Paper Short Abstract:

Plundered objects have served as a so-called representation of subdued populations displayed in European ethnographic museums. However, laying an artistic gaze on them unveils and reveals new interpretations and may encourage museums to rethink their displaying of ethnographic collections.

Paper Abstract:

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, looted objects were used by European colonial governments to justify and intensify their explorative missions in colonialized territories. It was also a means to expand the collections of newly-built ethnographic museums and display the power of the colonizing nations. Indeed, the intensification of the colonial waves coincided with the opening of ethnographic museums in European capitals.

Fictive and imaginary populations were invented through the decontextualization of stolen items. Ethnographic museums embodied the fabrication of a colonial narrative about African history, art, cultures and societies. Indeed, physical modifications were made to some of the items looted upon their arrival in Europe.

If one considers that, through the deterritorialization they underwent, the looted objects became mutant objects, that process continues thanks to an artistic intervention, stepping away from the scientific and political visions as well as the hierarchy imposed by museums, the artistic contribution opens up new ways to approach controversial museum collections. What may be the various methodologies employed by artists to (re)present the pieces brought back, and how are they perceived by the different types of audience?

Artistic interventions offer a platform free of discriminating and belittling criteria, participate in changing the ways through which artefacts have been viewed and understood. Thanks to artistic mediation, new dialogues can be established between the museum institution and the public.