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Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to show how children learn and unlearn with museum collections in Brazil and Germany. Children's interaction with objects in contact zones contributes to unlearning old colonial structures, learning about the present and being open to learning about the decolonial future.

Paper long abstract:

Museums are environments where collections can be used to learn and unlearn about the world (Landkammer 2019). Pratt (1992) and Clifford (1997) were pioneers in demonstrating the historical and political aspects of historical narratives and the interactions and power relations of indigenous people with objects in collections in contact zones. This shift in perspective on objects has influenced some institutional and pedagogical practices in museums (Sternfeld 2018), where children also occupy space, albeit with less attention (Wagner 2013). Currently, the Ipiranga Museum (Brazil) and the Forum Humboldt (Germany) have developed research and educational practices to decolonise the exhibitions and objects in their collections. However, the Forum Humboldt still has its image linked to the "Humboldt ideal" and the Ipiranga Museum reproduces the "image of independence". In this sense, it is relevant to ask: How do children learn and unlearn with objects from museum collections in Brazil and Germany? This proposal aims to understand the process of children's learning and unlearning with objects from museum collections in the context of transformation. The research will be conducted using video ethnography in order to capture how the children learn and unlearn with the objects between the exploration phase and the contact zones. The challenge of the proposal is to understand the unlearning of old structures of the museum as a historical space (Walsh 1992), the understanding of the object in the present (Bryant & Knight, 2019), and the prospects for learning in the context of transformation and for the future (Schaffer 2024).