Endnotes

1 S. 1930, p. 9

2 Rivet, Rivière 1931. All translations into English are by the author, unless otherwise stated.

3 One of the texts Rivière consecrated to the question was suggestively titled *Défense et illustration du Musée d'Ethnographie* (roughly, “Defense and Exemplification of the Museé d'Ethnographie”), which can be read as referring to the “Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro” but also to the very idea of ethnography museums, in Rivière 1931.

4 D'Espezel, Hilaire 1931, p. 5.

5 Mauss 1913; Laurière 2003; Grognet 2013.

6 Rivet, Rivière 1931.

7 Faucourt 2013; Peltier-Caroff, De Sevilla 2016

8 Expilly 1768, p. 464.

9 On the natural history and exotic collections of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle at the turn of the 19th century: Daugeron 2009a.

10 Understood as the scholarly discipline concerned with the study of the Americas, including both continents and all periods, and drawing mostly from anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics.

11 Hamy 1890. Despite his careful research, Hamy's writings are now over a hundred years old, and much work has been done since trying to better understand the history of the museum's collections. However, I am interested in what Hamy considered to be the defining moments of the history of French ethnography and its collections, which he used to structure his history. I will therefore, after this word of caution, work from the information given by Hamy and considered, at the time, to be factually correct.

12 Hamy 1890, p. 5.

13 See also on the *Museum des Antiques*: Daugeron 2009b.-

14 Report from Villar de la Mayenne to the Comité d'Instruction publique, 10 frimaire an III, or Novembre 30 1794. The report seems to have been since lost according to Daugeron, but it was partially transcribed by Hamy in his *Histoire* (p. 21). Ernest Babelon and J.-Adren Blanchet however cite the same report but dating it to the 3 frimaire an III, Babelon, Blanchet 1895, p. XXXIV.

15 Hamy 1890, pp. 22-23.

16 De Courçay B., Millin A.-L., *Les conservateurs du Muséum des Antiques aux représentants du peuple composant le Comité d'Instruction publique*, document reproduced in Hamy 1890 "Pièce IV".

17 Cointreau 1800, p. 31.

18 Cointreau 1800, p. 16.

19 Bleichmar 2012; Cabello Carro 2013.

20 Riviale 2022, paragr. 3-6.

21 "Antiquités péruviennes remises au Cabinet des antiques du roi le 31 janvier 1786", Paris BnF, Archives du Cabinet des médailles (1664-1886), 2011/091/ACM04-04; Archives du Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris, "71.1878.5 Dombey. Ancienne collection du Cabinet des Antiquités du Roy"; "Notice des Antiquités de la Bibliothèque Nationale," hand-written catalogue by Cointreau, BnF, Département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques, Registres produits pour la gestion des collections, Ms. 285, 1796.

22 Hamy 1890, p. 18.
23 Hamy adds that Dombey's collection had inspired a new classification and organisation of the collections at the Museum des Antiques but regretfully does not elaborate or provide any archival references to this supposed project. See Hamy 1890, p. 19.

24 Hamy 1890, p. 25.

25 Inventory by Millin État des objets d'Antiquités conservés au dépôt de la rue de Beaune, qui d'après arrêt du comité d'Instruction publique de l'an 3° de la République, ont été transportés au Muséum des antiques, BnF, 5AMC 13; Etat des objets enlevés au dépôt de la maison de Nesle pour le Muséum des antiques, le 5 thermidor an cinq de la République française (23 juillet 1796), BnF 5AMC 71. Hamy further mentions other collections from the Duc de Noailles and the "Cabinet Bertin" which can be found in Catalogue des objets chinois provenant du cabinet du citoyen Bertin, enlevé à la maison de Nesle le 17 fructidor an 5 de la République (3 sept 1796) pour le Museum des Antiques de la Bibliothèque Nationale, BnF AMC 74.

26 Daugeron 2009a.

27 Notably a gift from M Gauthier in 1796 with more than a hundred objects from the French Guyana that Barthélemy de Courçay arranged to hang above the entrance (Cointrau 1800, p. 35).

28 Despite several attempts, until 1803, of incorporating the Museum des Antiques into the Louvre: Daugeron 2009, pp. 171-174. See also Bresc-Bautier, Fonkenell, Madrus 2016, pp. 581-640.

29 Hamy 1890, p. 35.

30 Whether the museum was truly open to the public is difficult to ascertain. Daugeron cites the official decrees of opening and closure (2nd June 1795 and 7 October 1795 respectively). However, the collections were in part accessible in the Cabinet des Médailles et Antiques at the Bibliothèque nationale, overseen by Aubin-Louis Millin de Grandmaison after Barthélémy's death. See Daugeron 2009b, p. 143. On the history of the Cabinet des Médailles et Antiques, see Bodenstein 2015.

31 See the project digitalizing Muret's work: https://digitalmuret.inha.fr/.

32 Offered several times to the Louvre during the 1830s and 1840s, it was finally acquired in January 1850 for 8.000 fr. See Fauvet-Berthelot, López Luján, Guimarães 2007.

33 Acquired in 1832 for 8.000 fr. The collection contained approximately 542 objects, mostly from Mexico. What survives is at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac (coll. 71.1887.159).

34 Two large donations in 1839 (201 pieces from Perou) and 1850 (140 pieces from Perou and Mexico); and two smaller donations in 1851 (2 pieces) and 1855 (4 pieces). Today at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac (coll. 71.1887.115).

35 The "Dépôt" was created in 1828. One of the main figures in the development of French ethnography in the first half of the 19th century, Jomard proposed a classification system based on provenance, epoch and usage, rather than a primarily geographical order. He also more strictly distinguished "ethnographic" collections from "natural history collections" (vs. objects altered for economic or domestic use), "collections of antiquities" (vs. objects of contemporary production and use belonging to the "époques modernes") and "fine-arts collections" (vs. objects of "industrial arts"). This was a significantly different definition of ethnography to Hamy's, which in part explains the latter's rejection of Jomard's project and its exclusion from his "genealogy" of French Modern Ethnography. See for a detailed analysis of Jomard's system, Dias 1991, chap. 4.

36 Guimarães 1994, p. 9.

37 Bresc-Bautier 1999.

38 De Férussac 1831, p. 393.
39 De Férussac 1831, p. 396.

40 Lenoir 1832.

41 Guimarães 1994, p. 10.

42 De Férussac 1831, pp. 393-394.

43 Dion-Tenebaum 2016; Barron 2017.

44 Guimarães 1994, tab. IX.

45 Duclot 1993; Guimarães 1994.

46 André-Salvini 2016; Bresc-Bautier 2016.

47 On the difficulties of creating a perennial Société Américaniste throughout the second half of the 19th century, including an attempt to fund a new “Musée Américain” in Nancy: Riviale 1995, pp. 207-229 and Logie, Riviale 2009, pp. 151-171.

48 Brasseur de Bourbourg 1852, p. 419.

49 The Second French Intervention in Mexico began as a joint military effort of the United Kingdom and Spain to ensure debt repayments from Mexico (Convention of London of 1861). France also aimed to install a regime in Mexico that would be more favourable to its economic interests and counterbalance the growing influence of the United States in Latin America.

50 Riviale 1999.

51 Letter from Victor Duruy to José Urbano Fonseca, director of the Mexican Institute of Geography and Statistics, from the 8th of February 1864, announcing the creation of the Commission Scientifique du Mexique, *Archives de la Commission scientifique du Mexique, publiées sous les auspices du Ministère de l'Instruction Publique*, Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1865, vol. 1, pp. 14-15.

52 Victor Duruy, "Rapport à l'Empereur" on the 27th of February 1864, *Archives de la Commission (...)*, 1865, vol. I, pp. 6, 8.

53 Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, "Esquisses d'Histoire, d'archéologie, d'ethnographie et de linguistique pouvant servir d'instructions générales. Première partie: Histoire ancienne," *Archives de la Commission (...)*, 1865, vol. 1, p. 92.

54 Letter from Méhédin to the Minister Victor Duruy, 28th of March 1865, Paris, Archives Nationales, F17 Commission de l'exploration scientifique du Mexique, 2913.

55 We do an in-depth analysis of the Mexican war and the emergence of French Americanism in Stüssi Garcia 2023, pp. 121-139.

56 Guimarães 1994, p. 21, 35-38.

57 Piot 1863, pp. 347-348.

58 Guimarães 1994, p. 37. Angrand did not change his mind and although he lent Hamy his collections in 1878 for a special exhibit, he refused to leave the rest to the Musée du Trocadéro and donated them to the Comte de Paris and the city of Genève instead: Hamy 1890, p. 61.

59 Dias 1991, p. 175.

60 Guimarães 1994, p. 37.

61 Jacquemin 1990, p. 51.

62 "[Jomard] did not seek to create a new institution to conveniently represent the science he so cherished, but rather the establishment, under his direct authority, of a cabinet – where access would be limited and controlled [by him]– and where he could rule according to his whims", Hamy 1890, p. 39.

63 A service of the Ministère de l'Instruction publique, the *Service des Missions* financed and encouraged scientific missions abroad. See on the missions sponsored in the
Americas: Riviale 2000, pp. 53-78, 79-139.

64 Riviale 2001.

65 Soldi was classically trained as a sculptor and was keenly interested in ethnography, archaeology and the history of artistic techniques. He established himself as a specialist of ethnographic sculpture and wrote extensively on sculpting and decorative techniques in non-European artistic traditions. See Stüssi Garcia 2020; Jarrassé 2009.

66 See the catalogue: *Notice sur le Muséum...* 1878.

67 De Watteville 1886, pp. 25-26.

68 Hamy 1890, p. 24.

69 De Watteville 1877, p. 5.

70 AN Paris F21-4489, Letter from Ravaisson-Mollien to the Ministre de l'Instruction publique of the 19th of November 1880.

71 AN Paris F21-4489, Letter from the Sous-Secrétaire d'Etat aux Beaux-Arts to Monsieur le Président du Conseil, 28th of May 1881.

72 *Procès-verbal...* 1878.

73 De Watteville 1877, p. 4.

74 Guimarães 1994, p. 41.

75 Drapeyron 1882; *Le Musée d'Ethnographie...* 1882; *Nouvelles. Musée d'Ethnographie de Paris* 1882; Dias 1991, p. 175.

76 Nevertheless, the museum was chronically underfunded and suffered in its ability to acquire new collections, relaying mostly on donations and gifts to grow its collections in later years.

77 Hamy 1885a.

78 Dias 1991, p. 233.

79 The territories that today still form the “DROM-COM” and known as the “France d'outre-mer”.

80 Shawcross 2018.

81 *Le Musée d'Ethnographie...* 1882.

