· By Tam McDonald
Two weeks ago, this blog posed a question about what museums could be for, responding to a book review in The Financial Times that surveyed the landscape of museums across the world. It took as a given that whatever else will define the museum of the future, it will be a building occupying a space to which visitors will still go. While the blog concluded with another question as to whether the technologies of Virtual Reality might “rescue museums from their contentious literalisms”, perhaps the blog did not go far enough. Maybe it should have worked a little harder.
Over the fortnight that ensued, the culture media has been more than usually alert to stories that may not presage trends but certainly are shots across the bows of the global community of curators who may be thinking that, post-pandemic, they are going to “Build Back Better”. Rendered dozy by the alliterative allure of travelling backwards to some imagined Good Old Days, this complacent class of curators wants to be careful that the future does not steal their lunch.
Three stories over the last three days provide a strong indication of how museums are already evolving and will continue to evolve: how indeed the very definition of curation is rapidly moving beyond responsible maintenance to a more ethical and empathetic promotion across a far wider curatorial hinterland. Museums will acknowledge their role as global citizens in a wider world, respecting the provenance of their artefacts and engaging with their audiences in ways that are more diverse, inclusive, and imaginative.
“Universal display” is an interesting concept arising from the first of two pieces in Artnet News, describing how Berlin’s Humboldt Forum is working with Nigeria to balance the continuing appetites for display with the moral imperative of the restitution of the Benin Bronzes. Whatever new arrangements arise from what may prove to be a tsunami of negotiations between the Museum World and the “developing world”, it can be fairly imagined that the museums that move sooner and more imaginatively may fare better.
A different sort of threat is contained within another story in Artnet News, just a day older: Is the growing buzz around “non-fungible tokens” threatening the Museum World with a digital art heist of unimaginable proportions? Or is what the self-described “Global Art Museum” cheekily labels a “social experiment” just another curve that the global curator class needs to move smartly to get ahead of?
Most heartening for followers of the English cultural scene post-pandemic is an inspirational profile in this past weekend’s Observer newspaper of Gus Casely-Hayford, the appointed curator of the new V&A East – the East London offshoot of the Victoria & Albert Museum in Kensington. Still aquiver with excitement at having recently seen the concrete being poured ahead of the opening that’s still two years off, Casely-Hayford is clearly a curator for the 21st century, aiming “to transform the visitor experience with digital technology, to address colonialism – and to bring in young people.” Thus, curator less as custodian, more as champion.