Sea of islands and poetics of relation: rethinking islandness

Vol. 53, 1– 2, 2025 Sea of islands and poetics of relation: rethinking islandness The ICOFOM Study Series is indexed in the SCOPUS source list. To ensure accurate indexing and improve the visibility of published work, authors and readers are encouraged to cite articles from this journal using the full and correct journal title. Proper citation supports academic discoverability in databases and ensures contributions are correctly attributed. Here are two examples of how to cite an article from the journal: • In APA style (7th ed.) Wong, L. (2025). Museums as social action: Building equity in marginalised communities. ICOFOM Study Series, 53(1–2), 157–169. https://doi.org/10.4000/14f8p • In MLA style (9th ed.) Wong, Leilani. “Museums as Social Action: Building Equity in Marginalised Communities.” Sea of Islands and Poetics of Relation: Rethinking Islandness, special issue of ICOFOM Study Series, vol. 53, no. 1–2, 2025, pp. 157–69, doi.org/10.4000/14f8p. To find the DOI numbers for individual articles, please consult the website journals. openedition.org. Each article’s web page includes its specific DOI link. ICOM international committee for museology Mar de islas y poética de la relación: repensar la insularidad Sea of islands and poetics of relation: rethinking islandness Mer d’îles et poétique de la relation : repenser l’insularité Guest editors: Marion Bertin Jamie Allan Brown Karen Brown Ana Sol González Rueda Louis Lagarde Marianne Tissandier Vol. 53, Issues 1 & 2 – 2025 ICOFOM STUDY SERIES, Vol. 53, 1–2, 2025 International Journal of the ICOM International Committee for Museology (ICOFOM) The ICOFOM Study Series is a double-blind peer reviewed journal. Editors / Editoras / Rédactrices Marion Bertin Jamie Allan Brown Karen Brown Ana Sol Gonzalez Rueda Louis Lagarde Marianne Tissandier Introduction Marion Bertin Karen Brown Editorial Team / Equipo editorial / Équipe éditoriale Managing Editor, ICOFOM: M. Elizabeth Weiser Communication Manager, ICOFOM: Anna Leshchenko Editorial Coordinator: Allison Daniel Copy Editors: Allison Daniel (English); Orphée Lamotte (French); Ana Sol González Rueda (Spanish) Designer: Melissa Aguilar Editorial Committee / Consejo editorial / Comité éditorial, 2023-2024 Melissa Aguilar, independent museologist, Costa Rica Marion Bertin, Université catholique de Louvain & -Institut de sciences politiques Louvain-Europe (ISPOLE) – Bruxelles, Belgique Bruno Brulon Soares, University of St. Andrews, Scotland Supreo Chanda, University of Calcutta, India Scarlet Galindo, Museo Nacional de la Acuarela Alfredo Guati Rojo, México Ernest Kpan, National Institute of Art and Cultural Action (INSAAC), Côte d’Ivoire Lynn Maranda, Emerita Curator, Museum of Vancouver, Canada Margaret Zheng Yi, Fudan University, China ISSN: 2306-4161 ICOFOM STUDY SERIES (Online) ISBN: 978-2-487970-09-0 ICOFOM STUDY SERIES 53 1-2 Sea of islands and poetics of relation: rethinking islandness / Mer d’îles et poétique de la relation : repenser l’insularité / Mar de islas y poética de la relación: repensar la insularidad © International Committee for Museology of the International Council of Museums (ICOM/UNESCO) Published by ICOFOM, Paris, in 2025 5 Table of Contents Introduction: Sea of islands and poetics of relation: rethinking islandness Bertin, M. and Brown, K 7 Introduction 19 Introducción 32 PART I : Colonial Collecting and the Archive—Contesting Histories 49 Collecting ambiguity: Objects and the afterlives of Empire on the island of Ireland Widdis, B., and Reisz, E. 51 From Borneo to Leicester: Colonial entanglements in the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection Scuderi., M. C. 65 L’Inventaire du Patrimoine Kanak Dispersé : Muséologie transnationale et territoires enchevêtrés Bertin, M., and Tissandier, M. 79 Pratique collaborative, transmission des savoirs matériels et immatériels en Polynésie française Barsinas, V., Tokainiua Devatine, J-D., Giraud, V., Guiot, H., Maric, T., Mélandri, M., and Vallée, M. 93 PART II : Rethinking Indigenous Island Museologies 107 Learning from Pacific museologies: Heritage, culture and environment in the islands of Moana Oceania McCarthy, C. 108 Pacific museums and cultural centres: Redefining & indigenizing museum spaces the Pacific way Vunidilo, T. 121 Narratives and island heritage representation: Navigating the Ainu exhibitions on Hokkaido Bittencourt, N., and Chen, Y-A. 132 Empowering narratives: Rethinking Taiwan through the National Museum of History in Taiwan Chen ,Y-A. 142 6 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Museums as social action: Building equity in marginalised communities Wong, L. 157 L’exposition comme émanation d’une parole : Symbolique et mise en espace à la Maison de la Nouvelle-Calédonie Decorce, C. 170 Retrouver la voix de nos objets : démarche muséale et revendications culturelles au fenua ènata Molle, G., Vallée, M., Tamarii, A., Ohu, N., Aunoa, R., Vaatete, J. 182 Transmission, archipelagos and publics : The renewed museum in Tahiti Vallée, M., and Maric, T. 196 PART III - Intergenerational Transmission and Island Ecologies 209 Tides of change: Youth, museums and heritage in the climate emergency Brown, J. A., and Hall, K. R. N. 210 Reactivating traditional environmental knowledge to increase plant awareness Reid Ford, H. 224 The Betina Museum of Wooden Shipbuilding: Small step for museology, giant leap for local community Babić, D. 236 Layered legacies: Building the future on the knowledge of the past Katurić, A. 247 Micromuseology in Lesvos: Reflecting on large ideas through ‘small places’ Bounia, A. 259 7 Sea of islands and poetics of relation: rethinking islandness Marion Bertin Université catholique de Louvain & -Institut de sciences politiques Louvain-Europe (ISPOLE) – Bruxelles, Belgique [email protected] Karen Brown University of St Andrews – Scotland [email protected] Tell Them “[…] tell them we are papaya golden sunsets bleeding into a glittering open sea we are skies uncluttered majestic in their sweeping landscape we are the ocean terrifying and regal in its power. […] but most importantly tell them we don’t want to leave we’ve never wanted to leave and that we are nothing without our islands.” (Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, 2011)1 From a continental European perspective, islands have long been considered as separated and isolated spaces, disconnected from one another and from the rest of their environment. Colonial histories, as well as cultural and scientific movements, have further created boundaries between islands, people and things. This double special issue of the ICOFOM Study Series aims to rethink such a perspective on islands by bringing together papers from around the world that draw on alternative views, notably from the Pacific and Caribbean regions concerning oceanic islands (i.e. those formed of coral or undersea volcanic eruptions [Deleuze, 2002]). Resonating through many of the papers will be the type of island thinking associated with the poem cited above by the Marshallese poet, 1 Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner’s best-known poem Tell Them (2011), warns of the consequences for Pacific atolls of the rising sea levels. https://www.kathyjetnilkijiner.com Introduction: 8 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 performer, educator and activist Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, which expresses a view of interconnectivity between people and the ocean and a native resistance to displacement. Tongan-Fijian scholar Epeli Hau‘ofa (1939–2009) (“Our Sea of Islands”, 1994), and Martiniquais scholar and poet Édouard Glissant (1928-2011) (Poetics of Relation, 1996) previously emphasised related ideas of sea connectedness and subterranean relationality rather than separateness; a key concept common to many of the papers that follow. Island studies and its misconceptions have been shaped by the distinctive features of islands, not least their state of being surrounded by water and being seen to be “remote” from a mainland perspective. For example, the term insular/insularity, derived from the Latin, differs in use between the French (insulaire, where it implies an idea of remoteness and mental isolation), and the English (where it has been associated at times with a negative form of introspection). Similarly, ideas of boundedness associated with islands can be construed as adverse if seen as a form of enclosure. From an islander’s point of view, however, the richness of their culture, sense of place, and world view (dùtchas in Scottish Gaelic), negates metropole perceptions of the “remoteness” of islands (Brown, 2019), and opens more pathways to interconnectivity. In the field of memory studies, the term transnational prompts discourse about collective memory beyond the nation state (De Cesari & Rigney, 2014). This allows new understandings of networks of commerce and exchange across national borders, and of the concept of “local” within broader transnational imaginaries (Bond, 2023). In the words of De Cesari and Rigney, transnationalism “recognizes the significance of national frameworks alongside the potential of cultural production both to reinforce and to transcend them”, so that we might rather study “non-linear trajectories and complex temporalities” through a more open framework (De Cesari & Rigney, 2014, pp. 19, 23). Taking these premises as a cue for a discussion among island museums and heritage communities, the transnational prompts us to ask questions: How do island memory cultures work? How do museum narratives interact transnationally, notably along the fault lines created by colonialism, as “transnational cross-currents were also at the heart of colonialism, slavery, and other forms of exploitation by globalized capital involving the violent asymmetrical entanglement of racialized communities” (De Cesari & Rigney, 2014, p. 24)? As noted above, writers from different islands have suggested that islands are spaces of connectivity through the sea surrounding them. Many islanders, notably those from Oceania, have a long history of multigenerational oceanic voyages of encounters (Lowenthal, 2007). In his foundational and highly cited article “Our Sea of Islands” (1994), Hau‘ofa describes how Pacific islanders were not living on “islands in a far sea” but are inhabitants of a “sea of islands”, rebutting the long-term continental perspective. For him, “outsiders often conceive of islands as separated and confined as well as defined through their (national) borders, which often arose from colonial and decolonial dynamics thereby overlooking connectivity, heterogeneity, and complexity” (p. 152). Hau‘ofa invokes the myths, legends, oral traditions and cosmologies of the peoples of Oceania, which include the ocean, heavens and underworld as part of an Oceania that is anything but focused on smallness of scale as characterised by continental views. Other oceans and seas across the globe have been serving as roads that connect peoples and spaces, allowing the circulation of tangible and intangible things. The Indian Ocean, for example, has long been a commercial road that connected East African empires and Asia (Bouchet, 2019; Nativel & Ragoanah, 2007). In the context of the Caribbean, the 9 triangular trade route is another oceanic passage carrying not only peoples and goods but also diverse cultures, histories, practices, livelihoods and memories. Through these routes, tangible and intangible things were taken from one space to another across national borders. For enslaved peoples who had been displaced from West Africa to the Caribbean islands, the trade routes created a diasporic culture rooted in the idea of exile and absence (Chamoiseau, 2016; Chivallon, 2004; Cottias et al., 2010). The mental trans-oceanic connection fostered the idea of a “Black Atlantic” that brings together African peoples with islanders of African descent in the Caribbean islands as well as continental America (Gilroy, 1993; see also the authors of the French-speaking Négritude). Indeed, Caribbean island museologies feature strongly in this special issue, and the history of the Caribbean cannot be separated from the trauma of transatlantic slavery and colonialism in the Americas. Several authors from the Caribbean have endeavoured to think of the impact of this traumatic history on behalf of their populations. Patrick Chamoiseau describes exile and its consequences when creating from absence, memory lapses, and very few traces: a “matière de l’absence” (2016). Edouard Glissant, born in French Martinique, defends the idea of the “poetics of relation” to express the interrelations and encounters between people, things and histories in the Caribbean, especially regarding the African continent, where most of the Caribbean people originated from. He used the concept of rhizome2 as a way to explain how the Caribbean peoples are linked together and with other places around the world; a concept recently taken up by scholars in the field of museology to both critique the display of art and to conceive of a Caribbean museology and community practice functioning outside the traditional museum, which is associated with colonialism and extraction (Keohane, 2023; McGuire, 2023). Within the Shared Island Stories project, Trinidadian historian Heather Cateau has recently propounded the concept of reassembling the fragments of hidden stories of the middle and working classes between Scotland and the Caribbean – involving a detailed archival project operating on both sides of the Atlantic (Cateau, 2024). With Hau‘ofa, other Pacific thinkers redefined the connection between the islands and against colonial borders and defended the idea of Moana Oceania.3 Such thinking from the Pacific and Caribbean regions and beyond has participated in the repositioning of islanders within a global context as they encourage the idea of thinking outside national borders by calling for a transnational conception of islands and the world. Island heritages today, therefore, do not see the ocean as a barrier or the land as security. Rather, as explored by Foley et al. (following the works of Tsing, 2015; Pugh & Chandler, 2021), island studies today often focuses on the power of island thinking beyond the linear progress and development associated with modernity (Foley et al., 2023), through an emphasis on islands’ relationalities and Indigenous practices. In the end they conclude: “Island cultures and islandness can emphasize mobility and movement while also remaining deeply connected to place” (Foley et al., 2023, p. 1809). Island museologies and heritages: what are they? In this context, what do island heritages in the world have in common? It is difficult to consider island heritages as a whole, considering how diverse they are. However, as many authors show in this special issue, island heritages from different territories and trajec2 In botany, a rhizome is a plant stem that grows horizontally rather than vertically underground, producing roots at strategic points for new plant growth. 3 Moana means Ocean in Polynesian languages. 16 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 In their paper “Narratives and island heritage representation: Navigating the Ainu exhibitions on Hokkaido”, Nicolle Bittencourt and Yi-An Chen also engage with the representation of Indigenous culture – in this case, the people of Hokkaido Island in Japan. In examining four exhibitions from the island, they question ideas of cultural expression and agency. Engaging in critical debates based on museology relating to the rights of marginalized groups, as well as postcolonial theory more broadly, they showcase how there is a challenge in places, including but not limited to the national museum and park, to engage critically with legacies of settler colonialism, contemporary Ainu struggles, and “a more just and inclusive national memory.” Their text reminds us of the important role of museums in shaping national identities and narratives through inclusion and exclusion. Chen’s paper “Empowering narratives: Rethinking Taiwan through the National Museum of History in Taiwan” then looks in depth at the Oceanic Taiwan exhibition at Taiwan’s National Museum of History to open more debate on national identity through museum narratives at the crossroads of the Pacific Ocean and continental China. Also focused on a marginalized and disenfranchised community, Leilani Wong’s paper “Museums as social action: Building equity in marginalised communities” takes the case study of the ecomuseum of Te Fare Natura (“the house of nature”) in Moorea, French Polynesia, to illustrate a success story of youth empowerment through museum development. By addressing specific needs identified by the community, the ecomuseum has brought over 400 Ma’ohi students out of a situation of poverty and social issues under a dominant colonial administration to a place of growth through the revival of knowledge around Polynesian ecosystems of land and sea in a delicate insular environment. By uplifting traditional practices and cosmovisions through non-Western forms of learning, including oral transmission, the project has enabled youths to understand their value as agents of environmental protection through ancestral lineage and begin a path of emancipation. Viewing the concept of ecomuseum in a Polynesian context, this example shows how a museum can be a bridge between different knowledges and communities. The case study of the Maison de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (Paris, France), described by Cassandre Decorce in her essay “The exhibition as an emanation of voice: Symbolism and spatial design at the Maison de la Nouvelle-Calédonie”, demonstrates an attempt to bring more of our senses into exhibitions. The exhibition refers to Kanak metaphors such as the importance of the voice, the invisible, and routes and passages, as well as the other communities living in the archipelago in the context of the definition of New Caledonian identity and nation-building. In addition to the exhibition itself, Decorce stresses the importance of people behind the scenes, here the director of the institution. Being a “house” instead of a “museum” the Maison de la Nouvelle-Calédonie invites us to rethink models, including the role that heritage can play as an ambassador when outside its original territory. In their essay entitled “Rediscovering the voice of our objects: Museological approaches and cultural claims in the fenua ènata,” Guillaume Molle, Marine Vallée, Anatauarii Tamarii, Nestor Ohu, Ranka Aunoa, and Joseph Vaatete shine a light on several topics discussed in this volume, such as the reappropriation of knowledge and heritage by source communities. Presenting examples from the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, they discuss the role of museums in keeping “objects alive” (i.e., meaningful to the communities) and in keeping objects inside the archipelago rather than exported. The authors present the case of community and local museums made for the communities. 17 By contrast, in their paper “Transmission, archipelagos and audiences: the renovated museum in Tahiti”, Marine Vallée and Tamara Maric discuss the new display and narratives in the Te Fare Iamanaha – Musée de Tahiti et des Îles, which opened in March 2023 in the administrative centre for French Polynesia. The challenges behind the new permanent display were to bring a more Polynesian perspective on collections and history (instead of a very European-based one), as well as to equally represent the five archipelagos of French Polynesia. One of the key questions here is: Who are museums for? How can they provide knowledge and languages for communities as well as for outsiders? Intergenerational transmission and island ecologies The development of professional skills and cultural reconnection is a theme of the paper “Tides of change: Youth, museums and heritage in the climate emergency” by Jamie Allan Brown and Kaye R. N. Hall, which argues for the “transformative potential of youth-led initiatives” in the case study of the Shared Island Stories youth exchange between Barbados and Scotland’s Outer Hebridean islands. Noting the agency of young people today through their enhanced political awareness and adeptness with new technologies, the example shows how communities affected by the worst impacts of climate change, including sea level rise and biodiversity loss, and sharing histories of colonial legacies and extraction can exchange ideas and practices for more sustainable futures, ultimately influencing museum policy. For example, engaging in workshops on traditional plants and TEK in both countries was seen to promote sustainable behaviours. This is a topic explored in depth by Hannah Reid Ford in her paper “Reactivating traditional environmental knowledge to increase plant awareness.” Engaging with ideas of “plant blindness” on the small Caribbean islands of Cayman and drawing from archival and ethnographic research, Reid Ford recognises the links between loss and degradation of biological diversity and cultural diversity (naming this phenomenon “biocultural diversity”) and argues for the revitalisation of Caymanian awareness of plants through museum education aimed at enhancing nature-connectedness and awareness of morethan-human worlds, resulting in pro-environmental behaviours. These two chapters, therefore, join a major theme in this special issue, that of the role of museums – especially small, local, community, ecomuseums or micro-museums – in fostering cultural sustainability through a living connection between the past and present, preserving personal and collective memory, and promoting intergenerational learning, notably about traditional knowledge and climate change. This topic is further explored in the essay “The Betina Museum of Wooden Shipbuilding: Small step for museology, giant leap for local community” by Darko Babić, which showcases this European award-winning museum on the island of Betina in Croatia. Begun as a bottom-up community initiative, the museum is shown to be very sustainable in a local context through its collections, open-air museum, community engagement and surrounding activities, including an inspired initiative to display living heritage in the local harbour by mooring active and maintained boats to both preserve traditional crafts and promote sustainable island tourism. Also highlighting the role of the sea as a vital component of local heritage is “Layered legacies: Building the future on the knowledge of the past” by Ana Katurić. It discusses how the Croatian Coral Centre at Zlarin Island goes beyond presenting the history of coral harvesting to become a platform for climate action, cultural memory and participatory heritage-making involving the local community, NGOs, and the scientific and artistic 18 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 communities. In exploring the relationship between the community and the sea, co-creative activities have ranged from exhibition design and equitable resource management to plastic-free island action. In this way, important artefacts become interwoven with accurate scientific data and artistic intervention to display and share island lives and society in an effort to move towards cultural revitalisation and community empowerment. These themes are present in the paper by Alexandra Bounia on the topic of “Micromuseology in Lesvos: Reflecting on large ideas through ‘small places’,” which reflects upon three grassroots museums on the island of Lesvos in Greece that are focused on refugee memory, resin collection, and local folklore. Usually created by elderly members of the community to preserve the memories of their past, to transfer memories and a sense of shared value to younger generations, and to support community futures, these institutions are presented as alternative, emotive and protected forms of memory-making. In so doing, the author also seeks to answer the question, “How can the knowledge and expertise generated by and in these small institutions introduce new ideas and/or allow for new perspectives in debates that are very pertinent to museology today?” Here, the author describes how emotions are part of the community museology, a topic that relates back to the idea of emotions as revealed in Widdis’s and Reisz’s essay opening this volume. We hope that this double issue will give voice and light to the numerous island heritages and museologies presented here, and that it will encourage more research on them in the future. Funding Acknowledgements The Shared Island Stories research project was selected by the European Research Council (ERC) and funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) with reference: EP/X023036/1. We also thank all the institutions that contributed to fund the international conference held in New Caledonia in October 2023: Association des musées et des établissements patrimoniaux de Nouvelle-Calédonie, Université de Nouvelle-Calédonie and research team TROCA, Province Sud, Province Nord, Province des îles, Mission des Affaires culturelles de Nouvelle-Calédonie and the Gouvernement de Nouvelle-Calédonie. 19 Mer d’îles et poétique de la relation : repenser l’insularité Marion Bertin Université catholique de Louvain & Institut de sciences politiques Louvain-Europe (ISPOLE) – Bruxelles, Belgique [email protected] Karen Brown University of St Andrews – Scotland [email protected] Tell Them “[…] tell them we are papaya golden sunsets bleeding into a glittering open sea we are skies uncluttered majestic in their sweeping landscape we are the ocean terrifying and regal in its power. […] but most importantly tell them we don’t want to leave we’ve never wanted to leave and that we are nothing without our islands.” (Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, 2011)6 D’un point de vue européen continental, les îles ont longtemps été perçues comme des espaces séparés et isolés, déconnectés les uns des autres et du reste de leur environnement. L’histoire coloniale, ainsi que les mouvements culturels et scientifiques, ont renforcé ces frontières entre les îles, les peuples et les choses. Ce double numéro spécial des ICOFOM Study Series vise à repenser cette perspective en rassemblant des contributions venues du monde entier qui proposent des visions alternatives, notamment depuis les régions pacifique et caribéenne en ce qui concerne les îles océaniques (c’est-à-dire celles formées par des coraux ou des éruptions volcaniques sous-marines [Deleuze, 2002]). De nombreuses contributions résonnent avec la pensée insulaire incarnée dans le poème cité ci-dessus 6 Le poème le plus connu de Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner,Tell Them(2011), met en garde contre les conséquences de l’élévation du niveau de la mer pour les atolls du Pacifique. https://www.kathyjetnilkijiner.com Introduction : 20 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 rédigé par la poétesse, performeuse, enseignante et militante marshallaise Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, qui exprime une vision de l’interconnexion entre les peuples et l’océan, ainsi qu’une résistance autochtone au déplacement. Le chercheur tongien-fidjien Epeli Hau‘ofa (1939– 2009) (« Our sea of islands », 1994) et le poète et penseur martiniquais Édouard Glissant (1928–2011) (Poétique de la relation, 1996) avaient déjà souligné des idées similaires sur la connectivité maritime et la relation souterraine plutôt que sur la séparation – un concept clé partagé par nombre des contributions incluses ici. Les études insulaires se sont arrêtées sur certaines caractéristiques particulières des îles, notamment le fait qu’elles soient entourées d’eau et perçues comme « éloignées » depuis une perspective continentale. Par exemple, le terme insulaire/insularité, dérivé du latin, diffère dans son usage entre le français (où il implique une idée d’éloignement et d’isolement mental) et l’anglais (insular, où il est parfois associé à une introspection perçue de manière négative). De même, l’idée d’enclavement associée aux îles peut être perçue négativement si elle est considérée comme une forme d’enfermement. Du point de vue des communautés insulaires, cependant, la richesse de leur culture, leur sentiment d’appartenance et leur vision du monde (dùtchas en gaélique écossais), contredisent la perception métropolitaine de l’ « éloignement » des îles (Brown, 2019), et ouvrent la voie à une interconnectivité plus vaste. Dans le domaine des études mémorielles, le terme transnational suscite des discussions autour de la mémoire collective au-delà de l’État-nation (De Cesari & Rigney, 2014). Cela permet de nouvelles compréhensions des réseaux de commerce et d’échange au-delà des frontières nationales, et de la notion de « local » dans des imaginaires transnationaux plus larges (Bond, 2023). Comme l’expriment De Cesari et Rigney, le transnationalisme « reconnaît la pertinence des cadres nationaux tout en soulignant le potentiel de la production culturelle à la fois pour les renforcer et les transcender », de sorte que nous puissions plutôt étudier des « trajectoires non linéaires et des temporalités complexes » à travers un cadre plus ouvert (2014, p. 19, 23). En prenant ces prémisses comme point de départ pour une discussion sur les musées insulaires et les communautés patrimoniales, le transnational nous pousse à poser comme questions : comment fonctionnent les cultures mémorielles insulaires ? Comment les récits muséaux interagissent-ils à l’échelle transnationale, notamment le long des lignes de fracture créées par le colonialisme, puisque « les courants transnationaux étaient également au cœur du colonialisme, de l’esclavage et d’autres formes d’exploitation par le capital mondialisé, impliquant l’enchevêtrement asymétrique et violent des communautés racisées » (De Cesari & Rigney, 2014, p. 24) ? Comme mentionné plus haut, des auteurrices issus de différentes îles ont proposé que ces dernières soient vues comme des espaces de connectivité via la mer qui les entoure. De nombreux insulaires, notamment celleux d’Océanie, ont une longue histoire de voyages océaniques multigénérationnels (Lowenthal, 2007). Dans son article fondateur et largement cité « Our sea of islands » (1994), Hau‘ofa décrit comment les insulaires du Pacifique ne vivent pas dans des « îles dans une mer lointaine », mais sont les habitant.e.s d’une « mer d’îles », en opposition à la perspective continentale dominante. Pour lui, « les étrangers conçoivent souvent les îles comme séparées et confinées, définies par leurs frontières (nationales), qui résultent souvent de dynamiques coloniales et décoloniales, négligeant ainsi la connectivité, l’hétérogénéité et la complexité » (p. 152). Hau‘ofa invoque les mythes, légendes, traditions orales et cosmologies des peuples d’Océanie, qui intègrent l’océan, les cieux et le monde souterrain comme faisant partie d’une Océanie qui ne se concentre en rien sur la petitesse, comme le suppose une vision continentale. 21 D’autres océans et mers à travers le monde ont servi de routes reliant des peuples et des espaces, permettant la circulation d’entités matérielles et immatérielles. L’océan Indien, par exemple, a longtemps été une voie commerciale reliant les empires d’Afrique orientale et l’Asie (Bouchet, 2019 ; Nativel & Ragoanah, 2007). Dans le contexte caribéen, la route empruntée pour le commerce triangulaire est un autre itinéraire maritime transportant non seulement des personnes et des marchandises, mais aussi des cultures, des histoires, des pratiques, des modes de vie et des mémoires diverses. Par ces routes, des éléments tangibles et intangibles ont été transportés d’un espace à un autre au-delà des frontières nationales. Pour les peuples réduits en esclavage, déplacés d’Afrique de l’Ouest vers les îles des Caraïbes, ces routes commerciales ont créé une culture diasporique enracinée dans l’exil et l’absence (Chamoiseau, 2016 ; Chivallon, 2004 ; Cottias et al., 2010). Cette connexion mentale transocéanique a nourri l’idée d’un « Atlantique noir » réunissant les peuples africains et les insulaires d’origine africaine dans les Caraïbes ainsi qu’en Amérique continentale (Gilroy, 1993 ; voir aussi les auteurrices de la Négritude francophone). Les muséologies insulaires caribéennes occupent en effet une place importante dans ce numéro spécial, car l’histoire des Caraïbes ne peut être dissociée des traumatismes de l’esclavage transatlantique et du colonialisme dans les Amériques. Plusieurs auteurrices originaires des Caraïbes se sont attachés à réfléchir à l’impact de cette histoire traumatique pour leurs populations. Patrick Chamoiseau décrit l’exil et ses conséquences, qui invitent à créer à partir de l’absence, des lacunes mémorielles et de très peu de traces : c’està-dire une « matière de l’absence » (2016). Édouard Glissant, né en Martinique, défend l’idée d’une « poétique de la relation » pour exprimer les interrelations et les rencontres entre les personnes, les choses et les histoires dans les Caraïbes, notamment en lien avec le continent africain, d’où sont originaires la plupart des populations caribéennes. Il utilise le concept de rhizome7 pour expliquer comment les peuples caribéens sont liés entre eux et avec d’autres régions du monde ; un concept récemment repris par des chercheur.se.s en muséologie pour critiquer à la fois les modes d’exposition artistique et penser une muséologie caribéenne et une pratique communautaire s’inscrivant en dehors du musée traditionnel, trop souvent associé au colonialisme et à l’extraction (Keohane, 2023 ; McGuire, 2023). Dans le cadre du projetShared Island Stories, l’historienne trinidadienne Heather Cateau a récemment développé le concept de reconstitution de « fragments d’histoires cachées » des classes moyennes et populaires entre l’Écosse et les Caraïbes – un projet archivistique approfondi mené de part et d’autre de l’Atlantique (Cateau, 2024). Avec Hau‘ofa, d’autres penseur.se.s du Pacifique ont redéfini la connexion entre les îles, au-delà des frontières coloniales, et défendu l’idée deMoana Oceania8. Ces réflexions issues du Pacifique, des Caraïbes et d’ailleurs ont contribué à repositionner les insulaires dans un contexte mondial, en encourageant une vision transnationale des îles et du monde, au-delà des frontières nationales. Aujourd’hui, les patrimoines insulaires ne considèrent donc ni l’océan comme une barrière, ni la terre comme une sécurité. Comme l’explorent Foley et al. (à la suite des travaux de Tsing, 2015 ; Pugh & Chandler, 2021), les études insulaires actuelles mettent souvent l’accent sur le pouvoir d’une pensée insulaire libérée du modèle de développement linéaire associé à la modernité (Foley et al., 2023), en valorisant les relationalités propres aux îles ainsi que les pratiques autochtones. Comme le concluent Foley et al. : « Les cultures insulaires et l’insularité peuvent mettre l’accent à la fois sur la mobilité et le déplacement, tout en restant profondément ancrées dans un lieu » (2023, p. 1809). 7 En botanique, un rhizome est une tige souterraine qui pousse horizontalement plutôt que verticalement, produisant des racines à des points stratégiques pour permettre la croissance de nouvelles plantes. 8 Moanasignifie « océan » dans les langues polynésiennes. 22 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Muséologies et patrimoines insulaires : de quoi s’agit-il ? Dans ce contexte, qu’ont en commun les patrimoines insulaires à travers le monde ? Il est difficile de considérer les patrimoines insulaires comme un ensemble homogène, tant ils sont diversifiés. Toutefois, comme le montrent de nombreux auteur.rice.s de ce numéro spécial, les patrimoines insulaires de différents territoires et trajectoires partagent certaines caractéristiques. En effet, les patrimoines insulaires ont subi – et certains subissent encore – la dispersion, la déconnexion, la perte, la destruction, le désintérêt, l’absence de préservation et de transmission, la mauvaise représentation et la marginalisation, entre autres problèmes. Pendant la période coloniale et lors de la formation des États-nations, les cultures immatérielles furent interdites ou oubliées. De nombreuses langues, par exemple, étaient interdites ou pratiquées en secret. Or, depuis plusieurs décennies, les communautés insulaires défendent leurs identités par leurs cultures et leurs patrimoines. Parallèlement, des vagues de « collecte insulaire » (island collecting, Longair, 2024) ont provoqué la dispersion des cultures matérielles (voir les articles de Widdis & Reisz et de Scuderi dans ce volume). Les collectes ont pris diverses formes, allant du don au pillage violent. À travers l’histoire de ces collectes, les objets matériels issus des îles ont circulé à travers le monde et intégré des collections publiques et privées (Melandri & Guiot, 2021). Depuis les années 1960, les musées et les communautés locales travaillent ensemble pour redéfinir les relations et les autorités, ainsi que pour transformer les représentations et les récits (Peers & Brown, 2003). Comme l’illustrent plusieurs articles de ce volume, les projets collaboratifs, les bases de données numériques, les expositions et les collaborations avec des artistes sont autant d’outils utilisés pour reconnecter les objets matériels avec les descendant.e.s de celleux qui les ont créés. L’établissement des sociétés coloniales dans ce « confetti d’empire » a également favorisé l’émergence de nouveaux objets patrimoniaux : curiosités, objets de commerce, productions artistiques ou décoratives d’inspiration occidentale, arts graphiques, patrimoines militaire et religieux, épaves. Le statut de ces objets – qui servent de témoins culturels et historiques – continue de susciter des questionnements parmi les populations insulaires aujourd’hui. Ces exemples illustrent la pluralité des patrimoines insulaires, la complexité de leur histoire et les défis que pose leur valorisation contemporaine. Quelles sont, dès lors, les modalités appropriées pour partager les patrimoines insulaires ? Les musées nationaux et municipaux de grande envergure proviennent souvent d’anciens musées coloniaux construits aux XIXe et XXe siècles, et conservent parfois des récits ancrés dans l’histoire impériale et coloniale. Or leur nombre reste limité dans de nombreux archipels. Par exemple, dans les Caraïbes anglophones, les musées les plus connus sont le Musée et galerie nationale d’art de Port of Spain à Trinité (fondé en 1892), la Galerie nationale de Jamaïque à Kingston (fondée en 1974), et la Galerie nationale de Grand Cayman (fondée en 1996). Ces institutions, critiquées par Alissandra Cummins pour leurs pratiques occidentales et leurs récits coloniaux (Cummins, 2004), ont été analysées sous l’angle de la construction d’une séparation entre nature et culture, ce dont témoigne le développement du Musée de la Barbade et de la Société historique. En parallèle, ce faible nombre de musées nationaux est compensé par la forte présence de musées communautaires et d’initiatives patrimoniales locales, dont plusieurs peuvent être considérées comme des modèles en matière de recherche durabilité des modes de vie insulaires (Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke, 2018 ; Brown et al., 2019 ; Brown & Caesar, 2020). 