobs in film festivals. I landed a job working for a media production company, whose owner was in the process of setting up a non-profit, Farsi Cinema Center. In the two years I worked there, we pitched and applied for funding to set up film festivals in Mexico City and Toronto, and partnered with IRAN: CI, a long-running film festival in Prague focused on Farsi-speaking cinema. I reported to two Iranian men who were both fed up with the way festivals seemed to award or admit films from Farsi filmmakers with narratives of victimization. Instead, they hoped to program films that were artistically impressive with strong narratives about everyday life, family, and love.
I have to admit, I had a hard time coming to terms with their perspective. I agreed with not wanting to select films that only portrayed Iranians as victims without agency, but I also felt there was value in curating films that could spark discussion about previous and ongoing violence and/or censorship issues. To me, and from my initial experience with the Bates Film Festival, taking on a curatorial role required creating opportunities to learn something new, challenge pre-existing ideals, and connect key themes to larger injustices. But, because I am not Iranian or a Farsi speaker, I didn’t feel comfortable contributing a valuable counter to their curatorial approach.
Reading about curation as a type of caretaking as well as the concept of difficult knowledge really made me reflect on my previous experiences with curation and the role I should/shouldn’t have had in programming films about a culture or background I was not from. Leher and Milton write that, “the curation of difficult knowledge can exacerbate conflict, or keep wounds traumatically open when they might otherwise heal” (7). I originally thought that my bosses were not concerned with social justice or the role of film in mobilizing change, but I also didn’t consider the multitude of reasons certain films with difficult knowledge may, or may not have, kept open wounds from healing. Perhaps this speaks to the underacknowledged challenges from my position, and theirs too. Ultimately, I still don’t know if I should have had the role I did because I did not know Iranian culture and history to the depth required to understand how to program films in a reflective or respectful way.
I know the readings consider and don’t arrive at any firm conclusion, of the best way to curate items, events, objects, and other artifacts, that carry difficult knowledge, (and who should curate them) but they do offer suggestions and critiques at previous attempts. I guess I’m left wondering: Is being a responsible curator something that can be learned? Or does it require a basic level of lived experience, or relation to, the underlying event/issue central to the curation?
The readings this week prompt profound reflection on the role of museums in addressing difficult histories and the responsibilities of curators in shaping these spaces. I’m struck by how these works collectively challenge the static, celebratory notions of museums and reposition them as sites of disruption, dialogue, and care. They push us to rethink not just what we remember but how we engage with that memory.
Lehrer and Milton’s questions, “Who should look, at what, how, and to what end?” stick in my mind. Museums have long been spaces where narratives are curated through the lens of power, often privileging dominant histories while silencing marginalized voices. Wilson’s piece is a powerful intervention in this regard. By placing together ornate silverware with slave shackles, he confronts viewers with the sanitized versions of history that museums often present. This deliberate pairing is unsettling and forces audiences to consider the violent histories embedded in objects typically viewed as artifacts of refinement. To me, it reveals how curation can become an act of complicity, or resistance, depending on whose stories are told and how.
Simon’s concept of “difficult knowledge” builds on this idea, suggesting that encountering histories of violence and loss is not just about confronting the past but about reckoning with our own positionality. Exhibitions, he argues, can provoke discomfort, even resistance, when they disrupt visitors’ sense of moral or historical clarity. This helped me recognize the important role that curators play—not just in deciding what stories to tell, but in shaping how we experience and respond to them. Wilson’s work exemplifies this ethical approach to curation, ensuring that visitors are actively engaged rather than passive consumers of history.
Morin’s Museum takes this a step further by embedding Indigenous ways of knowing into the fabric of the museum itself. His fluid, performative approach rejects the notions of permanence and objectivity, instead presenting culture as relational and dynamic. This resonates with the calls for decolonization in museum practices and challenges the very structure of how institutions engage with Indigenous histories.
All of these works challenge the idea of museums as places to simply learn about the past. They push for museums to be spaces where we grapple with complicity, reimagine our relationships with history, and leave with a sense of responsibility. They remind me that it’s not enough to simply care for the past but to take concrete action to help create a more just future.
Question:
How can we inspire more people to become aware of “difficult knowledge,” deepen their understanding of them, and engage more meaningfully through museums?
I began this week’s readings by watching the video of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s song How to Steal a Canoe, setting the tone for my thoughts and reflections on museums, curation, and the ways in which objects, history and connection are intertwined. The more learning I have done on this land, on the West Coast of Turtle Island, the more I have focused on understanding the centrality of the river and water to Indigenous life. It is not just a physical element but a spiritual and cultural force, representing the interconnectedness of life. An inherently fluid manifestation that carries the weight of stories, struggles and knowledge.
I looked up the etymology of the word “museum,” not really expecting much in terms of findings, but I learned that it means a place of contemplation, which is fitting for a museum as it suggests inward reflections and personal interpretation. As we’ve read, experienced or uncovered, over time, there has been a mobilization toward the encouragement of museums to be defined as static and serious, telling us how and when to feel, how to interact with art, and how to act within these spaces. Whether it was Lehrer and Milton, Simon, or Peter Morin, each challenged the idea of museums as one-dimensional spaces. They advocated for museums as living, inviting dynamic interactions, provoking emotional responses and prioritizing engagement with constantly evolving stories (her-stories and his-stories).
The idea of curating “difficult knowledge” from Lehrer and Milton resonated with me, particularly when considering the ethics of displaying trauma and loss. Museums have an inherent responsibility to confront difficult truths in history rather than simply preserving them. As spoken on by Simon, there’s a need to honour the weight of history’s actions without sensationalizing pain, which, in my opinion, cannot happen in a space of static objects and knowledge production, they need to occur in spaces that are alive, evolving and connected to the experiences they seek to display and represent. This is why I felt most connected to Morin’s idea of the disappearing museum, proposing that these spaces shouldn’t be static, quiet spaces but rather living environments that invite emotions, knowledge production and dynamic storytelling. These spaces can be dedicated to meaning making rather than fixed learning, a space for participatory witnessing and active engagement where laughter, tears and conversations are a part of the curated exhibit.
Thinking about this week’s topic and about Morin’s exhibit specifically, I was reminded of my maternal grandparents’ home in Lebanon, filled with objects that tell their personal and cultural history, items that have been carefully chosen from their travels, art that speak to their values and mementos that mark important moments in their lives. Over time, objects are moved, removed (and placed in the grandkid’s spaces), touched, looked at, listened to and played with, creating a dynamic narrative that is continuously evolving. In a way, I think this can be a form of curation, a space for storytelling and a reflection of how objects carry meaning beyond their physical form. This made me reflect on what I would include in my own curated museum.
What would your museum contain, and what would it say?
More on theme with Morin’s work, if a museum were to disappear, what would replace it? Should it be replaced?
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s “How to Steal a Canoe” captures the powerful act of reclaiming a stolen heritage. The description of “rescuing” the canoe from the museum instead of “stealing” it was particularly moving. It makes you question, can it really be considered stealing if it was yours to begin with, and someone else took it from you? I loved how the narration personified the canoe, treating it not as an object but as something worthy of love, care, and respect. This perspective reframes the act of reclaiming as one of justice and restoration.
Lehrer and Milton’s “Curating Difficult Knowledge: Introduction – Witnesses to Witnessing” discusses how traditional approaches that confront people with graphic images of atrocity are shifting toward fostering empathy, dialogue, and action. While I understand the need for this shift, I feel like sometimes we need those graphic, unfiltered images to truly evoke a response. For example, during the Vietnam War, it was the broadcast of horrifying visuals that pushed Americans to act. Similarly, with the genocide in Gaza, we see quantitative statistics, but the raw images of people burning alive or missing limbs are what often propel people to take action. While I understand that not everyone can handle such imagery, and trigger warnings are important, we cannot sanitize history to align with our softer, more “liberal” worldviews. History, with all its graphic atrocities, needs to be shown as it was. This ensures the full weight of these events is understood, even if it makes us uncomfortable.
Roger I. Simon’s “A Shock to Thought” highlights the moral responsibility and awareness of systemic issues that curators and audiences alike must consider. Knowing that many museum items were stolen, not gifted, raises ethical questions. Is it our moral obligation to engage with these items to understand the systemic injustices that allowed them to be there in the first place? This reading challenged me to think about the power dynamics embedded in cultural institutions and how they reflect ongoing inequalities.
In Duffek, Morin, and Benbassat Ali’s “The Museum Disappeared,” I loved the idea of museums as living, transformative spaces. Typically, I think of museums as places tied to the past, but viewing them as existing across time, then, now, and in the future was a refreshing perspective. This framework makes museums feel more dynamic and relevant, connecting past events to contemporary dialogues and future possibilities. It transforms them from static repositories into evolving spaces of cultural exchange.