82 Hamy 1885b, p. 498.

83 Hamy 1880,

84 Hamy 1890, pp. 2, 6-7.

85 Hamy 1885b.

86 Hamy 1890, p. 14-15.

87 Lejeal 1903, p. 226.

88 Hamy 1890, pp. 2, 5.

89 The *Codex Telleriano-Remensis* was gifted by Monseigneur Charles Maurice LeTellier, archbishop of Reims, in 1700. The remaining documents came from 19th century acquisitions (Baradère in 1829 and Pinart in 1884) and gifts (Charencey, several donations between 1893 and 1919). See De Durand, Swanton 1998.

90 Stüssi Garcia 2023, p. 247-422.

91 Charlot 1963, p. 178. Paris, BnF, Département des Manuscrits: Mexicain 355, 1-10, 46-58, 59-64 and 74.

92 With Boban's assistance, Goupil published an extensive – and expensive – *catalogue raisonné* which included eighty coloured reproductions of some of the rarest
and oldest documents in his collection. Considered by both Boban and Goupil as the crowning achievement of their careers, the *Documents pour Servir à l'Histoire du Mexique* was published by Ernest Leroux in 1891.

93 Boban 1891, p. vii.

94 Notes by Goupil for the introduction of *Documents pour servir (...)*, Paris, BnF, "Correspondance de l'Américaniste Eugène Boban-Duvergé (1869-1899) NAF 21476-21481, NAF 21480 December 1888-January 1889.

95 Boban 1891, p. viii.

96 Cañizares-Esguerra 2004, p. 135-160; Keen 1990, p. 227-238.

97 Aubin was not the only one to more or less illegally return to Europe with Mexican archaeological or historical artefacts. See for example Achim 2013.

98 A respected Mexican archaeologist and official representative of the Mexican state to the World Fair of 1889.

99 Stüssi Garcia 2023, pp. 378-392, 415-419.

100 Paris, BnF, NAF 21480, Letter from Goupil of April 9 1889.

101 Boban 1891, p. 11-13.

102 Paris, BnF, NAF 21480 Letter from the 18th of May 1889.

103 Paris, BnF, NAF 21480 Letter from the 18th of May, with a transcription of the letter from Goupil to Hamy on the question of the Aubin collection.

104 Paris, BnF, NAF 21477 Letters of Augustine Goupil to Boban on the bequest, January the 26th and 4th of February 1898. Léopold Delilse, administrator of the National Library, officially accepted the bequest on the 24th of June 1898.

105 Réville 1898.

106 Paris, Archives du musée du quai Branly, Série G, Exposition universelle de 1878 et création du Musée d'Ethnographie jusqu'en 1937, "Plan du département d'archéologie américaine", DA000288.

107 Dupaigne 2006; Clifford 2007; Price 2007.

108 Rolland 2023.
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<figure><img src="image_46.png" /></figure>
# Symbol of an era?: The Guggenheim Bilbao as an epitome of new museum tendencies at the turn of the millennium

Jesus Pedro Lorente

## Keywords:

Museums, Contemporary art, Urban revitalization, Cultural districts.

## ABSTRACT:

The Guggenheim Bilbao, inaugurated in 1997, soon became the most talked-about museum in the world, a global benchmark characteristically postmodern, for its architecture and its rupture with the introverted modernist canon, recovering all sort of connections with the city. Greater allure, spatial permeability and visual interrelations would be common features of new art museums, with 'iconic' artworks decorating their façades and surroundings. It was part of a formula of arts-led urban boosting replicated worldwide, looking for the so-called 'Bilbao effect'. This role-model has been broadly emulated but also contested. Perhaps it is about time for a reassessment of its critical reception and for a museological reconsideration of the 'Bilbao era', pointing out some controversial issues and idiosyncratic curatorial 'effects' in cultural districts. It is a legacy worth keeping, while other features are no longer seen as culturally desirable or politically palatable –to the point that some scholars have coined the term 'post-Bilbao era'.

Il Guggenheim Bilbao, inaugurato nel 1997, è presto diventato il museo più discusso al mondo, un punto di riferimento globale caratteristicamente postmoderno, sia per la sua architettura sia per la sua rottura con il canone modernista introverso, ristabilendo ogni sorta di connessione con la città. Maggiore attrattiva, permeabilità spaziale e interrelazioni visive sarebbero diventate caratteristiche comuni nei nuovi musei d'arte, con opere 'iconiche' a decorarne le facciate e i dintorni. Questo modello faceva parte di una formula di rilancio urbano basata sulle arti, replicata in tutto il mondo alla ricerca del cosiddetto 'effetto Bilbao'. Questo modello di riferimento è stato ampiamente emulato, ma anche contestato. Forse è giunto il momento di una rivalutazione della sua ricezione critica e di una revisione museologica dell'era Bilbao', mettendo in luce alcune questioni controverse e gli effetti curatoriali idiosincratici nei distretti culturali. Si tratta di un'eredità da preservare, mentre altri aspetti non sono più considerati culturalmente desiderabili o politicamente accettabili, al punto che alcuni studiosi hanno coniato il termine 'post-Bilbao era'.

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## Opening Picture:

<caption>Fig. 01: 1 View of the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Nervión riverside (Photo: J. Pedro Lorente).</caption>

### Jesus Pedro Lorente

J. Pedro Lorente is Full Professor of Art History at the University of Saragossa (Spain), where he leads the research group Aragonese Observatory of Art in the Public Sphere. Together with Natalia Juan and Javier Gómez, he is the author of the forthcoming book *Más allá del Guggenheim Bilbao* about to be released by Trea Editorial. His last book in English, *Reflections on Critical Museology: Inside and Outside Museums*, was published in 2022 by Routledge. The same publishers released in 2019 his previous book: *Public Art and Museums in Cultural Districts*. Ashgate published in 1998 the book based on his PhD (supervised by Eileen Hooper-Greenhill at the Department of Museum Studies of Leicester University): *Cathedrals of Urban Modernity: The First Museums of Contemporary Art, 1800-1930*, which was the prequel of his best-known publication, *The Museums of Contemporary Art: Notion and Development* (also available in Spanish, French and Turkish).
In a recent book, Julian Rose repeatedly uses the label ‘post-Bilbao era’,¹ although not intending to express a watershed partition, comparable to the ‘Post-Pompidou Age’ devised by Douglas Davis –Prof. Rose considers Guggenheim Bilbao one of the four milestones that have marked paradigm shifts in recent museum architecture. Certainly, the inauguration of a Basque branch of the Guggenheim Foundation in 1997 was not the beginning of new period, but could be considered the epitome of a cultural tendency. Frank Gehry’s dazzling building features in countless publications as emblematic of the exploits of postmodernism, although not all experts in architecture would share the enthusiasm of Herbert Muschamp, who acclaimed it as a miracle in a famous article published by the *New York Times* on September 7th, 1997. Some authors have pointed out that the ‘Guggenheim-mania’ experienced at the turn of the millennium then stirred ‘anti-Bilbao’ reactions by setting alternative countermodels.² Whatever the case, Guggenheim Bilbao has become a benchmark for museums involved in city boosting,³ which could entail some curatorial reconsiderations breaking new ground in arts-led urban regeneration policies.

**1: Conspicuous museum architecture and urban entanglement: the ‘Bilbao effect’.**

Jean Baudrillard coined the expression ‘Beaubourg effect’ to warn against the political deterrence supposedly operated by an institution, which he feared would become a populist cultural buffer in the revolutionary capital of France, but the

philosopher failed to acknowledge its urban novelties. Modernist architects had favoured introvert and rather shy buildings, often in the shape of cube-like boxes. Yet in 1977, the extravagant appearance of the Pompidou Centre in Paris set a new trend, whose momentum peaked in the final decades of the 20th century when postmodern architecture pursued audacious plasticity. The sculptural forms of the Guggenheim Bilbao were ranked by Victoria Nehouse among the most evocative ever made;⁴ such boastfully ‘iconic’ eminence, seeking greater visual attention from outside while offering captivating views, was the quintessence of ‘the city as spectacle’.⁵ In part, this urban entanglement is precisely what the now omnipresent idiom ‘Bilbao effect’ mostly refers to. A former industrial city, once identified by its factory chimneys and blast furnaces, has become one of the most glamorous cultural destinations in the world since Frank Gehry erected an outstanding museum rising spectacularly above its urban setting, which has, in turn, been successfully transformed, particularly the Nervión riverside area (Fig. 1).

Competing with other ‘iconic’ buildings, new museums in the ‘Bilbao era’ were to become increasingly prominent in the urban scenery as proud icons of the city and the cultural district into which they are inserted. This quest for urban visibility found another landmark in London’s Tate Modern, inaugurated in 2000 with a stunning view of the Thames and St. Paul’s cathedral from the museum café, to which a new tower was added in 2016, commissioned to the same architects, Herzog & de Meuron. They were also
the authors of the Young Museum in San Francisco, whose elevated tower is both a privileged vantage point over the Golden Gate district and a new emblematic feature on the skyline. Another outstanding American instance is the 2007 expansion of the Akron Art Museum, an unusual city landmark by Coop Himmelb(l) au with a spectacular steel and aluminium cantilever, known as the Roof Cloud, which connects the new building with the institution's headquarters. Between 2002 and 2008, Frank Gehry himself devised a most remarkable telescopic gallery called Galleria Italia in the expansion of Ontario's Art Gallery, while the rear façade, finished in titanium and glass, is enhanced with an external helical staircase towering over a historical park and the Toronto skyline. Truly enough, museums are not the only 'iconic' buildings competing for urban prominence, which is now sought for all types of temples of consumerism.⁶ This is obvious in Bilbao, particularly around the cultural and leisure riverfront, which became a prototypical architectural showcase for international 'starchitects' at the turn of the millennium.

Yet the 'iconicity' concept in museum architecture could have a deeper meaning because it should be attributed to, above all, buildings that are a formal sign of a museological ideal. This is the case of Guggenheim Bilbao which, according to Gerardo del Cerro, in addition to being exuberant, is also welcoming and liberal, wanting to be a cherished symbol of regeneration and progress for all citizens, even those who do not visit museums, but finance them with their taxes.⁷ Thus Basque people not only celebrate their 'Guggy' for its photogenic ar-

chitecture, but also for the new values that it stands for, combining cosmopolitanism with increasing local cultural attachment and social permeability.⁸ In fact, it can be traversed with no need to buy entrance tickets, going from the main entrance through the museum shop to the riverside door. A precedent was set in Paris by the Pompidou Centre, conceived as a continuation of the plateau Beaubourg, whose inclined ramp guides our steps into the large lobby, fittingly called *Foirum*. Similarly, transit spaces, balconies and other points of connection were paramount for Frank Gehry, both in Bilbao and in Seattle, where his concomitant project for the Experience Music Project would be another landmark of what he termed 'gateway buildings'.⁹ *Muséologie de passage* is the French academic designation in museum studies for this structural arrangement, where visitors flow by forging their own wandering paths: an international trend reaching the apex with the ramps of Jean Nouvel's Musée du Quai Branly.¹⁰ Indeed, Nouvel calculated gradients for that museum by the Seine in Paris much better than those designed by Gehry in Bilbao, where the stairs leading from the La Salve bridge to the restaurant door and riverside are too steep, while the museum main entrance is flanked on both sides by very gently sloping steps, which are so long that they can be unnerving because one tends to descend each and all with the same foot.