23 Dans les îles du Pacifique, les musées nationaux ont été réorgansiés à partir des années 1980, tandis que de nombreux centres culturels et musées communautaires ont été créés pour promouvoir et valoriser les cultures et patrimoines autochtones – une thématique explorée plus en détail par Conal McCarthy et Tarisi Vunidilo dans ce volume. Les pratiques issues de ces différents modèles de gestion du patrimoine se rapprochent : les musées nationaux sont aujourd’hui appelés à prendre en compte les perspectives et les pratiques autochtones relatives au patrimoine. C’est notamment le cas en Aotearoa (Nouvelle-Zélande), où Te Papa Tongarewa, le musée national, a été conçu comme une institution biculturelle mettant l’accent sur la culture māori, où la politique du Mana Taonga reconnaît la valeur ancestrale des collections pour les Māoris. LeVanuatu Kaljoral Sentaà Port-Vila (Vanuatu) est également une institution centrée sur les communautés de l’archipel (Geismar, 2003). Toutefois, l’un des défis majeurs pour ces musées est de parvenir à construire un récit national reflétant les sociétés postcoloniales dans leur diversité – à savoir les populations autochtones, les vagues migratoires liées aux régimes coloniaux et à l’expansion capitaliste (Bertin, 2020), comme le montre Cassandre Decorce pour la Nouvelle-Calédonie dans ce numéro. L’article de Marine Vallée illustre aussi les difficultés à représenter une grande diversité de communautés dans un récit national – ici, celui de la Polynésie française, composée de 118 îles. Présentation du volume Ce numéro spécial des ICOFOM Study Series est le résultat de deux colloques organisés en 2023 et 2024 par le Comité international pour la muséologie (ICOFOM), en partenariat avec diverses institutions situées dans différents territoires insulaires. Plusieurs articles proviennent de recherches menées dans le cadre du projet pluridisciplinaireShared Island Stories between Scotland and the Caribbean: Past, Present, Future (2022–2027), qui interroge les relations culturelles entre ces deux archipels9. Shared Island Stories a notamment été inspiré par les récentes déclarations concernant les liens entre l’Écosse et la traite transatlantique des esclaves, en particulier via l’achat d’îles à travers le système britannique de compensation esclavagiste dans les Caraïbes, ainsi qu’un rapport duNational Trust for Scotlandsur les liens historiques entre ces propriétés et l’histoire transatlantique (MacKinnon et Mackillop, 2020 ; Melville, 2021). En lien avec des recherches déjà engagées sur les questions de durabilité, de bien-être et de vie insulaire, ce contexte a conduit à la constitution d’une équipe pluridisciplinaire réunissant des chercheur.se.s et expert.e.s implqiué.e.s en histoire, en études patrimoniales, en études pour le développement durable, en histoire de l'art et en études mémorielles. Parmi les questions posées par ce projet figurent notamment : comment contester les récits historiques à travers des archives appropriées, notamment dans l’objectif de décrire les histoires cachées de la vie quotidienne ? Quelles sont les formes d’agency impliquées dans les mobilités et les déplacements – par exemple, le partage des savoirs comme forme de résilience ? En lien avec ce projet, une conférence internationale et le 47e symposium annuel de l’ICOFOM ont été organisés à l’Université de St Andrews en juin 2024, sur le thèmeTransnational Island Museologies (Brown et al., 2024 ; Shared Island Stories, 2024). 9 Ce projet de recherche a été sélectionné par le Conseil européen de la recherche (ERC), financé par UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) sous la référence : EP/X023036/1, et est coordonné par la professeure Karen Brown. 24 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 D’autres articles de ce volume sont issus d’un colloque international organisé en Nouvelle-Calédonie, en collaboration entre l’ICOFOM, l’Association des musées et établissements patrimoniaux de Nouvelle-Calédonie (AMEPNC) et l’Université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie10. Ce colloque, intitulé Favoriser la visibilité et l’attractivité des patrimoines insulaires : un enjeu muséologique du XXIème siècle, portait sur les contradictions auxquelles sont confrontés les musées et les patrimoines insulaires face à la montée des eaux et aux changements climatiques, en plus des enjeux de conservation et de transmission. Le colloque s’est tenu en octobre 2023 et s’est déroulé en deux temps : trois jours de présentations à l’Université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, à Nouméa, suivis de visites dans les trois provinces de l’archipel, permettant des rencontres avec les professionnel.le.s du patrimoine et la découverte des patrimoines matériels et immatériels. Ces deux colloques sont nés d’une même idée : offrir un large panorama des muséologies et patrimoines insulaires. En travaillant sur les patrimoines insulaires, il devient clair que les taxonomies créées par les disciplines hégémoniques occidentales ne peuvent refléter de manière authentique l’interconnexion profonde entre les personnes, les choses et les environnements – comme nous le rappelle Conal McCarthy dans son essai, issu de sa conférence plénière prononcée à l’Université de St Andrews en juin 2024. Les articles sélectionnés et publiés dans ce volume couvrent un large éventail de disciplines, de la muséologie à l’histoire de l’art, de l’histoire coloniale aux études mémorielles, des études patrimoniales aux sciences de l’environnement. Les méthodologies mobilisées sont nécessairement inter-, transet pluridisciplinaires, afin de saisir la complexité des récits et patrimoines insulaires transnationaux. Ils abordent des sous-thèmes communs, notamment les récits et les rapports de pouvoir sous-jacents aux patrimoines insulaires. Qui raconte l’histoire et qui contrôle la mise en récit ? Comment le patrimoine insulaire peut-il s’ouvrir aux récits invisibles de l’Empire ? Les communautés insulaires ont été marginalisées sous les régimes coloniaux et les États-nations : remettre en question les récits nationaux pour mieux représenter le patrimoine et les identités insulaires reste un enjeu, comme le montrent les articles de Nicole Bittencourt et Yi-An Chen sur les Aïnus au Japon, ainsi que celui de Chen sur les héritages océaniques de Taïwan qui défient les perspectives continentales sinocentriques. Ces textes nous rappellent l’importance du patrimoine dans la construction identitaire : les musées et les patrimoines peuvent être de puissants outils d’affirmation des identités, mais ce sont aussi des institutions de pouvoir, qui créent des dynamiques d’inclusion et d’exclusion. Transmission des savoirs traditionnels : quels enjeux ? La transmission des savoirs traditionnels était un thème central des deux colloques. Les études de cas présentées dans les articles illustrent la diversité des modes de transmission lorsqu’il s’agit de patrimoines insulaires. Les collections d’objets et les expositions muséales sont loin d’être les seules voies de transmission vers les communautés et le grand public. La transmission intergénérationnelle – notamment le rôle de la jeunesse – est essentielle, comme l’illustre le projetShared Island Stories (voir l’article de Jamie Allan Brown et Kaye Hall dans ce volume). Leur contribution, ainsi que l’étude de cas présentée par Leilani Wong sur l’écomusée de Te Fare Natura, offrent un aperçu des multiples acteurrices impliqués dans la transmission du patrimoine insulaire : jeunes générations, ONG, gouvernements, communautés autochtones et d’origine, artistes, professionnel.le.s du patrimoine, musées et autres institutions patrimoniales. 10 Les enregistrements sont disponibles en ligne :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpyAXibUc3w&list=PLJqRixIMtlnTz_tXddIk7kuY_14-fbmV_. 25 Au final, plusieurs approches autochtones pour l’apprentissage, la transmission et la compréhension du patrimoine ont été présentées lors des deux événements, incluant des témoignages oraux et d’expériences vécues. Ces visions autochtones du patrimoine et de sa transmission permettent de déconstruire le modèle muséal hérité du monde européen et des Lumières. Conal McCarthy et Tarisi Vunidilo citent tous deux l’essai du chercheur māori Hirini Sidney Moko Mead (1983), consacré aux modèles océaniens de préservation et de transmission du patrimoine. Centres culturels, maisons, écomusées, musées communautaires, micro-muséologies, entre autres, sont autant de modèles adoptés dans les îles du monde entier pour mieux correspondre à leurs communautés d’origine (voir, par exemple, les chapitres d’Alexandria Bounia et de Darko Babić dans ce volume). Ce faisant, ces muséologies insulaires renforcent les liens avec les communautés locales qui sont véritablement des actrices du travail muséal. Elles situent également l’expérience et les émotions au cœur de la transmission, y compris pour les personnes extérieures aux communautés d’origine. De nombreux témoignages des cultures insulaires sont aujourd’hui dispersés dans les collections muséales à travers le monde. Des projets collaboratifs, et parfois les nouvelles technologies telles que les bases de données, sont mobilisés pour reconnecter et imaginer de nouveaux modes de préservation de ce patrimoine, tout en respectant et en impliquant les communautés locales. Le partage de l’autorité et des savoirs est une étape essentielle pour inclure de nouvelles voix dans les collections muséales (voir dans ce volume les contributions de Barsinas et al., Bertin & Tissandier, Vunidilo). Mais que se passe-t-il lorsque la transmission s’interrompt ? Quels sont les risques auxquels les patrimoines insulaires sont confrontés ? Parmi eux citons: le déclin des pratiques autochtones causé par le colonialisme, les missions religieuses et l’esclavage ; la crise climatique et la montée des eaux ; les catastrophes naturelles. Que peut-on faire ? Quelle est la résilience possible des îles ? Face aux menaces que représentent le tourisme intensif, l’érosion côtière et la montée des eaux, la numérisation du patrimoine insulaire est souvent présentée comme une solution. Dans un monde post-pandémique globalisé, la visibilité du patrimoine insulaire augmente grâce au numérique. Toutefois, ces projets de numérisation peuvent reproduire le regard touristique, hérité de l’administration coloniale (Thompson, 2007) – une question soulevée par plusieurs auteur.rice.s de ce numéro, notamment dans le cas des îles Marquises. Comment la muséologie peut-elle conjuguer histoire et technologie, tout en prenant en compte les fractures numériques subies par certaines populations, et faciliter les échanges à distance avec le reste du monde ? D’autres formes de visibilité sont-elles préférables ? Et par ailleurs, cette visibilité est-elle dépendante du bon fonctionnement du secteur touristique ? Quelles sont les logiques économiques sous-jacentes à cet effort de visibilité ? Face à l’urgence climatique, les médias présentent souvent les îles comme des lieux menacés dans leur territoire et leurs modes de vie. À l’échelle internationale, on reconnaît de plus en plus la valeur des savoirs autochtones et traditionnels en matière de résilience climatique et de préservation des écosystèmes humains et naturels. Pourtant, bien que la diversité bioculturelle autochtone soit de plus en plus valorisée, elle est également en voie de disparition à un rythme alarmant. Environ un dixième de la population mondiale vit sur des îles (Lowenthal, 2007). Celles-ci ne couvrent que « 6,7 % de la surface terrestre » mais « abritent environ 20 % de la biodiversité mondiale et, malheureusement, également près de 50 % des espèces menacées et 75 % des extinctions connues depuis l’expansion européenne à travers le monde » (Fernández-Palacios et al., 2021). 32 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Mar de islas y poética de la relación: repensar la insularidad Marion Bertin Université catholique de Louvain & Fonds national scientifique de la recherche (FNRS) – Bruxelles, Belgique [email protected] Karen Brown University of St Andrews – Scotland [email protected] Tell Them “[…] tell them we are papaya golden sunsets bleeding into a glittering open sea we are skies uncluttered majestic in their sweeping landscape we are the ocean terrifying and regal in its power. […] but most importantly tell them we don’t want to leave we’ve never wanted to leave and that we are nothing without our islands.” (Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, 2011)11 Desde una perspectiva europea continental, las islas han sido durante mucho tiempo consideradas como espacios separados y aislados, desconectados entre sí y de su entorno más amplio. Las historias coloniales, así como los movimientos culturales y científicos, han reforzado las fronteras entre islas, pueblos y objetos. Este número doble especial de laICOFOM Study Series propone repensar esta visión tradicional de las islas, reuniendo 11 El poema más conocido de Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner,Tell Them(2011), advierte sobre las consecuencias del aumento del nivel del mar para los atolones del Pacífico. https://www.kathyjetnilkijiner. com Introducción: 33 contribuciones de todo el mundo que exploran perspectivas alternativas, especialmente desde las regiones del Pacífico y el Caribe, con relación a las islas oceánicas (es decir, aquellas formadas por coral o por erupciones volcánicas submarinas [Deleuze, 2002]). Muchas de estas contribuciones resuenan con el tipo de pensamiento insular expresado en el poema citado anteriormente de la poeta, activista, docente e intérprete de las Islas Marshall, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, que evoca una visión de interconexión entre los pueblos y el océano, así como una resistencia indígena al desplazamiento. El académico tongano-fiyiano Epeli Hau‘ofa (1939–2009) (“Our sea of islands”, 1994), y el poeta y pensador martiniqués Édouard Glissant (1928–2011) (Poética de la relación, 1996) ya habían desarrollado ideas afines sobre la conectividad marítima y la relacionalidad subterránea en contraposición a la separación; un concepto clave que se refleja en muchos de los artículos que siguen. Los estudios insulares y sus conceptos erróneos han sido modelados por las características distintivas de las islas, en particular su condición de estar rodeadas de agua y su percepción como lugares “remotos” desde una óptica continental. Por ejemplo, el término insular/insularidad, derivado del latín, difiere en su uso entre el francés (insulaire, donde implica aislamiento físico y mental) y el inglés (donde a veces se asocia con una forma negativa de introspección). De manera similar, las ideas de delimitación asociadas a las islas pueden ser vistas negativamente si se interpretan como formas de encierro. Sin embargo, desde el punto de vista de los isleños, la riqueza de su cultura, su sentido de pertenencia y su cosmovisión (dùtchas en gaélico escocés), desmienten las percepciones metropolitanas de “lejanía” (Brown, 2019), y abren caminos hacia la interconectividad. En el ámbito de los estudios de la memoria, el términotransnacional genera discursos sobre la memoria colectiva más allá del Estado-nación (De Cesari & Rigney, 2014). Esta noción permite nuevas comprensiones sobre redes de comercio e intercambio que atraviesan fronteras nacionales, así como sobre el concepto de “lo local” dentro de imaginarios transnacionales más amplios (Bond, 2023). En palabras de De Cesari y Rigney, el transnacionalismo “reconoce la importancia de los marcos nacionales junto con el potencial de la producción cultural tanto para reforzarlos como para trascenderlos”, lo cual nos invita a estudiar “trayectorias no lineales y temporalidades complejas” desde un marco más abierto (De Cesari & Rigney, 2014, pp. 19, 23). Tomando estos principios como punto de partida para una discusión sobre museos insulares y comunidades patrimoniales, el enfoque transnacional nos impulsa a preguntarnos: ¿cómo funcionan las culturas de la memoria en las islas? ¿Cómo interactúan las narrativas museológicas a escala transnacional, especialmente a lo largo de las fracturas producidas por el colonialismo, dado que “las corrientes cruzadas transnacionales también estaban en el corazón del colonialismo, la esclavitud y otras formas de explotación del capital globalizado, implicando la enredada y violenta asimetría de comunidades racializadas”? (De Cesari & Rigney, 2014, p. 24). Como se mencionó anteriormente, autores de distintas islas han propuesto que estas son espacios de conexión a través del mar que las rodea. Muchos pueblos isleños, especialmente los del Pacífico, tienen una larga historia de viajes oceánicos multigeneracionales (Lowenthal, 2007). En su influyente artículo“Our sea of islands” (1994), Hau‘ofa sostiene que los pueblos del Pacífico no vivían en “islas perdidas en un mar lejano”, sino como habitantes de un “mar de islas”, desafiando la visión continental dominante. Según él, “los forasteros suelen concebir las islas como espacios separados y confinados, definidos por sus fronteras (nacionales), muchas veces establecidas por dinámicas coloniales y poscoloniales, y por ello pasan por alto su conectividad, heterogeneidad y complejidad” (p. 152). Hau‘ofa evoca los mitos, leyendas, tradiciones orales y cosmovisiones de los 34 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 pueblos de Oceanía, que integran el océano, el cielo y el inframundo como partes de una Oceanía que no se define por su pequeñez, como sí lo sugiere la mirada continental. Otros océanos y mares del mundo han servido también como rutas que conectan pueblos y territorios, permitiendo la circulación de bienes tangibles e intangibles. El océano Índico, por ejemplo, ha sido durante siglos una vía comercial que conectaba imperios del África oriental con Asia (Bouchet, 2019; Nativel & Ragoanah, 2007). En el contexto del Caribe, la ruta triangular de comercio fue otro corredor marítimo que transportó no solo personas y mercancías, sino también culturas, historias, prácticas, modos de vida y memorias diversas. A través de esas rutas, bienes materiales e inmateriales se trasladaron de un lugar a otro, más allá de las fronteras nacionales. Para los pueblos esclavizados trasladados desde África occidental al Caribe, estas rutas comerciales dieron lugar a una cultura diaspórica basada en la idea del exilio y la ausencia (Chamoiseau, 2016; Chivallon, 2004; Cottias et al., 2010). Esta conexión mental transoceánica alimentó la noción del “Atlántico negro”, que vincula a los pueblos africanos con sus descendientes en las islas caribeñas y en América continental (Gilroy, 1993; véanse también los autores de la Négritude francófona). Las museologías insulares del Caribe tienen una fuerte presencia en este número especial, ya que la historia caribeña no puede separarse del trauma de la esclavitud transatlántica y el colonialismo en las Américas. Diversos autores caribeños han reflexionado sobre el impacto de esta historia traumática en nombre de sus poblaciones. Patrick Chamoiseau describe el exilio y sus consecuencias al crear desde la ausencia, los vacíos de memoria y los rastros mínimos: una “materia de la ausencia” (2016). Édouard Glissant, nacido en Martinica, defendió la idea de una “poética de la relación” para expresar las interrelaciones y los encuentros entre personas, objetos e historias en el Caribe, especialmente con el continente africano, de donde proceden la mayoría de los pueblos caribeños. Utilizó el concepto de rizoma12 como forma de explicar cómo los pueblos del Caribe están interconectados entre sí y con otras regiones del mundo; un concepto que ha sido retomado recientemente por investigadores en museología para criticar tanto las formas de exhibición del arte como para pensar en una museología caribeña y una práctica comunitaria más allá del museo tradicional, vinculado al colonialismo y a la extracción (Keohane, 2023; McGuire, 2023). En el marco del proyecto Shared Island Stories, la historiadora trinitense Heather Cateau ha propuesto recientemente el concepto de reunir los fragmentos de historias ocultas de las clases medias y trabajadoras entre Escocia y el Caribe, a través de un proyecto archivístico detallado llevado a cabo en ambas orillas del Atlántico (Cateau, 2024). Al igual que Hau‘ofa, otros pensadores del Pacífico han redefinido la conexión entre las islas más allá de las fronteras coloniales y han defendido la idea de Moana Oceania.13 Estas reflexiones desde el Pacífico, el Caribe y otras regiones han contribuido a reposicionar a los pueblos isleños en un contexto global, alentando una visión transnacional de las islas y del mundo. Hoy en día, los patrimonios insulares no conciben al océano como una barrera ni a la tierra como una garantía de seguridad. Como exploran Foley et al. (siguiendo los trabajos de Tsing, 2015; Pugh & Chandler, 2021), los estudios insulares contemporáneos se enfocan en el poder del pensamiento insular más allá del progreso lineal y del desarrollo asociado 12 En botánica, un rizoma es un tallo subterráneo que crece horizontalmente en lugar de verticalmente, produciendo raíces en puntos estratégicos para el crecimiento de nuevas plantas. 13 Moanasignifica “océano” en las lenguas polinesias. 35 a la modernidad (Foley et al., 2023), enfatizando las relaciones propias de las islas y las prácticas indígenas. Al final concluyen: “Las culturas insulares y la insularidad pueden destacar tanto la movilidad y el movimiento como la profunda conexión con el lugar” (Foley et al., 2023, p. 1809). Museologías y patrimonios insulares: ¿qué son? En este contexto, ¿qué tienen en común los patrimonios insulares del mundo? Resulta difícil considerar los patrimonios insulares como una totalidad uniforme, dado lo diversos que son. Sin embargo, como demuestran varios autores en este número especial, los patrimonios insulares de diferentes territorios y trayectorias comparten ciertos puntos en común. De hecho, muchos de ellos han sufrido – y algunos siguen sufriendo – dispersión, desconexión, pérdida, destrucción, desinterés, ausencia de conservación y transmisión, representaciones erróneas y marginación, entre otros problemas. Durante la colonización y la formación de los Estados-nación, muchas culturas inmateriales fueron prohibidas u olvidadas. Por ejemplo, a numerosas lenguas se les prohibió su uso o se practicaban en secreto. En las últimas décadas, sin embargo, las comunidades insulares han comenzado a defender sus identidades a través de sus culturas y patrimonios. Paralelamente, olas de “coleccionismo insular” (island collecting, Longair, 2024) provocaron la dispersión de los patrimonios materiales (véanse los artículos de Widdis & Reisz y de Scuderi en este volumen). Estas colecciones se formaron de diversas maneras, desde donaciones hasta saqueos violentos. A través de su historia, los objetos materiales de las islas circularon por todo el mundo y pasaron a formar parte de colecciones públicas y privadas (Melandri & Guiot, 2021). Desde la década de 1960, los museos y las comunidades locales han trabajado conjuntamente para redefinir las relaciones de poder, las formas de representación y las narrativas (Peers & Brown, 2003). Como se muestra en este volumen, los proyectos colaborativos, las bases de datos digitales, las exposiciones y las producciones artísticas son herramientas que permiten reconectar los objetos materiales con los descendientes de quienes los crearon. La implantación de sociedades coloniales en este “confeti del imperio” también favoreció la aparición de nuevos objetos patrimoniales: curiosidades, productos comerciales, obras artísticas o decorativas inspiradas en Occidente, artes gráficas, patrimonios militares y religiosos, y restos de naufragios. El patrimonio – o el estatus – de estos objetos, como testigos culturales e históricos, sigue generando interrogantes entre las poblaciones isleñas hoy en día. Estos ejemplos ilustran la pluralidad de los patrimonios insulares, la complejidad de su historia y los desafíos que enfrentan para su valorización contemporánea. ¿Cuáles serían, entonces, las formas adecuadas de compartir estos patrimonios? Los museos nacionales y municipales de gran escala suelen tener sus orígenes en museos coloniales del siglo diecinueve y veinte y, en consecuencia, a veces conservan narrativas aún marcadas por las historias imperiales. Además, en muchos archipiélagos su número es reducido. Por ejemplo, en el Caribe anglófono, los museos más destacados son el Museo Nacional y Galería de Arte de Puerto España, en Trinidad (fundado en 1892); la Galería Nacional de Jamaica, en Kingston (1974); y la Galería Nacional de Gran Caimán (1996). Estas instituciones, criticadas por Alissandra Cummins por su adhesión a prácticas occidentales y narrativas coloniales (Cummins, 2004), también han sido objeto de análisis desde la perspectiva de la dicotomía naturaleza/cultura en el desarrollo del Museo e Instituto Histórico de Barbados. Sin embargo, la escasez de museos nacionales se compensa 36 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 con la predominancia de museos comunitarios e iniciativas patrimoniales de base local, muchas de las cuales pueden considerarse modelos ejemplares de sostenibilidad en los modos de vida insulares (Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke, 2018; Brown et al., 2019; Brown & Caesar, 2020). En las islas del Pacífico, los museos nacionales han sido reformados desde los años 80, al tiempo que se crearon muchos centros culturales y museos comunitarios para promover y fortalecer las culturas y patrimonios indígenas, como desarrollan Conal McCarthy y Tarisi Vunidilo en este volumen. Las prácticas asociadas a estos distintos modelos de gestión del patrimonio han confluido: los museos nacionales se han visto llamados a integrar perspectivas y saberes indígenas en su trabajo patrimonial. Este es el caso, por ejemplo, en Aotearoa (Nueva Zelanda), donde el Museo Nacional Te Papa Tongarewa se fundó como institución bicultural, con un fuerte enfoque en la cultura maorí, y donde la política Mana Taonga reconoce el valor ancestral de las colecciones para el pueblo maorí. ElVanuatu Kaljoral Senta, en Port Vila (Vanuatu), es otra institución que sitúa a las comunidades del archipiélago en el centro de su labor (Geismar, 2003). No obstante, uno de los grandes desafíos que enfrentan estos museos es la creación de narrativas nacionales que reflejen la diversidad de las sociedades poscoloniales, incluyendo a los pueblos indígenas, las oleadas migratorias del periodo colonial y la expansión capitalista (Bertin, 2020), como demuestra Cassandre Decorce en el caso de Nueva Caledonia en este volumen. El artículo de Marine Vallée, por su parte, expone las dificultades de representar una gran variedad de comunidades dentro de una narrativa nacional común, en el caso de la Polinesia Francesa, compuesta por 118 islas. Presentación del volumen Este número especial de laICOFOM Study Series es el resultado de dos conferencias organizadas en 2023 y 2024 por el Comité Internacional de Museología (ICOFOM), en colaboración con diversas instituciones ubicadas en diferentes territorios insulares. Varios de los ensayos provienen de investigaciones realizadas en el marco del proyecto multidisciplinario Shared Island Stories between Scotland and the Caribbean: Past, Present, Future (2022–2027), que plantea una serie de interrogantes sobre las relaciones culturales entre estos archipiélagos.14 Este proyecto fue motivado, en parte, por evidencias recientes sobre los vínculos de Escocia con la trata transatlántica de esclavos, especialmente en lo que respecta a la compra de islas a través del sistema británico de compensación por esclavitud en el Caribe, así como por un informe delNational Trust for Scotland sobre las conexiones históricas entre sus propiedades y esta historia transatlántica (MacKinnon y Mackillop, 2020; Melville, 2021). Combinado con intereses académicos ya consolidados sobre sostenibilidad, bienestar y vida insular, ello condujo a la formación de un equipo de investigación inherentemente multidisciplinario, con participantes de campos como la historia, los estudios del patrimonio, el desarrollo sostenible, la historia del arte y los estudios de la memoria. Las preguntas centrales de este proyecto incluyen: ¿cómo cuestionar las historias oficiales a través de archivos relevantes, revelando historias ocultas de la vida cotidiana? ¿Qué formas de agencia están implicadas en la movilidad y el desplazamiento – por ejemplo, compartir conocimientos como forma de resiliencia? Como uno de sus principales resultados, se celebraron una conferencia internacional y el 47º simposio anual de ICOFOM en la Universidad de St Andrews en junio de 2024, bajo el temaTransnational Island Museologies (Brown et al., 2024; Shared Island Stories, 2024). 14 Este proyecto de investigación fue seleccionado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación (ERC), financiado por UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) con la referencia: EP/X023036/1, y está coordinado por la profesora Karen Brown. 37 Otros artículos incluidos en este volumen provienen de una conferencia internacional celebrada en Nueva Caledonia, organizada conjuntamente por ICOFOM, la Asociación de Museos y Entidades Patrimoniales de Nueva Caledonia (AMEPNC), y la Universidad de Nueva Caledonia.15 El tema de dicha conferencia fueAumentar la visibilidad y el atractivo del patrimonio insular: un desafío museológico del siglo XXI, que abordó los problemas contradictorios que enfrentan los museos y patrimonios insulares en relación con el aumento del nivel del mar, el cambio climático, y los desafíos de preservación y transmisión. Este encuentro tuvo lugar en octubre de 2023 y se dividió en dos partes: tres días de presentaciones académicas en la Universidad de Nueva Caledonia (Noumea), seguidos de una gira para conocer a profesionales del museo y el patrimonio en las tres provincias del archipiélago, y experimentar herencias tangibles e intangibles in situ. Ambas conferencias partieron de una misma premisa: ofrecer una visión amplia de las museologías y patrimonios insulares. Quienes trabajamos en este campo reconocemos que las taxonomías creadas por disciplinas hegemónicas occidentales no reflejan con autenticidad las interconexiones profundas entre personas, objetos y entornos – como lo recuerda Conal McCarthy en su ensayo basado en la conferencia magistral que pronunció en la Universidad de St Andrews en junio de 2024. Los artículos recibidos y seleccionados para este volumen provienen de una amplia gama de disciplinas: museología, historia del arte, historia colonial, estudios de la memoria, estudios del patrimonio y estudios ambientales. Las metodologías empleadas son, necesariamente, interdisciplinarias, transdisciplinarias y multidisciplinarias, con el fin de abordar la complejidad de las historias y patrimonios insulares transnacionales. Los textos abordan subtemas comunes como las narrativas y relaciones de poder que subyacen a los patrimonios insulares. ¿Quién cuenta las historias y quién las controla? ¿Cómo puede el patrimonio insular abrirse a relatos silenciados del imperio? Las comunidades insulares han sido marginadas tanto bajo regímenes coloniales como en el marco de los Estados-nación: desafiar las narrativas nacionales para representar mejor las identidades y patrimonios isleños sigue siendo un reto, como demuestran los ensayos de Nicole Bittencourt y Yi-An Chen sobre los pueblos indígenas ainu en Japón, y el texto de Chen sobre los legados oceánicos de Taiwán, que desafían las perspectivas continentales y sinocéntricas. Estos trabajos nos recuerdan que el patrimonio y los museos pueden ser herramientas poderosas para la construcción identitaria, pero también son instituciones de poder que generan dinámicas de inclusión y exclusión. Transmisión del saber tradicional: ¿qué está en juego? La transmisión del saber tradicional fue un eje clave en ambas conferencias. Los estudios de caso presentados en los artículos ilustran la variedad de formas de transmisión vinculadas al patrimonio insular. Las colecciones de objetos y las exposiciones museográficas están lejos de ser los únicos canales para transmitir estos patrimonios a las comunidades y a la sociedad en general. La transmisión intergeneracional – y en particular el papel de las nuevas generaciones – es fundamental, como lo ejemplifica el proyectoShared Island Stories (véanse los artículos de Jamie Allan Brown y Kaye Hall en este volumen). Su contribución, junto con el estudio de caso de Leilani Wong sobre el ecomuseo Te Fare, ofrece una visión general de los distintos actores involucrados en la transmisión del patrimonio insular: jóvenes, ONG, gobiernos, comunidades indígenas y de origen, artistas, profesionales del patrimonio, museos e instituciones afines. 15 Las grabaciones están disponibles en línea:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpyAXibUc3w&list=PLJqRixIMtlnTz_tXddIk7kuY_14-fbmV_. 38 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 En última instancia, en ambas conferencias se presentaron diversos enfoques indígenas sobre el aprendizaje, la transmisión y la comprensión del patrimonio, incluyendo el testimonio oral y la experiencia vivida. Estas visiones indígenas permiten cuestionar el modelo de museo heredado del mundo europeo y de la Ilustración. Tanto Conal McCarthy como Tarisi Vunidilo citan el ensayo del académico de origen maorí Hirini Sidney Moko Mead (1983), sobre modelos indígenas de conservación y transmisión del patrimonio en Oceanía. Centros culturales, casas, ecomuseos, museos comunitarios, micromuseologías, entre otros, son modelos adoptados por muchas islas del mundo para ajustarse mejor a las necesidades de sus comunidades de origen (véanse, por ejemplo, los capítulos de Alexandria Bounia y Darko Babić en este volumen). De este modo, estas museologías insulares refuerzan los vínculos con las comunidades locales que participan activamente en el trabajo museístico. También colocan la experiencia y las emociones en el centro de la transmisión, incluso para visitantes externos. Muchos testimonios de culturas isleñas se encuentran actualmente dispersos en colecciones museales a nivel mundial. Proyectos colaborativos, y en ocasiones nuevas tecnologías como bases de datos digitales, se han utilizado para reconectar y promover formas innovadoras de preservar este patrimonio, respetando e involucrando a las comunidades locales. La autoridad compartida y el saber compartido son pasos clave hacia la inclusión de nuevas voces en las colecciones museales (véanse en este volumen los artículos de Barsinas et al., Bertin & Tissandier, Vunidilo). Pero ¿qué sucede cuando la transmisión se detiene? ¿Cuáles son los riesgos que amenazan al patrimonio insular? Entre ellos se encuentran el declive de las prácticas tradicionales causado por la colonización, las misiones religiosas y la esclavitud; la crisis climática y la subida del nivel del mar; y los desastres naturales. ¿Qué puede hacerse? ¿Cuán resilientes son las islas? Ante amenazas como el turismo no sostenible, la erosión costera y el aumento del nivel del mar, la digitalización del patrimonio insular se presenta a menudo como una solución. En un mundo globalizado pospandemia, la visibilidad del patrimonio insular ha aumentado gracias a las tecnologías digitales. Sin embargo, los proyectos de digitalización pueden reproducir la mirada turística, que tiene raíces en la administración colonial (Thompson, 2007), una problemática abordada por varios autores de este volumen, incluyendo los provenientes de las Islas Marquesas. ¿Cómo puede la museología dialogar con estas historias y con el crecimiento tecnológico, teniendo en cuenta las fracturas digitales que enfrentan algunas comunidades y la necesidad de facilitar intercambios remotos con el resto del mundo? ¿Serían preferibles otras formas de visibilidad? Además, ¿depende la visibilidad del patrimonio insular del buen funcionamiento del sector turístico? ¿Cuáles son las implicaciones económicas de este esfuerzo por aumentar la visibilidad? Ante la emergencia climática, los medios de comunicación suelen presentar a las islas como territorios y modos de vida en peligro. A escala internacional, existe un reconocimiento creciente del valor de los saberes indígenas y tradicionales en relación con la resiliencia climática y la preservación de los ecosistemas humanos y biológicos. Sin embargo, aunque se valora cada vez más la diversidad biocultural indígena, también está desapareciendo a un ritmo alarmante. Aproximadamente una décima parte de la población mundial vive en islas (Lowenthal, 2007). Estas cubren “solo el 6,7 % de la superficie terrestre”, pero “albergan cerca del 20 % de la biodiversidad del planeta, y lamentablemente también el 50 % de las especies amenazadas y el 75 % de las extinciones conocidas desde la expansión europea global” (Fernández-Palacios et al., 2021). 