Co‐curation and New Museology in Reorganizing the Beit Gallery at the Mutare Museum, Eastern Zimbabwe

Abstract

The Mutare Museum in Eastern Zimbabwe reorganized an ethnographic collection in one of its galleries in 2016. This article will look at the processes by which traditional drums as part of this collection were reconfigured and ascribed new meanings derived from their everyday ritual uses amongst the eastern Shona community. As one of the curators involved in the researching that led to the co‐production of the exhibition I will demonstrate how we utilized new museology and co‐curatorship in integrating multiple perspectives from the community on socio‐cultural uses of traditional drums. The paper will also show connections between the community and the drums which were previously viewed as static and mute objects. Collaborating with the community in reorganizing drums in the Beit galley will be presented in the paper as a strategy embraced in decolonizing the museum practice.

Amazonian Activism for European Museum Audiences: Critical Reflections on the Development of an “Amazonia” Exhibition at the National Museum of World Cultures, the Netherlands

“…Among these, pioneering Indigenous and non‐Indigenous collaborations have taken place across Latin America as part of the museum projects designed by, for example, Ticio Escobar (Power & Escobar, 2012) in Paraguay, Bonfil Batalla (1983) in Mexico and Buntinx (2007) in Peru, all of which are under‐recognized in Anglophone museological literature. This paper supplements discussions on participative museology by examining the underlying intellectual and political frameworks of an exhibition project at its outset, in addition to contributing, as happens more commonly, post‐rationalizations in a final written evaluation (Barnes & McPherson, 2019; Beaujot, 2020; Chipangura, 2020). Furthermore, the paper seeks to highlight and present the manifold initiatives that have been developed by the symposium participants.…”

The Benin tusk and Zulu beadwork: Practicing decolonial work at Manchester Museum through shared authority

“…Looking at the Benin tusk open engagement, it can be further posited that collaborative dialogue decenters the authority of museum curators by allowing for an investigative process in which decision‐making about knowledge and objects of the past is a shared responsibility (Chipangura, 2020; Onciul, 2019). Thus, collaborative approaches constitute the broader agenda for decolonizing museum practices in that they confront long standing imbalances regarding who makes decisions and who benefits (Chipangura, 2020). Elsewhere, Simon (n.d.) describes collaborations as fulfilling the mandate of what she calls the participatory museum, which is different from the colonial museum in that it involves stakeholders and is central to cultural and community life.…”

“…It is challenging because the legacies of European colonialism are wide, far reaching, and ever mutating. A critique of collaborations as a decolonial methodology is usually centered on the location of power in these activities (Chipangura, 2020; Golding & Walklate, 2019; La Salle, 2010). It is for this reason that Boast (2011: 4) argues that no matter how much we might think of pluralizing knowledge production in museums through collaborations, intellectual control will remain in the hands of curators.…”

La Musealización del Arte y la Historia: estrategias discursivas y de comunicación, inclusión, transformación digital y participación en museos

“…se refiere a un concepto de "comisariado dialógico" ("dialogical curating"), según se refiere a comisariar de manera colectiva y plural junto con el resto de agentes sociales y culturales en torno al tema u artefactos de exposición(Edmundson, 2017). En este mismo sentido, se han podido identificar varias estrategias concretas: utilizar acciones performáticas en el museo con comunidades sociales(Barnes y McPherson, 2019), investigar con técnicas etnográficas en las sociedades tradicionales y aborígenes los usos y significados de las cosas(Chipangura, 2020), utilizar una plataforma de diseño online para una co-creación de exposición con comunidades(Rogers y Rock, 2017), entre otras. Por otro lado, reconociendo los beneficios de este nuevo comisariado, Viau-Courville (2016) advierte de que también está desplazando la profesionalización del comisariado de las exposiciones.…”