There are a couple of things that immediately came to my mind when engaging with the readings for the week. In terms of the question “Who should look, at what, how, and to what end?” something that I kept coming back to was how often, there is little seating spaces in museums. I understand that part of it is due to the space itself of the museum or only when the exhibit shows a film/video, but many times there is only seating available at the end of the exhibit or sometimes only in the museums’ cafes. I think my first question for this week (which I’ll put at the end as well) is how are we expected to “be” in the moment, “bear witness” to something, if we cannot rest? On the other hand, what can standing up say about engaging with the exhibit?
The second thing that came to mind, which was inspired by the photo Erin used in the syllabus for this week, is my experience when I first went to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. My first thought was “what an odd choice of a city to put a museum of human rights”; it’s not like Winnipeg is known for its tourism industry. The second thing that came to mind was the couple of controversies that the museum has had over the years; these include allegations of sexual harassment and racism, an unwillingness to make an exhibit talking about Palestine and the Nakba, and allegations of homophobia by excluding the LGBTQ+ exhibits from tours or by prohibiting staff to openly talk about LGBTQ+ issues, which begs the question, how can a museum call itself a place to raise awareness about human rights when these things are happening WITHIN the museum.
The third thing that came to mind is the discourse surrounding museums and whether or not they have the right to showcase things that are of extreme importance and/or sacred to certain groups of people, including First Nations and other Indigenous peoples. Along with this, is the question and probably the most spoken discourse right now, is that of what museums are supposed to do when it comes to stolen artifacts. The excuses that have been given my certain museums *cough* the British museum *cough* range from “oh it’s our duty as museums to showcase these pieces of human history” to “oh the country to which they belong to has a poor track record of maintaining museums therefore it is my duty to safekeep these objects”, which is belittling at best and extremely racist at worst. Last year I asked my mom, who had just gone to Greece and visited the Museum of the Acropolis and we had gone to London like a year prior to that and visited the British museum, what she thought when she saw the empty space of the missing caryatid of the temple of Athena and she immediately said “it’s not only seeing the empty space, but you can literally feel its absence, and the British museum should give it back to Greece”. Of course, there are countless examples of stolen objects like the Moai or the totems sculpted by First Nations.
I guess the questions now are:
Re: seating spaces, how are we expected to “be” in the moment, “bear witness” to something, if we cannot rest? On the other hand, what can standing up say about engaging with the exhibit??
Is there a way to engage ethically with museums that have stolen objects? What is our job, as spectators, as audience, as scholars, when interacting with such exhibits?
In this week’s readings, there was a theme that came up for me in regards to the question of how we care for the past and bear witness through museums. A major concern that was brought up was how to strike a balance between informing people about the contexts of difficult pasts in order to avoid harmful sensationalism or voyeurism, and making space for affective force to take place in people’s interactions with objects. This was a focus of the example of the different approaches to displaying the lynching photographs that were described by Simon, as one approach was to display the photographs with little to no information in order to encourage people to focus closely on the photographs, while another approach was to provide a lot of context, including the personal stories of the people affected by the events depicted in the photographs. My gut feeling in reading these examples was that providing context on the people involved and the people affected is really important. When it comes to difficult pasts and knowledge, I think that humanizing traumatic events is critical for paying respect to the people impacted. Attaching names and/or lives to the objects and images displayed feels important to me, although I do see the value of fostering affective responses through exhibits as a force for action.
I felt that this theme came up again in the reading focused on Peter Morin’s museum and his approach to curating his exhibit. While Morin’s exhibit, and its purpose, was obviously very different from that of the lynching photograph exhibits, I think that it goes to show that there can be blend of the two approaches. Peter Morin’s museum resisted colonial methods of exhibiting objects representing Indigenous culture, which he described as often erasing the relationships that objects have to the lives, the people, and the teachings that they carry. He described this erasure as a trauma, requiring him to re-imagine his connection to his culture and his relationship to museums. In this context, it feels like exhibitions that fail to provide context on the objects that they present can perpetuate harms against people affected by injustice. I thought that Peter Morin’s efforts to activate the objects through performance to connect them to the stories they represent was a creative way to address that problem and “decenter the artifact of the external gaze”. The performances and the encouraged participation from visitors created space for that affective force to take place. At the same time, rather than providing text-heavy historical background necessarily, Morin showed how these objects represented Tahltan culture and knowledge in practice. Showing how those objects came to be was also a major goal of Morin’s work, which provided important context for the objects, while also empowering him and his community by promoting re-connections between the objects and Tahltan culture. I found this a really powerful approach to giving life to objects in a way that empowers people impacted by injustice and oppression, and also to encouraging the “sense of ownership” that Lehrer described as a force for action.
Q: Does there have to be a tension between informational and affective approaches to curating exhibits about difficult knowledges? Or can these approaches be blended together in ways that benefit and empower those impacted by injustice?
I read Peter Morin’s Museum Manifesto zealously, because I love rules and knowing what the rules are brings me comfort. It reminded me of something I was told last fall by a friend of mine who is Nlaka’pamux. She said that all people are born a part of the land and colonialism teaches us to imagine ourselves as overseeing landscapes instead of being a part of them. Coming from the dry Interior in BC, she thought this might be why the most well-resourced settlers built houses on the tops of ridges, away from the fertile ground and rivers in the valley – because they want to survey the land instead of being a part of it. We want to be apart from that which we exploit and we do not want to think of ourselves as much a part of the land as the rivers, moss, trees, squirrels and beetles, but we are.
I thought of this reading item 6: “If you can’t laugh or talk in the museum then you are not in the museum,” because I think there might be parallel instincts with surveying the land. We visit museums because we want to see things we are not a part of, but we are a part of them. The difficult knowledge is made more lovely – more “assimilable” – by the distances we imagine. By inviting participation (#1), children to run around (#13, although in my experience this cannot be controlled regardless of invitation), welcoming tears and laughter (#11), there is an expectation that visitors’ lives join them in the room and not just because we cannot seem to figure out how to leave them at the door.
I read this piece first because I am obsessed with Peter Morin’s “Love Songs to End Colonization” which is a “participatory karaoke project founded in kindness, joy, futurity” that repurposes pop songs to confront settler colonialism. This article sadly did not contain any opportunities for participatory karaoke, but I am glad I read it first because it made it easy to see how these readings intertwined.
In particular, where Lehrer and Milton dissect the word “curate” as “caring for” and state that caring for the past is making something of it in the present rather than releasing it, I wondered about what Janelle Morin would define her “curatorial lecture” as. I can imagine that it was an act of “caring for,” as she described the portraits of her loved ones and ancestors and Peter Morin placed them on the button blanket. Or, in the first performance, wherein Peter Morin writes across the large blackboard, including the following: “I want to live / My grandma wants to live / She got up every morning to face the light / Did the crow do the same after they had light in the world?” I wonder what would be made of such a curation. I think if I were talking about my loved ones as I looked at their photos, or writing about our origin stories on the wall in front of an audience, I would think of it as “caring for,” but not as making something of the past in the present – more of acknowledging what the past has made present and what we turn our gaze to. I guess I am grappling with the intentionality of curation and how puppet-mastery it might feel. I am more comfortable thinking of narratives as revealed rather than created, but of course one does not exist without the other!
I was also struck by Fred Wilson saying he wanted “to bring people in with a lot of head-scratching and curiosity, but not hit them over the head with the most shocking thing. I wanted people to come in and realize that they had to do some work, to put it together” and the contrast of this claim with Peter Morin saying, about the Tahltan knowledge in his piece that “you didn’t just get to consume it … you had to work at it .. you don’t get the end of the story first.” I liked that both Wilson and Morin acknowledged that there was an expectation of labour, not just in receiving information, but in making something of the receiving. There is an expectation of reciprocity with the visitors.
Throwing it back to literally years ago in week 2 of this course, Manifesto item #24, which reads: “This is a temporary museum. People should feel free to make their own museum. People should make a museum wherever they go. Please honour your family, community, and culture,” made me think of the end of The Descendant, where it is hoped that “you will love your history enough that you want it told everywhere you go.” Though I do not think it is so conscious or intentional, it feels appropriate to think of ourselves as walking museums, curated and “caring for” our own stories and those of others, revealing our vulnerabilities and expecting a degree of reciprocity.
I loved the readings this week. I said to someone recently about this course that I find my mind wandering while I pick out produce at the grocery store, like I’m looking at bell peppers thinking: “but really what isn’t a museum, when you think about it.”
Anyway, a question: how do we practice reciprocity as visitors to museums? How do we make this reciprocity systemic?
Also not asked and this is already so freaking long, but I loved Layla’s question: “what would your museum contain” is excellent but so, separately, is “and what would it say?” Will think about this for weeks!