39 Una de las principales motivaciones de este volumen es comprender mejor lo que aporta la transmisión intergeneracional del conocimiento indígena y tradicional a los debates sobre justicia climática, especialmente en lo que respecta al papel de las personas jóvenes. Este enfoque se alinea con una tendencia reciente en los estudios museológicos a involucrarse activamente en la emergencia climática. Por ejemplo, Fiona Cameron, Jennifer Newell, Robert Janes, Richard Sandell y otros han abogado por que los museos “despierten” y se comprometan con la acción climática (Cameron et al., 2012; 2015; Newell, 2017; Janes & Sandell, 2019). Al mismo tiempo, organizaciones de apoyo museológico como el ICOM y NEMO promueven activamente el papel de los museos como aliados en la consecución de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) (McGhee, 2022). Asimismo, han surgido numerosas redes de patrimonio y disciplinas afines para generar capacidades e impulsar una acción climática de impacto en distintos niveles. Varios artículos seleccionados para este volumen abordan precisamente nuevas formas de pensar el patrimonio insular y la insularidad en relación con la crisis ecológica. Considerando no solo los conceptos del Antropoceno, sino también los mundos más-que-humanos, estos textos se basan en las reflexiones de investigadoras como Fiona Cameron, Kirsten Wehner, Jennifer Newell y Libby Robin, quienes exploran las relaciones entre las personas y la naturaleza en el contexto de los museos, una temática que tradicionalmente ha sido abordada por la antropología (Cameron & Neilson, 2015; Newell et al. [eds.], 2017; Moran, 2017). Por ejemplo, Wehner define la museología ecológica como una forma de pensamiento que combina naturaleza y cultura para desarrollar nuevas formas de entender la interdependencia entre los mundos humanos y no humanos, especialmente en el contexto australiano. Es en este marco donde este volumen de laICOFOM Study Series espera contribuir con nuevas ideas y ofrecer herramientas de reflexión para el presente y el futuro de los estudios museológicos y patrimoniales. En este número especial, buscamos generar conocimiento sobre las relaciones entre los saberes ecológicos tradicionales (Traditional Ecological Knowledge, TEK) y la museología, reconociendo el valor de los museos y sitios patrimoniales como lugares de investigación que pueden ayudarnos a entender cómo nos hemos adaptado a los cambios climáticos a lo largo del tiempo. Varios artículos aquí reunidos exploran de qué manera ese conocimiento tradicional está influyendo en la academia y en las políticas públicas desde una perspectiva global. Al mismo tiempo, la transmisión intergeneracional del conocimiento tradicional ayuda a salvaguardar identidades y memorias que corren el riesgo de perderse. Los museos, sitios patrimoniales y centros culturales pueden ser puntos de referencia para este trabajo, al ofrecer espacios donde personas de distintas generaciones se relacionan con su patrimonio, fortaleciendo así el sentido de identidad y de pertenencia. Con miras a desarrollar una museología ecológica en tiempos de crisis climática, planteamos las siguientes preguntas: ¿Qué nos enseñan los patrimonios indígenas y los saberes tradicionales en contextos rurales, costeros e insulares sobre la resiliencia frente al cambio climático, la pérdida de biodiversidad y la erosión costera? ¿Cómo pueden los museos y sitios patrimoniales trabajar con la biodiversidad local, las lenguas y los elementos singulares del territorio para fomentar la resiliencia local? ¿Cuáles son los desafíos y oportunidades de participar en los debates sobre sostenibilidad desde las humanidades ambientales, especialmente en relación con los imaginarios oceánicos? ¿Qué aporta la transmisión intergeneracional de los saberes indígenas y tradicionales a las discusiones sobre justicia climática, en particular respecto al papel de la juventud? 40 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Los artículos incluidos en este volumen fueron seleccionados por seis integrantes de los comités científico y organizador de las conferencias celebradas en Nueva Caledonia y Escocia, representando una diversidad de territorios y disciplinas. Nuestra intención es que este número constituya una contribución sólida al campo de los estudios sobre el patrimonio y las museologías insulares, complementando la colección de publicaciones de ICOFOM enfocadas en la descolonización de la museología y en territorios poco estudiados (como la museología caribeña, por ejemplo). En lo que sigue, los artículos han sido organizados en torno a tres grandes ejes temáticos: Coleccionismo colonial y archivo – Contestar la historia; Repensar las museologías insulares indígenas; Transmisión intergeneracional y ecologías insulares. Coleccionismo colonial y archivo – Contestar la historia El coleccionismo colonial constituye el punto de partida de los primeros artículos de este volumen. El texto de Briony Widdis y Emma Reisz, “Coleccionar la ambigüedad: objetos y las postvidas del imperio en la isla de Irlanda”, cuestiona las narrativas en torno a los legados del imperio en Irlanda (especialmente Irlanda del Norte), mediante una combinación innovadora de biografía de objetos, autoetnografía e historia “no pública”. Al mostrar cómo los objetos acumulan capas de historia a lo largo del tiempo, las autoras exploran el papel del imperio en la configuración de las divisiones internas de Irlanda, un país que apenas comienza a abordar su pasado colonial. Señalan que la coproducción por sí sola no basta para enfrentar los desafíos de la descolonización en contextos de memorias colectivas profundamente arraigadas, y proponen que la autoetnografía puede ayudar a revelar los enredos con el imperialismo global y la explotación colonial. Los museos, sugieren, pueden transformarse de ser depósitos de historias contestadas a plataformas para la reflexión, la educación y el intercambio. El artículo de Maria Chiara Scuderi, “De Borneo a Leicester: enredos coloniales en la colección de “artesanías” de Dryan”, examina la circulación global y la reutilización, en el contexto comercial y educativo de Leicester (Reino Unido), de objetos artesanales provenientes de la isla de Borneo en el siglo XX. La autora se basa en nuevas fuentes de archivo sobre la colección de Harry Peach para analizar cómo la fotografía fue utilizada para difundir y construir conocimientos sobre la cultura material de Borneo. Las colecciones y archivos dispersos también son fundamentales en el contexto del inventario del patrimonio kanak disperso, un conjunto de objetos preservados en museos de todo el mundo y registrados en una base de datos liderada por el Museo de Nueva Caledonia. Este proceso es descrito por Marion Bertin y Marianne Tissandier en su artículo “El inventario del patrimonio kanak disperso: museología transnacional y territorios entrelazados”. Las autoras demuestran cómo esta base de datos constituye un ejemplo de museología transnacional en varios niveles: registra colecciones kanak dispersas en museos, circula los datos e interactúa con otras bases de datos internacionales. También destacan su importancia local, ya que devuelve información sobre las colecciones a las comunidades y ofrece mayor espacio para el saber kanak. El artículo de Vainui Barsinas, Jean-Daniel Tokainiua Devatine, Vaiana Giraud, Hélène Guiot, Tamara Maric, Magali Mélandri y Marine Vallée, “Prácticas colaborativas y transmisión de conocimientos materiales e inmateriales en la Polinesia Francesa”, es un excelente ejemplo de metodologías colaborativas aplicadas al estudio de colecciones disper- 41 sas. El estudio se centra en abanicos tradicionales polinesios conservados en el Musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac. El proyecto, titulado Rara’a, busca cuestionar y descolonizar los saberes museológicos sobre estas colecciones, descentralizar los enfoques de recolección y facilitar el acceso a los descendientes de quienes crearon los abanicos. Este proyecto aborda, en ese sentido, la soberanía indígena en el contexto de las colecciones y los datos. Repensar las museologías insulares indígenas Esta sección comienza con el artículo de Conal McCarthy, “Aprender de las museologías del Pacífico: patrimonio, cultura y medioambiente en las islas de Moana Oceania”. Basándose en investigaciones y ejemplos procedentes de museologías indígenas y oceánicas, McCarthy analiza casos en Australia y Aotearoa Nueva Zelanda para demostrar que los pueblos de Moana Oceania ya han trazado caminos para proteger nuestro patrimonio y nuestro planeta. Al trascender el modelo tradicional de museo centrado en objetos y adoptar un enfoque relacional que abarca el cuidado del “territorio”, la cultura y las personas, esta museología fomenta una movilización comunitaria con raíces profundas frente a la crisis climática. Esta idea se desarrolla aún más en el artículo de Tarisi Vunidilo, “Museos y centros culturales del Pacífico: redefinir e indigenizar los espacios museales al estilo del Pacífico”, donde destaca el papel de los museos en la satisfacción de las necesidades comunitarias a través de métodos educativos tradicionales polinesios pensados para todas las generaciones. Vunidilo subraya que en el Pacífico, los modelos más eficaces no son los heredados del colonialismo occidental, sino los centros culturales, que sostienen la resiliencia de culturas vivas y entornos amenazados mediante prácticas colaborativas. El Centro Cultural de Vanuatu, por ejemplo, se concibe como un espacio vivo que promueve prácticas como el arte de los dibujos sobre arena incluso fuera de las islas remotas. Las comunidades indígenas no solo se benefician de estos espacios, sino que también actúan como formadoras. En “Narrativas y representaciones del patrimonio isleño: navegando por las exposiciones ainu en Hokkaido”, Nicolle Bittencourt y Yi-An Chen también abordan la representación de las culturas indígenas, en este caso la del pueblo ainu en la isla de Hokkaido, Japón. A través del análisis de cuatro exposiciones insulares, las autoras exploran formas de expresión cultural y de agencia indígena. Con una lectura crítica de la museología desde la teoría poscolonial, examinan las dificultades que enfrentan las instituciones, incluido el museo nacional y el parque, para abordar los legados del colonialismo interno, las luchas actuales del pueblo ainu y la necesidad de una memoria nacional más inclusiva. Su texto subraya el papel que juegan los museos en la producción de relatos e identidades nacionales, ya sea mediante la inclusión o la exclusión. El artículo de Yi-An Chen, “Narrativas emancipadoras: repensar Taiwán a través del Museo Nacional de Historia de Taiwán”, se enfoca en la exposición Taiwán Oceánico, presentada en dicha institución, para abrir un debate más amplio sobre la identidad nacional en el cruce entre el Pacífico y China continental. También centrado en una comunidad marginada, el artículo de Leilani Wong, “Los museos como acción social: promoviendo la equidad en comunidades marginalizadas”, ofrece un estudio de caso sobre el ecomuseo Te Fare Natura (“la casa de la naturaleza”) en Moorea, Polinesia Francesa. El proyecto representa un camino de empoderamiento para más de 400 jóvenes Ma’ohi que han salido de contextos de pobreza y exclusión bajo una administración 48 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 49 Part I: Colonial Collecting and the Archive —Contesting Histories 50 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 51 Collecting ambiguity: Objects and the afterlives of empire on the island of Ireland Briony Widdis Queen’s University Belfast – Northern Ireland Briony[email protected] Emma Reisz Queen’s University Belfast – Northern Ireland [email protected] Abstract This paper considers material culture as a prism through which to understand lived experiences of colonialism and empire in Northern Ireland and suggests that examining connections to meaningful objects both inside and outside museums provides a powerful tool for considering how empire has been understood and made personal. We consider privately held possessions, symbols in the landscape and the public materiality of empire as represented in museum collections, bringing together public history and anthropology to argue that the afterlives of colonialism in Northern Ireland reveal not only the place of empire in shaping the island of Ireland’s divisions but also unexpected shared experiences and narratives.Three theoretical perspectives can assist in creating new museological engagements with contested histories: object biography, autoethnography and what we call ‘non-public’ history. Résumé Collecter l’ambiguïté : Objets et héritages de l’empire sur l’île d’Irlande. Cet article considère la culture matérielle comme un prisme permettant de comprendre les expériences vécues du colonialisme et de l’empire en Irlande du Nord. Il suggère que l’examen des liens avec des objets porteurs de sens, tant à l’intérieur qu’à l’extérieur des musées, constitue un outil puissant pour réfléchir à la manière dont l’empire a été compris et approprié de manière personnelle. Nous examinons les possessions privées, les symboles présents dans le paysage et la matérialité publique de l’empire telle qu’elle est représentée dans les collections muséales, en croisant histoire publique et anthropologie. Nous soutenons que les héritages du colonialisme en Irlande du Nord révèlent non seulement le rôle de l’empire dans la formation des divisions de l’île d’Irlande, mais aussi des expériences et des récits partagés inattendus. Trois perspectives théoriques peuvent contribuer à de nouveaux 52 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 engagements muséologiques avec des histoires contestées : la biographie des objets, l’autoethnographie et ce que nous appelons l’histoire « non publique ». _____ From one perspective, the photo below (figure 1) is a simple tourist snap. But it also hints at family entanglements with empire and at the perspectives and connections linking Northern Ireland with the wider world. Taken by an unidentified member of one of our families (Widdis), close to Cairo in about 1964, the photo shows people riding on camels beside a pyramid. Depicting the camel owners walking whilst the protagonists ride and taken from an elevated position (perhaps from another camel), this evokes ideas about white supremacy as well as Western involvement in archaeological pillage and the Grand Tour dating to the eighteenth century. Figure 1. Slide photo taken by a member of Widdis’ family, close to Cairo, c. 1964. © Briony Widdis In this article we propose that personal memorabilia such as this provides museological routes into exploring complex and contested ideas around empire and decolonisation, and their meanings in Northern Ireland today. Until recently, research on the symbolic value to Northern Irish identities of material culture from the colonial past was limited (Widdis et al., 2025 forthcoming). In our research, we draw on the “cultural biography of things” and “object biography” approach (Joy, 2009; Kopytoff, 1986), as well as on autoethnography (Holman Jones, 2005). We also read popular narratives and public histories of empire against the grain (Moody & Small, 2009) to consider how objects associated with empire have been made sense of by institutions, communities and individuals. We attempt to draw out complexities and ambiguities around private and public objects and collecting in Northern Ireland associated with empire and to explore the potential of working with objects to move beyond simplistic narratives of identity and imperial meanings. 53 As Gosden and Marshall (1999) argue, objects “often have the capability of accumulating histories, so that the present significance of an object derives from the person or events to which it is connected” (p. 170). This perspective on objects is both concrete and radically destabilising. It is concrete in the sense that an object biography perspective directs attention to the materiality of an object and its unique and tangible journey through the world. This perspective, however, also rejects the possibility that an object can have a single meaning. Instead, it insists that by “accumulating histories”, an object must be in a state of narrative and semantic superposition, attached to multiple stories and meanings. This openness to multiple stories enables objects to reveal both shared and contrasting experiences and narratives of the role of empire in shaping Ireland’s divisions. Although Northern Ireland is often understood simply as a divided society, binary categorisations are inadequate for understanding how the island of Ireland’s increasingly diverse and complex societies perceive and relate to the past. Remaining part of the UK in 1922 when the rest of Ireland became independent, Northern Ireland has an especially complex relationship with British imperialism. Its history can be variously understood through narratives surrounding active participation in empire and of active resistance to imperialism, as well as through histories of colonialism and migration. Rather than a traditional museum perspective that might treat visitors as passive audiences, we adopt a public history perspective to consider equally how the public participates in representing the past in Northern Ireland – both within the public sphere and also in contexts of narrative resistance that Nancy Fraser calls “counterpublics” (1990, p. 61). This broader perspective is, we suggest, essential to understanding the use of the past in Northern Ireland. We are interested also in what we term non-public history – the familial, private, intimate and emotional dimensions of how history is remembered, understood and experienced. This article investigates how material objects can open up a non-public history space that goes beyond the traditional discourses of the public and counterpublic spheres in Northern Ireland to encompass more personal perspectives and, ultimately, more complex and disruptive perspectives. This work draws on our previous individual work on colonial visualities in our studies of photographs (Widdis, 2018; Reisz, 2024; Widdis, 2024) and our autoethnographic engagement with them. In our recent work, we have sought to engage collaboratively with others to investigate how visual material culture triggers memories and representations of colonialism. In so doing, we seek to amplify community voices, connecting expertise and knowledge that exists outside the cultural institution and the academy. Having revisited our own connections to these subjects, we feel that it is important to steer away from always writing in the third person, acknowledging our own subjective engagement as well as prioritising the self-expression of others who have not traditionally been heard. The memorialisation of empire in Northern Ireland Outside Belfast City Hall stands a statue of Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood (1826-1902), first Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and prominent colonial administrator. The statue is described by Annie Tindley as “almost comically ornate” (Tindley, 2021, p. 4). In Northern Ireland, encounters with empire remain an everyday experience, including in the form of memorials. The statue of Dufferin is among the most prominent of these given its size, location and the historical profile of its subject. The statue shows Dufferin under a stone umbrella, with Star of India and Order of St Patrick medals on his chest. At 54 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 his feet, two figures exotically personify places important to his career: one is a vision, donned in a fur cap and snowshoes, of Canada where he was governor general (1872-88), and the other, wearing a turban, is of India where he was governor general and viceroy (1884-88). At the Irish seat of the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava – Clandeboye Estate near Bangor, County Down – is a further family monument, Helen’s Tower, commissioned by Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood in tribute to his mother, Helen Selina Sheridan (18071867) (see HB23/06/009, 1975). Originally captioned “Gamekeeper’s Tower” in Burn’s drawings, Helen’s Tower blends Romantic styles with the materials of empire, in Harold Nicolson’s words “mingling the living savour of an Irish bothy with the dead scent of closed rooms, of Victorian hardwood, of camphor and of decaying brocades” (quoted in Howley, 1993, p. 56). In Thiepval, France, is a close replica of Helen’s Tower. This Ulster Tower, built on land given to the Government of Northern Ireland by the French in 1921, is near the front lines where thousands of men of the 36th Ulster Division, many of whom had trained at Clandeboye in the shadow of Helen’s Tower, lost their lives in a tragic charge on 1 July 1916 (Moore, 2016, p. 110). The Ulster Tower, therefore, powerfully evokes memories of the Somme, especially in Protestant areas where this is reflected in street murals (see figure 2). A symbolic line of descent can be traced through these monuments, linking them as polysemic motifs, both of sacrifices to British imperialism and in a world war, and of identity in present-day Northern Ireland. Irish republican movements have long-standing links with other anticolonial struggles globally (Silvestri, 2009), and these too are memorialised in the built environment of Northern Ireland. In the late 20th century, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) developed links with movements in places like Zimbabwe and South Africa, and brought arms into Ireland through connections with Libya (English, 2004, pp. 187–222). Those links are also reflected on the streets of Belfast in the form of murals that Neil Jarman (1988) calls “one of the most dynamic media for symbolic expression in the north of Ireland” (Jarman, 1998). Especially since the war in Gaza that began in 2023, Palestinian freedom has been a resonant theme for mural-painters; and the Palestinian flag appears widely in both urban and rural locations. The republican movement has also supported many less familiar anti-colonial causes, as exemplified in murals at Divis Street on the “peace wall” that divides Catholic from Protestant areas (Extramural Activity, 2017). As well as drawing symbolic links between the one and the many, public memorials have the capacity to reach across geographical boundaries and to broaden viewers’ focus from local to less local concerns. For Dominic Bryan, “cultural transmission, as part of group identities, takes place within a very localized and negotiated context ... but also in a much broader field whereby historical narratives are central to legitimizing political positions” (Bryan, 2022, p. 64). Monuments in the Northern Ireland landscape are undergoing a process of transition, and their meanings – given that this transition is postcolonial as well as cultural – are subject to ongoing debates that risk disrupting authorised heritage discourse (Smith, 2006) about shared traditions constructed through integrationist approaches taken during the peace process (McGrattan et al., 2024). 55 Figure 2. Mural showing the Ulster Tower at Thiepval in connection with the Battle of the Somme in 1916, at Donegall Road, Belfast, in October 2024. Image credit: Briony Widdis. 56 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Museum decolonisation in Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland In the museum sector in Northern Ireland, there has been a particular emphasis on developing decolonial practice since 2020 (National Museums NI, 2024; Widdis et al., 2025 forthcoming) and the Irish Museums Association has recently formed a decolonisation working group. For the UK Museums Association, “decolonising practice challenges legacies of oppression and calls for an honest and accurate reappraisal of colonial history” (MA, 2021). This is a particularly complex task in Ireland and Northern Ireland, where museums have in the past been reluctant to present narratives of the island’s contested histories (Crooke, 2008). At present, there is no agreed definition of what “decolonisation” might mean in a heritage context on the island of Ireland, and, indeed, the universal relevance of the term itself is disputed (Brulon Soares & Witcomb, 2022). The bordered separation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, together with the high degree of cross-fertilisation between the cultures of Ireland and those of Great Britain, make the island a useful source of case studies for how “museum decolonisation” might be interpreted in post-partition states. As alluded to above, there is a long historiographical tradition showing that, at the turn of the 20th century, Ireland’s postcolonial identities continued to be moulded by lived experiences and inherited memories connected with its former roles within the British Empire and, later, British Commonwealth. At the same time, Ireland’s presents have been shaped by social and political conflicts connected with successive occupations and settlements since the 12th century (Howe, 2000; Mitchell, 2000; Kenny, 2004; Smyth, 2006; Jeffery, 2009; Miller, 2014; O’Leary, 2019; McVeigh & Rolston, 2021). The fact that Ireland was not only a colony, but was also central to ‘making’ the British Empire, has recently been confirmed beyond all reasonable contradiction by Jane Ohlmeyer (2023). Deeply politicised debates surrounding the colonial past within Ireland ensured that, until recently, decolonial actions in the museum and heritage sectors on either side of the border were sporadic and were driven by isolated responses to their ethical obligations (ICOM, 2017; Museums Association, 2016) and legal frameworks (see Bradley, 2024) rather than forming part of a cohesive movement. Since 2020, however, powerful external influences including Black Lives Matter, the Rhodes Must Fall campaign and debates on UK government museum policies (GOV.UK, 2023; Museums Association, 2021) have accelerated interest in the question of what it means to be a decolonial museum on the island of Ireland. Especially in Northern Ireland where, although a devolved matter, state-produced museum policy is strongly influenced by that of the UK (MA, 2022), this interest has led to sector professionals learning from precedents and guidance produced in Great Britain, including the National Trust’s 2020 report on its properties’ links with enslavement (Huxtable et al., 2020), the UK Museums Association’s decolonising principles (MA, 2021; Widdis, 2021) and repatriation guidelines from Arts Council England (ACE, 2023). Across Ireland, the growing momentum around decolonisation has also been influenced by increasing public understanding of and discourse on the complexities of Irish roles in colonialism, which in turn have been influenced not only by broader scholarship and public attention on race relations and social justice but also by collaborations between state, grant-aiding, educational and cultural institutions (Community Relations Council, 2017; Department of Foreign Affairs, n.d.; Horne et al., 2021) as well as university-driven research such as the Trinity College Dublin Colonial Legacies project (Trinity College 57 Dublin, n.d.). These have illuminated discussions on the material expression of Ireland’s contributions to British imperialism in the form of collections. There is increasing research, too, on Ireland’s complicity in systems of colonial exploitation and enslavement (O’Kane & O’Neill, 2023). Academic, museum and public history conferences as well as their published outputs (McBride & Nic Dháibhéid, 2020; Nic Dháibhéid et al., 2021; West Cork History Festival, 2020; Widdis et al., 2025 forthcoming) have provided space for critical reflection on colonialism’s impacts and afterlives. Public awareness has also been elevated by high profile stories of realised and potential repatriations, such as the return of cranial fragments from Trinity to Inishbofin (Hennessy & Numen, 2023; Hussein et al., 2022; TCD, n.d.), of human remains from National Museums NI to Hawai’i (Meredith, 2022), of stolen bronzes from the National Museum of Ireland to Benin (Holmes, 2021), and by the establishment by the Government of Ireland of a Restitution and Repatriation Advisory Committee (Heritage Council, n.d.). At the same time, museums have increasingly sought to mainstream Global Majority voices and open pathways for self-representation by more recent immigrants (Allen, 2023; Morakinyo, 2021; National Museums NI, 2024; O’Brien, 2024; Stoneman et al., 2021; White Hamilton, 2024; Widdis, 2022; Widdis et al., 2022; Wright, 2024). Together, these factors are providing critical momentum moving the museum sector across the island of Ireland toward more meaningful contributions to national and cross-border conversations about the colonial past and are building on more inclusive discourse on the nature of Irish and Northern Irish identities in the 21st century (see for example Mackin, 2005; Scroope, 2022; Siung, 2011, 2024; Siung & Sunderland Bowe, 2021). Creative engagement and co-production Given the immediately political context for this work, it is not surprising that museum activities are still taking place in an environment of caution, especially in Northern Ireland (see for example Crowdy, 2021). At the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Global Majority voices are present primarily in the Inclusive Global Histories exhibition focusing on ethnographic collections and are less visible in other exhibitions despite their dynamic and long-standing presence in Northern Ireland. National Museums NI has recently taken steps to address this by introducing “inclusive global histories” label tagging in display cases throughout the building, exploring the complexities of identity simultaneously within three different research frameworks: Northern Ireland politics now, histories of collecting and imperialism in the past. National Museums NI’s inclusive global histories approach, now extended to other museums, focuses on providing creative engagement opportunities to communities to collaboratively explore the meanings of objects (e.g., National Museums NI, 2024; Wright, 2024). Co-production, understood as creating “museum spaces where people can come, interact and touch as well as contribute to and shape exhibitions and collections” (Graham, 2016) has been a valuable methodology for museums seeking to integrate contributor voices more deeply into their practice. Writing on young people’s responses to an exhibition on racial diversity, Kaja Hannedatter Sontum shows that co-production involves negotiation between participants, and between participants and the institution, making room for competing beliefs and sometimes needing the museum to acknowledge participants’ resistance to organisational objectives. While museums can provide space for conversa- 64 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Ohlmeyer, J. (2023). Making empire. Oxford University Press. O’Kane, F., & O’Neill, C. (2023). Ireland, slavery and the Caribbean. In N. Draper (Ed.), Ireland and British colonial slave-ownership, 1763-1833 (pp. 103–124). Manchester University Press. O’Leary, B. (2019). A treatise on Northern Ireland. Volume 1: Colonialism. Oxford University Press. Pitt Rivers Museum. (n.d.). About the ‘relational museum’ project and the methodology of research. https://history.prm.ox.ac.uk/about.php.html Reisz, E. (2024). Photoanthropocene: The decentered lens of colonial photography. Curator: The Museum Journal, 67(1), 101–117. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12588 Scroope, A. (2022). ‘Toraig on the tobar’ (Travelling the road): A model of the decolonised exhibition at Cork Public Museum. Museum Ireland 2021. Silvestri, M. (2009). Ireland and India: Nationalism, empire and memory. Palgrave Macmillan. Siung, J. (2011). Renegotiating Irish identity: The Chester Beatty Library and Ireland (unpublished). Siung, J. (2024). Faiths in Focus – Interfaith dialogue in Irish museums; Chester Beatty, a case study. Museum Ireland, 30, 111–117. Siung, J., & Sunderland Bowe, J.-A. (Eds.). (2021). Embracing cultural diversity in the classroom: Building an intercultural school’s programme. Research and development report. Chester Beatty. https://artsineducation.ie/en/2021/01/28/chester-beatty-publishes-report-on-how-to-create-intercultural-programmes-for-schools/ Smith, L. (2006). The discourse of heritage. In Uses of heritage (pp. 11–43). Routledge. Smyth, W. J. (2006). Map-making, Landscapes and memory: A geography of colonial and early modern Ireland c.1530-1750. Cork University Press. Sontum, K. H. (2019). The co-production of difference? Exploring urban youths’ negotiations of identity in meeting with difficult heritage of human classification. Museums & Social Issues. Stoneman, A., Carvallo, J., Daga, E., Maguire, M., & Mulholland, P. (2021). Uncomfortable revelations: Can citizen curation widen access to museums? Museum Ireland, 28, 64–71. TCD. (n.d.). Trinity to return human remains to Inishbofin. https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2023/trinity-to-return-human-remains-to-inishbofin/ Tindley, A. (2021). Lord Dufferin, Ireland and the British Empire, c. 1820–1900: Rule by the best? Routledge. Trinity College Dublin. (n.d.). Trinity colonial legacies. https://histories-humanities.tcd.ie/research/colonial-legacies/ Wall, S. (2008). Easier said than done: Writing an autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 7(1), 38–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690800700103 West Cork History Festival. (2020). 2020 digital festival. https://westcorkhistoryfestival. org/2020-digital-festival/ White Hamilton, T. (2024). Addressing decolonisation of African collections at National Museums NI. Museum Ireland, 30, 124–134. Widdis, B. (2018). Stock photos: Family, the mundane and colonial visualization in twentieth-century Hong Kong. The Chinese Historical Review, 25(2), 181–195. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/1547402X.2018.1522823 Widdis, B. (2021). Decolonisation in Northern Irish museums: How does it feel? Museums Association. https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/decolonising-museums/decolonisation-in-northern-irish-museums/# Widdis, B. (2022). Colonialism, empire, and inclusive global histories at the Ulster Museum. History Ireland, 30(4), 56–57. Widdis, B. (2024). Harmful objects (beloved subjects): Colonial family archives. In T. Sengupta & S. Hall (Eds.), Reclaiming colonial architecture. RIBA Publishing. Widdis, B., Magowan, F., White Hamilton, T., & Logan, K. (2022). Inclusive global histories: Performing collections at the Ulster Museum. 17th Biennial EASA Conference: Tranformation, Hope and the Commons, Belfast. https://easaonline.org/conferences/easa2022/ programme#11816 Widdis, B., Reisz, E., & Bryan, D. (Eds.). (2025, forthcoming). Museums, empire, colonialism: Identities, memory, and legacies in Ireland. Routledge. Wright, N. L. (2024). A world of stories: A case study in museum representation and diversity in Northern Ireland. Museum Ireland, 30, 102–110. 