Hence protruding passages and interconnections at different heights became typical of postmodern museums, entwined with the respective urban milieu. In Helsinki, the Museum of Contemporary Art designed
by architect Steven Holl, who named it *Kiasma*, the Danish word from the Greek χίασμα meaning crisscrossing, consists of an intertwined geometry of curved and straight lines with internal spiral stairs providing views of the urban context, which were celebrated worldwide when it opened in 1998. Similarly, Peter Cook and Colin Fournier's striking biomorphic building of the Kunsthaus Graz, inaugurated in 2003, established daring contrast with the typical Austrian houses in the old town, but also deferential panoramic interactions with the city from the Needle gallery. Another extrovert museum, created in 2003 by Zaha Hadid, would be the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, which features gently sloping stairs in the manner of an 'urban carpet' that zigzags from the sidewalk up to the atrium and onto the building's six floors. Many other highly influential North American examples followed suit, but the most acknowledged Bilbao-like emulator is perhaps the expansion of the Denver Art Museum because the director had been at the inauguration of Gehry's Guggenheim and asked Daniel Libeskind to connect the new Hamilton Building to the rest of the museum with a walkway that flies over the external esplanade offering views of very postmodern works of public art.¹¹ Bilbao also proved inspirational in Canada to Randall Stout, an associate architect and follower of Frank Gehry, who expanded the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton with a building of contorted shapes in shiny enamelled zinc that opens onto a new pedestrian area and the Sir Winston Churchill Square.¹² Similarly, Zaha Hadid's most famous museum project, the

MAXXI in Rome, has also delimited a square open to the public (Fig. 2): a peaceful *piazzale* with benches to sit on while the museum 'is about movement inside, not rest'.¹³ Akin architectural/urban strategies were adopted everywhere, including Central Europe, where new museums of contemporary art looking for the 'Bilbao effect' could not always emulate Gehry with striking buildings, but would often relate with the street and engage in a visual dialogue with it, as in Torun Centre for Contemporary Art inaugurated in 2008.¹⁴

In the meantime, urban entanglement also grew indoors. The turn of the millennium was a historical moment of triumph for what has come to be known as 'hysterical atria',¹⁵ one of the greatest exponents of which would be the central atrium of the extension of the Hunter Museum of American Art opened in 2005 in Chattanooga, where architect Randall Stout, emulating the Bilbao precedent of his admired Frank Gehry, created a striking multifunctional lobby with flowery geometries that provides access to the auditorium, café/shop and exhibition halls by also allowing the passage of pedestrians to the river and gardens. Another very spectacular case is the large semicovered piazza designed by Mario Botta as the nucleus of his Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, inaugurated in 2002 near Corso Bettini, with public transit spaces. It seems as if every museum of the 21st century aspires to hold a covered agora! Good museums are even better if they open to the city *via* walkways and atriums to boost interconnectivity with their neighbourhood and to promote urban
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permeability. Hopefully, as Robert R. Janes claimed in his book *Museums without Borders*, museums are becoming good conductors of citizen movements and their concerns.¹⁶ Their architectures are “designed with the urban flaneur in mind”, as Charles Saumarez Smith stated, referring as his favourite examples to the new Whitney Museum embracing the High Line in New York since 2015 and the 2016 expansion of the Tate Modern in London.¹⁷ All the more important was symbolic urban connectivity in typically postmodern buildings of deconstructivist architecture, with their sculptural shapes protruding outwardly, such as the Pablo Serano Aragonese Institute of Contemporary Art and Culture built in 2008-2011, whose windows on the north side mirrors offer stunning views of the bell towers of Saragossa, while the southern front faces the Caixaforum, which also features a balcony looking back at the IAACC (Fig. 3). Such visual interconnections that induce returned gazes are inspired by the northern terrace of Guggenheim Bilbao, where muse-

um visitors can take photographs of the Nervión riverside and the crowd and, at the same time, would inevitably attract the attention and cameras of waterfront strollers. The same happens now at the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts thanks to the viewing deck terraces added in 2025 by Norman Foster.

In parallel, even architects not at all identified with postmodern effusive rhetorics have followed similar trends by designing new museums that are more plastically and visually interconnected with their urban environment. Some cases of such are: the Museum of Modern Art built by Tadao Ando in Fort Worth (Texas), inaugurated in 2002, with views to/from the pond and the plaza, decorated with a huge steel sculpture by Richard Serra, followed by other outdoor artworks from the collection; the new headquarters of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston Harbor, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and opened in 2006, with an overhanging structure and transparent glass walls by the waterfront. In Europe, a cele-

<caption>**Fig. 02:** Piazza of the MAXXI in Rome (Photo: Mika Stesovski, Wikipedia)</caption>
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brated instance is the Museum aan de Stroom (MAS) inaugurated in 2011 in Antwerp, a ten-storey building in the old port. The city erected this block to house several museums whose different collections are interconnected by a so-called ‘vertical boulevard’ with glass walls affording spectacular views of the city. This public space can be accessed from 9:30 a.m. to midnight, much longer than usual museum opening hours, and is frequented by many residents who also take out of town visitors there.¹⁸ A comparable case is the MuCEM in Marseille, inaugurated in 2013, with its impressive panoramas of the coastline and urban landscapes, not only from the box-like museum building, but also along the *passerelles* linking the quay to Fort Saint Jean or to the Saint Laurent church in the Le Panier district. Another stunning example is the Botín Centre in Santander, built by Renzo Piano between 2010 and 2017: the rear opens up and extends

over the bay with a metal structure of public walkways called *pachinko*, while the front advances towards the park and city centre. The limits between architecture and urbanism seem quite blurred in the new civic spaces typical of what some museologists have called the ‘connecting museum’.¹⁹

“It is no longer acceptable that the museum should be presented as a secluded sanctuary disconnected from the wider world”, sentenced Charlotte Klonk, who added: “For this reason, many more art museums now have windows, so placed that the spectator can put his or her art experience into some kind of geographical context”.²⁰ Windows, beyond their functional use for ventilation and lighting, have always held artistic significance in all types of constructions, including museums, but modernist architecture often preferred mirrored glass façades and windowless ‘white cube’ galleries inside. Yet most austere cube-like museums are now keen on establishing visual interrelations with the surrounding urban district, as in the case of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, inaugurated in 2001 with strategically located holes peering towards Cologne Cathedral and other heritage attractions. Even New York’s MoMA, which used to be the paradigm of the enclosed ‘white cube’ museography, has now some rooms employed to house the permanent collection with windows allowing urban views, a novelty gradually developed there since Yoshio Taniguchi’s penultimate expansion carried out in 2004. Furthermore, external views of Lake Michigan can be enjoyed at the Milwaukee Art Museum from the pavilion and walkway designed by

<caption>**Fig. 03:** South façade of the CAACC in Sagagossa (Photo: J. Pedro Lorente)</caption>
Santiago Calatrava, and from the new expansion created by local architect James Shields, also allowing reciprocal views of the interior from outside (Fig. 4). Such double visual exposure becomes very significant at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, designed by Swiss-American architect Bernard Tschumi and his Greek partner Mijalis Fotiadis. Their arty edifice provides beautiful views of the surrounding archaeological complex while, on the other hand and seen from the city, this 'site museum' also acts as a beacon of light and a showcase by displaying since 2009 its treasures to the outside world, as well as its flagrant gaps of great symbolism, to support the call for the return of the Parthenon marbles kept in the British Museum. More than an artistic choice, architectural transparency has generally become a political metaphor for public-minded institutions. Not surprisingly, museum buildings are often eager to demonstrate 'openness', which is a key concept for Renzo Piano,²¹ proven at the Whitney Museum of American Art with its huge glassed façade

engaging with the Meatpacking District in New York since 2015, or the Istanbul Modern Museum over the banks of the Bosporus since 2023. Similarly, the Museum of Contemporary Visual Culture (M+) in Hong Kong by Herzog & de Meuron and Farrells, inaugurated in 2023, has some transparent galleries towards the West Kowloon waterfront.

Furthermore, Hong Kong's M+ that faces the harbour with impressive moving-image screens shows that, in addition to being architecturally iconic, a museum front can present arts on its external face. Just as the visage is the mirror of the soul, a museum façade also reflects its museological spirit: contemporary art museums are no longer restrained containers of unwavering principles; hence little or nothing remains of the hermeticism that characterised the modern idea of the museum as a neutral box.

The quintessence of it is Guggenheim Bilbao, whose external walls are used as backdrop for emblematic sculptures and technologically experimental art interventions. Re-

<figure><img src="image_50.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 04: Windows of the Milwaukee Art Museum, with urban vistas and reciprocal views of the interior.</figcaption></figure>
markably during Jenny Holzer’s solo exhibition in 2019, texts in Basque, Spanish and English were projected onto the façade, which was the origin of her augmented reality work *Like Beauty in Flames*, permanently visible since 2021 inside and outside the museum through a mobile phone application. Meanwhile, technological experimentalism has become commonplace in the latest generation of art museums all over the world. Rather than serving as mere support for artworks, their outer skins now function as the media used to produce them. A pioneering instance was the Zentrum für Kunst und Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, proudly engaging with technological art, both inside the building and through a large transparent cube added in front of its façade, situated in the Human Rights Square. Another media façade was installed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, as well as many artworks playfully interacting with the museum interior, in particular Carsten Höller’s *Double Slide*, transporting riders from the 3rd floor to the outside. In Spain, the most notable case is the Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía (C3A) in Córdoba, which opened in 2016 with a large multimedia wall, for which visual artists were commissioned moving images, visible every night from the other side of the Guadalquivir River, while in daylight, arabesque-inspired cells and windows pierce this vast façade.