This week’s readings and videos brought me face to face with the idea that memory especially when curated through museums, is not neutral. Fred Wilson’s comparison of silver vessels with slave shackles and whipping posts in his Maryland Historical Society project was a bold confrontation of privilege and oppression truly forcing us to engage with histories they might prefer to ignore. Similarly, Lehrer and Milton probe the ethics and politics of curating “difficult knowledge,” emphasizing the need to provoke empathy, dialogue, and accountability through careful attention to narratives that are left unheard and power dynamics.
Relating these ideas to India, the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum in New Delhi stands as a telling example. Dedicated to the life and legacy of India’s first female Prime Minister, the museum primarily highlights her achievements and assassination while glossing over more contentious aspects of her tenure such as the Emergency period (1975–1977). This era was marked by suspension of civil liberties, mass sterilizations, and political detentions is either omitted or downplayed mostly raising questions about the museum’s curatorial choices. This selective portrayal aligns with what Lehrer and Milton describe as “lovely knowledge,” which reinforces uncritical narratives instead of fostering critical engagement with the past. The museum risks becoming a vehicle of political glorification rather than a space for reflection on the complexities of governance and leadership.
Another example of curatorial politics is the upcoming “Ram Katha Museum” in Ayodhya dedicated to the Hindu deity Ram and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The museum’s decision to exclude critiques of the movement or the Supreme Court’s declaration of the Babri Masjid’s demolition as illegal exemplifies the curatorial silence around contentious events. The movement’s culmination in the demolition of the Babri Masjid (mosque) in 1992, followed by riots that claimed thousands of lives (mostly Muslim), remains one of India’s most polarizing episodes. By omitting these critiques, the museum aligns itself with a singular narrative, one that Lehrer and Milton would critique as failing to “unsettle” established perspectives. The absence of a broader, more inclusive narrative limits the museum’s ability to foster dialogue and empathy.
Reflecting on these examples, I am both intrigued and unsettled by how museums are shaped by political agendas. The Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum made me question how much state-sponsored curation shapes public memory by privileging certain narratives while silencing others. What stood out most in the readings was their emphasis on audience agency. Fred Wilson’s work, which provoked discomfort and debate, serves as a blueprint for reimagining museums as spaces of critical engagement rather than passive consumption. Applying this to India, what if the Ram Katha Museum included participatory elements that allowed visitors to contribute their interpretations of the events surrounding the Babri Masjid demolition? These interventions could transform these spaces into sites of healing and dialogue rather than mere repositories of contested legacies.
Questions:
1. To what extent is the act of curating memory inherently political and can there ever be a “neutral” representation of history when power dynamics are involved?
2. Can the politics of memory ever achieve true justice, or are museums and memorials destined to reflect the power structures and biases of the present?
After reading this week’s assigned reading, the concepts of “lovely knowledge” and “difficult knowledge” stood out to me quite a bit. This is because these two are unique and different ways of conveying knowledge. As Lehrer & Milton ( 2011 ) point out, difficult knowledge tends to be more likely to make people reflect on a particular history and realize the true history of the past, and I quite agree with this viewpoint, as I was reading, the Tiananmen Square event came up in my thoughts. I used to have a blank information about what happened, how it happened, and the outcome of the Tiananmen Square incident. Because it did not exist in our history, and suddenly appeared in my perception as a memory that had been completely erased by the government, my initial thought was to think that it was a history that had been deliberately defaced, or even a history that did not exist at all. Because my longstanding knowledge of that period was based on a “lovely knowledge” framework. Especially since China had just gone through a war at that time, the knowledge I had received was centered on the ideological struggle within the country to promote better social development.
When I saw this historical event presented in photographs a few years ago, I was in shock for quite a long time as it completely shattered my conventional knowledge. This fits in with Simon’s (2011) discussion that difficult knowledge is the connection of emotional and personal thoughts that allows one to look at history with a critically thinking viewpoint. When I look at this historical event from an alternative perspective, I am reminded of more than just a clash of ideologies, but more of a violent and tragic history. As well as making me think about the social upheaval that will take place at some point in the future when more of the masses know about this event.
Meanwhile, when I watched Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s “how to steal a canoe,” I particularly liked the passage, “take the young one and run.“Because this phrase puts us into the perspective of the canoe and focuses the viewer’s attention on the conversation between the human and the canoe. This is a great contrast to the title of the video, “STEAL A CANOE”, and has a strong ironic reference to the colonial past. The canoe symbolizes the culture of the indigenous people, yet the indigenous people need to “steal” their cultural heritage.
In a time oversaturated with images of human suffering, exposing people to horrors has lost some of its ability to galvanize action, like Lehrer and Milton highlight in their article. With a televised genocide ongoing for more than a year, I was thinking about what it means to bear witness when witnessing alone does not lead to justice? In the current democratized period of museology, how can museums and heritage sites curate difficult knowledge in a way that moves beyond passive consumption to spur dialogue, “empathy, understanding, self-scrutiny, and a productive struggle with too much difficult knowledge.”?
Growing up in India, my experience with museums was shaped by nationalistic pride and artistic heritage. The grand exhibits rarely addressed caste oppression or the trauma of Partition. My first personal confrontation with difficult knowledge came in British museums, where I saw stolen Indian artefacts displayed. What struck me wasn’t just the objects themselves but the silence around their histories – the curatorial choice to reframe them. Simpson’s How to Steal a Canoe extends this critique by showing how museums are institutions of settler colonialism. Just as the canoe is meant to move through water, Indigenous ways of being are meant to live and breathe in the present, not remain trapped in glass cases. Morin’s idea of reclaiming museology to create a context of relationality by reassembling social networks around objects and culturally specific knowledge and the African Library present an alternative and empowering way of curation. Instead of displaying stolen artefacts as passive relics, it actively reconstructs knowledge. This shifts the role of the museum from a colonial archive to a space of learning, reclamation, and agency.
Question:
How does a successful curation “kindle a sense of ownership” among multiple communities?
This week’s readings helped me understand the profound role museums play in our past and current narratives of interpreting the world around us. I enjoy going to museums when I travel and I love sharing these trips with my friends. In 2018, when I was in Berlin, I went to the Jewish Museum and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This week’s readings took me back to that trip to reflect on the experiences I had then, in the context of what I know now.
Lehrer and Milton (2011) reminds us that curating “difficult knowledge” comes with a sense of responsibility. It is not simply about displaying the realities of past atrocities but about triggering empathy, dialogue, and critical reflection. At the Jewish Museum, we entered a pitch dark exhibition room with unusually tall ceilings. There was an eerie pin drop silence about the room which gave you goosebumps. The room did not have a single streak of light. Its motive was to replicate the experiences of Holocaust victims who had to spend hours in isolation as a colonial tactic to mentally torture them. The emotions that room precipitated in me feels similar to the visceral experience Peter Morin intended to give his audience with his disappearing museum. For me, curatorial experiences which honour such deeply tragic truths should make its audience feel unsettled and angry to learn more about history.
In another room, there was an installation of another exhibition called “Fallen Leaves.” It featured over ten-thousand faces covering the floor dedicated to all the innocent victims of war and violence.
Visitors were made to interact by walking on the exhibit itself to experience the open-mouths in terror and sad faces with downturned lips and to listen to the jarring clanging sounds of thick metal pieces. Remembering this made me think of Simon’s (2011) discussion on curating knowledge in a way that moves beyond textual recounts of history. Museums should be successful in provoking affective and intellectual engagement for its audience. However, while I say this, I also acknowledge that for many people museums serve as the only channel through which they engage with history. Unless such demonstrations are also supplemented with historical facts in written text we might lose the opportunity to hold perpetrators accountable for their violences explicitly.
The readings all push you to reimagine museums beyond static buildings holding curated art and histories. Museums should serve as places where you reflect on past truths with an open mind and walk away more aware about what came before us.
Do you reflect on a past museum experience differently now that you have read this week’s content? If so, how?
Although there’s many big-picture ethical takeaways from this week’s readings, this week I found myself stuck on one very particular observation- where are the children in memory work??? Peter Morin’s museum manifesto really stopped me in my tracks because children were so overtly welcomed into the space of memory practice and memory making.
“13. Children are invited to run around.”
“6. If you can’t laugh or talk in the museum then you are not in the museum”
“15. This is a place of belonging for the community. Community members, from near and far, come to this place to spend time with their relatives.”
I found myself trying to remember where children have come into our work so far, and honestly, the times that stood out to me most were the 5,000+ dead children from the Sichuan earthquake, and the part of one of last week’s readings about the image of the little boy’s blue sweater, before and after he was killed in conflict. Do I only remember children as victims? Where are children before they are dead?