65 From Borneo to Leicester: Colonial entanglements in the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ Collection Maria Chiara Scuderi University of Leicester – United Kingdom [email protected] Abstract This article explores the global circulation and educational reuse of Bornean crafts within the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection in Leicester, assembled by Harry Peach in the early 20th century. It highlights Peach’s collaboration with colonial administrator Charles Hose, whose objects and photographs from Sarawak and Borneo significantly shaped the collection. Photography served as a vital medium to access, document, and disseminate Bornean material culture, linking colonial collecting to local British craft education. Through patterns, pedagogical uses, and cross-cultural exchanges, the article reveals how imperial networks, visual culture, and local pedagogies converged in the making of a hybrid educational collection. Keywords: colonial collecting, craft education, photography, Borneo, material culture Resumé Collecter Bornéo : Circulation et postérités dans la collection ‘Handicrafts’ de Dryad. Cet article examine la circulation mondiale et la réutilisation éducative des objets artisanaux de Bornéo dans la collection Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ à Leicester, constituée par Harry Peach au début du XXe siècle. Il met en lumière la collaboration entre Peach et l’administrateur colonial Charles Hose, dont les objets et photographies de Sarawak et Bornéo ont fortement influencé la collection. La photographie fut un médium essentiel pour accéder à la culture matérielle de Bornéo, la documenter et la diffuser, reliant les pratiques de collecte coloniale à l’enseignement artisanal britannique. L’article révèle comment réseaux impériaux, culture visuelle et pédagogies locales ont convergé dans cette collection hybride. Mots-clés : collecte coloniale, éducation artisanale, photographie, Bornéo, culture matérielle _____ 66 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 This article examines the circulation history of crafts from the island of Borneo, Southeast Asia, to the city of Leicester, England, along with the histories of collecting to offer an original perspective on how collecting strategies were connected to craft-practice education and photography in early 20th century Britain. Focusing on the connectedness between Harry Peach (1874-1936), collector of the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection now at Leicester Museums and Gallery, and Charles Hose (1863-1929), colonial administrator in Sarawak, north-west Borneo, between 1884 and 1907, this research tracks the journey of objects and interprets their use to foster craft-practice education in a local context. By foregrounding questions of circulation, I place the mobilisation history of photographs and objects within the broader framework of imperial collecting methods for craft-practice education. In so doing, the research contributes to reconstructing the substantial network of relationships of Charles Hose, adding Harry Peach among his contacts, and the local-authority Leicester Museums and Gallery to the British institutions where Hose’s large collection of crafts and natural history from Borneo is now dispersed. The Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection, assembled by Peach between 1918 and 1936, is global in scope and remarkably diverse in its craftsmanship, encompassing basketry, textiles, woodwork, leatherwork and beadwork. Objects came from British, French and Belgian colonies in Africa, South-East Asia, the Pacific and Indian Ocean islands and from non-imperial contexts in central and eastern Europe and the Americas. Despite its worldwide aspect, the collection was gathered by a person who was based in Leicester but whose network of articulated global and imperial connections was significant. Through objectand archival-based methodologies, this article illuminates the ways in which the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection reveals linkages to the colonial context of Borneo. The formulation of the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection The Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection was assembled with the dual scope of fostering craft-practice education while facilitating the flourishment of a local business for selling craft materials. In 1918, Peach inaugurated the ‘Handicrafts’ wing of the Dryad showroom in 42 St Nicholas Street, Leicester, next to the existing Furniture section, to sell cheap craft material to schools. Previous research on Peach has provided valuable insights into the ideological, social and cultural contexts in which the collection was formed. As scholarship stands, Pat Kirkham has examined Peach’s role and networks in the formation of the Design and Industries Association (DIA) in 1915 (Kirkham, 1986). Through a biographical approach, Kirkham uncovered the intellectual connections between Peach, William Richard Lethaby – a key advocate for revitalising William Morris’s Arts and Crafts movement – and Benjamin Fletcher – the headmaster of Leicester School of Arts and, later, Birmingham Central School of Arts and Crafts. Most recently, Amy Palmer (2021) has included Peach as one of the pioneers of craft-practice education and has noted a tension between Peach’s willingness to encourage arts and crafts in the school curriculum and the monetary return to him as a vendor of craft materials. The author considered the input of the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ business in pursuing the ambitious goal of school reform by supplying craft materials. With a focus on crafts as elements of child-centred education, Palmer (2021) emphasised the role of Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ in shaping the approach towards craft-practice of the Board of Education through the provision of materials to schools, which were limited until 1914. In addition to this, the success of the Dryad firm would foster the growth of other craft businesses in the country, increasing from four in 1918 to 22 in 1930 (Palmer, 2021). However, such academic work has not accessed the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection at Leicester Museums and Gallery’s storage, and this has limited the ability to fully contextualise the company’s commercial and educational contributions within a broader framework that includes the 67 global circulation of objects and the role played by the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection in this ambitious educational project. In connection with the opening of Dryad ‘Handicrafts’, Peach began collecting crafts from around the world, aiming to present the objects on display in the showroom through temporary exhibitions and provide samples of good design to the local community of students from the School of Arts, teachers and craft amateurs. Considering the objects on display as inspirational sources for their decorative patterns and artistic techniques, visitors to Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ would purchase the materials to reproduce similar objects and develop creativity. Intended as a place of pride for the local context, in 1928 the Dryad showroom was defined as a “museum”, comprising “examples of native work from all over the world, including some of the most remote and little known peoples, and this collection is often consulted and examined by teachers and students of these crafts, who find in it a fruitful source of ideas and inspiration” (Leicester Daily Mercury, 21 January 1928). Teachers were encouraged to undertake object-lessons on the educational model of contemporary museums, primarily the South Kensington Museum, and the objects on display were intended to inspire the creation of crafts in Britain. In this context, Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ was dedicated to the mission of activating human creativity among British people who adopted and adapted design elements into products to be made in Britain. Such use of the collection positions the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ objects as promoters of a process of hybridisation fostered by the encounter of a dominant culture and non-Western European cultures. In so doing, the collection and related use aimed at questioning a sharp division between the notions of “Indigenous” and “traditional” in design. Instead, it showed how the objects were utilised to challenge the dominant Western European-based craft education and to re-position design education in early 20th century Britain. Within the dynamic framework of hybridity theory, the Dryad objects on display facilitated cross-cultural interactions and shaped a complex process of intertwining and reinterpretation of design, where the objects produced in-between spaces represented the result of the encounter (Bhabha, 1994). The coexistence of business and educational intentions transformed the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ showroom into a hybrid space itself, devoted to the economic flourishing of a private institution linked to the promotion of knowledge in craft-practice education. Peach’s eclectic and abundant approach to collecting must be understood as a response of an amateur to the fear that mechanisation would lead to the extinction of manual craftwork. Peach sought to preserve craft tradition by bringing material samples to Leicester, thus safeguarding the legacy of world craft and their artistic techniques while suggesting inspirational motifs to reproduce in British design. From Peach’s perspective, the motivation to assemble the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection can be interpreted as an effort to revive the Arts and Crafts movement during the interwar period, a time when its influence was in decline. Within such configuration, this research tracks the movement of the objects from Borneo to Leicester for an educational rationale. Charles Hose’s scattered collection from Borneo In 1925, Peach developed a connection with an established collector in colonial Britain, Charles Hose. Photographs played a pivotal role in delineating the collectors’ relationship, and by facilitating the exchange of objects, they significantly influenced the formation of the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection. Notably, certain items from Hose found their way into the Dryad collection through a photographic initiative wherein Dryad produced images for a publication written by Hose and titled Natural Man: A Record from Borneo 68 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 (1926), and Peach selected specific objects to be collected by consulting the two illustrated volumes of The Pagan Tribes of Borneo (1912), still authored by Hose. In The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, in fact, photographs of several items guided Peach’s choices for collecting through visual references. Photographs shaped the relationship between Peach and Hose as collectors and determined the subsequent incorporation of objects into the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection. Charles Hose was a colonial official and ethnologist resident in Sarawak between 1884 and 1907 under the second Rajah Sir Charles Brooke.1 Despite departing from his studies at Cambridge to assume the role of colonial administrator, his connection with the university deepened as a portion of his Sarawak collection found its way into the Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Subsequently, various objects from Hose’s extensive collection were spread to museums worldwide, dispersing Sarawak’s heritage and prompting the need for fresh academic studies to piece together its narrative. With an object-focussed approach, Valerie Mashman (2021) has examined the journey of a Kenyah shield from Sarawak to the Ethnological Museum Anima Mundi in the Vatican City, emphasising the conditions prompting its presentation alongside an analysis of how the act of presentation can be interpreted as an effort towards peace-making. Also, Mashman’s (2020) analysis of overseas Sarawak collections sheds light on Hose’s engagement with local communities. It challenges the prevailing narrative that attributes the central role in the establishment of the Sarawak state to colonial administrator Hose, highlighting instead the crucial role of local chiefs, and particularly Tama Bulan, whose cultural contributions not only prevented conflicts but also forged alliances. Matthew Schauer analysed the collecting expedition in Sarawak conducted by the University of Cambridge’s anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon with the support of Hose between 1898 and 1909, underlining the imperial power imbalance within the collecting practices for the emerging Sarawak Museum. The paradigm of degenerating savagery was at the core of a colonial project that justified the research trips and bolstered the museum’s institutional prestige (Schauer, 2023). Notably, in the heyday of the emerging science of anthropology, museum institutions were actively contributing to the evolving understanding of the new science by engaging in collecting efforts. The University of Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, for instance, owes much of its foundation to the work of field collectors such as Christian missionaries and government anthropologists who were imperial agents conducting anthropological research through the analysis and acquisition of material cultures and by taking photographs. These agents followed the guidelines of Notes and Queries on Anthropology for their collecting strategies. The efforts of such mediators embedded in colonial endeavours shaped global collections, and these individuals played a pivotal role in assembling and defining the Museum’s extensive holdings (Herle & Carreau, 2013). Although Peach’s collecting activities were rooted in a broadly educational and commercial context rather than an institutional museum framework, it is significant to recognise these activities as part of a network of relationships akin to those underpinning nationally institutionalised projects. Importantly, a private and largely immobile individual like Peach collaborated with the same type of field collectors involved in gathering objects for museum institutions focused on anthropology to expand their collections in the early 20th century, as the linkage with Hose demonstrates. Not a field collector himself, Peach adapted his collecting strategies and practices to what 1 Sarawak is an historic region situated in northwest Borneo, which is now part of Malaysia. It was founded as an independent state in 1841 with the English former military officer of the East India company James Brooke as Rajah of Sarawak. Sarawak was recognised as an independent state by the United States (1850), and later by Great Britain (1864). 69 was already in circulation within the country, and he can be considered within a group of people who seldom travelled beyond Europe and built their collections primarily through European trading in ethnography, in environments rich with “a vast pool of non-European exotic artifacts” available at reasonable prices (King, 2009, p. 8). In the British context, though some objects went to Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, in 1905 the British Museum purchased most of the Hose collection, which is exceptionally diverse. Although focussed on crafts, it encompassed a wide array of items, ranging from patterned baskets, clothes with decorative motifs, body ornaments, wooden figures, tattooing needles and stamps and charms. Such avid collecting prompts speculation about Hose’s collecting strategies, steeped in a profound interest in local anthropology. Additionally, remnants of Hose’s original collection can be discovered at the Horniman Museum, the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum and the World Museum Liverpool, which acquired a significant portion from Norwich Castle Museum in the 1950s. Among these movements, Leicester Museums and Gallery received a small portion of Hose’s objects through the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection, the details of which this article endeavours to elucidate for the first time. Despite the extensive dispersal of his ethnography and natural history collections, it is plausible that more Hose’s objects reside in other museums across the United Kingdom, and further research is required to track these mobilisations in material cultural history. Thus, the Leicester collection serves as a modest yet vital component in reconstructing a more comprehensive narrative on the connection between Britain and Borneo through Hose’s network. Connecting, collecting and educating through photographs of Borneo Hose not only collected ethnographic and natural history artefacts during his mandate in Sarawak, he also engaged in a prolific photographic endeavour and authored numerous books. However, he left a more extensive record of himself than what has been published about him as a collector to date, with the exception of Jennifer Morris’s work on the Brooke state (Morris, 2019). It is conceivable that Hose and Peach first encountered each other in the preparation of the Sarawak Pavilion during the 1924 Wembley Empire Exhibition.2 On this occasion, Peach acquired a distinctive pair of large blankets adorned with local motifs from Sarawak, and Hose helped prepare the pavilion for the event (Durrans, 1926). The intricate patterns, termed ‘dog motifs’, adorning the entirety of the fabric resonate with a recurring theme in the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection, particularly evident in the Sarawak artefacts, as we will see. After their encounter at Wembley, Peach and Hose embarked on a correspondence that ultimately led to the exchange of cultural artefacts from Sarawak and Borneo, which by 1926 had become integral to the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection. An intriguing development was Hose’s keen interest in partnering with Peach to utilise his collection for educational purposes, leveraging photography to facilitate its dissemination. Hose’s extensive experimentation with ethnographic photography during his Borneo travels, notably showcased in his 1912 publication The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, served as a foundation. In this book, the photographs aimed to vividly portray Sarawakian and Bornean life and culture, featuring captivating portraits of local people involved in making various crafts, scenes of hunting and meticulously rendered depictions of architectures and natural landscapes.3 2 On the 1924 British Empire exhibition see also Knight, D. R. & Sabey, A. D. (1984). The lion roars at Wembley: British Empire exhibition, 60th anniversary, 1924-1925. Barnard & Westwood. 3 For photographs taken by Charles Hose see also Cambridge University Library Special Collections, GBR/0115/RCS/Y3035A: Charles Hose ad Shelford Robert Walter Campbell, 1884-03 – 1900, descriptive 70 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Peach mentioned this book in conversation with Benjamin Fletcher, headmaster of the City of Birmingham Central School of Arts and Crafts, recommending it as an excellent resource for gaining insights into Sarawak and Bornean people and “to read all about them and their crafts” (DWL Peach-Fletcher, 18 April 1925). Peach and Fletcher shared interests in craft-practice education, and objects from the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection were sent to circulate freely outside of the showroom to enter schools. The City of Birmingham Central School of Arts and Crafts have had a privileged position for the mobility of the collection, as objects in wood and leather as well as more fragile decorated Easter eggs in the batik technique were often loaned to Fletcher.4 In the letter regarding Bornean crafts, Peach shared intriguing aspects of the collection and discussed the potential collaboration with Hose, highlighting their mutual interest in promoting craft education: when at Purley this week borrowed from Doctor Hose a caseful of Sarawak work, basket work, weaving, carved work, etc. I am going to photograph them. I dare say he would lend them to your school for a month or so if you wish. He is very anxious that his things should be made of use. (DWL, Peach-Fletcher, 18 April 1925) Peach suggested Hose’s willingness to participate as a donor in a craft education endeavour, which Peach and Fletcher had initiated with the schools of art in Leicester and Birmingham with the mobilisation of global crafts to enhance local education, and objects from Borneo loaned by Hose would be on display at Leicester’s School of Arts in 1925 (DWL, 1925). In April 1925, in fact, Peach visited Hose at his residence in Purley to examine the collection and talk about the possibility of transporting certain items to Leicester to be photographed. Peach was enthusiastic about the collection, describing himself as confident that the objects would be “well appreciated down in this part of the World”, and demonstrating his readiness to incorporate Leicester into the broader ethnographic initiative intended to extend cultural knowledge across Britain through the dispersal of the Sarawak collection to multiple museums (DWL, Peach-Hose, 17 April 1925). It is plausible to assume that these photographs were used to illustrate the book Natural Man: A Record from Borneo, published in 1926.5 In fact, this book is adorned with vivid photographs depicting scenes of life in Borneo alongside illustrations highlighting various cultural artefacts in a static position. In anticipation of the 1926 publication, Hose suggested a preliminary sketch envisioning a photographic representation of Borneo’s decorative arts, inviting Peach to refine the composition with his expertise (see Figure 1). The sketch demonstrates an eagerness to showcase a diverse array of objects in a static composition, ranging from masks to baskets, two-tone shields, hats and a jacket. The approach of using sketches to communicate ideas resonates with contemporary practices of colonial officials, missionaries and traders who were encouraged to utilise illustrations to explore and convey the realities of diverse cultures, attempting to define methodalbum of the country and people of Sarawak 4 For instance, as far as the decorated eggs, which came from the Tatra Mountain district in Czechoslovakia, Peach briefly presented an idea of conservation for these particularly fragile items: “I had thought of having one or two put in little glass boxes, as unfortunately people break them handling them. Have had some smashed already; they pick them up as though they were bricks” (DWL Peach-Fletcher, 17 April 1926). 5 The first indication of a potential collaboration appears in DWL, PR1/COR/Hose: correspondence Peach-Hose, 5 January 1925. Here, Hose invited Peach to Purley to discuss “the matter of designs illustrative of native arts better”. 71 ologies for the emerging science of anthropology from the end of the 19th century (Urry, 1972). Catherine Nichols (2021) has underscored how drawings as illustrative media have long been used to convey scientific knowledge. Nichols argued that the medium of sketches was preferred by Henry Balfour, curator of the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, to illustrate objects described in the letters because of their sense of immediacy and to underline what was relevant in the objects, such as ceramics with a special shape or a decoration. Haidy Geismar has defined “alternative histories of ideas” as the methodology that focuses Figure 1. Drawing made by Charles Hose to illustrate the composition for a photography requested to Dryad. © Archives and Special Collections of David Wilson Library (DWL), University of Leicester, PR1/ COR/Hose: correspondence Peach-Hose, 8 May 1925. 72 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 on analysing sketches otherwise considered unpolished raw material for anthropology and historical research (2014, p. 103). The methodology of using drawings as an ethnographic practice is still in use, and Jasamin Kashanipour has coined the term ‘gradual gaze’ to define the way to think attentively involving the medium of drawing to pursue not arts-based research but rather an anthropological discourse. Kashanipour suggested that the act of drawing fosters a process of “slowing down the gaze”, where drawing is the process itself to establish connectedness between the fieldworker, the object of study and the environment. Promoting a process of learning while unlearning, drawing becomes “a means of disrupting conventional ways of knowing the world” (Kashanipour, 2021, p. 83). In the case of the Hose’s drawing, this was used to envisage a precise idea for a photograph. In fact, the drawing’s meticulously symmetrical composition, designed to present the objects from an aerial perspective, is faithfully reproduced as a photograph in Natural Man. A Record from Borneo, exactly as Hose had envisioned (see Figure 2). The final illustration highlights an interest in decorative motifs, notably showcased in the Kenyah shields flanking the sides, the intricately carved wooden objects and the geometric-patterned conical hats positioned at the top. While the credit for the image remains absent in the book, the remarkable match between the idea embedded in the sketch and the final result of the photograph strongly suggests Dryad as the likely source for the final photograph’s attribution. This accreditation is confirmed by Hose, who praised the photograph as “excellent” and requested that Peach complete the work for “another photograph of other articles which I should very much like to have in my book also” (DWL, Peach-Hose, 18 May 1925. Among these photographs, one finds depictions of utensils like spoons and rice dishes, detailed patterns adorning cloths and various women’s hats. Hose even envisioned a more innovative educational application for these images, suggesting their adaptation into lantern slides for use in “a paper to be read in Leicester” (DWL, Peach-Hose, 8 May 1925). Supporting the hypothesis of the exchange of artefacts within this photographic context, the basket labelled as number 11 in the lower right-hand corner of the photograph and identified as “a Klementan shallow basket used as a strainer”, bears a striking resemblance in design to an object found in the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection. Similarly, the intricately patterned carved wooden shuttle depicted as number 9 next to a sword in the photograph seems also present in the Dryad ‘Handicrafts’ collection, representing an example of a weaving apparatus with carved decorative designs, an element of significant interest for Peach’s collecting strategies. In his analysis of the Hose’s publication Natural Man: A Record from Borneo, Brian Durrans suggested that the author aimed to engage not only anthropological experts but also a wider audience generally fascinated by “tribal cultures and their implications for interpreting the human condition” (Durrans, 1926, p. XII). The polyhedric nature of Peach, amateur collector aiming at developing institutional connections, reflected the broader audience interested in Hose’s publication. The exchange of cultural artefacts and shared enthusiasm for photography contributed significantly to the acquisition of knowledge about Sarawak and Borneo in Leicester and the extension of Dryad’s ‘Handicrafts’ collection. In her extensive studies on the anthropology of photography, Elizabeth Edwards investigated the work of photographs as objects, with a focus on the potential of their materiality, and stressed the role of photographs as “active constituents of social networks” (2012, p. 230). When it comes to Peach and Hose’s circle, while facilitating knowledge, 73 Figure 2. Photography of a composition taken by Dryad of Bornean articles. © C. Hose, 1926. Natural Man: A Record from Borneo. Oxford University Press. 80 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Depuis 1979, un inventaire du patrimoine kanak dispersé (IPKD) est entrepris dans le but de recenser les objets kanak, originaires de Nouvelle-Calédonie, conservés dans des musées à travers le monde. Aujourd’hui, l’IPKD est une base de données, progressivement accessible en ligne, qui réunit plus de 5457 fiches d’objets dispersés dans 115 musées1. Cette base de données a aussi pour but de réunir des ressources et de la documentation sur les collections kanak. Cet article propose d’examiner l’IPKD et sa base de données comme cas d’étude de muséologie insulaire transnationale. Sa rédaction a quatre mains, entre la Nouvelle-Calédonie et la France hexagonale, illustre cette approche collaborative. Marianne Tissandier a participé à l’entreprise d’inventaire et assure la gestion de la base de données IPKD ; Marion Bertin effectue des recherches sur l’histoire de cet inventaire (Bertin, 2020 ; Bertin, 2024). Depuis plusieurs années, nous collaborons à ce sujet (Bertin et Tissandier, 2019 ; Bertin et Tissandier, 2024). Notre propos s’appuie donc à la fois sur une participation active au processus de l’IPKD et sur la consultation de collections et d’archives conservées en Nouvelle-Calédonie, en France hexagonale, en Suisse et au Royaume-Uni. Nos deux points de vue participent à une réflexion muséologique sur la portée historique et contemporaine de cet inventaire, ainsi que les défis qui entourent sa création et sa gestion. À travers l’exemple de l’IPKD, nous souhaitons aborder la question des espaces enchevêtrés en étudiant de quelle manière cet inventaire réunit différents espaces à des échelles multiples : d’une part, à l’échelle internationale et, d’autre part, en Nouvelle-Calédonie. Ainsi, nous détaillerons le processus international de constitution de cet inventaire et de la documentation qui l’accompagne. D’abord, nous reviendrons sur quelques grandes étapes du projet d’inventaire depuis 1979. Puis, nous présenterons ce qu’est concrètement l’IPKD aujourd’hui et de quelle manière cet inventaire connecte et enchevêtre des espaces à l’échelle mondiale. Enfin, nous analyserons ces enchevêtrements à une échelle locale, en abordant ceux propres au territoire de la Nouvelle-Calédonie afin de mieux comprendre les relations nouées entre les communautés kanak et cet inventaire. Finalement, ce cas d’étude permettra d’éclairer les enjeux et les défis entourant les projets d’inventaires de collections dispersées, dans une perspective de muséologie transnationale plus globale. Un processus au long cours pour un inventaire international La Nouvelle-Calédonie est un archipel situé dans l’océan Pacifique Sud, habité par des populations austronésiennes, le peuple kanak. À partir de la fin du XVIIIᵉ siècle, commerçants et navigateurs venus d’Europe, d’Amérique et d’Asie traversent régulièrement l’archipel, entrant en contact avec le peuple kanak et acquérant leurs productions matérielles, d’abord sans grande documentation associée, leurs séjours étant généralement brefs. Le 23 septembre 1853, la France prend possession de la Nouvelle-Calédonie dans un contexte de rivalité avec le Royaume-Uni ; l’archipel devient à la fois une colonie libre et une colonie pénale, à compter de 1864 (Merle, 2020). Entre 1887 et 1946, le Code de l’indigénat est en application dans l’archipel et ségrégue les populations kanak. Des spoliations massives de terres kanak adviennent également à cette époque. L’administration coloniale interdit certaines pratiques culturelles kanak, dont le port d’armes (les massues et casse-tête), et dévalorise de manière générale les cultures autochtones. L’histoire 1 En comptant les lots, cela correspond à plus de 5950 pièces. Ce dénombrement n’inclut ni les collections du musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac à Paris (France), qui comptent 3204 objets et œuvres iconographiques, ni la collection du musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie à Nouméa qui se porte quant à elle à 2253 objets auxquels on peut ajouter des œuvres iconographiques. 81 des collectes et des collections kanak est à mettre en lien avec la constitution massive de collections dites ethnographiques et de l’ouverture de musées dédiés, en Europe en particulier. Comme le souligne Roger Boulay (1990), plusieurs marchands particulièrement actifs entre 1875 et 1905 ont largement contribué à l’enrichissement des collections des musées européens, parmi lesquelles le Weltmuseum de Vienne (Autriche), l’Ethnologische Museum de Berlin (Allemagne), le musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro à Paris (dont les collections sont aujourd’hui conservées au musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac [MQB-JC]) ou le muséum d’histoire naturelle de Toulouse. Parallèlement, des expéditions scientifiques au début du XXe siècle ont donné lieu à d’importantes collectes. L’une des plus notables est celle des naturalistes suisses Jean Roux (1876-1939) et Fritz Sarasin (1859-1942), qui rassemblèrent plusieurs milliers d’objets formant le cœur de la collection kanak du Museum der Kulturen de Bâle (Suisse), la deuxième collection d’objets kanak conservée hors de Nouvelle-Calédonie, après celle du MQB-JC. Parallèlement, une collection muséale est constituée en Nouvelle-Calédonie : le musée colonial, devenu le musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie, ouvre ses portes en 1905. Il conserve l’une des plus importantes collections d’objets kanak au monde, dont de nombreuses sculptures architecturales qui prenaient place sur les grandes cases kanak. L’initiative d’un inventaire du patrimoine kanak dispersé naît dans les années 1970, en lien avec le mouvement d’affirmation culturelle kanak en Nouvelle-Calédonie, après des siècles de dévalorisation et d’interdiction par le pouvoir colonial français en place. Le festival Mélanésia 2000, organisé à proximité de Nouméa en 1975, en est une étape fondatrice (Graille, 2016). Ce festival est l’occasion de dresser un état des lieux des différentes pratiques culturelles des communautés kanak du territoire et de les réaffirmer. Comme le décrit Jean-Marie Tjibaou (1936-1989), qui dirige le comité d’orientation du festival : L’idée première était de faire un inventaire de ce qui existait, à travers cet inventaire, de prendre conscience du patrimoine culturel du peuple mélanésien et ainsi d’essayer de redonner confiance aux gens, par rapport à la situation d’aliénation liée à la colonisation. (Tjibaou, 1996, p. 35) Dans la dynamique du festival, débute un travail d’inventaire des savoirs kanak sur le territoire calédonien. La littérature orale et les techniques de fabrication d’objets (sculpture sur bois et vanneries notamment) sont particulièrement concernées. C’est dans ce contexte que Jean-Marie Tjibaou charge Roger Boulay (1943-2024) de la mission d’effectuer un inventaire des objets kanak conservés dans des musées en France hexagonale et en Europe, en vue de constituer une documentation iconographique à l’usage des sculpteur·rice·s et des artisan·e·s kanak2. Cette mission débute en 1979, alors que Roger Boulay est animateur et formateur dans des associations d’éducation populaire, avant de devenir chargé de mission au musée national des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie à Paris (France) quelques années plus tard. Pour effectuer ce travail, Roger Boulay se rend directement dans les musées qui conservent des collections kanak pour voir, manipuler, photographier et inventorier les objets. Seul à accomplir ces missions, il bénéficie de l’aide des responsables de collections kanak dans les musées visités. Les missions d’inventaire se concentrent alors sur la France hexagonale ainsi que l’Europe occidentale, pour des raisons logistiques. Parmi les premières collections inventoriées figurent le musée municipal d’Angoulême et le musée Lafaille de La Rochelle3 (France), le Museum für Volkerkunde de Bâle4 et le musée 2 Ce dont témoignent les archives données par Roger Boulay au MQB-JC (58AP/1). 3 Aujourd’hui le muséum d’histoire naturelle de La Rochelle. 4 Aujourd’hui le Museum der Kulturen de Bâle. 82 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel (Suisse), le Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum de Cologne (Allemagne, autrefois République fédérale d’Allemagne) ou encore l’Ethnologische Museum à Berlin5 (Allemagne, autrefois République démocratique allemande). Ce premier travail de repérage est compilé sous la forme de fiches papier, déposées à Nouméa. Il reçoit le soutien de la Direction des musées nationaux, au ministère de la Culture, ainsi que de l’Office scientifique culturel et technique canaque [sic] créé en 1982 et sis à Nouméa. En 1985, Emmanuel Kasarhérou prend la direction du musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie à Nouméa. Il poursuit alors le travail d’inventaire entamé, notamment dans les musées océaniens au cours de missions effectuées sous l’égide du musée nouméen et conduit à l’organisation de l’exposition De Jade et de nacre (1990) (Boulay, 1990 et 1993 ; Kasarhérou, 2005). Marianne Tissandier rejoint le musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie en 1997, d’abord en tant qu’assistante de conservation puis en tant que conservatrice-restauratrice. Elle prolonge à son tour le travail d’inventaire lors de missions qu’elle accomplit pour le musée dans des institutions en Australie et en Aotearoa-Nouvelle-Zélande6. Au-delà des musées, cette entreprise bénéficie de soutiens politiques de la part du gouvernement français et de la collectivité de Nouvelle-Calédonie. En effet, cet inventaire s’inscrit pleinement au sein de la politique de décolonisation institutionnelle et de rééquilibrage culturel et social de la Nouvelle-Calédonie en faveur du peuple kanak. La valorisation des cultures kanak est essentielle dans ce processus. C’est en ce sens qu’est créée l’Agence de développement de la culture kanak (ADCK) en 1989, aux termes des accords 5 Aujourd’hui le Humboldt Forum, qui conserve les collections dites extra-européennes municipales de la ville de Berlin. 6 Musées à Sydney, Melbourne, Adélaïde, Auckland et Wellington Illustration 1 : Exemple d’une fiche d’inventaire rédigée par Roger Boulay, conservée © les archives du musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie. 83 de Matignon-Oudinot signés entre l’État et des représentants des principaux partis politiques calédoniens. L’ADCK a pour but de conserver et de valoriser les cultures kanak, en particulier par le biais de son siège social, le centre culturel Tjibaou qui est inauguré en mai 1998. L’ADCK intègre une équipe de collecteur·rice·s du patrimoine immatériel kanak chargée de recueillir et de rassembler les savoirs kanak. Cette équipe collabore régulièrement avec celle du musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie en charge de l’IPKD, dans une démarche alignée sur les missions du musée, qui repose sur un travail étroit avec les communautés locales (Tissandier & Daver, 2023). Dans cette perspective, l’IPKD est à replacer dans un contexte culturel plus général ainsi qu’une réflexion sur les liens entre les institutions patrimoniales et les communautés du territoire, kanak et non-kanak. En 1998, le texte de l’accord de Nouméa, qui prolonge les accords de Matignon-Oudinot, inclut un paragraphe consacré aux « objets culturels kanak7 » (République française, 1998). En 2002, l’accord particulier sur le développement culturel de la Nouvelle-Calédonie précise deux missions concernant ces objets culturels : la première est de réaliser un inventaire des objets kanak dispersés, tandis que la seconde est de mettre en dépôt certains d’entre eux dans des musées en Nouvelle-Calédonie (Ministère de l’Outre-mer et gouvernement de Nouvelle-Calédonie, 2002). Au sein des institutions étatiques calédoniennes administratives et culturelles, plusieurs personnalités kanak contribuent à la poursuite du projet d’inventaire. C’est le cas dès la création de l’Office scientifique culturel et technique canaque [sic], une institution née sous l’impulsion de Jean-Marie Tjibaou et de Jacques Iékawé (1946-1992), haut-fonctionnaire kanak et militant au sein de l’Union calédonienne, parti indépendantiste. En tant que membre du gouvernement de Nouvelle-Calédonie en charge de la culture, Déwé Gorodey (1949-2022) soutient l’inscription des « objets culturels kanak » au sein de l’accord de Nouméa et la signature d’un texte portant exclusivement sur le développement culturel de la Nouvelle-Calédonie8. Actuellement, au sein de l’administration calédonienne, de nombreux postes clés liés à la culture sont occupés par des femmes et des hommes kanak, qui sont généralement sensibles à la mise en place de projets visant à enrichir l’inventaire du patrimoine kanak dispersé. Entre 2011 et 2025, la réalisation de l’inventaire est rendue possible grâce à la mise en place d’une mission dédiée par le gouvernement de Nouvelle-Calédonie, qui en assure le financement9. La mission de l’IPKD comprend une équipe permanente de plusieurs membres (Roger Boulay, Emmanuel Kasarhérou, Etienne Bertrand et Renée Binosi), ainsi que des stagiaires calédonien·ne·s, qui sillonnent les musées d’Europe conservant des collections kanak. À cette période, les musées de France, d’Italie, du Vatican, de Suisse et d’Allemagne sont visités pendant des missions allant d’une journée à une semaine. Déjà inventoriés, des musées comme le Musée d’art et d’histoire Vivenel de Compiègne (France) ou le Melbourne Museum (Australie), sont à nouveau visités afin d’affiner les connaissances : certains artefacts kanaks sont ainsi identifiés parmi des collections jusqu’alors rangées sous la catégorie large et peu précise de « mélanésien ». Les moyens alloués ne permettent de visiter que les collections avec le plus grand nombre d’objets. Pour les plus petites collections, la mission IPKD procède par correspondance avec les 7 Ce texte prolonge les accords de Matignon-Oudinot signés en 1988 dans la perspective d’une décolonisation de la Nouvelle-Calédonie et d’un rééquilibrage social, culturel et économique en faveur de la population kanak. La culture kanak est alors établie comme socle commun dans la fondation d’une société calédonienne. 8 Comme en témoignent les courriers conservés par Roger Boulay et consultables dans les archives dont il a fait don au MQB-JC (58AP). 