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Dialogical Curating: Towards Aboriginal Self‐Representation in Museums
Author(s) -
Unruh Leanne
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
curator: the museum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.312
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2151-6952
pISSN - 0011-3069
DOI - 10.1111/cura.12099
Subject(s) - dialogical self , conversation , representation (politics) , exhibition , sociology , visual arts , anthropology , aesthetics , art , epistemology , communication , political science , philosophy , politics , law
Abstract This essay proposes the idea of dialogical curating based on Grant Kester's term “dialogical art.” This term refers to the idea of allowing conversation with source communities to influence the process and outcome of an artwork, or in this case, a curated exhibition. I argue that in the examples of The District Six Museum in Cape Town, South Africa and The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, the curatorial strategies used and discourses concerning the display of aboriginal objects can be called dialogical. By exploring methods of aboriginal self‐representation—such as alternative research and education methodologies as well as collaboration—it is possible to imagine a curatorial practice that is not a methodology, but a discourse that contributes to the processes of de‐colonization.