By the way, such homages to household idiosyncrasies are frequently added to museums façades now that former modernist cultural homogeneity is being substituted by particular features honouring local distinctiveness. When Guggenheim Bilbao

bought a monumental version of Jeff Koons’ *Tulips* for five million dollars, it was conspicuously installed in 2007 on the north-side main terrace, where its bright colours contrasted with the titanium coating. A steel sculpture by Richard Serra, *Plow*, was also added the following year to the eastern front, facing the Abandoibarra Avenue, on another balcony where a work by Chillida had been temporally on show. Understandably, criticism was voiced by local artists and nationalist opinion makers, whose mental association of rusty Corten steel with the Basque metallurgical industry were closely linked with autochthonous sculptors.²² Complaints of colonialism from those considering Guggenheim a bridgehead for US cultural dominance had always been serious reproof.²³ Thus in 2022, the museum replaced Koons’ monumental bunch of Dutch flowers with two large works by Eduardo Chillida *Aholkua espazioari V* [Advice to Space V] and *Besarkada XI* [Embrace XI] (Fig. 5). Analogous art additions, highlighting local traits, are actually gaining significance on museum façades throughout the world. Documented instances abound in, for example, Australia, where the affirmation of plural identities and cultures is a patriotic priority by paying particular attention to native heritage. This emphasis is reflected in the commissioning of artworks with indigenous symbolism to adorn the most emblematic buildings of power and culture. The Monash University Museum of Art in Melbourne is installed in a converted modernist building completed in 2010 with an art installation by Callum Morton covering its façade, conceived as a ceremonial welcome to the MUMA.
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Similarly, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney sought distinctive renovation and its purpose-built extension was adorned by local artist Brook Andrew, of Wiradjuri background, with an installation entitled *Warrang*, the Aboriginal name of this port city.

As a culmination, let's consider how emblematic art pieces from a museum collection placed outside its building are also adding identity reinforcement in many ways. Surprisingly enough, the intervention commissioned by Guggenheim Bilbao from conceptual artist Daniel Buren to ornate the neighbouring La Salve bridge in 2007 immediately won popular estimation because its white and red colours —chosen by a voluntary response poll— match those of the local football club. Everybody also seems to admire, for whatever reasons, Louise Bourgeois' *Maman*, the colossal spider whose iconic figure is a prevalent background for selfies and a best-seller souvenir in shops or stalls. Such is its popularity that further versions of this gigantic arthropod have been purchased by

different museums, and some have also placed them by the respective entrance; e.g., the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, the Samsung Museum of Modern Art in Seoul, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC or the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Nothing new under the sun here seeing that the early history of museums was already marked by a recurring type of eminent monuments in threshold areas. Modernist architects imagined museums in quite retreated isolation, often surrounded by enclosed sculpture gardens, described by Marcel Breuer as buffer zones, withdrawn from traffic hustle: his secluded terrace at the Whitney Museum entrance was separated from the street by a 'moat'. Derivative inheritances of such modern enclosures are the not-to-be-stepped-on greens and water ponds, dully ornated with sculptures, around Guggenheim Bilbao. Beyond them however, in well-trotted areas much frequented by passengers, the museum literally cultivates the arts by regularly changing the 40,000 flowering plants of Jeff

<caption>**Fig. 04:**
Rear portico of the Guggenheim Bilbao publicly enshrining collection highlights
(Photo: J. Pedro Lorente)</caption>
Koon's *Puppy*, another iconic sculpture well loved by tourists and local people, who pose in front for photographs with family and friends. In surrounding streets, everyone can find a museum piece to their liking, strategically placed to attract public attention with enticing iconographies, style and material, or immateriality, in the case of Fujiko Nakaya's mysterious fog activated every hour and the fire fountains by French artist Ives Klein lighted at nightfall. You can be in Bilbao and decide not to enter the Guggenheim, but you will not miss the chance to see around its building the conspicuous appetizer to the cultural banquet served indoors. All in all, this very variegated assortment of artworks scattered outside the museum walls constitutes a visual lure and a wonderful strategy of audience development for contemporary art, which is now adopted everywhere, starting at the surrounding waterfront.

In public places near the Guggenheim, monumental sculptures and 'perimuseal' heritage have proliferated, installed by private and

public initiatives, particularly along the 'Paseo de la Memoria' [Memory Walk], which spreads 3 km down the estuary.²⁴ Besides, not only has the Itsasmuseum placed some maritime materials in public spaces, but also a sculpture by Jesús Lizaso entitled *Ozeanoaren Sustraiak* [Ocean roots], made in 2010. Further artworks surround the Fine Arts Museum of Bilbao, increasingly conscious of its thresholds and outer spaces, after its glamorous architectureonic 2025 extension, designed by Norman Foster and Luis María Uriarte. Moreover, much to Gehry's concern, who would have preferred to keep the rusty industrial ruins in the surroundings, striking new buildings have sprung up around it, from the Euskalduna Auditorium by Federico Soriano and Dolores Palacios to the Iberdrola Tower by Cesar Pelli, plus some hotels and establishments designed by starchitects in adjacent streets. Prof. Iñaki Esteban diagnosed here a 'logic of ornament', which assumes that embellishing an emblematic area will boost beauty around it.²⁵ This

<figure><img src="image_52.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 06:**
The Albert Dock
in Liveprool
(Photo: Mika Stettsovski, Wikipe-
dia).</figcaption></figure>
notion could somehow act as the re-
verse of the ‘broken windows theo-
ry’ posited by social scientists James
Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling: just
as misdeeds spread, the cultivation
of beauty might, through aesthetic
empathy, foster an atmosphere of
civility. Thus Guggenheim Bilbao
has not only been the museograph-
ical epitome of iconic architectural
and sculptural urban entanglement,
but its ‘effect’ has created a boom-
ing cultural district by the Nervión
estuary, where there were once
shipyards and other manufacturing
facilities.

2: The ‘museum effect’ and other
curatorial idiosyncrasies of the
Bilbao era.

Port cities around the globe com-
pete to make their waterfronts
uniquely attractive to citizens and
visitors. The North American model
of transforming degraded port ar-
eas into cultural, recreational and
commercial hubs has been replicat-
ed worldwide. Such a strategy typi-
cally includes some kinds of muse-
ums, aquariums, planetariums and
other facilities alongside offices,
hotels, shops, cafés and restaurants.
This formula has been successfully
applied at various sites, such as the
docks of Boston Harbor, New York’s
South Street Seaport, Pittsburgh’s
riverfront, Fisherman’s Wharf in
San Francisco Bay, Chicago’s North
Pier, Boston’s Quincy Market and
the Inner Harbor of Baltimore.²⁶
Following these examples, cultural
and recreational uses have brought
new life in Europe to the ports of
Malmö, Copenhagen, Hamburg,
Amsterdam, Antwerp, Liverpool,
Bordeaux, Porto, Marseille, Genoa,
Thessaloniki, Istanbul, etc. (Fig. 6).

One particularly spectacular case
is Barcelona, which underwent sig-
nificant transformation in prepa-
ration for the 1992 Olympics. This
period saw extensive investments
and monumental public art com-
missions, especially along the mar-
itime coastline. The urban renewal
strategy, championed by Mayor Pas-
qual Maragall, who had previous-
ly been a visiting professor at John
Hopkins University in Baltimore,
was inspired by the North Ameri-
can model. Its influence is evident
in the Maremagnum aquarium and
shopping centre opened in 1995 in
the old port, where the museum of
History of Catalonia was inaugurat-
ed the following year in a port ware-
house. Hence exploiting the popu-
larity of Gaudí and other cultural
assets, Barcelona became the trend-
iest tourist destination among Eu-
ropean ports for large cruise ships,
but also a favourite choice for fairs
and conferences. This accelerated
the redevelopment of Poblenou, a
former manufacturing district re-
baptised in 2000 as 22@Barcelona
Districte de la innovació, where the
Universal Forum of Cultures took
place in 2004, leading to the con-
struction of a gigantic convention
centre and several museums at the
mouth of the Besós river.

Another example of this global
trend, also mirroring the American
model, would be the regeneration of
the Nervión estuary, where the Gug-
genheim Museum became the cata-
lyst of a cultural hub. This new area
is called Abandoibarra, which in
Basque means riverside of Abando,
the latter being once a township as-
similated as a homonymous district
of Bilbao. In the 20th century, Abando
became the economic and commer-
cial heart of the city, now expanded
to the riverbanks and beyond. In Spain, as in Britain, city-branding strategies tend to use different urban terminologies by distinguishing, on the one hand, pre-existing quarters with historical heritage and perhaps a trade concentration resonant with older medieval times, specialised in particular crafts, cultural or ethnic activities, as distinct from new adjoining districts, which are characterised, on the other hand, by state-of-the-art infrastructures, amenities and cultural facilities like theatres, museums or other leisure 'attractions'.²⁷

The latter is obviously the case of Abandoibarra, a regenerated waterfront, where little remains of its past activities. Other ports have more carefully preserved some remnants of industrial heritage, such as chimneys, old pipes, pieces of cranes and anchors as public ornaments along coastal promenades, sometimes converted into museums and tourist attractions. While some view these old heritage relics as Proustian mementoes, others perceive them as mere stage props in an urban 'theme park' setting. In any case, only a single port crane named Carola has survived in Bilbao, now a protected monument, and serves as a visual lure to the Maritime Museum, Itsasmuseum, inaugurated in 2003 in the old Euskalduna shipyard premises. This museum displays many other outdoor exhibits, although none as large as the colossal anchors that hold a place of honour in the docks of Baltimore and Barcelona. The term 'anchor' is, by the way, a recurrent metaphor in many texts on urban revitalisation, while other nautical tropes are also commonly used to describe cultural facilities on waterfronts: e.g. Guggenheim

Bilbao is usually considered the 'flagship' project in the renewal of the whole conurbation, while the architecture of the Euskalduna Conference Centre, erected at the nearby site of the old shipyard, is said to evoke the shape of a boat.²⁸

The pairing of art and maritime museums with a convention centre, plus other amenities, might remind us of tourist attractions in old ports, such as the docks of Liverpool and the nearby zone of former warehouses that became the Creative Quarter. Yet urban speculation, based on quick real-estate profits, has eliminated not only such buildings in Bilbao, but also the creative people who were reusing them. Artists-run alternative art spaces were thriving around 1995 in numbers 35 and 29 of Alameda Mazarredo by revitalising old industrial buildings on the left River Nervión bank and many more down Deusto, especially in Zorrotzaurre.²⁹ Few artists can now afford to have their dwelling or studios in the Abandoibarra area, where a more noticeable presence of the 'creative class' would be, according to Richard Florida's theory, a luring asset of attraction. Nevertheless, apart from peculiar-looking people, eye-catching buildings and arty entourages could be cleverly used as a marketing strategy by entrepreneurs and city councils spreading colourful murals, street lamps and signposts, which happened in Birmingham to foster Digbeth as a Creative Quarter or in Leicester with St. George's Cultural Quarter.³⁰ To be identified and 'labelled' is indeed crucial, according to Hilary Anne Frost-Kumpf: "A cultural district is a well-recognized, labelled, mixed-use area of a city in which a high concentration of cul-
tural facilities serves as the anchor of attraction”.³¹ Therefore, the first detectable evidence to take into account is explicit designation, which must be publicly stated, whether in municipal ordinances and/or in urban signage, and even on websites promoting tourism or cultural dissemination. This was accomplished by the agencies in charge of regenerating the Nervion waterfront, which coined the designation Abandoibarra and distributed street signs pointing directions to museums and other cultural venues (Fig. 7).