9 Le financement est de 64 millions de francs pacifiques, soit 536 320 euros pour la période de 2011 à 2015. 84 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 musées les conservant. Des locaux sont mis à disposition de la mission de l’IPKD par la Maison de la Nouvelle-Calédonie à Paris où les équipes reportent les données récoltées en musées dans des fiches-objets informatiques. Toutes les recherches préalables sont ainsi complétées et enrichies, puis transférées sur un tableur Excel en vue de leur versement sur la base de données Micromusée, utilisée par le musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie et choisie pour cette même raison pour héberger l’ensemble de l’IPKD. Le choix des stagiaires parmi différents établissements calédoniens (musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie, Département Recherche et Patrimoine de l’ADCK, Direction de la culture de la Province Nord) et des étudiant·e·s calédonien·ne·s en Hexagone montre l’ambition de cet inventaire à l’échelle de la Nouvelle-Calédonie. La formation professionnelle et l’échange de savoirs, muséaux et kanak, sont centraux dans le processus de documentation des collections kanak. Le bilan moral et financier de la mission (2013) indique comme objectifs pour les professionnel·le·s calédonien·ne·s : il s’agit non seulement de les familiariser avec la base documentaire en cours de constitution qu’ils auront un jour à utiliser ou à faire vivre, mais aussi leur permettre de rencontrer les responsables scientifiques des collections kanak en France et en Europe, dans l’espoir que ces contacts puissent nourrir des projets communs futurs. (Inventaire du Patrimoine Kanak Dispersé, 2013) À la même époque, cette aspiration fait écho aux recherches entreprises depuis les années 1980 par de nombreux musées européens sur leurs collections océaniennes, dans le but de mieux retracer et documenter leur histoire (Mélandri & Guiot, 2021). De nombreux projets collaboratifs, impliquant musées, universités et communautés d’origine, voient le jour depuis cette décennie. L’une de ces initiatives est le Melanesian Art Project, conduit entre 2005 et 2010 par Goldsmiths, Cambridge University et le British Museum (RoyaumeUni), grâce à un financement accordé par le Arts and Humanities Research Council du Royaume-Uni. Ce projet se focalise sur les collections originaires des îles de Mélanésie conservées par le British Museum (Adams, 2011), ce qui inclut donc les collections kanak de l’institution. En 2008, le musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie est invité à participer et à travailler sur ces collections kanak et à en recueillir l’inventaire, qui sera ajouté par la suite à la base IPKD. La création de ce réseau aura des répercussions par la suite et facilitera le don de 102 objets kanak au musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie par la famille Hadfield en 2009, sur lequel nous reviendrons. La réalisation de l’inventaire s’étale sur une temporalité longue de plus de quatre décennies, depuis 1979 jusqu’à nos jours. Cette durée s’explique par le nombre important d’objets kanak : d’après le bilan établi par Roger Boulay et Emmanuel Kasarhérou à l’issue de la mission gouvernementale de l’IPKD, 20 000 objets kanak seraient conservés dans 225 musées (2015). Parmi cette estimation, 16 000 d’entre eux ont été étudiés dans 162 musées à travers le monde. Ce chiffre peut être mis en perspective avec d’autres corpus d’objets culturels conservés hors de leur territoire d’origine, dans un contexte global de captations à des fins muséologiques, scientifiques ou impérialistes. DigitalBenin10 recense 5 288 objets historiques originaires du palais de Benin-city, dans le royaume de Benin (actuel Nigéria), pillé et incendié par l’armée britannique en 1897. Le projet de recherche « Atlas de l’absence. Le patrimoine culturel du Cameroun en Allemagne » a permis de comptabiliser plus de 40 000 objets originaires de l’actuel territoire du Cameroun conservés dans les seuls musées allemands (Assilkinga, 2023). En 2016, la Polynésie française a lancé un programme d’inventaire des objets polynésiens conservés dans les musées métropolitains, 10 https://digitalbenin.org/catalogue?page=1&seed=1ikld-hhyyn-tq3sv-3bona 85 suivant l’exemple de l’IPKD en Nouvelle-Calédonie. À ce jour, 53 institutions ont été recensées, abritant 1 330 objets, et bien que les principales collections aient été inventoriées (à l’exception du MQB-JC). La répartition mondiale des collections kanak est un autre enjeu : si 118 musées conservant des objets kanak sont actuellement localisés en France hexagonale, des institutions préservant le patrimoine kanak dispersé sont situées sur quatre continents : en Europe, en Amérique du Nord, en Océanie et probablement en Asie. La répartition mondiale des collections s’explique par l’histoire coloniale qui lie la France et la Nouvelle-Calédonie, ainsi que par l’histoire scientifique et muséologique. L’IPKD prend aujourd’hui pour forme concrète une base de données informatique sur le logiciel de gestion des collections muséales Micromusée. En décembre 2024, la base Micromusée du musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie comprenait 5457 fiches d’objets kanak extérieurs à sa collection, situés dans 116 musées provenant de 17 pays différents – sur les 136 musées identifiés dans le monde. À l’appui des recherches précédentes, la constitution de cette de base de données et surtout sa mise en ligne demeure un travail chronophage qui implique repérage des objets, échanges physiques ou par mail avec les musées les conservant, puis éventuelle re-saisie des fiches-objets lorsque les systèmes informatiques ne sont pas compatibles. Depuis la fin de la mission de l’IPKD en 2015 et le transfert officiel de la base de données au musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie, cette dernière repose uniquement sur la petite équipe de l’institution qui doit composer avec d’autres projets d’envergure, dont le déménagement des collections dans des réserves externalisées en 2019 et la rénovation générale du musée, débutée l’année suivante. En 2023 et 2024, pour la première fois, une personne a été dédiée au projet IPKD, permettant de se concentrer sur son récolement et son enrichissement. Cependant, faute de moyens, le contrat de cet agent, Edmond Saume, n’a pas été renouvelé en 2025, laissant de nouveau l’alimentation et le développement de la base de données à la charge du département des collections du musée, déjà mobilisé sur d’autres projets majeurs. Illustration 2 : Carte représentant la répartition mondiale des collections incluses dans l’IPKD, présentée dans l’exposition Carnets kanak. Voyage en inventaire de Roger Boulay au MQB-JC (octobre 2022-mars 2023). Photographie © Marion Bertin. 86 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Collections et savoirs transnationaux L’IPKD est un «inventaire raisonné» et non pas un inventaire exhaustif qui rassemblerait les quelque 20 000 objets kanak estimés dans les collections des musées du monde. Les critères de sélection s’attachent à prioriser «les objets les plus intéressants, en fonction de leur provenance, leur histoire, les circonstances de leur collecte, leur valeur esthétique ou leur état de conservation» (Musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie, s.d.). Ces critères discriminent tout particulièrement les armes, très nombreuses dans les collections kanak en raison de l’histoire militaire et coloniale de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, du goût pour de tels objets au XIXe et dans la première moitié du XXe siècle, ainsi que leur disponibilité. Comme nous l’avons précédemment indiqué, le transfert des premières fiches sous formats papier vers un format numérique s’est opéré partiellement lors de la mission du gouvernement de Nouvelle-Calédonie entre 2011 et 2015. À ces fiches se sont ajoutées celles des objets nouvellement étudiés, au fur et à mesure des missions effectuées par l’équipe de l’IPKD. Dans le détail, chaque fiche inclut la désignation de l’objet, sa localisation muséale présente, sa région d’origine en Nouvelle-Calédonie, les matériaux qui le constituent, ses dimensions, une datation, ainsi que les collecteur·rice·s ou collectionneur·rice·s lui étant liés. Ce dernier aspect a fait l’objet de grande attention lors des missions, dans une démarche d’histoire des collections. Un important travail sur les archives des musées visités et d’autres fonds fut mené en même temps que l’inventaire permettant, lorsque cela était possible, d’inclure dans les fiches des dates de collectes, des périodes de fabrication ou même des témoignages écrits des collecteur·rice·s. Une ou plusieurs photographies, voire parfois des documents d’archives, complètent ces données textuelles. S’y ajoutent également quelques croquis à l’aquarelle réalisés par Roger Boulay dans le but de documenter des détails techniques d’objets, ou bien dans une visée comparative en rassemblant plusieurs objets. En 2015, la base de données constituée fut transférée au musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie qui en assure depuis la gestion, en la personne de Marianne Tissandier. Cette dernière est également chargée de la base de données d’inventaire des collections du musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie, hébergée sur le même logiciel Micromusée, reliant virtuellement les deux types de collections. Depuis novembre 2022, la base de données de l’IPKD est progressivement mise en ligne afin d’être accessible au plus grand nombre à l’international. La mise en ligne intervient musée par musée car il est nécessaire de reprendre contact avec chacun d’eux pour obtenir l’autorisation de publier les informations et les photographies dont ils sont les dépositaires ainsi que de vérifier éventuellement les éléments rassemblés. Si la majorité des fiches papier fut indexée pendant la mission IPKD, certaines restent encore à ajouter à la base de données d’inventaire. En 2023 et 2024, Edmond Saume a mené un travail essentiel de création de fiches-objets, afin de rendre accessibles numériquement celles rédigées par Roger Boulay sur papier qui restaient encore inaccessibles. Cette mission est intervenue en parallèle du travail régulier de complément des fiches existantes mené en interne au musée. Ce récolement montre la nécessité de vérifier les informations rassemblées dans les années 1980 lors des premières missions de Roger Boulay. En effet, des changements de numérotation, de désignation ou de provenance furent notés ou des photographies numériques plus récentes furent trouvées, en particulier sur les bases publiées des musées. Les recherches ou les récolements dans les musées conservant des collections kanak conduisent également à l’ajout de nouveaux numéros aux objets kanak connus. La base actuelle est ainsi la synthèse des missions successives effectuées au fil des années. Toutes les informations ajoutées numériquement indiquent la date et le nom de 87 la personne ayant apporté des ajouts ou des modifications, ce qui permet d’historiciser et d’humaniser les données souvent rendues atemporelles et anonymes dans de telles bases de données numériques (Beltrame, 2015 ; von Oswald, 2022). En complément des fiches-objets, l’IPKD rassemble des savoirs sur les collections kanak dispersées. Une rubrique en ligne est consacrée à la bibliographie et aux articles de presse traitant du patrimoine kanak dispersé, permettant de rendre honneur aux recherches internationales faites par Roger Boulay, Emmanuel Kasarhérou, ou lors de recherches plus récentes s’appuyant sur l’IPKD (Cerruti, 2023 ; Gallarini, 2023 ; Green, 2023). L’IPKD a vocation également à intervenir comme une ressource de référence, en particulier pour les noms des objets. La renomination des objets des collections dites ethnographiques fait en effet partie des axes de réflexion menés par de nombreux musées au cours des dernières années dans le but de rompre avec certaines terminologies héritières de l’époque coloniale (Beltrame, 2015 ; Bodenstein et al., 2024; Brizon, 2023 ; von Oswald, 2022). Le musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie fait évoluer certaines désignations d’objets kanak sur sa base de données, qui sert de base à celle de l’IPKD. Un exemple notoire est une typologie d’objets autrefois appelés « hache ostensoir » : ce nom, donné par les Européens du fait de sa similarité avec l’ostensoir catholique, illustre pleinement le « processus d’appropriation globalisée » (Brizon, 2023, p. 114), tant matériel qu’immatériel, opéré par la collecte d’objets. La désignation « hache ostensoir » est à présent remplacée par « hache ou casse-tête de cérémonie (« ostensoir ») »11 dans les inventaires et les bases de données. Le travail de l’IPKD étend considérablement le nombre d’objets kanak connus dans le monde. En réunissant des corpus d’objets d’une même typologie, il ouvre de nouvelles perspectives de recherches sur l’histoire de l’art et de la culture matérielle kanak. Les corpus identifiés et dénombrés permettent de mesurer la rareté ou l’exceptionnalité de certains objets (Lagarde, 2024). À titre d’exemple, il est devenu apparent que les colliers de perles en néphrite, des objets de prestige et d’échanges dans le monde kanak, comprennent la plupart du temps moins de 150 perles ; les colliers en comptant davantage sont ainsi exceptionnels, comme en témoigne l’un d’eux originaire de l’aire coutumière Paicî-Cèmuhî de Nouvelle-Calédonie et conservé au musée de Hienghène (ill. 3). Roger Boulay a tout particulièrement travaillé sur les sculptures réalisées dans le contexte des grandes cases, lieux de pouvoir des chefs kanak progressivement disparus au cours de la période coloniale (Boulay, 1986 ; Boulay, 2021). Son travail s’appuie sur des corpus étendus par le travail de l’IPKD, qui se chiffrent à 737 objets aujourd’hui. A la lumière de ces corpus, son hypothèse est le partage d’un motif commun à l’ensemble du territoire, le nœud de l’interdit, soumis à des variantes régionales. Par l’extension des corpus d’objets connus, certains qui semblaient autrefois similaires sont plus précisément discernés les uns des autres. Différents types de lances, ayant des fonctions spécifiques pour la guerre ou des cérémonies, sont mieux distingués. La consultation et la manipulation de ces lances dans les musées suggèrent que certaines lances dites de guerre servaient autrefois pour des cérémonies et ont perdu les poils de roussette et les plaquettes en bois qui participaient à les identifier. 11 Un exemplaire de cet objet, conservé au musée cantonal d’archéologie et d’histoire à Lausanne (Suisse), a quant à lui reçu un nouveau nom unique et spécifique, « Nââkwéta » en langue xârâcùù, grâce au travail collaboratif mené entre Claire Brizon, responsable des collections océaniennes du musée, et Denis Pourawa, poète kanak. Pour Denis Pourawa : « Ce mot Nââkwéta a été choisi en référence à la baie de Koutio Kouéta, qui dans la mémoire orale est le lieu de départ d’un objet prestigieux dont l’histoire a été transmise par une parole coutumière clanique » (Brizon, 2023, p.113). 88 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Aujourd’hui, l’IPKD et le musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie sont devenus des références internationales pour la documentation des collections kanak. Les différentes précisions mentionnées s’opèrent à l’échelle des musées du monde, qui contactent le musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie pour son expertise établie et reconnue. Les précisions et compléments d’informations ont également et surtout cours à l’appui des recherches menées auprès des communautés kanak de Nouvelle-Calédonie, premières bénéficiaires de l’IPKD. Un inventaire au service du peuple kanak et de la Nouvelle-Calédonie Comme indiqué dès notre introduction, l’IPKD visait tout particulièrement les communautés kanak comme récipiendaires du savoir recueilli. Pour Jean-Marie Tjibaou, cette initiative avait tout d’abord pour but de redonner confiance au peuple kanak culturellement parlant, dans une période encore très largement marquée par les stigmates de la Illustration 3 : Collier de perles de jade - iti hê mecio - caawe, tribu Tiouandé, aire coutumière Paicî-Cèmuhî de Nouvelle-Calédonie, conservé © le musée de Hienghène, inv. MHI 89.1.15. 89 colonisation et par le racisme (Leblic, 2003 ; Tjibaou, 1996). Dès les premières missions menées par Roger Boulay, les données recueillies furent déposées en Nouvelle-Calédonie. Plusieurs publications (Boulay, 1982 ; Boulay, 1984) voient le jour dans les années 1980 grâce au soutien de l’Office culturel scientifique et technique canaque ; elles sont gratuitement distribuées dans les écoles et les chefferies kanak. Ces publications incluent de larges planches illustrées d’objets du patrimoine kanak dispersé, en particulier des appliques et des flèches faîtières issues de grandes cases. De manière concomitante, des petits festivals organisés de manière régionale poursuivent la dynamique culturelle initiée par Mélanésia 2000. Des cases sont reconstruites à ces occasions dans plusieurs villages dont Sarraméa, Poindimié et Hienghène sur la Grande Terre (Roger Boulay : communication personnelle, entretien en date du 11 décembre 2023). De telles constructions sont favorables à une transmission intergénérationnelle des savoirs de construction. De plus, plusieurs sculpteurs kanak s’emparent de l’aspect formel des sculptures d’appliques pour en faire un motif sculpté autonome et déconnecté de fonctions architecturales : c’est le cas d’artistes comme Gilbert Kaoua ou Marc Déha, dont les œuvres font partie des collections publiques du Fonds d’Art Contemporain Kanak et Océanien (FACKO) préservé par l’ADCK à Nouméa. Les artistes contemporains demeurent particulièrement demandeur·se·s d’informations, notamment en ce qui concerne les techniques de fabrication anciennes pour la sculpture sur bois, la sparterie et la vannerie. Outre les artistes, les collecteur·rice·s du patrimoine kanak au sein de l’ADCK sont particulièrement intéressé·e·s par les résultats de l’IPKD. Les inventaires du patrimoine dispersé et du patrimoine immatériel kanak dans l’archipel sont lancés de manière concomitante à la fin des années 1970. Ces recherches se poursuivent ensuite de manière parallèle. En 2012 et en 2013, lors de la mission gouvernementale IPKD, Roger Boulay et Emmanuel Kasarhérou présentent l’état d’avancement desrecherches en Nouvelle-Calédonie, en particulier auprès des équipes de collecte orale et immatérielle de l’ADCK. Ces séances de travail permettent de confronter les données rassemblées par l’IPKD avec celles de la tradition orale détenue par les Anciens, personnalités gardiennes des savoirs dans le monde kanak. Les discussions portèrent alors sur les techniques et les matériaux mis en œuvre pour les objets vus par les membres de la mission en Europe, notamment les massues et les monnaies d’échanges, dans la perspective de pouvoir en reproduire certains d’entre eux en Nouvelle-Calédonie. Ainsi qu’il était souhaité initialement, la base de données IPKD demeure une façon de ramener virtuellement les objets inventoriés et les savoirs qui leur sont associés en Nouvelle-Calédonie, en rendant disponibles les informations à toutes les tribus et clans locaux, bien que les informations de collectes ne soient en général pas suffisamment précises pour déterminer une tribu d’origine. L’expression «retour virtuel» n’est pas employée par les membres de la mission IPKD au moment de sa tenue. Même si l’idée d’une mise en ligne faisait partie des souhaits à long terme, les objectifs au moment de l’inventaire étaient avant tout de rencontrer les conservateur·rice·s pour assembler un plus grand corpus d’objets et faciliter la tenue d’expositions dans le futur. A cette époque, la volonté principale des membres était de collaborer et de se présenter sur un pied d’égalité avec les musées hors du territoire de Nouvelle-Calédonie, plutôt que d’adopter une posture revendicative face à la dispersion de leur patrimoine. Aucune demande de restitution n’intervint et ce sont uniquement des demandes d’informations qui furent formulées, dans le souci de nouer des liens de confiance entre institutions et leurs équipes. 96 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 histoire technique en complément de l’histoire factuelle des acquisitions des collections est un levier remarquable, qui suscite un regain d’intérêt auprès des jeunes et inscrit dans les consciences une fonction nouvelle des établissements muséaux.1 Dans cette continuité, le projet Rara’a se positionne également sur les enjeux des savoirs locaux (accessibilité des données, partagées, ouvertes, réutilisables dans le respect du droit d’auteur sur les savoirs traditionnels et les expressions culturelles traditionnelles) et la manière dont il est possible de les intégrer dans les pratiques décisionnelles pour un avenir durable. Bien que située en Polynésie française, un contexte où le concept de décolonisation trouve nécessairement une lecture alternative (Gagné & Salaün, 2010), cette expérimentation entendait éprouver une méthodologie permettant de redonner «voix» aux objets conservés au musée par les expertes en vannerie issues de différentes îles de l’archipel et mobilisées dans le projet. Il s’agissait en cela de contribuer aux réflexions en cours sur les modalités de réappropriation et de souveraineté autochtone – que l’on peut connâitre en Nouvelle-Calédonie également (Puel & Van Geert, 2021) – ainsi que sur le rôle d’un musée territorial comme Te Fare Iamanaha dans ce processus (Nyssen, 2024). Nous proposons d’exposer ici cette démarche, sa méthodologie et les premiers résultats du projet Rara’a, tresser en Polynésie française. La genèse du projet : un constat au cœur du musée En 2016-2017, les équipes curatoriales et de conservation-restauration du MQB-JC menèrent une analyse historique (provenance des œuvres, état de l’art des sources) et scientifique de huit éventails tāhii des îles Marquises–Te Henua Ènata. Cette étude faisait suite à un constat exprimé à plusieurs reprises par des délégations polynésiennes, reçues après l’ouverture du musée en 2006: certaines techniques anciennes de tressage, associées à des objets de prestige, sont aujourd’hui éteintes dans plusieurs archipels. Parmi ces objets, les éventail tāhii se distinguaient par une iconographie européenne abondante qui témoignait de leur importance dans la culture matérielle marquisienne ancienne où ils étaient associés aux personnes de haut rang (Ivory, 1990; Lavondès, 1995et 2016). Leur production, empreinte d’un savoir-faire remarquable et spécifique à leur archipel, alliait mondes féminin (tressage) et masculin (sculpture). La colonisation dans l’archipel(1838-1842) provoqua des transformations profondes de la société, un dramatique phénomène de dépeuplement (Rallu, 1991; Sand, 2024), une perte des savoirs et une suspension de la transmission. L’arrêt de la production des tāhii fut manifeste dès le début du 20e siècle. Durant les années 1970, une forme de reconquête culturelle se déploie dans les îles de Polynésie française, mais se focalise aux Marquises sur la sculpture et le tapa (étoffe d’écorce battue), au détriment du tressage. Ce constat de la «perte», ou de ce «sommeil», dont l’expérience de Rara’a montrèrent ensuite qu’il n’était pas irrémédiable ni définitif, marqua le point de départ de l’étude ciblée sur les vanneries des îles Marquises. De même, les multiples hypothèses sur la nature des fibres utilisées, formulées par les voyageurs et ethnographes ayant eu accès à ces objets, nourrissaient le besoin d’analyses scientifiques plus poussées. Ces constats motivèrent les prémices des recherches sur ces tressages spécifiques, menées par Christophe Moulhérat, alors chargé des analyses au sein du pôle conservation-restauration du MQB-JC, Magali Mélandri, responsable des collections Océanie du MQB-JC, et Céline Kerfant, 1 Intervention colloque ICOFOM 2023, Nouméa. 97 archéo-botaniste, à l’aide d’outils numériques d’imagerie –tomographie aux rayons X, stéréo-microscopie optique sous caméra et microscopie numérique 3D Hirox®.Cet outillage permettait d’observer ces pièces sans méthodologie invasive, d’explorer leur structure interne, de contribuer à qualifier la nature des fibres et de constituer ainsi une documentation visuelle précise à même d’être confrontée aux expertises techniques contemporaines en PF. Ces premières images révélaient déjà la finesse de préparation des fibres végétales de la famille des Pandanaceae, ou encore des ébauches de gestes (Kerfant, Mélandri & Moulhérat, 2019). Cette étape permit également de définir un vocabulaire commun de description technique de la structure de l’éventail, réemployable dans la suite du projet afin d’enregistrer leurs équivalents en langues vernaculaires polynésiennes. En 2020-2021, vint le temps d’un premier partage in situ avec les communautés. Une convention de dépôt à long terme, signée par les trois chercheurs impliqués dans l’étude de 2016-2017 et la Direction de la Culture et du Patrimoine (DCP) de PF visait à la diffusion Illustration 1 : Observation du tressage d’un panier de l’île de Rapa (TFI-MTI), mars 2023. Photo par Hélène Guiot, © Te Fare Iamanaha–musée de Tahiti et des îles. des dossiers documentaires produit auprès de onze institutions culturelles et scientifiques, à Tahiti et aux îles Marquises (musées, CMA de PF, Université de PF-UPF, bibliothèques, fédérations culturelles locales). Ce partage constituait une réappropriation du matériau scientifique auprès des institutions de recherche, de valorisation et de médiation des patrimoines de PF. Cette relation d’institution à institution, entre France hexagonale et collectivité d’outre-mer ne pouvait cependant qu’être une étape, ouvrant sur des perspectives de collaboration locale. 98 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Le projet Rara’a, tresser des collaborations en Polynésie française Les vanneries sont des artefacts qui conservent, dans leur matérialité, toutes les techniques de leur mise en œuvre (Jolie & Mc Brinn, 2010), lesquelles ne sont pas reproductibles par une machine (Bunn, 2016). Ces deux caractères font des vanneries et des vannier·ère·s les dépositaires de technologies végétales anciennes (Respicio, 2000). Aussi, les premières découvertes conduisent en 2022-2023 à la mise en œuvre d’une dynamique articulant différents acteurs qui agissent localement pour les savoirs et la transmission. Le projet prend alors le nom de «Rara’a, tresser en Polynésie française. Partage d’expériences et analyses des collections de vanneries de Te Fare Iamanaha». Porté par TFIMTI, il reçoit une subvention de Archipel.eu ainsi que du Haut-Commissariat de la PF et s’établit avec les soutiens du MQB-JC (prêt du microscope 3D Hirox®), du Service de l’artisanat traditionnel et du CMA de PF qui contribuent à la structuration du projet de recherche et qui se concrétise par la mise en place d’un atelier collaboratif en mars 2023. Rara’a, une recherche pluridisciplinaire et culturellement multi-située Le choix du terme rara’a («tresser» en reo -langueTahiti) reflète l’ancrage polynésien du projet. Le projet envisage ainsi les vanneries dans leur profondeur de temps et dans la pluralité des populations de PF, afin de co-construire une recherche qui articule le savoir des expertes polynésiennes, les données muséographiques, historiques, anthropologiques et botaniques, et celles des sciences du patrimoine. Dans le cadre de l’atelier collaboratif de mars 2023, le groupe de travail réunissait: • l’équipe de conservation du Te Fare Iamanaha: Tamara Maric, conservatrice, Marine Vallée, assistante de conservation et la directrice du musée, Miriama Bono; • quatre vannières expertes: Vainui Barsinas, installée dans l’île de Rapa (îles Australes), spécialisée dans le travail du roseau des montagnesā’eho; Emerita Taputu, originaire de Rurutu (îles Australes), ancienne enseignante au CMA et experte dans le travail du pandanus pae’ore; Tevahine Teariki, originaire de Nukutavake (Tuāmotu) et spécialisée dans le travail de la palme de cocotiernī’au; Iaera Tefaafana originaire de Rimatara (îles Australes) et experte dans le travail du pae’ore; • deux étudiantes en Diplôme National MA de parcours Fibres et textiles, héritages polynésiens: processus innovant et éco-responsable (CMA de PF): Hinerupe Lehot et Océane Tamati Wong, et le référent pédagogique du CMA, J-D Tokainiua Devatine; • Hélène Guiot, ethno-archéologue, spécialiste des patrimoines polynésiens; • Céline Kerfant, archéobotaniste; • Magali Mélandri, responsable de l’unité patrimoniale Océanie – Insulinde au MQB-JC. Des vannières expertes représentant la diversité des savoir-faire insulaires ont été associées au projet. 99 Méthodologies L’atelier combinait donc l’observation au microscope 3D Hirox® de vanneries de Polynésie centrale et orientale issues des collections de TFI-MTI, à des expérimentations de tressage d’après les hypothèses techniques émises par l’observation. Dans ce contexte, les vannières ont accepté de mobiliser leurs savoir-faire afin de redonner vie à des techniques passées qui n’étaient pas nécessairement liées à leur identité d’origine. Illustration 2. Observation au microscope 3D Hirox® des détails du tressage de l’éventail inv. 78.03.44 (TFI-MTI), février 2023. Photo par Hélène Guiot. © Te Fare Iamanaha–musée de Tahiti et des îles. S’inscrivant dans une démarche de partage des données, le projet Rara’a a dès le départ, souhaité appliquer les principes FAIR (Facile à trouver, Accessible, Interopérable, Réutilisable) et CARE (avantage Collectif, Autorité en matière de contrôle, Responsabilité, Éthique) pour la gestion et l’intendance des données scientifiques. Les principes FAIR, au cœur de la science ouverte, visent à faciliter la découverte des données, leur accessibilité durable (libre, gratuite et sécurisée), leur combinaison (par l’emploi de langage partagé par tous) et leur réutilisation, impliquant de fournir des informations sur les conditions de leur exploitation (voir par exemple Wilkinson et al., 2016). Les principes CARE, en complément aux principes FAIR, concernent spécifiquement la gouvernance des données autochtones (mis en place pour la première fois par GIDA, 2019), afin que les populations concernées puissent en tirer un avantage (croissance, innovation inclusive, résultats équitables, gouvernance des données, maximiser l’usage futur, etc.). Lors des trois semaines d’atelier, l’observation s’est concentrée sur les collections d’éventails du TFI-MTI, ainsi que sur un panier et un soutien-gorge de costume de danse de l’île de Rapa (îles Australes). Ces deux derniers objets, confectionnés en fibre de kiekie (Freycine- 100 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 tia impavida) ont servi de corpus de comparaison pour les tāhii éventails marquisiens, en constituant des exemples intéressants d’usage de fibres similaires, illustrant toutefois des tailles de brins et des périodes différentes. Ensuite, la recherche s’est focalisée sur deux éventails tāhiri, provenant de l’ancienne collection James Hooper, acquise par le musée en 19782. Associés aux îles de la Société dans les inventaires du musée, ces deux éventails seraient originaires des îles Cook (Polynésie centrale), mais vraisemblablement collectés aux îles de la Société, comme cela avait cours au 18e siècle, où ces archipels entretenaient depuis longtemps des liens dynamiques (Te Rangi Hiroa, 1944). Leur technique d’assemblage complexe a nécessité plusieurs allers-retours de phases d’observation des objets, à l’œil nu et avec l’Hirox®, ainsi que des phases d’expérimentation initiées par les vannières soucieuses d’allier étude et pratique pour mieux appréhender la compréhension technique de ces objets patrimoniaux. Acteurs locaux Pour TFI-MTI, Rara’a incarnait l’une de ses missions fondamentales en tant qu’institution muséale principale de PF et matérialisait l’importance de l’aspect vivant et inclusif au cœur de son nouveau projet scientifique et culturel (Bono et al., 2022; Nyssen, 2024)3. La préparation de cette nouvelle phase du projet a coïncidé avec l’installation des collections dans la nouvelle salle d’exposition permanente, et le début du volet in situ s’est articulé avec sa réouverture début mars 2023. Ainsi, certains objets associés aux pratiques de tressage de fibres étaient tout nouvellement exposés, tandis que le reste du corpus des collections du TFI-MTI comprenait plus de 200 références (exception faite des costumes de danse ‘ori Tahiti). Deux autres acteurs institutionnels locaux ont contribué à structurer et installer le projet à Tahiti. Le Service de l’artisanat traditionnel, créé en 1984, est guidé par plusieurs missions dont le sens a évolué depuis sa naissance. Parmi elles, il s’agit notamment de structurer, professionnaliser et promouvoir le secteur, et d’accompagner son développement économique et social. S’il s’est concentré à ses origines sur l’accompagnement financier des projets des artisans traditionnels, il intervient beaucoup plus sur le terrain aujourd’hui, notamment pour faire face à des enjeux plus larges de préservation et de diffusion des savoirs et savoir-faire traditionnels. En effet, jadis présent dans presque toutes ses pratiques et dans tous les archipels, l’artisanat traditionnel est aujourd’hui fortement restreint par différentes réalités. Les enjeux et logiques économiques finissent paradoxalement par avoir un impact sur les créations et sur la transmission des savoir-faire et imposent de faire évoluer les regards et de préserver ce qui peut l’être. Le CMA est un établissement de formation créé en 1980 à Pape’ete, à l’initiative de Henri Bouvier, ancien élève de l’école Boulle, qui prit souche à Tahiti (Rémy & Rémy, 1997). L’établissement, à travers un parcours de formation allant du Certificat polynésien des Métiers d’art au Diplôme national des métiers d’art et du design, valant grade Licence, dont les partenaires sont le Lycée Samuel Ra’apoto (LSR) et l’UPF, a pour mission la formation théorique et pratique d’artistes et d’artisans hautement qualifiés dans les disciplines artistiques traditionnelles et modernes, la recherche et le perfectionnement des techniques artisanales. Sa philosophie originelle est également de permettre à des adolescents 2 N° inv. 78.03.43 et .44. 3 «Les missions», TFI-MTI https://www.museetahiti.pf/le-musee-de-tahiti-et-des-iles/, page consultée le 22/11/2024. 101 parfois en situation d’échec et de décrochage scolaire de trouver une voie de réussite dans les métiers d’art polynésien que sont, entre autres, la sculpture sur bois, la gravure sur nacre, la vannerie, le tressage et le dessin. Bouvier (1982) déclara à propos de la création du CMA que son «but principal [était] de doubler l’action de formation artisanale par le sauvetage social d’une partie des enfants dont la scolarité se [terminait] à 14 ou 15 ans». L’établissement permet aussi à des adultes en reconversion économique, ou longtemps marginalisés scolairement, de suivre une formation et d’être reconnus pour leur talent créatif et de conceptualisation. Les principes de l’enseignement sont de régénérer les patrimoines polynésiens en les faisant évoluer, via l’acquisition de techniques de représentation variées, la connaissance de l’histoire, la compréhension de la société actuelle et l’apport des nouvelles technologies. Il s’agit de laisser des traces de la vitalité des cultures polynésiennes, de les diffuser et de les faire perdurer dans le temps: enrichir les patrimoines culturels océaniens est une manière de contribuer à l’œuvre ancestrale et d’honorer les ancêtres. Une variété d’approches pédagogiques (cours magistraux, ateliers pratiques, projets collaboratifs, workshops et partenariats institutionnels nationaux et internationaux) encourage les étudiants à explorer les processus de fabrication tant traditionnels que ceux ancrés dans des territoires différents, et interrogent l’impact de leur production sur les écosystèmes insulaires. La synergie transversale mise en place dans le cadre du projet Rara’a, entre praticien·ne·s, chercheur·e·s, institutions culturelles et structures de formation et de professionnalisation, n’avait pas jusqu’ici était expérimentée dans le cadre de projets culturels à Tahiti. C’est donc d’abord la construction d’un collectif de travail qui a présidé au déroulement de ce workshop à Tahiti, ciment indispensable au développement d’un tel projet. Des résultats pluriels, centrés sur une problématique de transmission Redécouvrir et transmettre La (re)découverte de matières utilisées pour certaines œuvres des collections du TFI-MTI a ouvert de nouveaux horizons et contribue à sortir d’une tendance selon laquelle ce qui se fait aujourd’hui est la «seule» tradition transmise par les ancêtres et admise, empêchant de s’interroger sur les pratiques anciennes réelles et de s’autoriser à questionner, interpréter et réinventer la création. Ainsi, des pratiques pourtant récentes se perdent, à l’image du kiekie, appelé «osier» à Rapa. Comme le note Vainui Barsinas: C’est la racine aérienne qui est utilisée. Je connaissais déjà cette fibre; elle était utilisée pour la confection d’un panier de Rapa exposé au musée, et des costumes de danse que ma sœur avait portés en 1992 pour le Heiva [concours de danse traditionnelle]. La confrontation aux techniques anciennes dont la mise en sommeil se confond parfois avec un oubli ou une perte irrémédiable, a permis aux spécialistes de repenser la nécessité de transmettre afin d’éviter l’effritement des savoir-faire. Cette dynamique relationnelle entre deux communautés, l’une praticienne et l’autre muséale, a nourri une forme d’agentivité des collectifs au service de la connaissance et sa transmission croisée. 