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Contribution short abstract

Impactful scholarship on colonial heritage is hindered by the sheer scale of museum collections. This paper sees how exhibiting fewer cultural belongings and embracing particularity as a process of commoning resists colonial taxonomies and fosters rich entanglements.

Contribution long abstract

An obstacle that blocked the way to an impactful scholarship of colonial heritage of many Western museum collections is mainly their sheer abundance, a curatorial encounter to this overwhelming scale often replicates the original set of erratic actions that lead to this overwhelming clutter of cultural belongings. Decontextualized mass displays make systematic processing difficult, as individual Heritage objects are buried in sheer quantity and lose their distinct way creating what Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung refers to as a "choke" an experience of epistemological indigestion.

To address the ailing body of imperial institutions, museums have relied on strategies such as taxonomical classification, chronological arrangement, thematic displays, and aesthetic groupings. Yet, these approaches, while aiming to provide clarity, often perpetuate Enlightenment’s claim to universality and totality, ultimately failing to engage with the individual complexity of cultural belongings.

This paper proposes minimizing museum displays as a potential strategy for commoning. It examines the epistemological and subversive strategies that emerge from working with a limited number of cultural objects. We believe curating fewer objects enables each piece to resist predetermined colonial taxonomies and patronizing narratives, fostering deeper engagement with the viewer. We argue that when the individuality (Particularity) of an Cultural artefact is acknowledged, it resonates with the visitor's own sense of individuality, creating a more affective and akin encounter.