One swallow does not make a summer and a vibrant cultural district requires more than a single museum. Even a triangle of excellent institutions, such as the Fine Arts Museum of Bilbao, the Guggenheim and Itsasmuseum, could have been too constrained in urban scope and activity terms. In his famous book *The Image of the City*, social urbanist Kevin Lynch railed against precincts exclusively dedicated to self-absorbed cultural consumption.³² In contrast to the monofunctionality of such arts complexes American

cities developed mixed-use cultural districts, where people could stay, meet, shop, eat and drink round the clock. In 1978, a lively New York neighbourhood devised a local festival with the label ‘Museum Mile’, which the city would officially use henceforth to mark the area on Fifth Avenue between 82nd and 105th Streets, home of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and many other amenities, shops or services. In Europe, a trend-setting case was established in Frankfurt with its Museumsufer [museum shore] created in the 1980s with thirteen museums integrated into the urban fabric along the Main River. Another notable example is Vienna's Museumsquartier, inaugurated in 2001 next to the Museums of Art History and Natural History, in the former court stables, with the Kunsthalle, the Leopold Museum and the Museum Moderner Kunst, as well as shops, offices and galleries and artists' studios. Other cities switched to this scheme. For example, Amsterdam which had the traditional

<figure><img src="image_53.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 07: Street signs in the Bilbao district of Abandoibarra, pointing to the Guggenheim and other museums.</figcaption></figure>
Museumplein, but opted for a post-
modern mixed-use complex at Blau-
we Museumplein in the port area
of Oosterdok. Similarly, Barcelona
had the cultural acropolis of Mont-
juic, but the latest arts scene is now
bustling around the MACBA and the
Centre for Contemporary Culture
in the Raval neighbourhood, or in
the area of Calle Montcada with the
Picasso Museum, the European Mu-
seum of Modern Art and the MoCo,
alongside vivacious art spaces,
shops and bars and street art. Simi-
larly, the vibrant ecosystem of Aban-
doibarra is made out of a mixture of
museums, conference/concert halls,
university venues, shopping areas,
hotels and other amenities, includ-
ing public art.

Regarding the latter point, what
makes Abandoibarra a special case
is the fact that every item of the
Guggenheim Bilbao art collection
installed in public places has a mu-
seum label detailing *in situ* the ti-
tle and author, and also adding QR
codes for further information avail-
able on the museum website. Simi-
larly, both Itsasmuseum and the Bil-

bao Fine Arts Museum have placed
cherished treasures outdoors with
their respective museum labels.
Furthermore, standard signage ac-
companies every single artwork in
the so-called ‘Paseo de la Memoria’,
landmarked with sculptures by An-
thony Caro, Chillida, Dalí, Garraza,
Lüpertz, Rückriem, Tücker and Zu-
gasti, whose authors and titles are
detailed on respective labels (Fig.
8). Analogously, such information is
provided for other public art instal-
lations clustered on this waterfront.
The resulting assortment could be
called ‘perimuseal’ because of its
location around museums, but also
‘paramuseal’ due to museum-like
identification labels: however con-
cise, they serve a crucial social
function, especially regarding some
conceptual pieces, which uniniti-
ated passersby may otherwise not
remark as art. This could be con-
sidered another version of the so-
called ‘museum effect’, an expres-
sion academically used referring to
the conceptual transmutation of ob-
jects that, detached from their orig-
inal function and context, are in the
museum perceived merely as works

<figure><img src="image_54.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 08:** Conceptual sculpture in 'Paseo de la Memoria', with museum-like label identifying is an artwork made in 2002 by José Zugasti with the title: *A la deriva* (Photo: J. Pedro Lorente).</figcaption></figure>
of art.³³ In the same way, thanks to sprawling curatorial policies like these para-museal labels, Abandoibarra is being transmuted into a distinguished cultural landscape.³⁴ Definitely, the human hustle and bustle inside and around Guggenheim Bilbao are characteristic of a museum-like social space. Inspired by the nomenclature of postmodern geographer Edward Soja, who made famous the term ‘third space’, as differentiated from home –the ‘first space’– and the workplace – the ‘second space’–, other geographers and sociologists consider a third category for some public spaces frequented by regular users: café gatherings or social clubs, temples where a community of parishioners regularly meets for worship or other regular points of socialisation between neighbours/acquaintances in squares and parks. Yet it can also be considered in and around great museums a ‘fourth space’ in which all sorts of people, who may not know one another, can mingle without feeling threatened or uncomfortable.³⁵

Great museums are indeed catalysts of arts-led vitalisation to boost urban areas, often located on waterfronts. Although other remote historical precedents can be cited, it might be argued that the openings of the Tate Liverpool in 1988 and Guggenheim Bilbao in 1997 marked a turning point in the spread of national and international branches. In the case of private North American foundations, the comparison to the franchises of large brands of global capitalism, such as McDonald's, sparked controversy –inspiring the sarcastic nickname ‘McGuggenheim’.³⁶ Thomas Krens' favourite counterargument was that the McDonald's sign, package and menu are identical anywhere, while every Guggenheim branch has a peculiar identity. Guggenheim Bilbao has set the standards for this idiosyncrasy by combining cosmopolitan character with Basque traits so as to counter accusations of cultural imperialism. Having learned this lesson, international trends in international museum developments have followed suit.³⁷ French cultural diplomacy took the cue, firstly with the Rodin

<figure><img src="image_55.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 09: Pompidou Centre in Málaga, with intervention by Daniel Buren and sculptures by local artists around (Photo: J. Pedro Lorente).</figcaption></figure>
Museum branch, opened since 2009 by the port of Salvador de Bahía, with 62 statues by the French sculptor, although many other works by Brazilian and Latin American artists are also on show. This was followed in 2015 by the brand of the Pompidou Centre opened in the docks of Málaga showcasing blockbuster exhibitions exported from Paris, but with tactful selections regularly featuring contemporary Spanish art (Fig. 9). Then the diplomatic ideal of ‘French universalism’ was hailed for the Louvre Abu Dhabi, inaugurated in a huge building by French architect Jean Nouvel with an impressive sample of some 300 works lent by French national museums in 2017, then incremented by abundant acquisitions paid for by Abu Dhabi through its Tourism Development & Investment Company.³⁸ The same happens with Guggenheim Abu Dhabi designed by Frank Gehry, in a similar architectural style to that in Bilbao, but three times larger, which is also shaping its own collection with a singular profile: signature pieces by established Western artists will be combined with post-1965 contemporary art from the Middle East.³⁹ Eventually, the pearl in the museum crown of Saadiyat Island will be the Zayed National Museum, dedicated to recount the history and development of that emirate, with advice from the British Museum.⁴⁰ Even more on the defensive against any hint of colonialist dependence are the Hong Kong authorities, although they intend to recreate the ‘Bilbao effect’ on a grand scale with seventeen cultural institutions clustered in a large park reclaimed from the sea, according to an ambitious project by Norman Foster on the West

Kowloon peninsula.⁴¹ China keeps at arm's length all partnerships with great Western museums in urban regeneration policies by not allowing direct managerial dependence: British collaboration has been regular at the V&A in Shenzhen, but its administration is the responsibility of a Design Society instituted within the Shekou Harbor regeneration framework, where the institution has been open to the public since 2020 on the ground floor of the new Sea World Culture and Arts Center, a mixed-use building whose six floors are filled with restaurants, luxury shops, apartments, etc.⁴²

All over the world, cultural policies of territorial museum expansion encourage arts-led urban regeneration with ‘situated’ curatorial policies. Instead of spontaneous urban boosting from the bottom-up, the ‘Bilbao era’ consecrated top-down art policies of cultural branding, implemented by political powers hand in hand with urban developers. It remains to be seen whether the proposed territorial expansion of Guggenheim Bilbao in the Biosphere Reserve of the Urdaibai estuary will mark a different model, an epitome of a ‘post-Bilbao era’.

This article is a result of the research project lead by Prof. Lorente titled “Museums of contemporary art in Spain: their territorial and international link”. (PID2022-139553NB-100), funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation with FEDER funds.
Endnotes

1 Rose 2024, pp. 26-27.

2 McClellan 2008, p. 98; Marshall 2012, p. 45.

3 Gómez, Juan, Lorente 2022.

4 Newhouse 1998.

5 Giebelhausen 2003, p. 9.

6 Sklair 2017.

7 Del Cerro Santamaría 2020.

8 Plaza, Tironi, Haarich 2009; Moya Valgañón 2015; Caso, 2022.

9 Gehry 1999, pp. 176, 187.

10 Mairesse 2015, pp. 366-369.

11 Lindsay 2016, p. 102.

12 Uffelen 2010, p. 28.

13 Lindsay 2016, p. 250.

14 Jagodzinska 2011; 2018.

15 Skellon, Tunstall 2018.

16 Janes 2015, pp. 325, 330.

17 Saumarez Smith, 2021, pp. 183, 189.

18 Lindsay 2016, pp. 214, 220-221.

19 Stuedahl 2015.

20 Klonk, 2009, p. 206.

21 Rose 2024, p. 235.

22 Aguirre 2011, p. 183.

23 McNeill 2000.

24 Lorente, Juan 2023.

25 Esteban 2007.

26 Bonillo, Donzel, Fabre 1992; Brownill 2013.

27 Evans 2015.

28 Marshall 2001.

29 Aramburu 2023, pp. 260-267.

30 García Carrizo 2023.

31 Frost-Kumpf 1998, p. 7.

32 Lynch 1960.

33 Alpers 1991, pp. 26-7; Poulot, 2022.

34 Lorente 2024.

35 Kirschberg 2010; Jagodzinska 2018; Saumarez Smith 2021, pp. 183, 189.

36 McNeil 2000; Zulaika 2003, p. 109.

37 Grincheva 2020a.

38 Grincheva 2020b.
39 Ersoy 2010; McClellan 2012.

40 Doherty 2012.

41 Lam 2019.

42 Chen, Qi 2021.

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<figure><img src="image_56.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_57.png" /></figure>

2019
# Repairing Canadian art museum collections with equity, diversity and inclusion

Nada Guzin Lukic

Keywords:

Equity, diversity, inclusion, EDI, policies, collection, repair, crise, Canada.

## ABSTRACT:

In Canada, museums play an important role in recognizing cultural pluralism through the implementation of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) principles. How does the recent development and impact of EDI on museum approaches contribute to redressing inequality and exclusion? Issues of identity and social representation challenge collection development policies, acquisition, documentation, discourse, and exhibition practices. The study reveals shifts and ruptures in museum perspectives on diversity, as well as new practices related to collections. This article highlights policies over the past decade and museum practices of EDI in the context of crisis and the reparative turn.