102 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Les étudiantes Océane Wong et Hinerupe Lehot ont pu travailler avec des intervenant·e·s de nombreuses disciplines et dans un cadre à la fois de formation universitaire et de recherche artisanale, muséale, ethnographique et botanique sur les matériaux, les savoirs et les techniques représente un tremplin professionnel pour les jeunes s’intéressant aux patrimoines océaniens. Transmettre au-delà des spécialités Le projet Rara’a s’est constitué autour d’une approche fondamentale, celle du partage de savoir-faire et d’expérience. Les trois spécialistes identifiées par le Service de l’artisanat traditionnel ont ainsi apporté leur expertise technique et culturelle, au travers de leurs identités culturelles distinctes, de leurs parcours et de leurs spécialités. Barsinas a relevé l’intérêt de ces spécialités croisées qui ont permis à chacune d’apporter ses connaissances relatives à sa matière de prédilection. Comme elle le souligne, ce projet collaboratif a mis en valeur l’expertise de chacune, facilitant la compréhension des techniques mises en œuvre pour le tressage des œuvres qui leur étaient présentées. Elle explique: Le plus difficile a été de trouver la base du tressage: il a fallu de nombreux essais sur les deux premières semaines du projet. Pour cela, nous avons dû souvent revenir à l’Hirox pour observer l’objet, défaire les tressages puis recommencer à tresser à partir du début. Cette méthodologie du croisement des savoirs entre en disruption avec les pratiques en place dans les archipels de PF. En effet, la représentation de ces archipels s’exprime au travers d’objets, qui symbolisent à eux seuls une dynamique forte de leur spécialisation. Probablement impulsée dans le cadre d’une organisation administrative déconcentrée, cette vision a été accentuée par les pratiques touristiques. Une cartographie économique menée en 2022 par le Service de l’artisanat traditionnel montre clairement cette répartition des savoir-faire très marquée: 50% des vannier·ère·s sont concentré·e·s aux Australes et 72% des sculpteurs-graveurs aux Marquises. Ainsi, en lien avec une approche économique devenue prégnante dans le secteur, de nombreux savoir-faire se sont perdus au profit d’une spécialisation permettant de répondre aux attentes des acheteurs, impactant à terme la diversité des pratiques. Cette spécialisation génère par ailleurs un fort sentiment de propriété des savoir-faire, en contradiction avec un non moins fort sentiment de n’être qu’un maillon face à des enseignements qui n’appartiennent pas à l’individu mais au collectif. Des consultations du secteur menées fin 2024 ont montré la réticence des artisans des Australes à enseigner aux artisans des Tuamotu la préparation du pae’ore, tandis que le récent renouveau de la pratique du tapa à Tahiti inquiète certains préparateurs de tapa des Marquises, qui considèrent ce savoir-faire lié à leur identité. Cette même réticence a pourtant permis de mener une réflexion spécifique dans le cadre du projet Rara’a, dont les protocoles de travail et de gestion des données collectées ont été présentés aux comités culturels des Australes pour validation préalable à la participation des expertes de cet archipel. Cette étape s’est révélée essentielle: quelles méthodologies adopter pour enregistrer, archiver et valoriser les données d’une recherche qui se doit de tenir compte des impératifs de l’ensemble des collectifs ? Quelle gouvernance des données autochtones dans le cadre d’un projet impliquant une telle diversité d’interlocuteurs et dont certaines finalités visent à valoriser auprès des publics des musées les pratiques expertes de vannerie en PF ? 103 Transmettre grâce à des approches croisées Cette situation s’exprime conjointement aux problématiques de la transmission des savoirfaire, notamment en raison de la réserve des jeunes générations à s’impliquer dans ces métiers perçus comme manquant d’attractivité. En effet, la génération des grands-parents a favorisé les parcours scolaires en incitant leurs enfants à étudier pour accéder à un métier et à un avenir plus facile que le leur. Or, le principe de la transmission des savoir-faire traditionnels est souvent intra familial. Les artisans se sont alors trouvés sans successeurs, avec un désintérêt de leurs proches, aggravé par des pénuries récurrentes de matières premières. Le projet Rara’a a donné toute sa mesure dans ce contexte, en permettant de rechercher des savoir-faire disparus, mais surtout en soulignant, pour les artisans traditionnels participant, la nécessité – pour ne pas dire l’urgence – de mettre leur expertise en commun et transmettre leur savoir-faire afin que leurs créations ne se retrouvent un jour dans des musées sans que personne ne puisse retrouver le fil de leur histoire. La PF est probablement à l’aube d’un tournant dans ses modes de transmission des savoirfaire traditionnels, tournant opéré dans d’autres pays du Pacifique il y a une vingtaine d’années4: face au risque de perte des savoir-faire, les artisans traditionnels ont accepté de transmettre aux jeunes qui souhaitaient s’engager dans ces métiers, indépendamment d’un lien familial. Les artisans traditionnels de PF seront peut-être amenés à faire ces choix, mais en attendant divers projets de formation sont mis en œuvre pour préserver ce qui peut l’être, maintenir une diversité des pratiques et lutter contre la spécialisation en cours. Ces projets permettent également de rappeler le lien avec l’environnement et de remettre en valeur des plantes oubliées ou en voie de disparition, qui sont pourtant nécessaires à la pratique de l’artisanat. On constate par ailleurs à quel point la pratique de l’artisanat en lien avec les logiques commerciales et quotidiennes est devenue solitaire. Les projets transversaux acquièrent ainsi une importance redoublée: ils mettent en relation les artisans traditionnels, permettent de revenir à une approche plus collective, enrichissante, tournée vers la culture. Chacune des expertes vannières du projet Rara’a a ainsi apprécié sa participation qui a permis techniquement de découvrir en détail les savoir-faire anciens dans la réalisation des éventails de Polynésie centrale et orientale, tout en revenant à une pratique collaborative, et de réinscrire celle-ci dans une tradition millénaire, du sacré, présent dans les collections du musée jusque dans les créations contemporaines. Musée et visibilité du patrimoine polynésien : enjeux et pratiques à déployer Le projet Rara’a s’inscrit dans une démarche de productions artistiques et techniques adossée à un projet de recherche ancré dans un musée du Pacifique. En tant qu’institution muséale, la conservation matérielle demeure l’un des aspects centraux des activités du musée: l’équipe s’est ainsi interrogée sur la conservation des différents éléments matérialisant les étapes techniques explorées dans cette tentative de réappropriation du tressage des éventails. Comment définir ces critères de sélection pour le développement du projetet pour une représentativité juste tant sur le plan documentaire que vis-à-vis des participants? La con 4 Communication personnelle Hanalei Marques Marzan à Vaiana Giraud, 2024. 104 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 servation d’une documentation digitale, effectuée à partir d’une sélection pertinente de certains échantillons physiques, marqueurs des étapes clés du projet de recherche, doitelle être privilégiée ? Ces questions renvoient également aux sujets du stockage des données tant numériques que matérielles, et au rôle de la numérisation documentaire comme outil d’allègement de ces aspects techniques et de diffusion facilitée. Ces processus de sélection, s’ils doivent s’opérer selon les préconisations des praticiennes vannières et être documentés pour eux-mêmes, n’oblitèrent pas la question de la diffusion future de ces éléments. La gouvernance des données produites par les vannières lors de l’atelier Rara’a doit rester «entre leurs mains», quitte à entrer en contradiction avec les injonctions d’ouverture des données défendues par les institutions de recherche et les musées (De Largy Healy & Heintz, 2024). L’initiative d’un tel projet interroge également le statut de l’artiste quant aux résultats finaux qui pourraient être remis au musée au terme de l’expérience : s’agit-il de commandes artistiques à acquérir et doivent-elles être inventoriées par le musée? Par ailleurs, ce projet permet de mettre en lumière une question importante relative au respect de la propriété intellectuelle des savoirs et savoir-faire des vannières et implique de définir plus finement le contexte juridique et financier de leur intervention. Cette prise en compte juridique – interrogeant les sujets cruciaux de la gouvernance des données autochtones, de la propriété intellectuelle, voire de brevets dédiés à certaines techniques spécifiques – faciliterait le sujet de la diffusion ou non des «données» réunies lors de cet atelier. La définition d’un tel cadre, en complément des principes FAIR et CARE, serait une réponse à la forme de tension qui s’opère aujourd’hui entre le fait de rendre plus attractifs les patrimoines insulaires tout en garantissant un accès restreint à certains savoirs réservés aux communautés concernées. S’agissant du projet Rara’a, et afin de respecter notamment les restrictions des associations culturelles, les essais techniques réalisés par les vannières, les échantillons et préparations des matériaux sont pour le moment conservés au sein du TFI-MTI sans diffusion externe, tout comme les enregistrements détaillés (photos, vidéos, documents écrits) produits durant le workshop. Enfin, il convient également de s’interroger sur l’ouverture de ce projet à un corpus plus étendu des collections en fibres végétales du TFI-MTI, l’inclusion plus larges d’expert·e·s et de communautés, ainsi qu’à d’autres formes que l’étude croisée de techniques et savoir-faire nourries de l’histoire des trajectoires et provenances des collections patrimoniales dispersées. En octobre 2023, par exemple, la modélisation d’un dispositif collaboratif d’étude des collections du musée s’est poursuivie, avec l’accueil d’une équipe de conservateurs du Museum of New Zealand–Te Papa Tongarewa de Wellington (Te Papa), accompagnée d’une délégation de onze artistes océaniennes de plusieurs régions du Pacifique, spécialistes de la pratique du tapa (Mallon, 2023). L’objectif de cette rencontre, sous la direction artistique du Dr Pauline Reynolds, était d’échanger autour de la pratique, des étapes préliminaires aux techniques de battage et de décor. Il s’agissait aussi de rassembler ces artistes autour de l’un des recueils d’échantillons de tapa rassemblés par Alexander Shaw, collectés durant les trois voyages de James Cook dans le Pacifique au 18e siècle, acquis en 2021 par Te Papa et exposé dans la salle temporaire du TFI-MTI pendant les neuf jours du projet. Certains échantillons, acquis aux îles de la Société, revenaient pour la première fois dans l’archipel. 105 Étaient également conviées l’artiste Hinatea Colombani (du centre culturel Arioi), les spécialistes des traditions orales et notamment du tapa marquisien Sarah Vaki et Tutana Tetuanui-Peters, ainsi que des agents des traditions orales de la DCP. En parallèle, une visite au CMA a également été programmée et des ateliers de confection ont été menés pour les étudiants du centre, ainsi que du DN-Made du LSR. Chaque artiste expert était ainsi invité à répondre au recueil d’échantillons en réalisant six pièces évoquant passé, présent et futur assemblés dans deux ballots distincts, remis à chacune des institutions partenaires. Du 14 octobre au 4 décembre 2024, une exposition de ces réalisations a été organisée à la galerie Adam (Wellington) et intitulée «Vaiei Tupuna»5. Les commentaires des visiteurs louaient la beauté, l’informativité, et le lien entre histoire et communautés de cet événement6. Les productions remises au TFI-MTI seront incluses dans un projet curatorial à venir. Conclusion Moteur de réappropriation de collections patrimoniales, savoir-faire et techniques par les acteurs contemporains de la création artistique, le projet Rara’a a permis de reconsidérer et renouer les liens culturels établis de longue date entre les populations d’archipels distincts. La transversalité à l’œuvre lors de cet atelier a permis de relativiser les particularismes locaux affirmés par les institutions de valorisation culturelle et touristique depuis le milieu des années 1970, attribuant à chaque archipel de PF des savoirs techniques quasi-exclusifs. Le musée est devenu un lieu à investir par les experts et les étudiants issus des cultures ayant produit ces artéfacts. Ainsi, ceux du CMA, s’y essayent par la reproduction de pièces anciennes, avec succès. Le développement d’une recherche collaborative et multi-située a permis de co-construire une méthode de travail ainsi que des connaissances, qui ont pour finalité d’être conservées durablement, d’être accessibles et d’être utilisées comme supports de nouvelles dynamiques muséologiques davantage plurielles (Bergeron & Rivet, 2021). Les savoirs acquis sur ces patrimoines océaniens conservés dans les musées offrent une visibilité renouvelée de ces derniers: ils permettent de réactiver leurs circulations, de manifester leur caractère agissant et leur capacité à tisser des liens7 dans un contexte local ayant ses spécificités, ses paradoxes parfois. Ces dimensions comptent parmi les missions centrales d’un musée du 21e siècle, en tant que lieu d’action collectif, avec et pour la société. Références Bergeron, Y. & Rivet, M. (2021). The decolonisation of museology: Museums, mixing, and myths of origin. ICOFOM Study Series, 49(2). Bono, M., Maric, T., Vallée, M., Teissier, V., Hiquily, T., Gatien, M. (2022). Repenser le musée de Tahiti et des Îles – Te Fare Manaha : genèse, histoire, bilan et perspectives d’un projet de rénovation. Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 155, 269-282. Bouvier, H. (1982, Février 11). Interview. Nouvelles de Tahiti. Bunn, S. (2016). Making plants and growing baskets. Dans E. Hallam & T. Ingold (eds.), Making and Growing. Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts (pp.163-182). Routledge. De Largy Healy & J., Heintz, M. (Eds). (2024). Les défis de la science ouverte. Une anthropologie en partage? numéro spécial, Ethnologie Française, 54. 5 https://www.adamartgallery.nz/exhibitions/archive/2024/vaiei-tupuna, page consulté le 22 novembre 2024. 6 Merci à Sophie Thorn de nous avoir partagé le contenu du livre d’or de la galerie. 7 Communication de Souleymane Bachir Diagne-Chaire du Louvre 2024, «Quand les statues et les masques parlaient la langue des dieux» 28 novembre 2024. 112 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 is framed by its own traditional concepts and values, it borrows freely from the west and enthusiastically takes up new and emerging technologies to achieve its aims. Across the Tasman sea in Australia, meanwhile, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been working inside and outside the heritage sector, adapting museums to make them more responsive to Indigenous values and culture while setting up their own independent structures, called “keeping places” (Griffin & Paroissien, 2011; Specht & MacLulich, 2000; Simpson, 2007). Under liberal governments in the 1970s, and at intermittent times since, museums have set out to engage with key Indigenous issues as part of a wider political process of “reconciliation”; including the repatriation of human remains, the setting up of keeping places, the hiring of Aboriginal staff and appointments to boards, and the sensitive handling of secret and sacred material in museum collections. However, there have been setbacks in recent years, particularly under conservative governments and the failure of the referendum to create a Voice to Parliament (MacGuire, 2023).4 Nevertheless, strong policy statements successfully articulated Aboriginal ways of thinking about heritage, galleries and museums as well as important contemporary issues such as repatriation, with the reports Previous Possessions, New Obligations (1993), and Continuous Cultures, Ongoing Responsibilities (2005) spelling out what museums should do.5 In terms of exhibition practice, most state museums have updated their displays of Aboriginal material culture so as to be more in line with current thinking, a process which necessitated more or less community consultation and input, although the results are rather mixed (Young, Whitelaw, & Beier-de Haan, 2015).6 Probably the leading example of an Aboriginal exhibit within a mainstream museum is the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at the Melbourne Museum, which actively incorporates local Koori values and perspectives.7 One institution which has made changes over the last few years is the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, where Head of Anthropology John Carty hired their first Aboriginal curator and re-oriented core practices in an attempt to engage with local communities and acknowledge Indigenous perspectives on their culture (Daley, 2016, 2017). For Carty, this was not simply about melding museum and Aboriginal practices but trying to learn from a completely different world view. It was “revelatory” for white museum professionals to realise that Aboriginal and Torres-Strait Islander people around Australia have “really strong pre-existing models for heritage management”, he pointed out. While the western concept of a museum brings objects together in a protected environment like a building, in Indigenous culture “[t]he museum is the landscape, the Country where sacred objects are kept… the challenge is to take the bricks and mortar approach to museums, and the distinctly Australian sense of Country, and find a common language” (Carty, 2015). 4 For a historical survey, see: Museums Galleries Australia. (2017). “Indigenous roadmap project: Literature review.”https://www.amaga-indigenous.org.au/_files/ugd/68e58f_2b510a56ec2a419daee268329c2e1cd8.pdf 5 For critical commentary on the first report, see T. Sullivan, L. Kelly & P. Gordon. (2003).Museums and Indigenous people in Australia: A review of Previous Possessions, New Obligations. Curator: The Museum Journal 46, 208–27. 6 When museums did explore colonial violence and race relations they received harsh criticism and censure. See D. McIntyre & K. Wehner. (Eds). (2001). Negotiating histories: National museums: Conference proceedings. National Museum of Australia. 7 Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum website, https://museumsvictoria. com.au/bunjilaka. For a review of the first version of this display, which opened in 2000, see: M.G. Simpson. (2006). Bunjilaka. In C. Healy & A. Witcomb. (Eds). South Pacific museums: Experiments in culture. Monash University ePress, chapter 15, http://books.publishing.monash.edu/apps/bookworm/view/ South+Pacific+Museums%3A+Experiments+in+Culture/139/xhtml/chapter15.html. For a positive review of the second iteration of this exhibit, see: L. Young. (2014). Review: First Peoples, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum. Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 2, 213-16. 113 These comments reflect a genuine effort to transform museological conventions through non-western ways of being and doing. A conference in Canberra in 2015 explored various forms of co-curation, co-authorship and collaboration occurring around Australia, demonstrating clearly that there is much goodwill on the part of museum curators and other professionals to do things differently (Edmundsen & Neale, 2017). Key lessons included: the need for more consultations and collaborations to occur directly on Country; a call for museums to better incorporate Indigenous ontologies into the care and management of Indigenous collections; and more in-depth research on existing Indigenous methodologies of cultural heritage preservation and management. “If Western institutions acknowledged that museums are not only a Western idea but that Indigenous keeping places predate them and coexist with them,” Anna Edmundson and Margo Neale concluded, “it would enable [I]ndigenous people to connect better with museums and shift the view suggesting that museums are storerooms of stolen loot” (Edmundson and Neale, 2015, p. 133). A key concept that frequently comes up in these discussions and that underpins First Nations heritage in Australian is “Country”. This is an overall understanding of the universe that includes people together with the natural environment; animals, plants, land, sea, rivers and sky. Indigenous Australians see the earth, created in the Dreamtime by ancestors, and the past, present and future, as indivisible parts of a huge, united realm. It encompasses the past and the present, human and non-human. This poem by Larrakia woman Mililma May describes how she understands her Country: Gulumoerrgin | My country Gulumoerrgin is the trees, the red dirt and blue seas. Gulumoerrgin is the sun, the moon and the stars that infinitely surround me. Gulumoerrgin is my family, my people and my community. Gulumoerrgin is me.8 Despite the fact that this is a very different world view, focusing less on objects than the environment they are part of, it has found its way into mainstream museum, archive and environmental management practice in Australia. This is particularly evident in the Outback. Shaun Angelo, Arrernte man and Indigenous Repatriation Researcher at the Strehlow Research Centre in the Northern Territory, talks about taking collections back out to Country to revive ceremonial practices and heal the generational trauma of youth severed from their culture by colonisation and urbanisation. The Centre is now closely engaged with the community, and elders feel comfortable coming in to work with the collections and activate them in the present. He argues, “People and objects have been separated, they need to be re-integrated” (Angelo, 2018). Meanwhile in the national capital, Canberra, the National Museum of Australia has incorporated Country into the concept development of its environmental history exhibition Great Southern Land.9 Alongside western scientific views of the environment, paintings and other objects and practices convey Indigenous knowledge. As the wall text states, “More and more people are using the word Country to express recognition for Indigenous peoples’ connection with their land and for the interrelationship all human beings have with the rest of nature” (National Museum of Australia, 2024). Jilda Andrews, the Aboriginal academic and curator involved with this exhibition, has also talked about bringing Indigenous ideas into collection management through the con8 https://www.commonground.org.au/article/what-is-country 9 https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/great-southern-land 114 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 cept of “cool burning”. “It seems logical to apply methods of tending to Country to museum collections – to tend to them. Care for them,” she writes (2024a). Just as Aboriginal people use fire to manage the land and prevent bush fires, so a metaphorical cool burning or cleaning/activation/regeneration of the collection through research also creates space in which “new shoots of knowledge can emerge”, reconnecting objects to communities and putting them to work in the present. This shows the “regenerative potentials of collection research when Indigenous philosophies and concepts drive research enquiry and more importantly, frame outcomes” (Andrews, 2024b). Māori museology: Customary concepts reshaping museum practice in Aotearoa Aotearoa NZ is the smallest but, in some ways, the most distinctive case study in this research – the scene of advanced experiments in Indigenous museology arguably ahead of its neighbour Australia, perhaps due more to geography and demography than political will.10 Museums over the last 50 years have witnessed an increase in Māori staff and the evolution of a Māori style of museum policy and practice that incorporates customary knowledge and values (McCarthy, 2007).11 Māori concepts, closely related to those used in the wider Moana Oceania, have become embedded in museum curation, collection care and management: taonga (ancestral treasure), mana (power, authority, reputation), tapu and noa (sacred, restricted, free from restriction), mauri (vital essence, energy), whakapapa (genealogy, relatedness).12 These concepts are applied through tikanga (Māori cultural practices) and mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge/world view). At the national museum in Wellington, Te Papa, and at regional museums in Auckland, Gisborne, Whanganui and other centres, Māori-led changes in governance, management, policy, education, repatriation and conservation have transformed aspects of professional practice and led to museological amalgams of European and Polynesian culture (McCarthy, 2011; Butts, 2007; Tapsell, 2014; McCarthy, Parata & Sadlier, 2024). At Te Papa, the customary concept of mana has been linked with taonga, resulting in a policy (mana taonga) that captures the power of these objects but also enables Indigenous ownership and management. Mana taonga allows museums to develop a “structured process of engagement with its communities” by recognising the “living relationships” between taonga and their communities of origin (Hakiwai & Schorch, 2014, pp. 197-198). Mana taonga gives iwi (tribes) the “right to define how taonga within Te Papa should be cared for and managed in accordance with their tikanga or custom” (Nesus, 2004, p. 14). Therefore, the community outside the museum becomes a participant within the museum alongside professionals and, in many cases, supplants their authority. Recently Awhina Tamarapa has argued that cultural practitioners, such as weavers and carvers, should assume the authority of managing collections, reconnecting historical artifacts with the ongoing maintenance of these living arts and crafts (Tamarapa, 2024). The mana taonga policy, though debated by some, has been extended successfully to other collections in Te Papa –such as art, history and Pacific cultures –and to other museums in NZ and overseas (Dorfman et al., 2015; Hakiwai et al., 2015). Originally seen as a way of empowering Māori co-management of taonga Māori collections in NZ museums, 10 Unlike Australia, Māori make up a significant proportion of the population, reflected in greater political representation and a higher profile in national economic, social and cultural life. See: Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal. (2005). Māori. Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/maori. 11 For an overview of museums in NZ, see: McCarthy, 2015. 12 For an overview of these customary concepts, see: Mead, 2003. 115 it has been extended to facilitate the collaboration of all source communities in the management and use of their cultural heritage (Bennington, 2004; Mallon, 2011). Moreover, the notion of taonga has been extended beyond material “artefacts” to a range of tangible and intangible material held in different types of collecting institutions – galleries, libraries, archives and museums – as well as cultural and natural heritage managed by various organisations: film, photographs, manuscripts, oral and performing arts, landscapes, flora and fauna. The diversity and complexity of taonga, and the challenges required to manage them, are described in the Waitangi Tribunal report WAI 262 (Ko Aotearoa Tēnei, 2011) on heritage and intellectual property, which has yet to be seriously addressed by government and public institutions, especially the vexed question of ownership. From theory to practice in Aotearoa: Museums to heritage, objects to cultural landscapes I turn now to recent examples of kaitiakitanga that show how Māori concepts, world views and ways of being have been applied in practice. These examples, catalysed by decolonisation, indigenisation and ecological crises, also show how this has converted the traditional notion of the museum as a warehouse set apart from the social into a community hub within a broader range of heritage encompassing cultural practices and cultural landscapes. The first example is the work of Dr Huhana Smith, Ngāti Raukawa academic, artist and environmentalist. Smith left her job as a curator at Te Papa because the institution was too slow and too disconnected from the world outside, particularly natural heritage (Smith, 2009). She sought a mechanism more closely engaged with the land where knowledge transfer was less bureaucratic and restricted. Working from a university, she facilitated a major interdisciplinary research grant focused on the tribal lands on the Horowhenua to Kāpiti coast threatened with inundation – Manaaki Taha Moana: Enhancing Coastal Ecosystems for Iwi and Hapū – which combined scientific research and mātauranga Māori, scientists and farmers, culminating in a design exhibition on climate action mounted in the local library, an art and cultural centre and the cow shed on the tribe’s farm (Allan & Smith, 2017). The methodology included reconnecting with the whenua (in Māori terms, whenua is the land but also the placenta that is returned to the earth after birth) by “walking and talking the whenua, returning the farm to nature, and letting the river (an ancestor) be an ancestor” (Smith, 2024). The research team drew on the concept of whakapapa and mauri, and kaupapa Māori methodology, alongside art, design, science, etc., to enhance public understanding of climate change and to explore adaptation strategies, better decision‐making and better actions for communities. Since then, Smith has led projects in climate adaption strategies, re-afforestation and revegetation, river and wetland restoration, etc. (Smith, 2024). These have inspired other iwi to embark on similar projects to reconnect their people to the environment and engage them in climate action. An example is the Ngāti Toa project Te Ara o Raukawa Moana, described as “active kaitiakitanga in response to climate change”, which included an exhibition at Pātaka Art + Museum in Porirua.13 The lesson here is that these projects achieved what a museum perhaps could not. Indeed, Indigenous people may very well abandon the museum if it cannot adapt and become a technology of active use in iwi/hapū development and fighting the climate emergency. Museums, therefore, need to see themselves in a wider frame, as part of the broader heritage sector of which they are merely a subset. Objects and collections need to be reconnected 13 For the report on this project see the website of Te Runanga o Ngati Toa. https://static1.squarespace. com/static/61a403b442b8840d9ed2143a/t/67859e193eb6c540e18eb789/1736810085798/TOA00000_ Te+Ara+O+Raukawa+Moana_Journal_VDA1.1.pdf 116 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 to cultural or ancestral landscapes from which they were excised, thereby reconnecting people to the environment. Museum technologies (collections, exhibitions, programmes) need to be employed in social and climate activism. Asked in a recent interview how museums can better support climate action, Smith responded: Maybe Te Papa’s not the place. The most impactful exhibition I’ve ever done was the one in the dairy shed. That [engaged] a lot of people [who] went, “Ok, we’re in. Now we understand.” And this [included] loads of my detracting whanaunga (cousins), those who didn’t want to know about climate change and its impacts. ... When we put up the initial maps, this is what it is going to look like in 20, 50 and 100 years in terms of water, everyone went, “Ok, we’re listening now.” Those maps were based on the best data, and we’ve got people to put it into visuals. So visuals, visuals, visuals. Keep showing people. Everything’s a mind map and everything is connected. Māori worldviews are very interconnected, we see the interdependencies. I think that museums and galleries have a responsibility to do this stuff. I don’t want to play politics or be safe. I think, just show them. ... Show really compelling stuff in surprising spaces. ... Don’t shy away from the difficult [aspects]. (Smith, 2024) The next example shows how a museum can work with Indigenous communities to express their views of the world and facilitate their role in environmental restoration. The Whanganui Regional Museum Te Puni Tiaki Taonga o Whanganui14, a small institution with a unique bicultural governance structure and deep relationships with iwi and hapū, staged an exhibition in 2022 that captured the remarkable events surrounding the legislative recognition of the personhood and innate values of the Whanganui River. To local people, the river is Te Awa Tupua, a living ancestor who has been despoiled and neglected through colonial history, legislative actions and inactions, as well as environmental degradation. Whanganui iwi recently settled their claim over Te Tiriti o Waitangi breaches, so the relationships with central and local government now recognise the rights of the River and Whanganui hapū, including the assertion of tiakitanga, participation in decision making, and environmental restoration activities (Lurgio, 2019).15 All this is captured in a small exhibition at the museum, which was co-curated with Whanganui iwi and hapū, the most visible public statement of this extraordinary outcome. Called He Awa Ora16 (“A living river”) it conveys the intrinsic relationship between the people and the river encapsulated in the whakatauākī or proverb: “Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au / I am the river and the river is me”. As well as historical artifacts, documentation of the long-running claim and the statutory acknowledgement of the ancestor-river, photos and video show how people live on/with the river today and give visitors a clearidea of how active tiakitanga or stewardship works, allaying any fears of separatism. The exhibit also highlights what they can do to look after the awa and reduce their carbon footprint. A remarkable topographic map shows the wider river system, with numerous sites marking marae, kāinga, battle sites, etc., illustrating graphically the close ancestral 14 https://wrm.org.nz 15 For the partnership between the Whanganui District Council and Māori see: “Whanganui council signs off on ‘world-first’ draft relationship agreement with hapū,” Radio New Zealand, 29 January 2025: retrieved 11 March 2025: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/540303/whanganui-council-signs-offon-world-first-draft-relationship-agreement-with-hapu. In 2025 Mt Taranaki also gained legal personhood. See: Eva Corlett, “Taranaki Mounga: New Zealand mountain granted same legal rights as a person,” The Guardian 30 January 2025. 16 https://www.heawaora.maori.nz 117 links to the land and water. The exhibition, though modest in scale, conveys to visitors the radical ontological shift that breaks down the nature/culture divide and sees the awa as a living being inextricably entwined with the people. The curator (or Pou Rauhī) is Dr Rāwiri Tinirau, who leads a Kaupapa Māori research institute, Te Atawhai o Te Ao, conducting research on health and environment, and who sees his work at the museum as a natural extension of community development. He says that taonga are “living beings”. Taonga includes “te reo, our language, tikanga or cultural practices… not just old artifacts but things made today,” and, of course the natural world (Tinirau, 2022).17 The exhibition may look at first glance to be fairly conventional, but it is not. For example, one small change in museum practice reflects a radically different perspective of material culture as living object-beings. The labels are not written in third person, the typical detached view of the “thing” by the curator (e.g. “this is a taiaha”), but in first person, a direct statement from the point of view of the taonga (“I am a taiaha”). Worlds that are apart are brought together in a short 25-word object label. This reflects an iwi maxim, “Kauaka e kōrero mō te Awa, kōrero ki te Awa / Don’t talk about the River, but speak to the River”. It is also inspired by Te Pou Tupua, the human face and voice of Te Awa Tupua,18 which is formalised within settlement legislation. Conclusion: Learning from Pacific museologies The lessons from South Pacific museums and community-led projects beyond the walls of the museum serve to illustrate some of the implications of island thinking for global museology. In some ways, oceanic museology is unique, and while local innovations were occasionally referenced in international literature on art, repatriation and community participation (Hakiwai, 1990; Mead, 1990; O’Regan, 1994), in the main they were unrelated to global developments, not well documented, and the results could not necessarily be replicated elsewhere. Now and then Pacific museology found its way into international debates on conservation, decolonisation and related issues, and disrupted the hegemony of the global north (Clavir, 2002; Simpson, 1996). In recent years, for example, several people with connections to Te Papa and the Pacific contributed to the shaping of the new ICOM definition of the museum, an expansive and bold rethinking of the institution that was ultimately watered down to something more cautious and conventional (Sandahl, 2019). Nevertheless, these early experiments that emerged from Moana Oceania may open up fruitful avenues for the museum of the future in integrating culture/nature, in community-led climate activism, in interdisciplinary, relational frameworks and the use of Indigenous concepts and practices. Nicholas Thomas (2016) has asked, What are museums good for in the 21st century? In a world threatened by environmental collapse and riven by conflict and political division, the task before us is immense (Janes, 2024). We should explore alternative means to confront the challenge, including island ways of doing things. The answer presented here is that, inspired by Indigenous ways of being, doing and thinking, museums provide a technology to reconnect people to their culture, to other people, and the world around them. The museum is a methodology to bring together the past, present and future. Sal17 Rāwiri Tinirau (2022). Interview by Conal McCarthy, MHST502 Victoria University of Wellington, August. For an introduction to the exhibition, see the Whanganui Regional Museum website. https://wrm.org.nz/watch-river-exhibition-wins-architecture-award/ 18 https://www.tepoutupua.nz/ 118 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 mond wrote, “It is possible to see the links between human communities, land and sea, as patterned by complex, multi-dimensional, dynamic systems in which people are related to other life forms, as our fates are tied together” (2018, p. 414). To safeguard our heritage, we have to save the planet and ourselves, and the peoples of Moana Oceania have shown the way. References Andrews, J. (2024a). Cool burning the collection: Museum research as a regenerative act. The Australian Journal of Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.12499 Andrews, J. (2024b). Flipping the narrative: Historical collections as sites of cultural diplomacy. Humanities Research 20(1): 13-27. Angelo, S. (2018). Ayeaye digital-kenhe arntarntareme: Protecting our digital cultural heritage. 