{"title":"Crossing Over: Museums as Spaces of Violence","authors":"Amy K. Levin","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2020.1873492","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article focuses on an increasingly common phenomenon: the exhibition on violence or trauma that evokes excessively strong reactions in visitors. Popular contemporary museum practices contribute to such responses. The first is the valorisation of the ‘difficult’ exhibition without sufficient consideration of the ways in which it is challenging or of the identities of its targets. The desire to foster empathy within institutions or individuals, which seems benign, also involves risks and limitations. We lack hard evidence of empathy’s benefits as a museum strategy, and particularly of whether it stimulates activism. Indeed, immersive exhibitions that succeed in engaging audiences in individual stories may not instigate systemic change; in terms of gender, they may focus on a particular woman’s suffering but not on global gender inequity. These excesses of violence and trauma wrought on gendered bodies may leave visitors despondent and unsettled. As a result, the gallery, promoted as a liberatory ‘third’ space of inclusion, may be perceived as confining or oppressive. To explain this paradox, I deploy James Giles’s theory of Fourthspace, using my experience viewing Carlos Motta’s installation on LGBTQI+ immigrants in the Netherlands at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 2017 as a case study. While offering prescriptive solutions is not my primary aim, I briefly discuss possible solutions.","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2020-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2020.1873492","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","FirstCategoryId":"1090","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2020.1873492","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ART","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Abstract This article focuses on an increasingly common phenomenon: the exhibition on violence or trauma that evokes excessively strong reactions in visitors. Popular contemporary museum practices contribute to such responses. The first is the valorisation of the ‘difficult’ exhibition without sufficient consideration of the ways in which it is challenging or of the identities of its targets. The desire to foster empathy within institutions or individuals, which seems benign, also involves risks and limitations. We lack hard evidence of empathy’s benefits as a museum strategy, and particularly of whether it stimulates activism. Indeed, immersive exhibitions that succeed in engaging audiences in individual stories may not instigate systemic change; in terms of gender, they may focus on a particular woman’s suffering but not on global gender inequity. These excesses of violence and trauma wrought on gendered bodies may leave visitors despondent and unsettled. As a result, the gallery, promoted as a liberatory ‘third’ space of inclusion, may be perceived as confining or oppressive. To explain this paradox, I deploy James Giles’s theory of Fourthspace, using my experience viewing Carlos Motta’s installation on LGBTQI+ immigrants in the Netherlands at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 2017 as a case study. While offering prescriptive solutions is not my primary aim, I briefly discuss possible solutions.
期刊介绍:
In its new revised form Museum International is a forum for intellectually rigorous discussion of the ethics and practices of museums and heritage organizations. The journal aims to foster dialogue between research in the social sciences and political decision-making in a changing cultural environment. International in scope and cross-disciplinary in approach Museum International brings social-scientific information and methodology to debates around museums and heritage, and offers recommendations on national and international cultural policies.