In Canada, i musei svolgono un ruolo importante nel riconoscere il pluralismo culturale attraverso l'applicazione dei principi di equità, diversità e inclusione (EDI). In che modo lo sviluppo recente e l'impatto degli EDI sugli approcci museali contribuiscono a correggere le disuguaglianze e l'esclusione? Le questioni legate all'identità e alla rappresentazione sociale mettono in discussione le politiche di sviluppo delle collezioni, l'acquisizione, la documentazione, il discorso e le pratiche espositive. Lo studio rivela cambiamenti e rotture nelle prospettive museali sulla diversità, oltre a nuove pratiche legate alle collezioni. Questo articolo mette in evidenza le politiche adottate nell'ultimo decennio e le pratiche museali degli EDI nel contesto della crisi e della svolta riparativa.

Nada Guzin Lukic

Nada Guzin Lukic is a professor of museology at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. She is interested in the museology of reconciliation, museums in times of crisis and their potential for social inclusion and intercultural mediation. Her research focuses on the social role of the museum, issues of identity and diversity and the ethical aspects of the museum. She has published on the history of national and immigration museums, the exhibition narratives and the transnational circulation of ideas in museology. Her current work focuses on the engaged collection and postmigration.

CC BY 4.0 License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

©Nada Guzin Lukic, 2025

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.3034-9699/21593
Museums are called upon to use their resources and collections to repair the injustices of the past and the inequalities of the present. The inclusion of those forgotten by museums, the repairing of hurtful terms, and the adoption of new collection practices to remedy contemporary exclusions and injustices are fundamental aspects of the museum's commitment. There have been a number of developments in the promotion of diversity and equity in Canadian museums, the most recent coinciding with the health crisis and a heightened awareness of the social and environmental issues arising from it. The evolution of museums is currently marked, on the one hand, by challenges related to diversity and, on the other, by those related to the environment. In Canada, these challenges are accentuated by growing public and museum awareness of justice and inequality following the various social issues: Black Lives Matter¹ (2013 and 2020) and Me Too (2017) movements, and by the discovery of unidentified graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia in 2021 and the COVID-19 health crisis (2020 and 2022).

The relationship between the crisis and the museums' engagement has been explored by several authors,² the new social role of reparation in the face of violence³ and the resilience of museums in the face of crisis⁴ are among the most recent studies. The reparative turn in museology refers to a set of activities and approaches that illustrate the aspiration to repair and restore through the museum.

"The reparative turn as we understand it here loosely gathers together a series of interlocking themes and questions in current museological theory and practice, including restorative justice, healing and wellbeing, restitution and repatriation, decolonization in its many forms, and the demand for more circling institutions."⁵

In Canada, the museum plays an essential role in the symbolic recognition and representation of cultural pluralism. Diversity policies have evolved significantly since the adoption of multiculturalism⁶ in 1972 and through the 1990s, 2000s, and 2020s. The principles of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in museums are consistent with values such as accessibility, justice, decolonization, and eco-responsibility. This leads to transformation within collections and the emergence of a new vocabulary manifested in the way objects are approached, acquired, and described. This raises the following question: how do the EDI approaches and practices adopted by Canadian museums reflect the new social ambitions of these cultural institutions? How do these practices fit in with the museums' reparative turn?

The social role of the museum are reaffirmed, as evidenced by the recent definition adopted by ICOM in 2022, which incorporates the notion of inclusion, diversity and sustainability⁷ and, consequently, that of repair. If we follow this logic, the idea of the repairing museum would stem from a global point of view
of a state of the world in crisis that requires commitment and concrete action. This situation contributes in part to the acceptance of the idea that the museum can play a role in repairing society. Although this notion is not new—claims for a museum committed to the development of society date back to the 1970s—it now seems to enjoy a broader consensus.

From this perspective, this study examines the impact of the EDI principles, which aim to compensate for inequalities of an ideological, physical, or cultural nature. Social representativeness, according to EDI criteria, challenges collection development policies as well as acquisition and documentation methods. To remedy the lack of minority representation in their collections, museums engage in societal acquisitions. The new terminology associated with EDI is influencing museum discourse as well as reparative description within collections.⁸ The analysis of policies allows us to understand the orientations and values of museums, as well as their alignment with cultural and governmental policies. This article highlights EDI museum policies and activities over the past decade for understanding current museum practices and emerging trends of reparative turn.⁹

The first part of this article presents our perspective on the reparative turn in relation to the crisis. One of the engagements of museums is to guarantee accessibility and promote the inclusion of the diversity of the citizens they are there to serve. How do museum EDI policies affect museums, particularly art museums? A brief literature review on this topic,

as well as on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion (EDI), is followed by an analysis of museum policies between 2018-2024, focusing on acquisition, recognition policies and representation of diversity. Examples of repair strategies for reverses, the underrepresentation of minority groups through social acquisition, and the repair of descriptions, catalogues, or labels illustrate the actual actions museums undertake on EDI issues in Canada.

## Museum mobilization in times of crisis

The crisis is described as systemic, simultaneous, permanent, as well as a polycrisis¹⁰ based on its interactions. Janes¹¹ examines the phenomenon of societal collapse and considers the potential role of museums in reimagining a new society. The crisis calls for action, reflection, and engagement.¹² In this context, the museum appears to be a restorative space, both materially and symbolically. The global polycrisis is prompting a search for solutions, particularly within cultural institutions. According to a report by the Canadian Museums Association, “Recent socio-political, economic, public health, and environmental crises worldwide have exposed systemic shortcomings in government and private-sector efforts to foster a representative, just, and equitable society”.¹³ Historically, mobilization is more important in times of crisis. Thus, after the Second World War, the search for solutions led to the introduction of heritage preservation policies, the creation of ICOM in 1946 to support the museum sector, and initiatives aimed not only at restoring destroyed or damaged
heritage but also at contributing to the creation of a better society. In addition, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, was subsequently enriched by the right to education and culture. The *Canadian Human Rights Act* was adopted in 1977. Human rights give rise to constant debate, as well as institutions dedicated to their study and promotion. Since its creation in 2014, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg has generated criticism and controversy, particularly with regard to its location, the representation of Indigenous Peoples¹⁴ and the way it deals with the Holocaust. Since then, it has continued to evolve according to its guiding principles: “be sustainable, relevant and engage”. ¹⁵ Like many institutions in Canada since the 2020s, the museum created a new position in 2021: Director of Equity and Strategic Initiatives.

Social, cultural, and environmental issues are increasingly interdependent. Sustainable development, as defined in the 1987 Brundtland Report¹⁶, aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is based on the principles of economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Social sustainability aims to promote equity, inclusion, and justice in order to contribute to the well-being of individuals and communities. The inclusion of the cultural dimension of sustainable development in 2010 underlines the importance of culture in the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly with regard to education, heritage preservation, and cultural creation and diversity. The most recent ICOM definition,

dating from 2022, encompasses identical principles: inclusion, diversity, and sustainability. The Société des musées du Québec (SMQ) advocates the expression *ecological transition*, which implies rethinking our ways of consuming, producing, working, and living together.¹⁷ This new approach, which integrates social and environmental issues, aims at transforming society and has recently manifested itself in museum discourse. Indeed, the new sustainable development policies for the 2022-2024 period integrate dimensions of social and cultural responsibility, social equity, and solidarity, including diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and decolonization within several museum institutions, such as the McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec (MNBAQ).¹⁸ The MNBAQ, for example, states: “We see this enhancement as cross-cutting and integrated across our various sectors of activity”. It remains to be seen how these new policies will be implemented through specific measures aimed at ensuring the representativeness of diversity within collections and exhibitions.

## Evolution of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) issues in Canadian art museums

Diversity policies in Canada were inspired by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the multiculturalism policy implemented in the 1970s. In the 1990s, a number of initiatives were put in place to support marginalized groups. However, EDI policies have gained in importance in recent years, particularly through public sector research
initiatives. According to the Guide for Best Practices in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Research Practice and Design, which has spread to universities and museum institutions:

> "Equity is defined as the removal of systemic barriers (e.g., unconscious bias, discrimination, racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, etc.), enabling all individuals to have equitable opportunity to access and benefit from the program; diversity is about the variety of unique dimensions, identities, qualities and characteristics individuals possess along with other identity factors; and inclusion is defined as the practice of ensuring that all individuals are valued and respected for their contributions and are supported equitably in a culturally safe environment."¹⁹

Several pieces of legislation, such as the *Employment Equity Act*,²⁰ support these policies, which have had an impact on recent hirings of people from diverse and Indigenous communities within museums and on the creation of new EDI positions. These general policies Museums interpret them according to their context, using a varied vocabulary and targeting individuals or groups according to equally heterogeneous criteria are gradually being incorporated into cultural institutions and museum policies.

Studies on EDI in cultural institutions, approached from different

angles, examine organizational dynamics²¹ as well as their evolution and limitations, especially the “persistent lack of diversity in museums”.²² The critical examination of these practices evokes a sometimes meaningless discourse that is not accompanied by concrete changes²³. The term tokenism refers to superficial diversity in the absence of systemic change within an institutional culture.²⁴ The issue of symbolic inclusion of individuals within institutions without real inclusion or recognition, particularly in relation to women and ethnic minorities reinforces exclusion.

The requirement to represent minorities and diversity is based on the principles of social justice, initially founded on the postulates of human and cultural rights. In this context, representation is a form of recognition of marginalized or oppressed groups. According to Nancy Fraser, “collective identity replaces class interests as the locus of political mobilisation, and the fundamental injustice is no longer exploitation but cultural domination”.²⁵ Museums have contributed to cultural domination, particularly in terms of misrepresentation and the invisibilization of certain individuals or groups.

Our research into the vocabulary of EDI in the museum policies of Canadian art museums has revealed a rapid evolution in its use, as well as an expansion into other concepts such as accessibility and indigenisation. The analysis of the collection management policies and strategic plans of a sample of ten Canadian art museums revealed a great diversity in the use of terms and highlighted the inequities that need to
be corrected. The diversity of terminology revealed the values, priorities, and causes that each museum chooses to defend. In addition to the concepts of EDI that are commonly invoked, accessibility is also widely recognised. Four museums include themes of anti-racism and visible minorities, while only three out of ten museums address gender diversity and related approaches, such as intersectionality²⁶ and the systemic approach. The representation of diversity appears to be the aim of these policies. However, the notion of diversity is generally not clearly defined. What identity can be recognised? What criteria should be used to make this determination? Which underrepresented groups or individuals should museums prioritise in their initiatives?