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The museum definition as the backbone of ICOM.Museum International,71(1–2), vi–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2019.1638019 Salmond, Amiria. (2014). Transforming translations (part 2): Addressing ontological alterity. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 4(1). https://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/ 120 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 article/view/hau4.1.006/647 Salmond, Anne. (2023). Knowledge is a blessing on your mind: Selected writings, 1980-2020. Auckland University Press. Salmond, Anne. (2017). Tears of Rangi: Experiments across worlds. Auckland University Press. Schorch, P. (2019). Refocusing ethnographic museums through Oceanic lenses. Hawai’i University Press. Stanley, N. (Ed.) (2007). The future of Indigenous museums: Perspectives from the Southwest Pacific. Berghan Books. Simpson, M. G. (1996). Making representations: Museums in the post-colonial era. Routledge. Simpson, M. G. (2007). Charting the boundaries: Indigenous models and parallel practices in the development of the post-museum. In S. J. Knell, S. MacLeod, & S. Watson (Eds.), Museum revolutions: How museums change and are changed (pp. 235-249). Routledge. Smith, B. (1989). European vision and the South Pacific (second edition). Oxford University Press. Smith, H. (2024, March). Presentation to ICOFOM workshop [Conference Presentation]. Victoria University of Wellington. Smith, H. (2024). Interview by Awhina Tamarapa. In C. McCarthy, M. Horwood, A. Tamarapa, & K. Mahina-Tuai (eds). Tangata whenua and tangata tiriti: Intercultural heritage in Aotearoa New Zealand. Palgrave, forthcoming 2026. Specht, J., & MacLulich, C. (2000). Changes and challenges: The Australian museum and Indigenous communities. In P. M. McManus (Ed.), Archaeological displays and the public: Museology and interpretations (2nd ed., pp. 39-63). Archetype. Tamarapa, A. (2024). Whatua Mai te Aho: The role of museums in the maintenance of Māori weaving as a living cultural practice. [Doctoral thesis, Victoria University of Wellington], Museum and Heritage Studies. Tamasese Ta‛isi Efi, T. (2018). Prelude: Climate change and the perspective of the fish. In T. Crook, & P. Rudiak-Gould (Eds.) Pacific climate cultures: Living climate change in Oceania. De Gruyter (pp. ix-xiii). Taonui, R. (2011). Whakapapa – genealogy: What is whakapapa? Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/whakapapa-genealogy/page-1 Tapsell, P. (2014). Māori and museums: Ngā whare taonga. Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/maori-and-museums-nga-whare-taonga Tapsell, P. (1997). The flight of Pareraututu: An investigation of taonga from a tribal perspective. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 106(4), 323-374. Thomas, N. (1997). In Oceania: Visions, artifacts, histories. Duke University Press. Thomas, N. (2016). The return of curiosity: What museums are good for in the 21st century. Reaktion Books. Tiaki Taonga. (2011). Ko Aotearoa tenei: WAI 262 Report. Wai 262. https://www.wai262.nz/ ko-aotearoa-tenei Young, L., Whitelaw, A., & R.Beier-de Haan, R. (2015). Museum exhibition practice: Recent developments in Europe, Canada, and Australia. In C. McCarthy (Ed.), Museum practice, vol 2 International handbooks of museum studies (pp. 403-42). Wiley Blackwell. 121 Pacific museums and cultural centers: Redefining & indigenizing museum spaces the Pacific way Tarisi Vunidilo California State University, Los Angeles [email protected] Abstract Pacific Island museums, once shaped by colonial models and tourist demands, are now transforming to serve local communities and future generations. This shift reflects an indigenization of the museum concept, where imported frameworks are redefined through local needs. Museums are becoming spaces of cultural negotiation and repositories of skills, knowledge, and identity. Drawing on case studies from my work with the Pacific Island Museums Association, this paper explores how museums are addressing challenges such as political constraints, geographic isolation, and generational gaps to maintain cultural transmission and provide meaningful, community-centered engagement today and into the future. Keywords: Indigenizing, colonialism, knowledge transmission, cultural gaps, youth empowerment Résumé Musées et centres culturels du Pacifique : redéfinir et autochtoniser les espaces muséaux à la manière du Pacifique. Les musées des îles du Pacifique, autrefois façonnés par des modèles coloniaux et axés sur le tourisme, se transforment aujourd’hui pour mieux servir les communautés locales et les générations futures. Ce changement reflète une indigénisation du concept muséal, où des cadres importés sont réinterprétés selon les besoins locaux. Les musées deviennent ainsi des espaces de négociation culturelle et des réservoirs de savoirs, de compétences et d’identités. En m’appuyant sur des études de cas issues de mon travail avec l’Association des musées des îles du Pacifique, cet article explore comment ces institutions relèvent les défis contemporains pour assurer la transmission culturelle. Mots-clés: Autochtonisation, colonialisme, transmission des savoirs, écarts culturels, autonomisation des jeunes _____ In this day and age of climate change, technology, and decolonization, strides are being made by Pacific museums to adapt. The Pacific Islands, a tropical region located within a vast ocean that borders Asia and the Americas, provide many of its inhabitants a unique 128 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 through the education and sustainable development role hosted the ICOM Webinar on museums and education in 2022. The International Council of Museums highlighted the role of museums in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education. The webinar discussed how museums in the Asia-Pacific region can engage with local communities and Indigenous peoples to promote education for sustainable development (ICOM, 2022). In the areas of research and capacity building, it is so uplifting to see organizations such as the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) supporting heritage museums in the Pacific. Between 2016 and 2018, a special Heritage matters Project explored how heritage museums in the Pacific can contribute to sustainable development goals, particularly in health, education, gender equality, and community sustainability. It underscored the potential of museums to support local communities through targeted research and capacity-building initiatives. This project was led by Professor Nicholas Thomas who shared his work with the museum staff in the Solomon Islands and Kiribati (Thomas, 2018). As far as my work with the Pacific Islands Museums Association is concerned, I joined the organization in 2010 as their secretary-general (SG). Founded in 1994, PIMA aims to safeguard Oceania’s heritage, disseminate cultural heritage information among Pacific Islanders, and advise governments on cultural heritage management. It serves as a collective voice for museums in the region, advocating for the preservation and promotion of Pacific cultures. During my term as SG, I was able to organize workshops across the Pacific region and help museums and cultural centers to deliver content that was tailor-made for their communities. These examples illustrate the dynamic and integral roles that Pacific museums play in cultural preservation, community engagement, education, research, and advocacy. With these recent examples of indigenizing our museums and cultures, professor Hirini Mead was predicting this new change in the 1980s. He was already proposing the advancement of Indigenous museums, all of which questioned aspects of the western notion of a museum. Mead, an Indigenous Maori academic and anthropologist from New Zealand (Ngati Awa Tribe) was the first to explore the practical and intellectual issues of Indigenous museums. He also differentiated western museum concepts from Indigenous ones. To him, western style museums were expensive to maintain and usually do not have a good relationship with any local communities (Stanley, 2007). Mead (1983) critiqued the western model of museums and proposed Indigenous models that were more conducive to the way Pacific people relate to their objects and associated history. In his article “Indigenous Models of Museums in Oceania” (1983), he argues that there was a distinctive difference between Indigenous models and western examples. As time went by, in particular from the 1980s to the 1990s, this divergence has become more apparent as people in the Pacific begin reassessing and accessing Indigenous cultures. According to Mead (1983), there are two types of Indigenous museums. Type one is a single-purpose building that tells a people’s story from prehistory to modern times. The other type is a multi-functional tribal cultural center, known as a marae in New Zealand, with various functions and purposes. For instance, as for the Ngati Awa Tribe in New Zealand, they expected a library, research center, community hall, and an events center to be built alongside the main building, which will be viewed as a museum. The second 129 option has more interactive functions and an inclusive feature where young and old, urban and rural dwellers can learn about their culture and heritage through hands-on programs and the learning atmosphere. Mead also highlighted the custom houses in the Solomon Islands, which have become a repository for culturally valued and historic artifacts and serve as ceremonial locations for religious and cultural practices (Stanley, 2007). Other qualities that set the marae and custom houses apart from modern museums relate to audiences. Both venues have cultural restrictions on who may enter, when they may enter, and what class of objects they may view. Another distinction relates to “economy and technology.” Indigenous museums do not have funds to employ large numbers of specialists or to maintain special climatic conditions of storage to sustain the collections’ physical integrity. In such situations, Indigenous museums turn to local knowledge and expertise. From my experience working with PIMA, I have seen an increase in museums reaching out to local artists such as weavers and carvers to come to the museum and deliver cultural workshops for local schools and communities. In some instances, they also cater to the needs of tourists who visit their museum and cultural centers. The Vanuatu Cultural Centre is a classic example where locals and tourists visit the museum to participate in their sand drawing activities led by sand drawing artists who were able to master both the local Bislama language and English. Interpreters are also available to assist with other languages should the need arise. The way forward: Indigenizing museum spaces There are three existing notions of indigenizing museums that might be considered here. Firstly, there are museums in the Pacific islands that are already shifting the focus of their service deliverables to fulfill the needs and demands of local communities. They are to be commended for adapting and making the necessary changes to set themselves apart from business expectations. It is also commendable to see many museums collaborating with their Ministries of Education to reach local schools and target young learners. In New Zealand, schools that utilize “Learning Outside the Classroom” (LEOTC) can organize busloads of students to visit and support their local museums to learn more about themselves and their history. The second notion involves a group that must be acknowledged, which are cultural institutions that serve the Pacific communities in the diaspora. Most lend a hand to support island-based institutions in their quest to indigenize museum spaces. The best example is the Australian Museum in Sydney, embarking on a cultural conservation project known as Tauhi, which is a Tongan word that means “to look after,” “tend to,” or “to take care of.” The museum is collaborating with the United States Consulate in Sydney and reaching out to museums and cultural institutions in Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Papua New Guinea. The third notion involves regional and international organizations such as UNESCO, ICOM, and PIMA, that serve as advocates for Pacific island museums and their staff. They have provided guidance through training manuals, workshops, and scholarships to assist local museums to indigenize their spaces and allow local voices and stories to be shared in galleries and other exhibition spaces. As a result, they have legitimized the use of museum spaces to be used by local communities that speak the local language within the 130 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 museum or during outreach, as in the case of the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom. Anthropologists from the UK spent a period of two years working with museum staff in the Solomon Islands and Kiribati, training them and recording their stories of how they worked in their community dealing with climate change and the loss of heritage knowledge. Creating spaces for dialogues, even among the staff, is crucial for moving ahead as these stories are equally inspiring and empowering. Concluding remarks Pacific museums today are shifting their processes of collection, conservation, classification, and display of objects. The net effect of these changes is to represent the people of the islands as living cultures rather than exotic residues or as disembodied moments in a pattern of historical evolution that the industrial cultures of the world have left behind. Today, museums also are going through many changes such as roles in society, changing identity, political, and economic impacts, as well as competition with other cultural and leisure industries. The Pacific is surely a unique place. It was the last frontier on earth to be conquered and, as a result of colonialism, museums were created mostly in the early 1900s. Although museums are western constructs, Pacific museums today are encouraged to adapt to many political and economic changes and to find answers such as drawing upon local resources and producing Indigenous solutions. Despite the many challenges that they face daily in the region, many museums try to find realistic solutions for their institution and the communities that they serve. This paper has shown a shift in power relationships between western museums and Indigenous communities. This is also reflected in the continuing development in the relationships between museums and their local communities and users. Museum curatorship has changed, where now cultural beliefs, values, and traditions of the communities that traditionally owned and used the artifacts are elevated. In the past, the authority of the curator was largely unchallenged; however, time has changed this, where authority is shared with museum users such as individuals or community groups whose cultural heritage is represented in the collection. Museum staff are becoming sensitive to such practices and are adhering to the protocols required by the communities concerned. The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is a classic example of a museum of international standing that is putting into place cultural Maori protocols that must be followed by museum staff and visitors alike. Museums have become important places of education and entertainment as well as for the conservation of objects. Museums are, in fact, in a constant state of change to attract visitors, engage their attention, and mediate between what objects can “say” and what the audience expects to hear. Today, however, Pacific museums are showing a keen interest in the present, which is charged with statements of cultural independence and the future. 131 References Cowling, W. (2006). Once you saw them, now you don’t: The disappearance of Cook Island traditional craft production. In Johnson, H., ed., Refereed papers from the 2nd International Small Island Cultures Conference of SIGRI, Sydney, Australia: Small Islands Cultures Research Initiative, (pp. 26–35). Available online, http://www.sicri.org Clunie, F. (1986). Yalo i Viti = Shades of Viti: A Fiji Museum catalogue. Fiji Museum. Fiji Museum. (1986). In F. Clunie & J. Brooke-White (Eds.), Fiji Museum. (1999). In Australian National University. Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (Ed.), Manuscripts collection microform] / Fiji Museum. Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Australian National University. Foanaota, L. (1994). Solomon Islands National Museum and cultural policy. In L. Lindstrom & G.M. White (Eds.)., Culture, custom, tradition. Developing cultural policy in the Pacific (pp. 95–102). Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific. ICOM (2022), ICOM webinar: Perspectives and practice on museums and education for sustainable development in Asia-Pacific. https://icom.museum/en/news/icom-webinar-iperspectives-and-practice-on-museums-and-education-for-sustainable-development-inasia-pacific Johnson, C. (2007). Success and struggles of small island museums in Polynesia with special reference to Pitcairn Island. [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Museum Studies, University of Nevada. LeFevre, T. (2007). Tourism and Indigenous curation of culture in Lifou, New Caledonia. In N. Stanley (Ed.), The future of Indigenous museums: Perspectives from the Southwest Pacific (pp. 70-78). Berghahn Books. Lonetree, A. (2008). Museums as sites of decolonization: Truth telling in national and tribal museums. In I. Karp, C.A. Kratz, L. Szwaja, & T. Ybarra-Frausto (Eds.), Museum frictions: Public cultures/global transformations (pp. 322–344). Duke University Press. Losche, D. (2007). Memory, violence and representation in the Tjibaou Cultural Centre, New Caledonia. In N. Stanley (Ed.) The future of Indigenous museums: Perspectives from the southwest Pacific (pp. 70–77). Berghahn Books. Pacific Collection Access Project (2019), About the project, Auckland Museum. https://www. aucklandmuseum.com/discover/research/research-projects/pacific-collection-accessproject/about-the-project-(1) Patience, C. 2024. Australian Museum, US Embassy and Pacific Partners Embassy and Pacific Partners Embark on Cultural Conservation Project. https://australian.museum/about/ organisation/media-centre/am-us-cultural-conservation-project Stanley, N. (Ed.). (2007). The future of Indigenous museums: Perspectives from the southwest Pacific. Berghahn Books. Thomas, N. 2018. Heritage matters: Culture and development in the Pacific. https://heritageresearch.org/case-studies/heritage-matters-project Tonga, N. (2012, March 15). Introduction to Pacific music and dance. [Lecture notes]. University of Auckland, New Zealand. UNESCO. (2010). Managing disaster risks for world heritage. https://whc.unesco.org/en/ managing-disaster-risks/ Weaving a network of care. (2022). A Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Museum Institute. University of Hawaii, Manoa. https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/0c97d7c5-35794f05-ab8e-e0e5770aa47e Welsh, R.L. (2007). The transformation of cultural centres in Papua New Guinea, In N. Stanley, (Ed.), The future of indigenous museums: Perspectives from the southwest Pacific (pp. 207–222). Berghahn Books. 132 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Narratives and island heritage representation: Navigating the Ainu exhibitions on Hokkaido Nicolle Bittencourt Waseda University – Shinjuku, Japan [email protected] Yi-An Chen University of Tokyo – Japan National Museum of History – Taipei, Taiwan [email protected] Abstract This article examines the museum representation of the Ainu, the Indigenous people of Hokkaido, Japan. Drawing on postcolonial theory, exhibit communication models, and critical museology, it explores how museum narratives reflect and shape public understanding of Ainu history, culture, and identity. It analyzes exhibitions at the Hokkaido Museum, Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum, Kayano Shigeru Nibutani Ainu Museum, Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park, and the Hokkaido Ainu Cultural Center. These range from state-sanctioned and touristic to community-led approaches. The framing of Ainu culture in the past tense underscores the need for deeper engagement with contemporary Ainu communities and global Indigenous resurgence. Keywords: Ainu, Indigenous representation, Hokkaido, Japan, exhibition Resumé Récits et représentation du patrimoine insulaire : Naviguer à travers les expositions aïnues à Hokkaidō. Cet article examine la représentation muséale des Aïnous, le peuple autochtone de Hokkaidō, au Japon. En s’appuyant sur la théorie postcoloniale, les modèles de communication muséale et la muséologie critique, il explore comment les récits muséaux reflètent et façonnent la compréhension publique de l’histoire, de la culture et de l’identité aïnoues. Il analyse les expositions du Musée de Hokkaidō, du Musée culturel aïnou de Nibutani, du Musée Kayano Shigeru de Nibutani, du Musée national aïnou Upopoy et du Centre culturel aïnou de Hokkaidō. Ces expositions vont des approches étatiques et touristiques à celles dirigées par les communautés. L’ancrage du récit aïnou au passé souligne la nécessité d’un engagement plus profond avec 133 la vie contemporaine des Aïnous et la résurgence autochtone à l’échelle mondiale. Mots-clés : Ainu, représentation autochtone, Hokkaido, Japon, exposition _____ This article presents an analysis based on fieldwork conducted in early 2023 by two museum studies PhD students based in Japan. Originating from Brazil and Taiwan — two countries with diverse Indigenous populations and complex colonial histories — the authors were naturally drawn to Indigenous narratives in Japan as they began to explore various aspects of their host country. The objective of this study is to analyze various approaches to Ainu representation observed in four exhibitions across Hokkaido, exploring both their origins and interpretive strategies. By examining the frameworks behind different representations of Ainu culture, this research aims to contribute to developing more inclusive and collaborative exhibition models that effectively communicate the contemporary presence and agency of the Ainu people in Japan. The multifaceted representations of Ainu culture in Hokkaido, the group’s ancestral homeland, reflect a layered history shaped by colonial processes and ongoing postcolonial cultural practices (Siddle, 1996; Lewallen, 2016). Museum exhibitions offer a range of narratives, not only from Japanese-Ainu and non-Ainu perspectives but also from within the Ainu community itself, revealing the trajectory of cultural resurgence dating back to Kayano Shigeru’s early efforts to collect and preserve Ainu oral traditions and artifacts (Kayano, 1994). The representation of the Ainu in Japan faces unique challenges. A long history of cultural suppression and assimilation has contributed to the silencing and homogenization of Ainu identity within mainstream society (Winchester, 2013). The reemergence of Ainu narratives in museums has coincided with broader postwar civil movements in Japan, including anti-discrimination campaigns, environmental justice efforts, and Indigenous land rights activism (Siddle, 1996; Lewallen, 2016). Contemporary efforts at representation must therefore grapple not only with the authenticity and revitalization of Ainu cultural expression but also with the issue of agency, ensuring that Ainu voices are central to the narration of their own histories. This shift is essential for fostering deeper appreciation and respect for Ainu culture and its place within the national historical narrative. Museums are active spaces for meaning making, where narratives are constructed, negotiated, and often contested. Within conventional institutional frameworks, however, dominant discourses have frequently marginalized, misrepresented, and flattened Indigenous histories and identities (Clifford, 1997; Message, 2013). Cultural representation, therefore, remains one of the most significant challenges for museum professionals worldwide: how to communicate the complexities of cultural heritage within the constraints of museum spaces and do so in ways that meaningfully engage the public. These challenges become particularly pronounced when working with Indigenous communities, as representation not only shapes internal community identity – often within minority contexts – but also influences how these communities are perceived by the broader society. Museum representation of the Ainu in Japan reveals an interplay between colonial legacies and Indigenous agency. State-sanctioned narratives have often relegated Ainu culture to a static past; however, longstanding community-led initiatives actively challenge these 134 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 outdated approaches by prioritizing self-determined perspectives. These initiatives highlight the importance of museums building deeper connections with contemporary Ainu activism and aligning with broader Indigenous movements advocating for more effective decolonial representation. By comparing static depictions of Ainu culture with dynamic Indigenous representations, it becomes clear that reflexive museology is essential. Such an approach creates a bridge between historical displays and postcolonial discourses, underscoring the significance of representation and emphasizing the transformative potential of museums. Background In museology and cultural heritage studies, the representation of Indigenous groups within museums has received increasing scholarly attention. This growing interest stems not only from an expanded understanding of culture and diversity but also from critical debates surrounding the power dynamics embedded within museum practices as well as the rights of marginalized groups to reclaim their heritage and actively participate in decision-making processes. Grounded in postcolonial theory and critical museology, this study observes institutional practices and advocates for more inclusive and participatory approaches, aiming ultimately to empower the Indigenous communities represented. In Japan, the official recognition of the Ainu as an ethnic minority began with the enactment of the Ainu Cultural Promotion Law in 1997, which aimed to preserve and promote the Ainu language and certain aspects of Ainu culture. However, as Grunow (2019) argues, this policy emerged from a broader context of structural discrimination, marginalization, and exploitation of Ainu culture through settler colonial frameworks in Hokkaido. Earlier scholarship by Cheung (2003) also pointed out the lack of in-depth research and engagement with Ainu cultural heritage. Although legal developments in 1997 marked a step forward, it was not until the Ainu Policy Promotion Act of 2019 that the Japanese government officially recognized the Ainu as an Indigenous people (Tsunemoto, 2019). Prior to this recognition, state-led promotion efforts often focused on the commodification of Ainu culture through what has been termed “ethnic tourism” (Hiwasaki, 2000). Although the legal acknowledgment of the Ainu represents a critical milestone, it does not automatically translate into societal acceptance or appreciation. This disconnect is largely attributable to the enduring legacies of settler colonialism in Hokkaido and the persistent myth of culturally homogeneous Japanese society. As Lewallen (2016) highlights, deep-seated marginalization structures continue to shape Ainu identity and limit opportunities for cultural self-determination. Furthermore, Lightfoot (2020) suggests that government welfare policies directed at the Ainu have often framed their cultural and political needs in reductive ways, influencing contemporary debates on Indigenous rights and recognition in Japan. In discussing the relationship between memory, power, and museums, Chagas (2007) conceptualizes the museum as both a “watcher” and something to be watched – a constructed space that not only presents narratives to the public but also carries an invisible gaze shaped by systems of knowledge and authority. According to Chagas, museums have the potential to function as reflective spaces in which material heritage is imbued with symbolic and spiritual meanings. In this sense, museums are not only repositories of objects but also platforms for critical reflection, dialogue, and social engagement. This 135 perspective highlights the transformative potential of museums to contribute to more inclusive cultural narratives and reshape the public understanding of historically marginalized groups. Focusing specifically on Indigenous representation in museum exhibitions, Cury’s (2017) study on the decolonization of Indigenous representation in museums is also foundational. Cury argues that colonial thought patterns reinforce stereotypes and prejudices against Indigenous peoples, whereas museums have the potential to counteract these biases through educational and curatorial practices. According to Cury, traditional colonial museum practices involve institutions speaking on behalf of Indigenous peoples. Decolonial transformation occurs when curatorial practices integrate Indigenous voices and spirituality. This shift requires institutional restructuring, compelling museum teams not only to collaborate directly with Indigenous self-representation but also provide infrastructure conducive to intercultural dialogue (Cury & Bombonato, 2022). Additionally, communication theory as articulated by Floyd et al. (2022) emphasizes communication as a symbolic process – one that employs symbols to construct and convey meaning, express values, and represent significance. Thus, Indigenous museology prioritizes collaboration and effective communication to avoid reproducing colonial practices. Methodology Our study draws on Tony Bennett’s (2005) concept of cultural objecthood. This is particularly relevant as it adapts the actor-network theory (ANT) for the analysis of museum objects. Bennett draws a parallel between the meaning-making processes of museum objects and the agency of materials in scientific laboratories. According to this view, objects in museums are not merely passive representations of history and culture but actively participate in ongoing processes of meaning-making through external frameworks established by curatorial choices, educational programming, marketing, and audience-oriented practices. These practices render museum objects agents within broader social programs that seek to organize and regulate social relations. The ANT is a social studies approach developed by Michel Callon, Bruno Latour, and John Law (Murdoch, 1997). The contributions of Murdoch (1998) provide a critical examination and a pragmatic extension of ANT’s applicability, analyzing the limitations of the early framework of ANT and demonstrating how the theory can be used to analyze the complex relationship between society and material representations. Murdoch identifies the spaces of hierarchical configurations where centralized actors (such as institutions) stabilize networks through formalized rules and material arrangements, differentiating them from the spaces of negotiations where the actors contest, reinterpret, or even adapt network relations. One of the main points of his research is how the reflexive characteristics of human actors differ from those of non-human actors because humans have the possibility of resisting or changing network preconceptions. Kéfi and Pallud (2011) extend the applicability of the theory to the realm of cultural institutions, framing mediation as a multifunctional and multidirectional practice involving a network of activities: communication (as the dialogue between different actors), information (as the curation and contextualization of artifacts), negotiation (as navigating the diversity of interpretations), reception (as the assimilation and contestation of the audiences), and education (as pedagogical activities). Museum mediation to the authors is a multifunctional actor network where prescriptive and negotiative logics intersect, elucidated as prescrip- 136 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 tive spaces resulting from a curatorial authority and institutional policies that standardize narratives and visitors’ pathways. In parallel, negotiative spaces are created through visitor interactions, reinterpretations, and engagements where meaning is constructed with the audience instead of being imposed by the institution onto them. Therefore, the Ainu exhibition sites discussed in this study are analyzed within a framework that recognizes museum mediation as a relational and multifaceted process. The analysis highlights the interplay among institutional frameworks, curatorial practices, visitor engagements, the provenance of collections, and specific curatorial strategies employed in the displays. Ultimately, it emphasizes museums as dynamic spaces where meanings are collaboratively negotiated rather than passively transmitted. The exhibition sites The Hokkaido Museum The Hokkaido Museum is a government-administered institution that integrates academic research with education, aiming to construct an official image of the region through exhibitions on environmental history, industrial development, and cultural evolution. The museum houses a diverse collection, including a section dedicated to Ainu culture and recent history. This section adopts an ambitious and contemporary ethnographic narrative, utilizing illustrated panels that follow the story of a modern Ainu family. The storyline begins with a boy who identifies as Japanese and gradually reconnects with his Ainu roots and traditions. Acting as a narrative guide, he introduces visitors to Ainu culture, with artifacts complementing the storyline in a way that presents the Ainu experience as part of modern society. One of the reasons for this progressive approach is that the museum hosts the Ainu Culture Research Center, established 30 years ago, which includes researchers and faculty members who identify as Ainu. It is thus not coincidental that the Hokkaido Museum presents a more innovative and socially engaged narrative of Ainu culture – one that seeks to counter stigmatization and move away from the encyclopedic, detached portrayals of the past. The exhibition strives to resonate with contemporary audiences and depict the Ainu as active participants in present-day Japan. However, from another perspective, the narrative still maintains certain traditional representational frames. While it attempts to modernize the portrayal of Ainu culture, it largely adheres to a Japanese cultural framework, limiting the space for more critical discussions on the impact of settler colonialism and marginalization. A deeper exploration of how different groups came to be integrated into the Japanese nation-state – beginning from a multiculturalist standpoint – could provide a more nuanced understanding of these dynamics. The Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum and the Kayano Museum The location of these two institutions is notable: they are embedded within Nibutani, a village known as Nibutani Ainu Takumi no Michi (Nibutani Ainu Craftsmanship Town), which has the highest concentration of Ainu population in Japan. Surrounded by craft workshops and tourism facilities, this area is recognized for its authentic Ainu cultural practices. The coexistence of two museums focused on Ainu culture offers an interesting contrast in their object-centered narrative approaches. As Hiwasaki (2000) notes, the village represents a unique model of ethnic tourism in Japan. 