I’ve been thinking throughout the readings- where is the place of children in a memorial? I mean both in terms of how they are commemorated, but also how they commemorate. Peter Morin’s manifesto invites visitors to “make a museum wherever you go”, and I wonder, if children made a museum, what would be on display? I wonder, if I asked a child to create a monument for their mother, what would it look like? (who am I to ask this). Morin’s manifesto creates room for laughter and talking, and this made me think about the seriousness that we associate with memorialization. Of course, this in many cases makes sense, but I also am drawn to the idea of memory practices that make space for the full range of emotional expression. I also think that there might be some leftover Victorian weirdness in our stiff approach to memory, and that creates permission to exclude children from processes that they arguably have a right to.
I remember going to a free public concert downtown this summer, and this whole family got up and left because their baby was chattering during the performance, and I remember thinking, wow, it sucks that this baby can’t make noise in a space where we have literally all shown up to hear noise. It sucks for the family, it sucks for the baby, and I’m disappointed that there is such little tolerance for children to exist in community spaces.
I think this rigidity hurts our ability to grieve and remember properly, and I think it’s because we’re cutting out a whole stage of life from the process of remembering and memory making. Peter Morin says that if there was a Tahltan museum, you’d have to swim through information. From this, I’m picturing what colonial or rigid processes of remembering do as walking. If we brought children into these spaces as active participants, would we move differently through information? Would we climb, dance, stumble, crawl, skip? Would we remember better? Is it good for our babies to see us remember and make our way through this information?
There’s so many references in this article to spaces where it just makes sense for kids to be- the kitchen table as a sight of memory, the community and home being central to remembering, etc. Concepts that feel familial also show up in the Lehrer and Milton piece, like caretaking, inheritance, and patronizing approaches. Lehrer and Milton don’t ask this in the context of children, but I did think about the knowledge and wisdom that children have in their very first sentence: “what happens when the invisible is made visible, when knowledge relegated to society’s margins or swept under its carpet is suddenly inserted into the public domain? (1)”. They ask “which ‘we’” settles questions about memory, memorial, and curating- I similarly wonder, who gets to remember, and who gets to memorialize?
I am certainly not advocating to bring children into spaces that aren’t developmentally appropriate to them, or that would be traumatizing or expose them to violence- it is, after all, “difficult knowledge” that we are working with. My main point is that I wonder if we are supporting the memory making practice of little ones (meant lovingly, not condescendingly), and if we are adequately valuing the weight of their knowledge and depth of their experience, or whether our view of memory and memorialization, in this case in museums and adjacent spaces, privileges the perspectives of adults when there could be meaningful contributions from youth.
Questions: Who gets to remember?
What does democratizing memory look like?
“To claim that we owe the dead our witness simply avoids the question as to what would constitute an adequate practice of witnessing.” – Roger I. Simon, “A shock to thought: Curatorial judgment and the public exhibition of ‘difficult knowledge’”
This quote brings me back to the class conversation in which Dr. Baines asked us what it means to “bear witness.” That class, I had been thinking about bearing witness as a responsibility, a carrying, something we owe to those who have already borne a burden too heavy. That class we talked about believing in the validity of other truths, of empathizing, of feeling implicated. That class we asked – for the benefit of who?
I still don’t know the answer to that question, but this week I am inclined to think more about bearing witness as a mutual undoing (to paraphrase Judith Butler) or as losing a little bit more of ourselves and gaining a lot more of someone else. The difference, I feel, is in how much emphasis I put on the “I.” Last week, I was thinking about bearing witness as an individual. This week, I wonder if bearing witness means becoming more porous in one’s sense of self.
I found the concepts of ‘difficult knowledge’ (Roger I. Simon), unsettling (art) histories (Karen Duffek, Peter Morin and Karen Benbassat Ali), and discomfort (Kerr Houston, citing Fred Wilson) as explored by the readings this week to be interesting. I think those concepts necessarily have to do with the undoing of the self. Growth happens only through discomfort, and one cannot at once be rigidly oneself while in the process of becoming.
I think it’s valuable to ask, what makes some knowledge difficult? Difficult for whom? Why? But also, how can we comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable? (César A. Cruz)
Reading these pieces made me think a lot about how museums shape the way we understand history and how that process is anything but neutral. Museums don’t just preserve objects; they decide which stories get told and which ones don’t. That’s why curating difficult knowledge is such a powerful and sometimes uncomfortable task. Whether it’s Fred Wilson’s Mining the Museum, Peter Morin’s Museum Disappeared, or Roger Simon’s thoughts on shock and trauma in exhibitions, all of these works challenge the idea that museums are passive spaces. Instead, they show how museums are active participants in shaping public memory.
What struck me most was how each reading approached the idea of disruption. Wilson’s Mining the Museum forced visitors to confront history in a way that couldn’t be ignored—placing slave shackles next to silverware or a whipping post beside a fancy chair (BmoreArt, 2017). It exposed the hidden violence behind objects that people might otherwise view as neutral. Peter Morin, on the other hand, took a different approach—he literally made his museum disappear (Duffek, Morin, & Benbassat, 2019). By slowly removing objects from the space (which I thought was brilliant) he made us feel what Indigenous people went through: dispossession.
This connects to Roger Simon’s discussion of Without Sanctuary, an exhibition of lynching photographs, and the ethical dilemmas around displaying traumatic images (Simon, 2011). He questions whether showing violent histories actually leads to understanding—or if it just risks turning suffering into spectacle. This made me think about how often we see shocking images in the media today. Does simply seeing a disturbing image change anything? Or does it risk making people numb to violence? and I saw this happen in the Gaza Genocide where people just decided it be better to scroll past people livestreaming their extinxtion.
What I found really interesting in Morin’s work was his Museum Manifesto, where he completely rethinks what a museum should be. “If you can’t laugh or talk in the museum, then you are not in the museum” (Duffek et al., 2019). That line stuck with me because it’s the opposite of what we’re used to—museums are supposed to be quiet, serious places where knowledge is “imparted” to visitors. But Morin makes a case for museums as living spaces, where knowledge isn’t just displayed. I feel like it would depend on the type of museum we are talking about, sometimes silence in Museums comes of as a sign of respect to the experiences of people being displayed there.
All of this raises bigger questions about who gets to tell history and how it’s told. Museums hold so much power over how we remember the past, and the way they choose to frame difficult histories can either challenge dominant narratives or reinforce them. If museums are really supposed to help us learn from history, they can’t just be places where we passively look at things—they have to create active spaces for conversation, discomfort, and change.
Should museums aim to give people a clear, structured version of history, or should they focus on making visitors uncomfortable orcing them to sit with uncertainty, contradiction, and difficult truths? How do we prevent difficult knowledge from becoming just another thing to consume without real engagement?
I never really thought about the actual meaning of curation, which is as Milton mentions, to “care for.” Reading this made me think more about the intricacies and significance of curation as a foundation for transforming museums into reparative spaces and places for collective memory and participation, rather than “narrow ideological projects” (Wilson, 2017) or mere showcases of artifacts behind glass (Daffek et al.).
“… to “care for” the past is to make some- thing of it, to place and order it in a meaningful way in the present rather than to abandon it. But how does one “care for” the past? What custodial or curatorial practices and decisions are involved? How do we—as scholars, curators, artists, activists, survivors, descendents, and other stakeholders—attempt to bear witness, to give space and shape to absent people, objects and cultures, to present violent conflict without perpetuating its logic?”
There is no monolithic answer as to how ‘one’ or ‘others’ or ‘us collectively’ can care for the past but I do agree with the problematizations of having museums rely on mere ‘loving knowledge’ rather than engaging in “difficult knowledge,” which seeks to acknowledge that painful ‘pasts’ transcend into the present and collective futures. In reflecting on the concept of “difficult knowledge,” I couldn’t help but think about exhibitions like Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photographs, exhibited at the Warhol Museum to ‘confront’ viewers with the ongoing realities of systemic racial violence. It is true that photographs and images elicit affective responses in ways that words often cannot. Yet, the deep sense of helplessness and traumatization that many visitors experienced after viewing the lynching photographs/postcards raises questions about the purpose of revealing violent imagery in museum spaces when the outcome in mind is just to witness ‘violence’ and leave.
Although I have not seen Without Sanctuary myself, the images remain engrained in my mind, which makes me question the internal dialogue, curational process, and the importance of representation in museums. The fact that it was white privileged folks in charge of portraying the ‘realities’ of lynching in America underscored the inherently problematic nature of the exhibition.
Recently, I read a novel titled Landscapes, in which the author grapples with unresolved trauma from a sexual assault. The author, who I was able to speak with in class, said she intentionally never explicitly details the assault itself. This made me reflect on how artists intentionally leave out violence while also allowing us viewers/readers to understand the degree of violence enacted. Thus, this made me reflect on how the absence of explicit detail can sometimes be a more powerful narrative tool, inviting the audience to confront emotions and ‘truths’ in a less sensationalized and retraumatizing but equally impactful ways.
