One aspect of the course and trip that resonated with me was the idea of remembrance and temporality. With these in mind, there was a big focus on exploring museums, and I noticed the role that museums had in remembering and reimagining the culture and history of indigenous people in Australia. The class did a great job of exploring indigenous issues from the lens of local tribes, but I was curious to explore how the colonizers, specifically the British, saw their role in the process of indigenous displacement. I was also interested in exploring colonization in North America, given that I’m from there.
Stemming from my experience in this class, I wanted to continue learning about the modern representations of indigenous cultures by visiting the British Museum in London to explore how they present and contextualize the artifacts for the public. I was able to do this through a small grant from the SNF Paideia Program. Being from Toronto originally, I would eventually like to work in the Canadian government, so I want to develop a deeper understanding of indigenous tribes which are called the First Nations in Canada. At the British Museum, as part of my research process, I examined and reflected on the exhibit surrounding indigenous tribes, specifically the ones in North America.
As I read the British Museum’s description of artifacts and traditions, I wondered if that was how the local tribes would describe them or if that would constitute a colonial overwriting of indigenous knowledge. For example, the tribes were grouped (and generalized) into geographic locations like the Arctic or Pacific Northwest, but I wondered if native tribes see themselves in these simplified geographic locations or if they would object to these classifications. I think a museum should do a better job at explaining not just the artifacts but also the conversations used to understand the history, such as the process for the museum labels written by curators describing the artifacts.
Another topic that wasn’t exactly clear to me was how much input indigenous tribes had in the creation and presentation of the exhibit. Museums can be inherently colonial, and the British Museum is no different. One object had a disclaimer discussing where the object was retrieved from, but none of the other objects had such an explanation. While there was an attempt to discuss the sensitive issue of provenance between British (and later American) collectors and the native artifacts, there wasn’t a lot of transparency. Even the artifact on display with a disclaimer claimed that it was on loan, and that a “discussion” about the artifact had been had. There was nothing more about what type of discussion, with whom, nor the apparent power dynamic between the indigenous tribes and the British Museum.
Something else I saw was the compression of temporality in the exhibit. Throughout the class, I noticed that indigenous peoples have a different way of understanding time from a Western perspective, and this is evident in the exhibit. There were old objects alongside contemporary art, resulting in the warping of temporality. In other exhibits, the artifacts were displayed in chronological order, like in the Chinese history exhibit which went from the Neolithic era to the modern day. It is interesting to see that the indigenous artifacts still seemed pretty consistent, in both their appearances and uses, over the course of thousands of years, which impressed me deeply.
Outside of my time at the museum and my research, I was able to explore London. My favorite spot in London was Chinatown, and I loved the food. I grew up near Toronto’s Chinatown, so being able to see London’s Chinatown was personally meaningful to me. I’m grateful for both of my trips to Australia and the UK, both of which were supported by SNF Paideia. These trips have made a lasting impact on me, and I will take these lessons with me into the future. Specifically, I learned more about the importance of understanding different cultures and communities. Dialogue, one of SNF Paideia’s core values, is the basis of intercultural understanding, and I developed a deeper understanding of how museums impact the dialogue and conversations between cultures. Museums can determine how we frame and remember the past, and I hope future conversations between museums and indigenous tribes can build a deeper understanding of both the present and the past.
Eric Yang (C’26) is majoring in economics.
