Decolonising Museum Practice in a Postcolonial Nation: Museum’s Visual Order as the Work of Representation in Constructing Colonial Memory

Abstract

Abstract The study of colonialism and its legacies have mostly left the category of memory studies. However, for the colonised subject, what they experienced in the past inevitably forms their present and future discourse. This study focuses on how the museum’s visual order articulates colonial memory. By looking at the work of representation, in this context museum’s visual order, this study investigates how memory lives on through the circulation of colonial memory that the museum simulates. Museum’s visual order translates how colonial memory should be remembered and celebrated as public knowledge. Although research on how museums affect society knowledge have been part of both memory and museum studies, those two studies barely touch upon museums’ role in translating colonial memory in the postcolonial nation. Memory lives on through its circulation in media forms. However, premeditation and mediation are made possible through articulating social and cultural sites, in this case, museums practice. In order to achieve its purposes, this research investigates public museums in different parts of Java, Indonesia which have colonial memory objects. The combination of field observation, document review, and visual method followed by focus group discussion between stakeholders and researchers are conducted to propose the research conclusion. This research argues that the museum’s visual order translates interrelated colonial memories to be accepted as a part of the history that forms the “existence” of the nation and to be appreciated as public knowledge that is shared and forms the national identity. In doing so, museum practice roams into the area of political visibility which decides the legibility of the narrative related to colonial memory. In addition, as museum practice is basically a colonial legacy, this research concludes that it is essential to deconstruct the practice from the perspective of the colonised.