This leads me to also think about The Zone of Interest, a film that seeks to ‘redefine’ how the Holocaust is portrayed in cinema and consumed in popular culture. Unlike traditional depictions that focus on revealing the violence perpetrated on bodies, The Zone of Interest shifts the narrative to mirror the trauma and moral dissonance of the Holocaust through the mundanity of its perpetrators’ lives. Although I have only seen the trailer, I found its approach as food for thought as it avoids explicit depictions of the horrors of Auschwitz, instead conveying them through sound effects like gunshots, screams, barking dogs, and visual cues, such as smoke – a different way of ‘participatory witnessing.’
The main issue with exhibitions and museums is that those curating and presenting the work often do not belong to the represented communities. As a result, their perspectives do not depart from the realities of the oppressed. This is why I really liked Morin’s et.al quote when talking about his exhibition: “This space is designed to demonstrate Indigenous knowledge. Indigenous knowledge is like a river” representing its dynamic, fluid, and affective nature. It reflects the experiential, ongoing, and collective process of his work and what it means to live and create as Tahltan.
When can images be used as reparatory avenues in exhibitions? Where do we draw the line and who gets to decide?
This week’s readings have me reflecting on the role of museums as spaces for facilitating the public’s engagement with “difficult knowledge.” The concept seems particularly relevant when thinking about Palestine, where we are bearing witness to an ongoing genocide. The Palestinian genocide is one of the most well-documented in history, with a massive archive that preserves records of violence, displacement, resistance, and resilience. Yet, what does it mean for us to bear witness to this live and ongoing genocide, and how might future curations of Palestinian liberation take shape?
Lehrer and Milton raise a critical question: for whom are these histories curated, and for what purpose? They explain that public exposure to violence and complicity can foster accountability, but it also risks losing its impact in an age of media saturation (1). In the case of Palestine, the global audience is already saturated with images of suffering—graphic footage circulates constantly. But what does this visibility mean? Lehrer and Milton suggest that graphic depictions alone are insufficient to prevent future crimes, and this feels painfully true when thinking about the lack of accountability for the ongoing violence in Palestine.
The archive on Palestine is not only massive but contested. It exists as a site of struggle against dominant narratives that often erase or distort Palestinian experiences. The question of “for whom” museums curate is critical here. Should curation focus on fostering global solidarity, or does it risk reinforcing passivity and voyeurism? Should it address complacent publics, or does that inadvertently prioritize educating the oppressors over Palestinian voices? These questions are essential to consider when imagining the future role of museums in representing Palestine.
I also am always critical of the accessibility of museums. When you look at the demographics of museum visitors in the Global North, it’s clear that these spaces are widely inaccessible to many communities (cost, location, physical accessibility, etc.). This raises another critical question for me: who is being excluded from the opportunity to engage with difficult knowledge? If museums are to serve as spaces of accountability, dialogue, and empathy, they must address their systemic inaccessibility.
What I find particularly compelling is the shift Lehrer and Milton point to: moving beyond confrontation and toward cultivating empathy, dialogue, and action. In the context of Palestine, this might mean curating not just the suffering but also the resistance, the resilience, and the hopes for liberation. Bearing witness to a live genocide is a profoundly different responsibility than engaging with historical atrocities.
What would an exhibition of Palestinian liberation look like? How can it serve not only as a space for memory but also as a vision for justice? These questions stay with me, especially as Lehrer and Milton remind us that the work of engaging with “difficult knowledge” is never neutral—it is always a political act (15).
During my undergraduate degree, I was part of a seminar that organized, curated, and hosted the first-ever film festival on my college campus, The Bates Film Festival. There were only 14 students in the class, and together with our professor’s guidance, we crafted a mission statement, curated the selection of films, established event partnerships, hosted festival guests, and programmed workshops and Q&A sessions following film screenings. In addition to “fostering an appreciation for the artistry of screen media,” I pushed for the festival to “serve as a platform for productive discussions that engage topical social and political issues.”
While the final program of films included both documentary and fictionalized films, spanning from the horror genre to a drama about aging, we programmed powerful documentaries on topics about climate change, child marriage, anti-black racism, and sexual assault. In presenting these films, we organized panels with subject matter experts to unpack and reflect on some of the key learnings and potential criticisms in the films. This experience was one of the highlights of my college experience because I felt that there was a larger purpose in curating films that presented opportunities for learning and reflection about past and present ongoing injustices.
After graduating, this experience inspired me to find jobs in film festivals. I landed a job working for a media production company, whose owner was in the process of setting up a non-profit, Farsi Cinema Center. In the two years I worked there, we pitched and applied for funding to set up film festivals in Mexico City and Toronto, and partnered with IRAN: CI, a long-running film festival in Prague focused on Farsi-speaking cinema. I reported to two Iranian men who were both fed up with the way festivals seemed to award or admit films from Farsi filmmakers with narratives of victimization. Instead, they hoped to program films that were artistically impressive with strong narratives about everyday life, family, and love.
I have to admit, I had a hard time coming to terms with their perspective. I agreed with not wanting to select films that only portrayed Iranians as victims without agency, but I also felt there was value in curating films that could spark discussion about previous and ongoing violence and/or censorship issues. To me, and from my initial experience with the Bates Film Festival, taking on a curatorial role required creating opportunities to learn something new, challenge pre-existing ideals, and connect key themes to larger injustices. But, because I am not Iranian or a Farsi speaker, I didn’t feel comfortable contributing a valuable counter to their curatorial approach.
Reading about curation as a type of caretaking as well as the concept of difficult knowledge really made me reflect on my previous experiences with curation and the role I should/shouldn’t have had in programming films about a culture or background I was not from. Leher and Milton write that, “the curation of difficult knowledge can exacerbate conflict, or keep wounds traumatically open when they might otherwise heal” (7). I originally thought that my bosses were not concerned with social justice or the role of film in mobilizing change, but I also didn’t consider the multitude of reasons certain films with difficult knowledge may, or may not have, kept open wounds from healing. Perhaps this speaks to the underacknowledged challenges from my position, and theirs too. Ultimately, I still don’t know if I should have had the role I did because I did not know Iranian culture and history to the depth required to understand how to program films in a reflective or respectful way.
I know the readings consider and don’t arrive at any firm conclusion, of the best way to curate items, events, objects, and other artifacts, that carry difficult knowledge, (and who should curate them) but they do offer suggestions and critiques at previous attempts. I guess I’m left wondering: Is being a responsible curator something that can be learned? Or does it require a basic level of lived experience, or relation to, the underlying event/issue central to the curation?
The readings this week prompt profound reflection on the role of museums in addressing difficult histories and the responsibilities of curators in shaping these spaces. I’m struck by how these works collectively challenge the static, celebratory notions of museums and reposition them as sites of disruption, dialogue, and care. They push us to rethink not just what we remember but how we engage with that memory.
Lehrer and Milton’s questions, “Who should look, at what, how, and to what end?” stick in my mind. Museums have long been spaces where narratives are curated through the lens of power, often privileging dominant histories while silencing marginalized voices. Wilson’s piece is a powerful intervention in this regard. By placing together ornate silverware with slave shackles, he confronts viewers with the sanitized versions of history that museums often present. This deliberate pairing is unsettling and forces audiences to consider the violent histories embedded in objects typically viewed as artifacts of refinement. To me, it reveals how curation can become an act of complicity, or resistance, depending on whose stories are told and how.
Simon’s concept of “difficult knowledge” builds on this idea, suggesting that encountering histories of violence and loss is not just about confronting the past but about reckoning with our own positionality. Exhibitions, he argues, can provoke discomfort, even resistance, when they disrupt visitors’ sense of moral or historical clarity. This helped me recognize the important role that curators play—not just in deciding what stories to tell, but in shaping how we experience and respond to them. Wilson’s work exemplifies this ethical approach to curation, ensuring that visitors are actively engaged rather than passive consumers of history.
Morin’s Museum takes this a step further by embedding Indigenous ways of knowing into the fabric of the museum itself. His fluid, performative approach rejects the notions of permanence and objectivity, instead presenting culture as relational and dynamic. This resonates with the calls for decolonization in museum practices and challenges the very structure of how institutions engage with Indigenous histories.
All of these works challenge the idea of museums as places to simply learn about the past. They push for museums to be spaces where we grapple with complicity, reimagine our relationships with history, and leave with a sense of responsibility. They remind me that it’s not enough to simply care for the past but to take concrete action to help create a more just future.
Question:
How can we inspire more people to become aware of “difficult knowledge,” deepen their understanding of them, and engage more meaningfully through museums?
