"What should be done about museums...?" "Give us practical solutions..." etc... I'm frankly exhausted by the demands made of PoC to "be practical", aka to "stop complaining". I refuse to provide "solutions" just to satiate ur desire to feel like ur "doing something worthwhile"
You want to deconstruct narratives of progress in your exhibitions, you might want to stop demanding that "progress" be made by those same measures in creating and evaluating those exhibitions.
"But funding requires evaluation!" You tell me. Yup. The system is broke. Lets talk about that. Met so many well-meaning people wanting to jump on the decol bandwagon but they don't have the time to have serious conversations about what a colonial legacy actually means.
Colonial legacies operate in a systemic way in society and, ofc, in museum structures - think of words like 'tolerance', 'social cohesion', 'equality' - rolls off the tongue. Great for evaluation forms. But what do they mean? Where do they come from?
Museums rely on the state for its definitions and its frameworks. How willing would you be to critique the state? Would you get funding if you did? Dabbling in decol isn't just about going through the motions (guilt, shame, etc) and coming out renewed and redeemed
If you're confronting a colonial past, you're asking questions about neoliberalism, white supermacy, gentrification, cooperate greed, about power as it manifests today
I'm suspicious of symbolic gains. I'm interested in systemic change. I refuse to apologise for that. This isn't me being negative, this isn't me being difficult - this is me standing in my truth.