137 The Kayano Shigeru Nibutani Ainu Museum is a private institution operated by the family of Kayano Shigeru, the first Ainu member of the Japanese Diet and a prominent advocate for Ainu rights. The museum’s narrative is shaped by Kayano’s personal perspective as an Ainu cultural leader. The collection includes traditional objects, replicas, crafts (both traditional and contemporary), and souvenirs. While the layout may appear eclectic – lacking coherent labels or explanations in some areas – it evokes the feeling of a personal archive or collector’s vault. Despite these limitations, the museum stands as a testament to a lived Ainu experience beyond the premodern, “ethnic” image. It emphasizes the Ainu’s global cultural exchanges and their agency in reclaiming representational space. In contrast, the Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum – housed in a modern facility – focuses on the premodern. It holds many artifacts donated by Kayano and has been designated as an Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property. The exhibition is structured by thematic zones, beginning with a video performance of the Yukar (Ainu epic poetry), followed by sections titled Ainu (The Ainu Way of Life), Kamuy (Dramas of the Gods), Misur (Blessings of the Earth), and Morew (A Tradition of Figurative Art). While the presentation adopts a contemporary design, the narrative remains rooted in premodern depictions of Ainu life. Through reconstructed environments and ethnographic materials, the exhibition primarily portrays the Ainu as part of Japan’s distant past. Although the artifacts come from Kayano’s collection, the interpretation is shaped by Japanese scholars with an emphasis on accessibility for general audiences. This approach risks reinforcing the notion that Ainu culture is a static, historical phenomenon rather than a living tradition. The two collections offer contrasting representational logics. One invites visitors to engage with a contemporary, resilient Ainu identity while the other leans toward a more institutionalized and historicized framing. This contrast is especially intriguing considering both originate from Kayano’s efforts. The Kayano Museum, as a privately funded institution, may face limitations in exhibition design due to financial constraints. Nonetheless, its inclusion of objects that highlight the Ainu’s international networks is a valuable contribution to cultural advocacy. On the other hand, the Nibutani Culture Museum provides a more structured and visually cohesive experience for the general public, offering an accessible introduction to Ainu culture – even if it remains largely confined to a nostalgic lens. The Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park By far the largest complex examined in this study – both in terms of spatial scale, collections, and the range of activities offered – the Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park, located in Shiraoi, was established in 2020. Its creation was initiated under the Act on the Promotion of Measures to Realize a Society in Which the Pride of the Ainu People is Respected, with the primary objective of not only preserving and exhibiting Ainu culture but also serving as a cultural hub to disseminate and celebrate the diversity of Ainu traditions and practices. While the national museum is newly branded, it is not entirely new. It evolved from a pre-existing museum dedicated to Ainu culture, which was reconstructed, renamed, and rebranded in anticipation of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. As Umezawa (2020) notes, this rebranding was intended to present Japan as a nation that embraces cultural diversity, particularly on the global stage. Upopoy offers a wide range of cultural programming for both visitors and Ainu community members. The permanent exhibition is organized around six thematic zones: Our Language, Our Universe, Our Lives, Our History, Our 144 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 creating the potential for examining Taiwan’s settler-colonial features and ultimately contributing to the long-awaited process of decolonization. Initiated by NMH curator Dr. Tsai Yao-ching, a specialist in art history, the exhibition brought together a diverse group of contributors, including civilian collectors, universities, and research centers. These participants, primarily from non-governmental initiatives, collaboratively constructed a cohesive narrative of Taiwan’s maritime experiences throughout its settler-colonial history. This narrative was supported by objects from a wide range of genres, emphasizing their historical significance in connecting the island’s past to the sea. Held in a prominent national museum, the exhibition further underscored Taiwan’s ongoing cultural and political democratization over the past decade. This case study examines Oceanic Taiwan and employs historical methods and sociological theories to analyze the composition of the exhibition’s object assemblage, its agency, and the network of actors and narratives involved in its creation. More specifically, the analysis references Tony Bennett’s (2018) museum theory, which explores how modern nation-state displays from the 20th century onward reconstruct objects and their symbolic meanings to align with national narratives. This study investigates how Oceanic Taiwan reflected the indigenization of culture, identity, and evolving nationalism in Taiwan. Furthermore, it highlights how the museum narrative crafted two decades ago contributed to cultural decolonization within a national museum setting and continues to inspire both the challenges and opportunities of cultural decolonization in present-day Taiwan. The NMH, a lens to the construction of Taiwan’s national culture Located at the crossroads of the Pacific Ocean and the Chinese continent, Taiwan has long been a site of seafaring migrations and geopolitical conflicts. The island’s geography invited waves of settlers and colonial regimes, each imposing a distinct ideology of cultural and nation. The most recent wave of settler colonialism came with the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang (KMT) after World War II, marking a pivotal chapter in Taiwan’s contested identity and cultural narrative. The NMH, established in 1955 under the KMT regime, serves as a microcosm for examining the interplay between political ideology and cultural representation in Taiwan. As a product of Sinocentric cultural construction during an era of authoritarian rule, the NMH reflected the Chinese nationalist narrative that shaped Taiwan’s official identity for decades. Its architectural design, collection strategies, and exhibition narratives were deeply intertwined with state ideology and Cold War geopolitics under the influence of the American empire (Johnson, 2000). The NMH functioned as a vehicle for advancing the KMT’s vision of Taiwan as the legitimate representative of the Republic of China. However, while it once functioned as an authoritative cultural institution, its transitional practices alongside the nation’s democratization provides a close-up lens for understanding Taiwan’s evolving national narrative amid contemporary historical shifts and transformations in identity. Tsai (2019), in his study of literary and cultural productions in Taiwan, provides a comprehensive framework for applying settler colonial criticism to conceptualize significant post-war narrative transformations. Similarly, the narratives produced in museums through object assemblages can benefit from being examined within the framework of settler colonialism. While the “national” status of a museum adds another variable to 145 the narratives it produces, it is precisely such national institutions—once regulated by authoritarian governments—that face the greatest challenges yet simultaneously hold the greatest potential for post-colonial cultural production. Decolonizing settler colonialized Taiwan Between 1949 and the lifting of martial law in 1987, Chiang Kai-shek implemented a comprehensive authoritarian governance system to maintain his regime in exile in Taiwan. This regime claimed sovereignty over China while bringing in an influx of settlers who comprised roughly 20% of the island’s population at the time (Wakabayashi, 2003). Dictatorship, a Sinocentric cultural narrative, and anti-communist propaganda thrived under the KMT governance for decades after its relocation to Taiwan (Lin, 2009). Consequently, political repression and a Sinocentric ideology dominated Taiwan’s official cultural narrative. While debates continue about whether the concept of settler colonialism fully encapsulates the KMT authoritarian state (Wakabayashi, 2016, pp. 90-107), postWorld War II Taiwan undoubtedly experienced a regime rooted in settler-colonial policies aimed at nationalist assimilation (Sugimoto, 2018, pp. 283-297). With the lifting of martial law in 1987, the process of democratization spurred efforts to construct a multicultural narrative that could encompass the diverse memories and identities arising from Taiwan’s history of consecutive settler-colonial regimes. This multiculturalism, intertwined with the rise of Taiwanese nationalism, sought to redress the disproportionate emphasis on Chinese culture by advocating a more balanced representation of all cultural groups within the nation. In contrast to the previous monolithic Sinocentric narrative, this new approach aimed to reflect the realities of Taiwan’s pluralistic society. However, the nation’s political and social polarization highlights the incomplete nature of decolonization in addressing the settler-colonial aspects of its authoritarian past. The KMT’s fabrication of a Chinese identity, which deliberately marginalized Indigenous cultures, fostered a “settler-colonial unconsciousness” (Hirano et al., 2018, p. 213). Acknowledging the settler-colonial structure of the post-World War II KMT regime through the contextualization of its cultural constructs is crucial for Taiwan’s ongoing democratization and cultural reform. The KMT’s continental-oriented ideology, which underpinned its claims to sovereignty over China, pervaded Taiwanese society for more than half a century. This ideology overlooked the island’s maritime history and experiences, creating a disconnect between official narratives produced by public institutions and the lived experiences of the Taiwanese people. For over 50 years, the authoritarian promotion of a Sinocentric cultural framework created persistent societal dissonance. While studies on Taiwan’s settler-colonial history have only gained momentum in the past decade, they highlight how the island’s complex patterns of colonization pose unique challenges to its decolonization process (Hirano et al., 2018). Decolonization in Taiwanese national museums The 1990s saw a surge in the establishment of new national museums in Taiwan that embraced narratives of multiculturalism, pluralism, and oceanic perspectives (Chu, 2011). This cultural reorientation was preceded by the cultural nativism movement of the 1970s, which laid the groundwork for a more inclusive national narrative (Hsiau, 2021). Initiated by grassroots literary movements, cultural nativism in the 1970s called for more relat- 146 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 able literary production using local languages, cultural features, and memories anchored in the Taiwanese experience, in contrast to the Nationalists’ continental, anti-communist civil war memories and their overarching Sinocentric cultural narratives. The multicultural approach later adopted by Taiwan’s democratized government reflects this ideological shift and underscores the population’s resistance to monolithic cultural assimilation (Wakabayashi, 2016). National museums played a pivotal role in this transformation, representing a national effort to address the historical neglect of the culture of Taiwan’s majority population (Wang, 2004). This ideological shift marked both a process and a milestone in the nation’s decolonization, highlighting the gradual decentralization of cultural authority (Chu, 2011). The Indigenous peoples, along with the Chinese Hokkien and Hakka settlers who have coexisted on the island since the seventeenth century, have finally had the chance to be acknowledged and represented alongside the post-1949 Chinese Nationalist settlers in the nation’s cultural representations. However, while multiculturalism seeks to incorporate Taiwan’s diverse population with its varied origins and memories, tensions persist. Disparities in resource allocation among cultural groups and enduring socio-economic inequalities. reveal the limitations of current efforts to reform the national narrative. Moreover, the lingering influence of Sinocentric ideology continues to shape institutional structures and public discourse, complicating the construction of a cohesive national identity. As Taiwan’s decolonization process remains incomplete, the struggle over national identity reflects broader questions about cultural sovereignty, historical recognition, and the redefinition of belonging. The museum space, as a site of cultural memory and identity formation, plays a crucial role in either reinforcing or dismantling colonial narratives. Given its dual role as a national cultural institution and an exhibition content producer, the NMH requires a critical reexamination of both its curatorial processes and the implications of its exhibitions. As an institution historically shaped by state ideology, the NMH must confront its role in perpetuating or challenging settler-colonial narratives in Taiwan’s national identity construction. The perspectives gained from settler-colonialism studies provide a valuable tool for analyzing how exhibitions shape public consciousness, influencing the collective understanding of Taiwan’s past and future. By applying this framework, Oceanic Taiwan, a special exhibition produced by the NMH, can be contextualized as part of a broader effort to dismantle hegemonic narratives and assert an autonomous Taiwanese identity. Oceanic Taiwan and the NMH Despite its origins in authoritarianism, the NMH continues to operate within a democratized society. As a national museum aligned with the state’s cultural governance, it faces the challenge of creating exhibition narratives that reflect Taiwan’s evolving national perspective. The production of Oceanic Taiwan exemplifies this transitional process, offering insights into how the museum reoriented its narrative ideology that connects the broader social changes taking place in the nation. The concept of the exhibitionary complex expands the potential of museum objecthood in the process of decolonization (Bennett, 2018). In colonial museums, the act of collecting reflects the governing network, whereby objects are selected, organized, and presented to align with dominant ideologies. These objects possess agency through their interactions with the governing ideology, shaping and reinforcing narratives of power. For the NMH, 147 its assemblages of objects and subsequent exhibitions provide tangible evidence of the nation’s settler-colonial history and its postcolonial aspirations in recent decades. As Taiwan transitions from authoritarian rule to a democratized society, the NMH, which has been in operation since the early years of the Nationalist regime in Taiwan, holds both the potential and the responsibility to create historical frameworks that facilitate decolonization and critically address the country’s settler-colonial past. Examination of the exhibitionary complex created under the Taiwanese society’s transformation from Sinocentric authoritarianism to a democratized oceanic one is a process that also contributes to the understanding of this island nation’s settler-colonial features in culture. While some researchers have attributed the shift in museum narratives – from Sinocentric to multiculturalism – to political rivalry between the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (Denton, 2021), the transition reflects deeper tensions between the older and newer settler groups in Taiwanese society. The Han Chinese settlers in Taiwan, whose presence dates back to the seventeenth century and who constitute the largest proportion of the population, experienced Japanese colonization alongside the Indigenous peoples and differ significantly from the post-war Nationalist settlers. However, upon establishing its regime in Taiwan, the KMT imposed a Sinocentric cultural narrative by designating certain art genres as “national” arts to advance its governing ideology (Kuo, 1995; Guy, 2020) — an approach that excluded the memories and experiences of Taiwan’s largest population at the time. The transition in cultural narratives – from Sinocentrism to authoritarian leader worship, and, ultimately, to multicultural inclusiveness – mirrors the multiethnic composition and diverse memories of Taiwanese society. Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT) provides a valuable framework for understanding how museum objects serve as both passive carriers of meaning and active intermediaries in cultural formation (Latour, 2007). The processes of cataloging, acquiring, displaying, and reproducing imbue objects with agency, enabling them to influence cultural frameworks and narratives far beyond their original contexts. Through exhibitions and public engagement, museum collections continue to shape societal understandings of identity and history. The Oceanic Taiwan exhibition, introduced as a special exhibit at the NMH in 2005, exemplifies the museum’s evolving role in constructing inclusive narratives. This exhibition marked a significant departure from the NMH’s earlier Sinocentric practices, highlighting its agency in promoting an oceanic perspective on Taiwan’s history. The layered meaning-making processes of the objects involved in this exhibitionary complex provide evidence of the power dynamics at play during the exhibition’s creation (Bennett, 2018). Moreover, Actor-Network Theory allows for a further unpacking of the roles that objects play within museum functions (Bennett, 2005; Byrne, 2011). Democratization has shifted the nation’s cultural narrative toward an oceanic perspective, which offers the potential to incorporate multiple viewpoints and reflect the diverse memories and identities of its people. By acknowledging the island nation’s maritime history and past experiences, this oceanic approach aims to foster a shared and relatable national identity. Oceanic Taiwan thus serves as an example of how national museums can act as mediators in reorienting cultural narratives and advancing the processes of decolonization and democratization. By analyzing the participating actors, including objects, and narrative strategies within the exhibition, Oceanic Taiwan reveals the agents of change driving the NMH’s evolving mission in response to democratization and cultural decolonization in Taiwan. 148 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 The agents The cultural administration structure in Taiwan positions its museums within a hierarchical framework directly aligned with government directives. This structure enables the ruling political authority’s ideology to shape museum narratives. The transition of power from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which positions itself as more aligned with Indigenous perspectives, in 2000 marked a significant shift in Taiwan’s national doctrine. As the first political party established after the lifting of martial law in 1987, the DPP introduced an ideology distinct from the KMT’s authoritarian and continental-focused construct. The society experienced a shift of governing ideology from Chinese continental to a more local, oceanic oriented one. National cultural institutions began to promote an oceanic perspective, reflecting a broader ideological shift. Although originally designed to reinforce the governing ideology during the authoritarian period, the NMH embraced this trend, launching its first exhibition aligned with the new narrative in 2005 as part of its 50th anniversary activities. The Oceanic Taiwan exhibition was a collaborative effort involving a variety of non-government actors alongside the NMH initiated by one of its curators, Dr. Tsai Yao-ching. Dr. Tsai played a pivotal role in shaping the exhibition’s narrative. He was inspired by the differing perspectives embedded in maps from various generations and purposes. His curatorial approach emphasized the untold maritime experiences of Taiwan, creating a narrative naturally guided by the objects selected for the assemblage. This approach highlighted the island’s unique relationship with the sea, offering a counternarrative to the Sinocentric constructs of the past. Key contributors in the Oceanic Taiwan object assemblage included J.M. Lin Architect/ The Observer Design Group + Graduate Institute of Architecture at NCTU (Taiwan), the Taiwan Historic Map Society, and the Chinese Culture University’s Digital Earth Research Center. This collaboration of private collectors, architectural firms, universities, and research institutes demonstrated the exhibition’s inclusivity. J.M. Lin Architect and its affiliated groups contributed a centerpiece for the exhibition based on a project originally developed for the Second International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam (IABR, 2005). This project analyzed Taiwan’s coastline development and inspired urban design concepts, symbolizing the island’s connection to its maritime environment. The Council for Cultural Affairs under the Executive Yuan oversaw the project, signifying government support in constructing a new national cultural image aimed at gaining international recognition. The Taiwan Historic Map Society and the Chinese Culture University’s Digital Earth Research Center played vital roles in visually situating Taiwan within the Pacific context. The Taiwan Historic Map Society, a private collector’s group, provided historical maps, particularly from the Japanese colonial period, that highlighted Taiwan’s colonial and modernization history. The Digital Earth Research Center, on the other hand, supplied contemporary satellite imagery and coastline analyses, reinforcing the exhibition’s modern and scientific perspective. Together, these resources supported a narrative positioning Taiwan as an integral part of the Pacific rather than a continental appendage (see Figure 2). Private collectors and research institutes also contributed significantly to the construction of an object-based counternarrative that diverged from the NMH’s previous practices. This partnership between government entities and civic communities reflected a decentral- 149 ization in the NMH’s curatorial process. The involvement of multiple actors allowed for a broader range of perspectives, contributing to a more inclusive representation of Taiwan’s cultural and historical identity. By hosting Oceanic Taiwan on a national platform (see Figure 3), the NMH demonstrated its evolving agency in challenging the hegemonic continental cultural construct. This collaborative exhibition symbolized Taiwan’s progression toward democratization and decolonization, reflecting the museum’s commitment to representing a more inclusive national identity. The collections curated by the NMH in post-war Taiwan, originally intended to reinforce a continental-focused national narrative, now serve as material evidence of the island’s modern cultural development and its shifting identity. Through Oceanic Taiwan, the NMH and its curator coordinated a network of contributors who collectively provided an array of objects aligned with the oceanic narrative. By serving as the exhibition’s venue, the NMH itself became a key agent in this narrative transformation, playing a central role in Taiwan’s efforts to redefine its cultural identity and historical perspective. Figure 2. Exhibition Hall of Oceanic Taiwan. © 2005, National Museum of History. 150 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 The assemblage The Oceanic Taiwan exhibition embodied a collaborative storytelling effort by multiple agents, both human and non-human, positioning their contributions as integral to the nation’s historical narrative. The assemblage of objects collectively constructed a linear narrative of Taiwan’s development through its relationship with the sea. These objects highlighted the seafaring traditions of Han Chinese settlers, maritime economic activities, and the diverse cultures representing the lives of generations of immigrants on the island. The exhibition included a wide variety of materials – maps, documents, prints, ship models, photographs, postcards, posters, and folk artifacts – all of which contributed to a multidimensional narrative. At first glance, the assortment of objects in this exhibition might seem scattered in comparison to the paintings and antiques that had shaped the NMH exhibitions before. However, this diversity was intentional, reflecting the range of agents involved in the NMH’s evolving cultural narratives. The exhibition featured religious artifacts tied to the maritime faith of Han Chinese settlers, such as objects related to the worship of the sea goddess Matsu. It also included a portrait of an Indigenous grandmother within a Han settler family, as well as the iconic canoe of the Tao people from Lanyu (Orchid Island). The presence of the Indigenous peoples and a history of interactions and coexistence was presented with objects as evidence. Mapping equipment and maps across time and with various functions were put together to demonstrate an interaction between people and the island and the sea. Postcards and posters highlighting harbors, maritime goods, and coastal salt pond practices further illustrated the island’s ontological connection to the Figure 3. Preparations for the opening ceremony at the main exhibition hall of Oceanic Taiwan. © 2005, National Museum of History. 151 sea. Together, these objects offered a counternarrative to the Sinocentric, continental history that had dominated Taiwan’s cultural narrative for more than half a century. Maps formed the centerpiece of Oceanic Taiwan’s narrative. Spanning different historical periods, the maps ranged from Qing Dynasty depictions of the island to Japanese colonial cartography and post-war Chinese continental perspectives. This historical collection was supplemented by contemporary satellite photographs, vividly emphasizing Taiwan’s geographical and cultural ties to the sea. Posters, postcards, ship models, and seafaring pamphlets further underscored the interconnectedness of Taiwan’s people with their maritime environment, illustrating the economic and cultural exchanges shaped by the island’s position in the Pacific. By assembling a wide-ranging collection of objects, Oceanic Taiwan presented a narrative distinct from the Chinese continental perspective that had previously permeated the NMH’s exhibitions. The exhibition’s emphasis on Taiwan’s maritime history and diverse cultural experiences highlighted the island’s ontological relationship with the sea. Although it did not fully explore Taiwan’s connection to the Pacific Islands, as implied by its title, the shift from a continental to a maritime focus nonetheless marked a significant transformation in the NMH’s role as a national cultural institution. This shift not only challenged the museum’s historical narrative practices but also demonstrated its evolving agency in contributing to Taiwan’s broader efforts at decolonization and democratization. The narrative The preface of the catalog by the NMH director Tsung The-gin specifically stated that Oceanic Taiwan was to achieve communication and synthesis between different fields and that by presenting this exhibition, the museum continued its tradition of shedding light on the “daily lives of the ordinary people” (NMH, 2005). Indeed, focusing on shared culture represents the least provocative decolonizing narrative to counter the previously Sinocentric one. This exhibition, involving various actors in constructing the Taiwanese maritime experience, further extended its reach to an international project that encompasses the experiences of ordinary people. The project was an ontological representation of Taiwan at the International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam (IABR, 2005, p. 99). The original title for this international project by J.M. Lin Architect (仲觀聯合建築師事 務所) and NCTU (國立交通大學建築研究所) was “Ocean of Taiwan – from NOwhere to NOWhere.” Its equivocal terminology suggested the ambiguous situation of contemporary Taiwan and its unresolved sequential colonial experiences. When incorporated into Oceanic Taiwan, the concept was extended by the NMH curator. With a telescopic view of the island of Taiwan and its extensive coastal development records, this interactive center piece of the Oceanic Taiwan was reframed into a narrative for a domestic audience for a fresh perspective in understanding their culture and experience. This narrative turn was further extended in the prologue by the Taiwan Historic Map Society director, Yang Lian-fu, in the exhibition catalog. With an opening paragraph stating how the exhibition aimed to introduce an underrepresented history of the island, the article included four sections: Origin of Taiwan’s Oceanic Culture; Historical Changes in Taiwan’s Oceanic Culture; Immigration, Commerce, and Diversity of Character in Taiwan’s Oceanic Culture; and Revelation of Oceanic Taiwan. By tracing the history from Taiwan’s earliest recorded encounter with settlers from the sea to the present, this narrative emphasized the interactions between the island, its people, and the world. 152 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Yang’s descent from pre-1949 Chinese immigrants—who lived through both Japanese and Nationalist Chinese colonization—mirrors the experience of the largest settler group on the island. While these Han settlers became the primary opponents of post-war authoritarian governance during Taiwan’s democratization, the decolonizing practices led by these earlier settlers have continued to marginalize Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples, who have deep-rooted connections to the broader Oceanic region. This representational paradox underscores the need to reconstruct more inclusive narratives, highlighting that the oceanic perspective holds greater potential than how it was conveyed in Oceanic Taiwan. The invisible Despite the reconstructed cultural narrative in Oceanic Taiwan, critical gaps in this exhibition complex underscored the challenges Taiwan continues to face in constructing an inclusive, decolonized cultural narrative. The first significant omission was the absence of the NMH’s own collection in the assemblage of over 300 objects presented in the exhibition. While special exhibitions are not strictly required to incorporate the hosting museum’s collection, this absence was conspicuous for a museum claiming to represent the national history of Taiwan. It suggested that the NMH’s established collection was incompatible with the narrative proposed by Oceanic Taiwan. This disconnect revealed the limitations of the museum’s capacity to reorient its practices to align with the democratized government’s new cultural governance, despite efforts to create a more inclusive national narrative. A second notable shortcoming was the exhibition’s focus on Han Chinese experiences, which effectively redirected the national cultural narrative from a continental to an oceanic orientation. However, this focus largely excluded the deeper connections between Taiwan and the broader oceanic community, signaling the preliminary nature of efforts to overcome multiple colonial and authoritarian legacies. Relying heavily on private collections, the exhibition was constrained by the individual ideologies and biases of the collectors, leading to a lack of representation for Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples. Among the 300 objects, only four specifically addressed Indigenous presence: a photograph and portrait of elderly Indigenous women, a model of a Lanyu Island canoe, and an actual canoe from Lanyu. This marginal representation was particularly problematic given that the languages and cultural practices of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples form the most direct connection between Taiwan and the Pacific islands. These connections could have provided stronger legitimacy for reorienting Taiwan’s cultural narrative toward an oceanic perspective. Instead, Oceanic Taiwan focused primarily on Taiwan’s coastal developments and historical narratives beginning with the Qing period. The limited inclusion of Indigenous maritime traditions reflects the NMH’s historical lack of attention to Taiwan’s Indigenous cultures, a deficiency compounded by the museum’s reliance on private collections for this exhibition. The NMH, as an institution, embodied the model of cultural narrative construction under authoritarian rule in Taiwan. Its collecting and exhibiting practices prior to democratization were dominated by art exhibitions centered on Chinese culture, with little engagement in narratives about Taiwan’s island identity or maritime history. While the democratization process triggered shifts in cultural governance, these changes were initially limited to emphasizing the local dimensions of Chinese culture rather than creating an ontological narrative rooted in Taiwan’s island experience. The NMH’s structural detachment from maritime perspectives and Indigenous narratives impeded its ability to contribute meaningfully to Oceanic Taiwan’s object assemblage. 153 At the same time, the pervasive continental Chinese narrative imposed during the authoritarian period appeared to have indirectly inspired private collectors to assemble objects that served as a counternarrative. These privately collected objects filled the gaps left by the NMH’s Nationalist colonial practices, but their limitations revealed how the authoritarian settler-colonial structure continued to haunt the creation of new cultural narratives. Nonetheless, Oceanic Taiwan represented a significant step in Taiwan’s cultural decolonization process. By excluding the NMH’s collection, the exhibition diminished the influence of the museum’s colonial characteristics. Moreover, the involvement of actors outside the state-controlled cultural administration system decentralized the narrative, allowing for greater inclusivity. Oceanic Taiwan demonstrated a unique angle of decolonizing practice in Taiwan’s museum scene. By composing an object assemblage that redirects attention to Taiwan’s maritime experiences, the exhibition seeks to foster an island-focused national identity. In this process, both the objects corroborating a settler-colonial construct and those offering counternarratives were indispensable. These objects not only served as bridges to Taiwan’s past but also acted as agents of decolonization, facilitating the reorientation of the nation’s cultural narrative. While gaps in representation remain, Oceanic Taiwan exemplified the challenges and opportunities inherent in reframing Taiwan’s history and identity through the lens of the sea, signaling a crucial shift in the NMH’s role as a cultural institution. Prospects and challenges Oceanic Taiwan can be understood as a composite network of actors and evidence, demonstrating the NMH’s transition from affirming a continental, colonial Chinese narrative to inspiring a decolonizing, oceanic Taiwanese one. The three aspects of Oceanic Taiwan highlight key elements within the exhibition complex that contribute to cultural decolonization. By engaging decentralized agents, constructing an object-based counternarrative against entrenched continental historiographies, and shifting its narrative toward an evidence-based island culture, Oceanic Taiwan marked a significant departure from the promotion of a refined Chinese literati tradition. Instead, it embraced Taiwan’s maritime identity. These aspects—along with certain notable absences—illustrate the National Museum of History’s evolving role as an agent of change in Taiwan’s cultural decolonization. Oceanic Taiwan demonstrates how a national museum can embody both colonial institutional practices and the potential for decolonizing reinterpretation (Craggs & Wintle, 2016). The exhibition serves as a reminder of the ongoing and unending process of cultural decolonization. From the participating agents to the assemblage of objects and the shaping of its narrative, Oceanic Taiwan materialized a reorientation of history from a continental to an oceanic perspective. It presented a new cultural narrative while enabling an object assemblage that challenged its original Sinocentric settler-colonial framework. Examining this assemblage reveals the evolving role of cultural institutions as decolonizing agents, offering inspiration to societies navigating their own processes of decolonization. Under the pre-democratization KMT regime, cultural nationalism was deeply rooted in its Sinocentric ideology, authoritarianism, and settler colonial framework. Aligned with this agenda, the NMH played a crucial role in constructing a Chinese cultural narrative – a legacy that now requires critical reexamination in a postcolonial context. The exhibition’s diverse actors, evolving narratives, and institutional networks attest to the multiple dimensions of 256 ICOFOM Study Series 53 1-2 Building the future on the knowledge (and labour) of the past Coral exists in a dual state – it is alive in its ecological role, yet it is culturally appreciated in its petrified, harvested form. This duality bridges the past, present, and future, connecting ancient practices and traditions with contemporary conservation efforts. The correlation between the natural processes of coral growth and human ingenuity underscores how adaptation and progress are deeply rooted in cumulative endeavours. In this light, technological advancements at our disposal today should be seen as an evolution of the accumulated knowledge of the past. Understanding the past is not merely a scholarly pursuit; it can also be seen as a foundation upon which to more fully master the tools and technologies of the present and the future. Disregard for heritage and detachment from the environmental and social context of our surroundings, reinforced with an overreliance on technology, proves to be detrimental for individuals, as well as for society at large. The spatial and exhibition design of CCCZ reflects a merging of the traditional and the contemporary: housed in a historic building, it showcases historical narratives and traditional sustainable practices by juxtaposing them. The concept blends traditional exhibit formats with innovative ones through art and technology to create a dynamic, thought-provoking setting, inviting its visitors to reflect on their individual heritage and position within current ecological circumstances. This is particularly relevant to environmental protection, as our ancestors thrived by observing and living in harmony with nature – not merely to survive but to enhance and secure their yields and resources. Their success depended on working in solidarity with each other and on understanding nature’s rhythms, limits, and strengths. Revitalising and understanding traditional knowledge is therefore a vital step toward fostering a more sustainable future – one where environmental protection is not seen as a cause of scarcity, but as a pathway to ensuring abundance. Achieving this vision, however, requires a cultural shift – one that embraces curiosity and views time as a continuum, connecting the past, present, and future, allowing for post-growth understandings of development (Savini, 2024). This is encouraged in a poetic way at the end of the exhibition in the Centre. The visitor activates a mobile coral sculpture with their breath, causing it to begin “breathing” itself. This is not just an ecological lesson; it is an invitation to adopt a new perspective on the world around us – one that is interconnected, non-dual, and dependent on every individual that composes it. If such a mindset guides every one of our actions, there is hope for the island, for the sea, and for the planet. Conclusion The concept of sustainability is central to this work. It is explored not only in terms of environmental conservation but also as a socio-cultural principle that ensures the continuity of traditions and equitable resource management, underscoring the importance of community participation in heritage preservation. This participatory model aligns with systemic perspectives in heritage studies, which emphasise the interconnectedness of cultural networks and social systems (Fouseki, 2022). It also works with the concepts of the post-growth perspective in understanding what development is and what to strive for when we discuss local development. 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