I began this week’s readings by watching the video of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s song How to Steal a Canoe, setting the tone for my thoughts and reflections on museums, curation, and the ways in which objects, history and connection are intertwined. The more learning I have done on this land, on the West Coast of Turtle Island, the more I have focused on understanding the centrality of the river and water to Indigenous life. It is not just a physical element but a spiritual and cultural force, representing the interconnectedness of life. An inherently fluid manifestation that carries the weight of stories, struggles and knowledge.
I looked up the etymology of the word “museum,” not really expecting much in terms of findings, but I learned that it means a place of contemplation, which is fitting for a museum as it suggests inward reflections and personal interpretation. As we’ve read, experienced or uncovered, over time, there has been a mobilization toward the encouragement of museums to be defined as static and serious, telling us how and when to feel, how to interact with art, and how to act within these spaces. Whether it was Lehrer and Milton, Simon, or Peter Morin, each challenged the idea of museums as one-dimensional spaces. They advocated for museums as living, inviting dynamic interactions, provoking emotional responses and prioritizing engagement with constantly evolving stories (her-stories and his-stories).
The idea of curating “difficult knowledge” from Lehrer and Milton resonated with me, particularly when considering the ethics of displaying trauma and loss. Museums have an inherent responsibility to confront difficult truths in history rather than simply preserving them. As spoken on by Simon, there’s a need to honour the weight of history’s actions without sensationalizing pain, which, in my opinion, cannot happen in a space of static objects and knowledge production, they need to occur in spaces that are alive, evolving and connected to the experiences they seek to display and represent. This is why I felt most connected to Morin’s idea of the disappearing museum, proposing that these spaces shouldn’t be static, quiet spaces but rather living environments that invite emotions, knowledge production and dynamic storytelling. These spaces can be dedicated to meaning making rather than fixed learning, a space for participatory witnessing and active engagement where laughter, tears and conversations are a part of the curated exhibit.
Thinking about this week’s topic and about Morin’s exhibit specifically, I was reminded of my maternal grandparents’ home in Lebanon, filled with objects that tell their personal and cultural history, items that have been carefully chosen from their travels, art that speak to their values and mementos that mark important moments in their lives. Over time, objects are moved, removed (and placed in the grandkid’s spaces), touched, looked at, listened to and played with, creating a dynamic narrative that is continuously evolving. In a way, I think this can be a form of curation, a space for storytelling and a reflection of how objects carry meaning beyond their physical form. This made me reflect on what I would include in my own curated museum.
What would your museum contain, and what would it say?
More on theme with Morin’s work, if a museum were to disappear, what would replace it? Should it be replaced?
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s “How to Steal a Canoe” captures the powerful act of reclaiming a stolen heritage. The description of “rescuing” the canoe from the museum instead of “stealing” it was particularly moving. It makes you question, can it really be considered stealing if it was yours to begin with, and someone else took it from you? I loved how the narration personified the canoe, treating it not as an object but as something worthy of love, care, and respect. This perspective reframes the act of reclaiming as one of justice and restoration.
Lehrer and Milton’s “Curating Difficult Knowledge: Introduction – Witnesses to Witnessing” discusses how traditional approaches that confront people with graphic images of atrocity are shifting toward fostering empathy, dialogue, and action. While I understand the need for this shift, I feel like sometimes we need those graphic, unfiltered images to truly evoke a response. For example, during the Vietnam War, it was the broadcast of horrifying visuals that pushed Americans to act. Similarly, with the genocide in Gaza, we see quantitative statistics, but the raw images of people burning alive or missing limbs are what often propel people to take action. While I understand that not everyone can handle such imagery, and trigger warnings are important, we cannot sanitize history to align with our softer, more “liberal” worldviews. History, with all its graphic atrocities, needs to be shown as it was. This ensures the full weight of these events is understood, even if it makes us uncomfortable.
Roger I. Simon’s “A Shock to Thought” highlights the moral responsibility and awareness of systemic issues that curators and audiences alike must consider. Knowing that many museum items were stolen, not gifted, raises ethical questions. Is it our moral obligation to engage with these items to understand the systemic injustices that allowed them to be there in the first place? This reading challenged me to think about the power dynamics embedded in cultural institutions and how they reflect ongoing inequalities.
In Duffek, Morin, and Benbassat Ali’s “The Museum Disappeared,” I loved the idea of museums as living, transformative spaces. Typically, I think of museums as places tied to the past, but viewing them as existing across time, then, now, and in the future was a refreshing perspective. This framework makes museums feel more dynamic and relevant, connecting past events to contemporary dialogues and future possibilities. It transforms them from static repositories into evolving spaces of cultural exchange.
There are a couple of things that immediately came to my mind when engaging with the readings for the week. In terms of the question “Who should look, at what, how, and to what end?” something that I kept coming back to was how often, there is little seating spaces in museums. I understand that part of it is due to the space itself of the museum or only when the exhibit shows a film/video, but many times there is only seating available at the end of the exhibit or sometimes only in the museums’ cafes. I think my first question for this week (which I’ll put at the end as well) is how are we expected to “be” in the moment, “bear witness” to something, if we cannot rest? On the other hand, what can standing up say about engaging with the exhibit?
The second thing that came to mind, which was inspired by the photo Erin used in the syllabus for this week, is my experience when I first went to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. My first thought was “what an odd choice of a city to put a museum of human rights”; it’s not like Winnipeg is known for its tourism industry. The second thing that came to mind was the couple of controversies that the museum has had over the years; these include allegations of sexual harassment and racism, an unwillingness to make an exhibit talking about Palestine and the Nakba, and allegations of homophobia by excluding the LGBTQ+ exhibits from tours or by prohibiting staff to openly talk about LGBTQ+ issues, which begs the question, how can a museum call itself a place to raise awareness about human rights when these things are happening WITHIN the museum.
The third thing that came to mind is the discourse surrounding museums and whether or not they have the right to showcase things that are of extreme importance and/or sacred to certain groups of people, including First Nations and other Indigenous peoples. Along with this, is the question and probably the most spoken discourse right now, is that of what museums are supposed to do when it comes to stolen artifacts. The excuses that have been given my certain museums *cough* the British museum *cough* range from “oh it’s our duty as museums to showcase these pieces of human history” to “oh the country to which they belong to has a poor track record of maintaining museums therefore it is my duty to safekeep these objects”, which is belittling at best and extremely racist at worst. Last year I asked my mom, who had just gone to Greece and visited the Museum of the Acropolis and we had gone to London like a year prior to that and visited the British museum, what she thought when she saw the empty space of the missing caryatid of the temple of Athena and she immediately said “it’s not only seeing the empty space, but you can literally feel its absence, and the British museum should give it back to Greece”. Of course, there are countless examples of stolen objects like the Moai or the totems sculpted by First Nations.
I guess the questions now are:
Re: seating spaces, how are we expected to “be” in the moment, “bear witness” to something, if we cannot rest? On the other hand, what can standing up say about engaging with the exhibit??
Is there a way to engage ethically with museums that have stolen objects? What is our job, as spectators, as audience, as scholars, when interacting with such exhibits?
In this week’s readings, there was a theme that came up for me in regards to the question of how we care for the past and bear witness through museums. A major concern that was brought up was how to strike a balance between informing people about the contexts of difficult pasts in order to avoid harmful sensationalism or voyeurism, and making space for affective force to take place in people’s interactions with objects. This was a focus of the example of the different approaches to displaying the lynching photographs that were described by Simon, as one approach was to display the photographs with little to no information in order to encourage people to focus closely on the photographs, while another approach was to provide a lot of context, including the personal stories of the people affected by the events depicted in the photographs. My gut feeling in reading these examples was that providing context on the people involved and the people affected is really important. When it comes to difficult pasts and knowledge, I think that humanizing traumatic events is critical for paying respect to the people impacted. Attaching names and/or lives to the objects and images displayed feels important to me, although I do see the value of fostering affective responses through exhibits as a force for action.
I felt that this theme came up again in the reading focused on Peter Morin’s museum and his approach to curating his exhibit. While Morin’s exhibit, and its purpose, was obviously very different from that of the lynching photograph exhibits, I think that it goes to show that there can be blend of the two approaches. Peter Morin’s museum resisted colonial methods of exhibiting objects representing Indigenous culture, which he described as often erasing the relationships that objects have to the lives, the people, and the teachings that they carry. He described this erasure as a trauma, requiring him to re-imagine his connection to his culture and his relationship to museums. In this context, it feels like exhibitions that fail to provide context on the objects that they present can perpetuate harms against people affected by injustice. I thought that Peter Morin’s efforts to activate the objects through performance to connect them to the stories they represent was a creative way to address that problem and “decenter the artifact of the external gaze”. The performances and the encouraged participation from visitors created space for that affective force to take place. At the same time, rather than providing text-heavy historical background necessarily, Morin showed how these objects represented Tahltan culture and knowledge in practice. Showing how those objects came to be was also a major goal of Morin’s work, which provided important context for the objects, while also empowering him and his community by promoting re-connections between the objects and Tahltan culture. I found this a really powerful approach to giving life to objects in a way that empowers people impacted by injustice and oppression, and also to encouraging the “sense of ownership” that Lehrer described as a force for action.