Examining the politics of recognition within a single state forms the basis of the critique of multiculturalism and its limits.²⁷ The notion of complexity, which stems from multidimensional and dynamic diversity, particularly that resulting from migration, clashes with the rigid categories of identity. According to Steven Vertovec,²⁸ the notion of superdiversity is not limited to a single identity. These plural identities go beyond the classification categories of art museums, particularly when it comes to artists of immigrant origin. The intersectional perspective adopted by some museums in Canada and the United States seeks to transcend and interconnect various dimensions of social identity, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, disability, sexuality, citizenship, and religion. In its literal sense, this term refers to the intersection of identities and is used in the social sciences. However, the concept developed by

Kimberly Crenshaw as part of feminist research in the 1990s establishes a link between the elements that influence the construction of identities and the mechanisms of discrimination and domination faced by minorities. Conceived as a tool for the critical analysis of power dynamics within a society, it is concerned with challenging traditional conceptions of the neutral and universal museum, which tends to obscure the plural narratives relating to objects, their provenance, their use, and the individuals who created them. This term has recently appeared in the discourse of museum associations and in museum policies. In 2023, the Canadian Museum Association (CMA) published a report on workplace diversity in museums.²⁹ This quantitative study was inspired by a similar study carried out in the United States by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Mellon Foundation, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). The report aimed to assess the ‘representative ness and inclusion’ within the collections and the people who work in them. The survey was conducted from an intersectional perspective: “By transcending frameworks based on race or gender, an intersectional lens enables museums to develop policies that take into account the relative power of the people who work within these heritage sector institutions in all aspects of their identity”. It aims to highlight the fluidity and social construction and intersectionality of identity categories such as race, gender, and class, with other dimensions such as “indigenousness, ability, sexuality, gender expression, immigration status and religion. This will enable the sector
to develop policies that will under-
mine or even eliminate systems of
oppression such as racism, sexism,
ableism and heterosexism”.³⁰

The representation of diversity is a complex challenge for museums, which are obliged to adapt their policies and practices to take account of these underrepresented categories. EDI approaches are transforming museums by encompassing the entire process, from acquisition, description, and documentation in databases to interpretation and exhibition. The transformations involve revising the discourse on objects, modifying the criteria for acquiring works to reflect diversity within art museums, and changing terminology to represent plural identities.

Repairing the discourse on ob-
jects and artists

Canadian museums have undertaken the most important change in the way they preserve and interpret the objects and heritage of Indigenous Peoples. This shift in thinking began in the late 1980s in the context of the struggles for Indigenous rights and manifested itself notably in the media coverage of the boycott of the exhibition *Spirit Sings: Artistic Tradition of Canada's First Peoples*, which was presented at the Glenbow Museum by the Lubicon Lake Cree First Nation. Nevertheless, the transformation of museums accelerated significantly after 2015, following the publication of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report and Call to Action 67 on museums.³¹ The CMA responded to this call by undertaking a national review of museum policies in relation to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN-

DRIP), adopted in 2007 and ratified
by Canada in 2021. The CMA report,
published in 2022, makes a number
of recommendations. For example,
in order to support the self-determi-
nation of Indigenous Peoples: “En-
sure the proper use of terminology,
including names for nations, com-
munities, clans, families, and place
names, throughout museum spaces,
as well as archives and collections,
as discussed in the Repatriation and
Collections section. Use appropriate
orthography or syllabics”.³²

Museums are currently working to remedy a considerable backlog in the management of Indigenous collections and objects. However, it is clear that the relationship between museums and Indigenous communities has undergone a significant transformation since reconciliation and decolonisation approaches. The Winnipeg Art Gallery was the first to implement the “Artworks Renaming Initiative”. The project began in 2019 with the identification of colonial titles or *culturally inappropriate*³³ with Indigenous Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and language keepers who renamed a work. Indigenous self-determination and self-representation and renaming initiatives are now commonplace in Canadian museums, whereas 15 years ago the situation in art museums was fundamentally different.³⁴ One of the first museum exhibitions to tackle this issue of self-representation is *Steeling the Gaze: Portraits by Aboriginal Artists*, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, October 31, 2008 - March 22, 2009. A collaborative project, curated by Steven Loft, a Mohawk curator, and Andrea Kunard, a non-native curator. The exhibition presents
portraits by twelve First Nation and Métis artists. ‘... Steeling the Gaze is about using portraiture—a European convention that controls the subject—to explode Aboriginal stereotypes and clichés”.³⁵ That colonial representation has been so radically challenged at the National Gallery of Canada. The self-determination of Indigenous artists was presented notably in the labels. The curators asked the artists how they wanted to be presented.³⁶ This exhibition is an indicator of the changes to come in this field. In fact, Several important exhibitions at this institution have marked the evolution of Indigenous Art in Canadian museums: the first major exhibition, entitled *Land, Spirit, Power: The First Nations at the National Gallery of Canada* in 1992, Sakahàn International Indigenous Art, presented in 2013 followed by Àbadakone in 2019. ³⁷ *Steeling the Gaze*, on the other hand, illustrates the shift on identity discourse, highlighting the importance of self-definition and the need to repair labels. The appropriate use of terms to identify artists and works, as well as a reparative vocabulary and the inclusion of indigenous languages in the exhibition titles (Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art, 2013 and Àbadakone, 2019-20), testify to the ongoing evolution of reparative practices. Today, attention is being placed on identifying the names and origins, as well as revising the titles and descriptions of objects in museum collections and archives. Institutional criticism has emerged from the analysis of colonial discourse and exhibition texts that use outdated, inappropriate, or offensive language. Questions about labels, titles, and descriptions of objects are of interest to many museums

particularly in North America,
Australia and Europe.

Classification and naming of collection objects

Our study conducted between 2023-
24 focused on the influence of EDI
policies on acquisition and doc-
umentation processes within art
museums. The analysis covers the
ten-year period of collection man-
agement policies (2018-2024), stra-
tegic plans and annual reports, as
well as searches of online collection
databases. "A collection manage-
ment policy serves as a guide and
reference for museum staff and is,
in a way, the commitment the mu-
seum makes to the citizens and
bodies that provide funding for the
heritage for which the institution is
responsible".³⁸ The majority of the
policies date from 2017 or 2018 and
need to be renewed. Policy renewal
is linked to government funding. In
2022-23, Heritage Canada conduct-
ed an extensive consultation on the
renewal of the national museum
policy. The results of this consulta-
tion confirm the concerns reflected
in recent museum policy and docu-
mentation analysed.

"Since the 1990 policy there have been important societal shifts, including the need to advance reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, addressing issues of equity, diversity and inclusion, and the ongoing digital transformation of the heritage sector. Several policy considerations have emerged from the consultations, over 3,000
participants across Canada which, through the following key areas, can help inform a new national museum policy. Sustainability, Preservation, access and collections management, Reconciliation, Equity, diversity and inclusion.”³⁹

The results of this consultation corroborate the concerns that had previously been articulated by the museums in question. Sustainability, collections preservation and management, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and EDI were among the issues raised. Museums are also conducting research within their collections to better address these issues, sometimes under pressure from funders and citizens' groups. In recent years, Canadian art museums have been reviewing their collections in light of representation and inclusion.

## Bridging the diversity representation gaps: acquisition policies

Inclusion practices have been diversified and refined around participatory approaches, particularly in acquisitions whose committees include people from minority backgrounds, as is the case in Canada and Australia. The question of how to represent diversity raises issues for ethnological museums first and foremost: the postcolonial critique of their collections and the documentation, classification, and description of cultural objects. Ethnological collections bear witness to diverse cultures, encompassing issues of identity, otherness, and cultural plurality. On the other hand,

art museums that acquire works identified by their creator have recently begun to address the issue of diversity and inclusion within their collections. Underrepresented artists are still largely invisible in collection databases, despite increasing efforts by museums to acquire their works.

The institutional critique formulated by artists also raises questions about social inequalities and identity-related issues. In 2018, Stanly Février highlighted ethnocultural inequalities within the collection of national museums, notably the Musée d'art contemporain in Montreal (MAC) as part of his Master's degree⁴⁰ and installation entitled *Invisible community*, Artexte, January 2018. The analysis of the MAC's collection highlighted the presence of a single work by an Afro-Quebec artist, illustrating the prevailing inequalities. Since then, the issue of the invisibilization of culturally diverse artists has been pursued in other works, notably at the Musée d'art actuel/Département des invisibles (MAADI) from June 15 to August 28, 2022, presented at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Février acquires works from artists of diverse origins to exhibit in his museum. He sees his approach as a tool for social change. The *MAC-Invisible*⁴¹ takes the form of an online museum or collection, showcasing artists from diverse backgrounds who are often invisible in traditional museum collections.

## Acquiring to represent cultural diversity

The integration of artists from underrepresented groups is a recent phenomenon in art museums. The
collection and acquisition policies developed in 2017-18 incorporate the postulates of EDI in a very limited way. In contrast, these principles are clearly present in more recent documents, such as strategic plans and annual reports, published after 2020. Curators are implementing a variety of strategies to reach these lesser-known artists, who lie outside the traditional art circuits. As part of acquisitions aimed at remediating the lack of representation of cultural diversity, selection is based on the demographic profile of the population, taking into account quantitative criteria such as the size of the most represented community or that of a visible minority, as demonstrated by practices at the MAC. In 2022, the museum added to its contemporary Quebec art collection Stanley Février's 2018 work *An Invisible Minority*. At the time of the pandemic in 2020, this museum decided to dedicate its entire acquisition budget to acquiring works by artists who are active and established in Quebec, wishing to support the artistic ecosystem affected by the crisis. Marie-Ève Beaupré, curator of the MAC, explains the institution's intentions: "The face of the collection had to better represent the cultural diversity of practitioners in Quebec. What is obvious in 2021 was already deeply felt in 2017. It wasn't just good intentions; it had to be put on paper, in the form of a policy".⁴²

The *MAC Répertoire* database launched in 2022 features the category: nationality/nationalities (plural), which allows multiple nationalities to be added to identify artists from immigrant backgrounds in particular. In addition, the 2022 acquisition summary table, an internal document, includes several other criteria, such as the distribution of artists according to gender, cultural origin, year of birth, and regional distribution. This example demonstrates the kind of transformations in collection practices brought about by the integration of EDI principles.

Other museums, such as the National Gallery of Canada, have integrated EDI concerns in recent years. Acquisition policies (2018) were adopted before the pandemic period of the 2020s, during which the Gallery developed *Transforming Together. A Guide to the National Gallery of Canada's 2021-2026 Strategic Plan*⁴³, in which it presents the values upheld by the institution and a statement concerning the principle of Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (JEDI & A) without however providing a precise definition or detailing the methods of implementation. In point 3.5 of the Gallery's Acquisitions Policy (2018), it is stated that, with regard to contemporary Canadian art, post 1985, "A great strength and an organizational priority, acquisitions of new Canadian art should encompass the finest contemporary work in all media by major Canadian artists active today" ⁴⁴ and that "Diversity in every aspect of the term remains a significant priority in the development of the national collection". And in the same section on international contemporary art, it is stated that the Gallery "We will also make a special effort to acquire works by major artists from the regions of origin for new Canadians, such as Asia, the Middle East and Africa".⁴⁵

In the Annual Report 2022-2023 on JEDI&A initiatives, "A collections
gap analysis was initiated to examine areas of underrepresentation in the collection of art that we steward. A new acquisitions policy is being developed to ensure a JEDI&A lens is applied when the Gallery adds to its collection”.⁴⁶

Acquiring works representative of a community in an art museum is a complex and delicate task. Complex because of the plurality of identities and their intersections, and delicate because of the symbolic and political impact. The majority of the collection management policies analyzed date between 2016 and 2018. According to an analysis of the most recent post-2020 museum annual reports and several curators, these policies no longer reflect the current reality of art museum acquisitions. The representativeness of minorities or underrepresented groups is a current concern. After the pandemic, museums acquired more works by artists from diverse backgrounds. This challenges evaluation criteria and categories, notably the criteria of excellence (the quality of the work), as well as acquisition strategies for marginalized groups. This is a recent process, and there is currently little data available to explain these ongoing transformations. The terminology of EDI is evolving rapidly. However, it is clear that art museums are integrating this responsibility.

