Paper Short Abstract:

This paper examines the persistent bias against non-textual representations, critiquing how written text continues to constrain their interpretive range and reinforce colonial narratives. It argues for multimodality as a fundamental step toward decolonizing heritage and unwriting the museum.

Paper Abstract:

Whenever we encounter text in a museum, whether in the form of object labels, captions, or introductory panels, it always seeks to redirect our gaze beyond itself, guiding our eyes away from its own presence to the thing it claims to represent. Through this sleight of hand, text can frame nearly everything while concealing itself from critical gaze. It hides in the guise of representation, masking its own objectness. Texts consistently claim a position of neutrality, presenting themselves as mere mediums rather than objects in their own right.

Written text is often assumed to clarify and explain the visual, but in reality, it constrains the interpretive possibilities of the non-textual. It shields the spectator from the discomfort of an unmediated encounter with the Other’s culture, often dismissed as too visual, overly sensory, or vulgar. This mirrors broader critiques of anthropology and museology for their iconophobia and chromophobia, where non-textual and non-Western epistemologies are devalued.

Using case studies from the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum Cologne and Humboldt Forum Berlin, this paper explores how text reduces the non-textual to a passive object, reliant on explanation and incapable of autonomy. This dynamic reflects broader binaries, masculine over feminine, colonizer over colonized, where the former is empowered to speak and observe, while the latter is silenced and made an object of scrutiny. The paper critiques these hierarchical frameworks, arguing they facilitate colonial inscriptions on heritages. It calls for reclaiming sensorial sovereignty and rejecting textual dominance as critical steps to unwrite the museum and promote just representation.