Q: Does there have to be a tension between informational and affective approaches to curating exhibits about difficult knowledges? Or can these approaches be blended together in ways that benefit and empower those impacted by injustice?
I read Peter Morin’s Museum Manifesto zealously, because I love rules and knowing what the rules are brings me comfort. It reminded me of something I was told last fall by a friend of mine who is Nlaka’pamux. She said that all people are born a part of the land and colonialism teaches us to imagine ourselves as overseeing landscapes instead of being a part of them. Coming from the dry Interior in BC, she thought this might be why the most well-resourced settlers built houses on the tops of ridges, away from the fertile ground and rivers in the valley – because they want to survey the land instead of being a part of it. We want to be apart from that which we exploit and we do not want to think of ourselves as much a part of the land as the rivers, moss, trees, squirrels and beetles, but we are.
I thought of this reading item 6: “If you can’t laugh or talk in the museum then you are not in the museum,” because I think there might be parallel instincts with surveying the land. We visit museums because we want to see things we are not a part of, but we are a part of them. The difficult knowledge is made more lovely – more “assimilable” – by the distances we imagine. By inviting participation (#1), children to run around (#13, although in my experience this cannot be controlled regardless of invitation), welcoming tears and laughter (#11), there is an expectation that visitors’ lives join them in the room and not just because we cannot seem to figure out how to leave them at the door.
I read this piece first because I am obsessed with Peter Morin’s “Love Songs to End Colonization” which is a “participatory karaoke project founded in kindness, joy, futurity” that repurposes pop songs to confront settler colonialism. This article sadly did not contain any opportunities for participatory karaoke, but I am glad I read it first because it made it easy to see how these readings intertwined.
In particular, where Lehrer and Milton dissect the word “curate” as “caring for” and state that caring for the past is making something of it in the present rather than releasing it, I wondered about what Janelle Morin would define her “curatorial lecture” as. I can imagine that it was an act of “caring for,” as she described the portraits of her loved ones and ancestors and Peter Morin placed them on the button blanket. Or, in the first performance, wherein Peter Morin writes across the large blackboard, including the following: “I want to live / My grandma wants to live / She got up every morning to face the light / Did the crow do the same after they had light in the world?” I wonder what would be made of such a curation. I think if I were talking about my loved ones as I looked at their photos, or writing about our origin stories on the wall in front of an audience, I would think of it as “caring for,” but not as making something of the past in the present – more of acknowledging what the past has made present and what we turn our gaze to. I guess I am grappling with the intentionality of curation and how puppet-mastery it might feel. I am more comfortable thinking of narratives as revealed rather than created, but of course one does not exist without the other!
I was also struck by Fred Wilson saying he wanted “to bring people in with a lot of head-scratching and curiosity, but not hit them over the head with the most shocking thing. I wanted people to come in and realize that they had to do some work, to put it together” and the contrast of this claim with Peter Morin saying, about the Tahltan knowledge in his piece that “you didn’t just get to consume it … you had to work at it .. you don’t get the end of the story first.” I liked that both Wilson and Morin acknowledged that there was an expectation of labour, not just in receiving information, but in making something of the receiving. There is an expectation of reciprocity with the visitors.
Throwing it back to literally years ago in week 2 of this course, Manifesto item #24, which reads: “This is a temporary museum. People should feel free to make their own museum. People should make a museum wherever they go. Please honour your family, community, and culture,” made me think of the end of The Descendant, where it is hoped that “you will love your history enough that you want it told everywhere you go.” Though I do not think it is so conscious or intentional, it feels appropriate to think of ourselves as walking museums, curated and “caring for” our own stories and those of others, revealing our vulnerabilities and expecting a degree of reciprocity.
I loved the readings this week. I said to someone recently about this course that I find my mind wandering while I pick out produce at the grocery store, like I’m looking at bell peppers thinking: “but really what isn’t a museum, when you think about it.”
Anyway, a question: how do we practice reciprocity as visitors to museums? How do we make this reciprocity systemic?
Also not asked and this is already so freaking long, but I loved Layla’s question: “what would your museum contain” is excellent but so, separately, is “and what would it say?” Will think about this for weeks!
This week’s readings and videos brought me face to face with the idea that memory especially when curated through museums, is not neutral. Fred Wilson’s comparison of silver vessels with slave shackles and whipping posts in his Maryland Historical Society project was a bold confrontation of privilege and oppression truly forcing us to engage with histories they might prefer to ignore. Similarly, Lehrer and Milton probe the ethics and politics of curating “difficult knowledge,” emphasizing the need to provoke empathy, dialogue, and accountability through careful attention to narratives that are left unheard and power dynamics.
Relating these ideas to India, the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum in New Delhi stands as a telling example. Dedicated to the life and legacy of India’s first female Prime Minister, the museum primarily highlights her achievements and assassination while glossing over more contentious aspects of her tenure such as the Emergency period (1975–1977). This era was marked by suspension of civil liberties, mass sterilizations, and political detentions is either omitted or downplayed mostly raising questions about the museum’s curatorial choices. This selective portrayal aligns with what Lehrer and Milton describe as “lovely knowledge,” which reinforces uncritical narratives instead of fostering critical engagement with the past. The museum risks becoming a vehicle of political glorification rather than a space for reflection on the complexities of governance and leadership.
Another example of curatorial politics is the upcoming “Ram Katha Museum” in Ayodhya dedicated to the Hindu deity Ram and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The museum’s decision to exclude critiques of the movement or the Supreme Court’s declaration of the Babri Masjid’s demolition as illegal exemplifies the curatorial silence around contentious events. The movement’s culmination in the demolition of the Babri Masjid (mosque) in 1992, followed by riots that claimed thousands of lives (mostly Muslim), remains one of India’s most polarizing episodes. By omitting these critiques, the museum aligns itself with a singular narrative, one that Lehrer and Milton would critique as failing to “unsettle” established perspectives. The absence of a broader, more inclusive narrative limits the museum’s ability to foster dialogue and empathy.
Reflecting on these examples, I am both intrigued and unsettled by how museums are shaped by political agendas. The Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum made me question how much state-sponsored curation shapes public memory by privileging certain narratives while silencing others. What stood out most in the readings was their emphasis on audience agency. Fred Wilson’s work, which provoked discomfort and debate, serves as a blueprint for reimagining museums as spaces of critical engagement rather than passive consumption. Applying this to India, what if the Ram Katha Museum included participatory elements that allowed visitors to contribute their interpretations of the events surrounding the Babri Masjid demolition? These interventions could transform these spaces into sites of healing and dialogue rather than mere repositories of contested legacies.
Questions:
1. To what extent is the act of curating memory inherently political and can there ever be a “neutral” representation of history when power dynamics are involved?
2. Can the politics of memory ever achieve true justice, or are museums and memorials destined to reflect the power structures and biases of the present?
After reading this week’s assigned reading, the concepts of “lovely knowledge” and “difficult knowledge” stood out to me quite a bit. This is because these two are unique and different ways of conveying knowledge. As Lehrer & Milton ( 2011 ) point out, difficult knowledge tends to be more likely to make people reflect on a particular history and realize the true history of the past, and I quite agree with this viewpoint, as I was reading, the Tiananmen Square event came up in my thoughts. I used to have a blank information about what happened, how it happened, and the outcome of the Tiananmen Square incident. Because it did not exist in our history, and suddenly appeared in my perception as a memory that had been completely erased by the government, my initial thought was to think that it was a history that had been deliberately defaced, or even a history that did not exist at all. Because my longstanding knowledge of that period was based on a “lovely knowledge” framework. Especially since China had just gone through a war at that time, the knowledge I had received was centered on the ideological struggle within the country to promote better social development.
When I saw this historical event presented in photographs a few years ago, I was in shock for quite a long time as it completely shattered my conventional knowledge. This fits in with Simon’s (2011) discussion that difficult knowledge is the connection of emotional and personal thoughts that allows one to look at history with a critically thinking viewpoint. When I look at this historical event from an alternative perspective, I am reminded of more than just a clash of ideologies, but more of a violent and tragic history. As well as making me think about the social upheaval that will take place at some point in the future when more of the masses know about this event.
