Colonial museums acknowledge their racist pasts only under belated public pressure

Evidence

My analysis was composed on the basis of a visit to the Museum and institutional catalogues and materials predating 2007. The Museum has since signaled a comprehensive commitment to renovate the building and reconceive its exhibits. As an announcement greeting visitors to the Museum today declares, “The aim of the restoration and renovation [due to be completed by 2013] is to bring the Museum in tune with the needs and requirements of the 21th [sic] century, but without affecting its charm.” Finally realizing that the Museum could no longer continue as an unapologetically colonial institution, the permanent and temporary exhibits already seek to indicate that its leaders are grappling with its troubled past. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 47

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: how imperial museums like the Royal Belgian Museum for Central Africa frame renovation as preserving ‘charm’ while confessing a troubled colonial past — the language of charm as euphemism for the colonial gaze.
• XREF: connects to: National museums omit annihilated groups, erasing their claim to the nation — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 135