Paper short abstract:

Sometimes, we have to break our own rules to respect someone else’s. At the Welt Museum Wien, the curator of the Latin America section found an interesting way to deal with the exhibition of objects whose vision is generally not allowed.

Paper long abstract:

Several ethnographic museums are currently dealing with their colonial heritage trying to change the hierarchical relationship of power implicit in the act of representing the others’ culture. This task, which is already difficult from an epistemological point of view, is sometimes obstructed by additional limits imposed by the institutional environment.

As an example, we could take those objects that according to their cultural system of production can be seen only by specific categories of individuals, such as shamans or initiated people. What is the proper way to deal with their exhibition, if we exclude the storage as a possible solution? How to satisfy the expectations of an audience who is attracted by the idea of the exotic – and perhaps forbidden – object? How to turn this challenge into an opportunity to stimulate new thoughts about what we have the right to do or not?

In this paper, I would like to present the way in which the curator of the Latin American section of the Welt Museum Wien faced the problem. The solution she found to exhibit some Makuna flutes shows what to decolonize should mean: being able to break our own rules to respect someone else’s.