Meanwhile, when I watched Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s “how to steal a canoe,” I particularly liked the passage, “take the young one and run.“Because this phrase puts us into the perspective of the canoe and focuses the viewer’s attention on the conversation between the human and the canoe. This is a great contrast to the title of the video, “STEAL A CANOE”, and has a strong ironic reference to the colonial past. The canoe symbolizes the culture of the indigenous people, yet the indigenous people need to “steal” their cultural heritage.
How can we balance lovely and difficult knowledge in education to achieve a fuller understanding of history?
In a time oversaturated with images of human suffering, exposing people to horrors has lost some of its ability to galvanize action, like Lehrer and Milton highlight in their article. With a televised genocide ongoing for more than a year, I was thinking about what it means to bear witness when witnessing alone does not lead to justice? In the current democratized period of museology, how can museums and heritage sites curate difficult knowledge in a way that moves beyond passive consumption to spur dialogue, “empathy, understanding, self-scrutiny, and a productive struggle with too much difficult knowledge.”?
Growing up in India, my experience with museums was shaped by nationalistic pride and artistic heritage. The grand exhibits rarely addressed caste oppression or the trauma of Partition. My first personal confrontation with difficult knowledge came in British museums, where I saw stolen Indian artefacts displayed. What struck me wasn’t just the objects themselves but the silence around their histories – the curatorial choice to reframe them. Simpson’s How to Steal a Canoe extends this critique by showing how museums are institutions of settler colonialism. Just as the canoe is meant to move through water, Indigenous ways of being are meant to live and breathe in the present, not remain trapped in glass cases. Morin’s idea of reclaiming museology to create a context of relationality by reassembling social networks around objects and culturally specific knowledge and the African Library present an alternative and empowering way of curation. Instead of displaying stolen artefacts as passive relics, it actively reconstructs knowledge. This shifts the role of the museum from a colonial archive to a space of learning, reclamation, and agency.
Question:
How does a successful curation “kindle a sense of ownership” among multiple communities?
This week’s readings helped me understand the profound role museums play in our past and current narratives of interpreting the world around us. I enjoy going to museums when I travel and I love sharing these trips with my friends. In 2018, when I was in Berlin, I went to the Jewish Museum and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This week’s readings took me back to that trip to reflect on the experiences I had then, in the context of what I know now.
Lehrer and Milton (2011) reminds us that curating “difficult knowledge” comes with a sense of responsibility. It is not simply about displaying the realities of past atrocities but about triggering empathy, dialogue, and critical reflection. At the Jewish Museum, we entered a pitch dark exhibition room with unusually tall ceilings. There was an eerie pin drop silence about the room which gave you goosebumps. The room did not have a single streak of light. Its motive was to replicate the experiences of Holocaust victims who had to spend hours in isolation as a colonial tactic to mentally torture them. The emotions that room precipitated in me feels similar to the visceral experience Peter Morin intended to give his audience with his disappearing museum. For me, curatorial experiences which honour such deeply tragic truths should make its audience feel unsettled and angry to learn more about history.
In another room, there was an installation of another exhibition called “Fallen Leaves.” It featured over ten-thousand faces covering the floor dedicated to all the innocent victims of war and violence.
Visitors were made to interact by walking on the exhibit itself to experience the open-mouths in terror and sad faces with downturned lips and to listen to the jarring clanging sounds of thick metal pieces. Remembering this made me think of Simon’s (2011) discussion on curating knowledge in a way that moves beyond textual recounts of history. Museums should be successful in provoking affective and intellectual engagement for its audience. However, while I say this, I also acknowledge that for many people museums serve as the only channel through which they engage with history. Unless such demonstrations are also supplemented with historical facts in written text we might lose the opportunity to hold perpetrators accountable for their violences explicitly.
The readings all push you to reimagine museums beyond static buildings holding curated art and histories. Museums should serve as places where you reflect on past truths with an open mind and walk away more aware about what came before us.
Do you reflect on a past museum experience differently now that you have read this week’s content? If so, how?
Although there’s many big-picture ethical takeaways from this week’s readings, this week I found myself stuck on one very particular observation- where are the children in memory work??? Peter Morin’s museum manifesto really stopped me in my tracks because children were so overtly welcomed into the space of memory practice and memory making.
“13. Children are invited to run around.”
“6. If you can’t laugh or talk in the museum then you are not in the museum”
“15. This is a place of belonging for the community. Community members, from near and far, come to this place to spend time with their relatives.”
I found myself trying to remember where children have come into our work so far, and honestly, the times that stood out to me most were the 5,000+ dead children from the Sichuan earthquake, and the part of one of last week’s readings about the image of the little boy’s blue sweater, before and after he was killed in conflict. Do I only remember children as victims? Where are children before they are dead?
I’ve been thinking throughout the readings- where is the place of children in a memorial? I mean both in terms of how they are commemorated, but also how they commemorate. Peter Morin’s manifesto invites visitors to “make a museum wherever you go”, and I wonder, if children made a museum, what would be on display? I wonder, if I asked a child to create a monument for their mother, what would it look like? (who am I to ask this). Morin’s manifesto creates room for laughter and talking, and this made me think about the seriousness that we associate with memorialization. Of course, this in many cases makes sense, but I also am drawn to the idea of memory practices that make space for the full range of emotional expression. I also think that there might be some leftover Victorian weirdness in our stiff approach to memory, and that creates permission to exclude children from processes that they arguably have a right to.
I remember going to a free public concert downtown this summer, and this whole family got up and left because their baby was chattering during the performance, and I remember thinking, wow, it sucks that this baby can’t make noise in a space where we have literally all shown up to hear noise. It sucks for the family, it sucks for the baby, and I’m disappointed that there is such little tolerance for children to exist in community spaces.
I think this rigidity hurts our ability to grieve and remember properly, and I think it’s because we’re cutting out a whole stage of life from the process of remembering and memory making. Peter Morin says that if there was a Tahltan museum, you’d have to swim through information. From this, I’m picturing what colonial or rigid processes of remembering do as walking. If we brought children into these spaces as active participants, would we move differently through information? Would we climb, dance, stumble, crawl, skip? Would we remember better? Is it good for our babies to see us remember and make our way through this information?
There’s so many references in this article to spaces where it just makes sense for kids to be- the kitchen table as a sight of memory, the community and home being central to remembering, etc. Concepts that feel familial also show up in the Lehrer and Milton piece, like caretaking, inheritance, and patronizing approaches. Lehrer and Milton don’t ask this in the context of children, but I did think about the knowledge and wisdom that children have in their very first sentence: “what happens when the invisible is made visible, when knowledge relegated to society’s margins or swept under its carpet is suddenly inserted into the public domain? (1)”. They ask “which ‘we’” settles questions about memory, memorial, and curating- I similarly wonder, who gets to remember, and who gets to memorialize?
I am certainly not advocating to bring children into spaces that aren’t developmentally appropriate to them, or that would be traumatizing or expose them to violence- it is, after all, “difficult knowledge” that we are working with. My main point is that I wonder if we are supporting the memory making practice of little ones (meant lovingly, not condescendingly), and if we are adequately valuing the weight of their knowledge and depth of their experience, or whether our view of memory and memorialization, in this case in museums and adjacent spaces, privileges the perspectives of adults when there could be meaningful contributions from youth.
Questions: Who gets to remember?
What does democratizing memory look like?
“To claim that we owe the dead our witness simply avoids the question as to what would constitute an adequate practice of witnessing.” – Roger I. Simon, “A shock to thought: Curatorial judgment and the public exhibition of ‘difficult knowledge’”
This quote brings me back to the class conversation in which Dr. Baines asked us what it means to “bear witness.” That class, I had been thinking about bearing witness as a responsibility, a carrying, something we owe to those who have already borne a burden too heavy. That class we talked about believing in the validity of other truths, of empathizing, of feeling implicated. That class we asked – for the benefit of who?
I still don’t know the answer to that question, but this week I am inclined to think more about bearing witness as a mutual undoing (to paraphrase Judith Butler) or as losing a little bit more of ourselves and gaining a lot more of someone else. The difference, I feel, is in how much emphasis I put on the “I.” Last week, I was thinking about bearing witness as an individual. This week, I wonder if bearing witness means becoming more porous in one’s sense of self.
I found the concepts of ‘difficult knowledge’ (Roger I. Simon), unsettling (art) histories (Karen Duffek, Peter Morin and Karen Benbassat Ali), and discomfort (Kerr Houston, citing Fred Wilson) as explored by the readings this week to be interesting. I think those concepts necessarily have to do with the undoing of the self. Growth happens only through discomfort, and one cannot at once be rigidly oneself while in the process of becoming.
I think it’s valuable to ask, what makes some knowledge difficult? Difficult for whom? Why? But also, how can we comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable? (César A. Cruz)