Comments | sadie_sabot: museum musings

sadie_sabot

museum musings

Jun 25, 2006 23:54

Yesterday I went to The De Young Museum with my partner and kid and my partner’s parents and brother. I’d been mildly interested in going since the De Young re-opened in a new facility last year, and since we usually hit a museum when J’s parents are in town, and they hadn’t seen the De Young since it opened, off we went ( Read more... )

joybringer

Comments 8

sisterselu June 26 2006, 13:10:04 UTC

Yeah, that's super problematic. We have the "historical society" museum here that has dispays like those and even adds BONES to the collection. *sob*

It's all very, very surreal to see art and ceremonial objects encased in some steril environment completely removed from the people and land that supplied their existance.

sadie_sabot June 26 2006, 16:09:07 UTC

bones don't belong to museums. dammit.

something about this stuff even being in museums objhectifies, exotifies, otherizes the people and cultures they coem from.

sigh. yet another way the culture Ilive in and spring from is fubar.

twostepsfwd June 26 2006, 17:03:27 UTC

Great post. This is part of why I can't stand most museums.

mat_defiler June 26 2006, 23:58:00 UTC

Your story really reminds me of going to the National Museum in London with an american anarchist friend i'd met at one of the infoshop events when i was travelling in europe years ago. The National Museum is completely devoted to "Artifacts" especially very significant ones, like the Rosetta Stone, etc. It was one of the most intense experiences, and fortunately my cohort was on the same page as me. We kept reflecting on the sheer theft of it, and the lack of context, and the imperialism and etc. etc. etc. It's been almost 10 years and it's still very clear to me how it felt to walk through all those artifacts; it left an impression i will probably never forget ( ... )

sadie_sabot June 27 2006, 00:12:46 UTC

LOL, that's awesome. the second paragraph, that is.

mat_defiler June 27 2006, 00:20:10 UTC

yeah, she was an amazing kid (though she was a bit toned down, i think, by the time i met her as a 5 year old).

sadie_sabot June 27 2006, 00:25:20 UTC

yah, that happens....part of the teaching them to get by in the world, sadly....ps, I'm gonna send you an email

sparkle_shortz July 2 2006, 19:00:18 UTC

Hi, apologies for the OT comment, but you don't have a redirect or a visible e-mail, so this is the only way to reach you.

I'm one of the mods of debunkingwhite; can you pls e-mail me about your pending membership request? sparkle.shortz at gmail dot com will do it.
thanks much!
S_S