Look Left and Right

Abstract

This article, a short critical analysis, explores dominant social and museological approaches to understanding museum collections made from current-day political crises. It focuses on events and collections in the US, a nation that has a museum sector directly tied up in political decision-making and crises since its inception (Message 2014) and reeling more acutely from events leading up to and surrounding the election of President Donald Trump in 2016. The article does not universalize the American experience in relation to either museological trends or broader twenty-first-century political crises. Its reflections are based on observation of political and museological activity occurring in Washington, DC and New York.