Still, it should be noted that overall, a minority of institutions actually apply equitable or inclusive acquisition practices, as indicated by the study based on The Art Newspaper's list of the 100 most frequented art museums in 2022⁴⁷. Twenty-nine of the 100 museums were selected on the basis of the existence of acquisi-

tion policies or EDI policies, which have led to the development of specific acquisition protocols designed to strengthen the representation of artists from underrepresented groups within their collections. On the other hand, inclusion practices have been diversified and perfected, notably through participatory approaches, especially in acquisition processes where committees include individuals from minority backgrounds, as is the case in Canada or Australia. For some museums, the artist's identity has become the overriding criterion for remedying gaps in the diversity of their collections. The study of international societal acquisitions identified several examples of this type. For example, the Stedelijk Museum's inclusive acquisition policy, introduced in 2021, aims to redress imbalances within the collection by devoting over 50% of the purchase budget for the period 2021-2024 to artists and creators of color as well as those of non-Western origin.⁴⁸

In reality, there is a contradiction between policies aimed at establishing a national collection that is supposed to reflect the country's identity and the fragmentation of this identity, as manifested in political demands for the inclusion of underrepresented groups, identified by their country of origin. The objective of comprehensively including artists from diverse backgrounds in accordance with the terms of the policies analyzed, appears to be a complex and ambitious task. It is an ongoing, long-term effort within museums.

**Respectful terminology: evolving nomenclature**
The inclusion of underrepresented individuals and groups within museums is fraught with difficulties relating to classification and naming. Museum classification systems help institutions to manage their collections in a standardized way. The epistemology of classification is regularly examined, primarily in relation to ethnological collections and the lexicon associated with material culture. According to Hannah Turner, ‘classification can be used to discriminate’.⁴⁹ The rejection of colonial vocabulary implies a revision of the categories and lexicon used in collections management. To address these issues, classification systems such as the Nomenclature for Museum Cataloguing are being updated.

“Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging is a structured and controlled list of object terms used for indexing and cataloging collections of human-made objects in North American history and culture. It is the most extensively used museum classification and controlled vocabulary for historical and ethnological collections. The American Association for State and Local History and the Canadian Heritage Information Network seek to update Nomenclature with respectful terminology.”⁵⁰

On the organization's website, an invitation is issued to contribute to improving the vocabulary. The reparation associated with EDI in-

cludes the integration of respectful terminology to ensure a more balanced representation.

Research on the representation of immigration in museums focuses mainly on history, society, or immigrant museums that collect immigrant heritage memories and objects.⁵¹ Few studies have examined migration in relation to art collecting. Immigrant artists blend into cultural diversity. On the other hand, art museums are increasingly taking an interest in the theme of migration in order to interpret their collections or include artists from this migratory phenomenon. The search for immigrant artists in art collection databases has revealed gaps in existing documentation. It also raises the question of the social and cultural hybridizations implicit in the migratory condition. Categories not included in the classification are grouped together in the databases under “Other”. Doesn't the debate about otherness and difference constitute an aporia, an impasse? For it addresses often paradoxical questions about the nature of the Other and the notion of difference. Plurality and hybrid identities remain invisible in classification systems. Art museums have begun to incorporate cultural categories, striving to segment identities in the same way that databases of cultural objects do. The integration of cultural categories, as well as the use of plurals to denote nationality, helps to enrich information. Despite criticism of these practices, museums reflect the complex issues brought by the hybridization of societies, which coexists with phenomena of crispation and identity closure.

According to Umberto Eco, “The list
is the origin of culture. It is part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make the infinite comprehensible. It also wants to create order. Not always, but often. And how do we, as human beings, face the infinite? How do we try to grasp the incomprehensible? With lists, files, museum collections...".⁵² Inventory and documentation in museums are the basis of collection management. It is precisely this order of things and Western classifications, especially those of colonial ethnology, that are being questioned. An updating and, in some cases, reparation of injustices is underway, and their intersection opens up new possibilities for management and interpretation. On the other hand, this process of reparation, even if it preserves the old inventories that testify to the history of the collections and the treatment of the objects, remains a delicate operation. The EDI vocabulary and the concepts associated with it are likely to evolve, as are societal values. Classifications are under constant review, and revisions aim to fill gaps in documentation, such as identifying missing or misclassified objects, and to create new categories that better meet the contemporary needs of the museum.

## Conclusion

Reparation is discussed in the context of polycrisis or global crisis, which raises the question of its impact and the museum's commitment to addressing it. This questioning is partly provoked by the recent transformation of museum discourse within art museums, which sets out to improve societies marked by inequality, discrimination, and exclusion.

The EDI approach has been integrated into Canadian art museums to address these issues in the political context of multiculturalism and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. Over the past ten years, and particularly in the wake of the health crisis, art museums have affirmed their social commitment by integrating these concerns into the way they think about collections and their management.

Museums committed to repairing their collections and practices are also looking to the future. Strategic plans display ambitions such as “helping to shape the future”, while museum associations adopt similar approaches: “our quest for a more equitable, just, and inclusive museum sector is therefore not just about rectifying the present but about shaping the future – a future where every voice is heard, every story is told, and every experience is valued”.⁵³ This posture reflects the revalorization or logic of the long term, after the presenteeism that focused on events and increasing the number of visitors. Is it a symptom of a new emancipation for this institution, which is moving away from the colonial museum and the Western model as the sole model of the museum to an institution that is taking its place to repair through the perspective of both cultural and social sustainability? This emancipation, expected or desired since the new museology of the 1970s, has since been reinforced by crises that have raised awareness in favor of a revision of the role of the art museum and its social commitment. The emergence of a *reparativ turn*, notably within collections, is manifested by the gestures of societal acquisition or the reparation of injustices
in the way we name, categorize, or
describe objects in collections and
a concern for the exact names and
plural identities of their creators or
producers.

Analysis of museum policies, annual
reports, and strategic plans allowed
us to understand how the inclusion
of underrepresented groups has
evolved over the past decade. Mu-
seum association documents aimed
at museum professionals were also
used to identify recommendations
for museums. This method works
well for researching the framing of
practices and the transformation of
vocabulary in museums. However,
museum professionals don't neces-
sarily wait for guidelines to be up-
dated, as they take longer to change.
They adapt practices, experiment,
and create their own ways of do-
ing things, as demonstrated by the
diversity of current approaches. A
real transformation is underway:
we could call this process repairing
the gaps or blind spots in the rep-
resentativeness or visibility of art-
ists from underrepresented groups.
On the other hand, we should also
mention other practices, such as to-
kenism or the EDI issue without any
real commitment to changing prac-
tices.

Finally, the issue of EDI and sus-
tainability constitutes a major chal-
lenge within Canadian museums,
a concern also shared by the inter-
national museum community. The
reparation of diversity representa-
tion within museums constitutes a
continuous process, rooted in the
sociopolitical and cultural context
specific to each institution. On the
other hand, it is worth questioning
the possibility that the current im-
portance of these issues within mu-

seums may be called into question
in light of political and societal de-
velopments that do not support EDI
perspectives.
Endnotes

1 Anderson 2020.

2 Janes, Sandell 2019; Mairesse, 2023.

3 Triquet 2023.

4 Kübler, Arezki, Soldo 2021.

5 Sterling, Larkin 2021, p. 1.

6 Unlike Canadian multiculturalism, the Quebec model of interculturalism has no legal status. However, several authors believe that Quebec interculturalism responds to the specific context and needs of Quebec (Emongo and White, 2014, Bouchard, 2012). Interculturalism in Quebec encourages interaction between different cultural communities and members of the host society, while respecting the values of Quebec society and the creation of a common culture.

7 "Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability". International council of museums (ICOM) https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/.

8 Luke, Mizota 2024.

9 This study is part of the New Uses for Collections in Art Museums Partnership funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. https://cieco.co/en. Research assistants: Michel Cheff and Anne-Laure Pin, doctoral students at Université du Québec en Outaouais.

10 Morin, Kern 1993, Tooze 2022.

11 Janes 2020; 2024.

12 Arendt 1972.

13 Kamat 2023, p. 4.

14 "Indigenous peoples is a collective name for the original peoples of North America and their descendants. The Canadian Constitution recognized 3 groups of Indigenous peoples: First Nations, Inuits, and Métis. These are 3 distinct peoples with unique histories, languages, cultural practices, and spiritual beliefs", https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100013785/1529102490303.

15 https://humanrights.ca/about/toward-greater-inclusion-and-equity#section_2.

16 Brundtland 1987.

17 SMQ 2024.

18 McCord Stewart Museum 2022; Montreal Museum of fine arts 2024; MNBAQ 2023.

19 https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/nfrf-fnfr/edi-eng.aspx#3

20 https://www.laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-5.401/index.html.

21 Bérubé, Dioh, Cuyler 2024.

22 Cole, Lott 2019.

23 Dymond 2019.

24 Bennett *et al.* 2009.

25 Fraser 2011, p. 13.

26 Bilge, Hill Collins 2023.

27 Taylor 1999.

28 Vertovec 2007.

29 https://museums.in1touch.org/uploaded/web/docs/Documents/CMA-Work-
place-Diversity-Survey.pdf.

30 Kamat 2023, p. 1.

31 https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2015/trc/IR4-8-2015-eng.pdf.

32 Recommendation 22, https://museums.ca/uploaded/web/New_Website_docs/MTA-Standards_Poster-EN.pdf.

33 See the example of artwork whose title has been changed with the Indigenous community. WAG, Decolonizing the collection, https://www.wag.ca/decolonizing-the-collection/#:~:text=The%20Artworks%20Renaming%20Initiative%20addresses,Knowledge%20Keepers%20and%20language%20keepers.

34 Regarding Indigenous Art at the NGC see Phillips 2011.

35 https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/your-collection/steeling-the-gaze-portraits-by-aboriginal-artists.

36 Kunard, Loft 2008.

37 Hill, Hopkins, Lalonde 2013.

38 Bergeron 2022, p. 297.

39 https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/renewal-museum-policy.html.

40 Février 2018.

41 https://mac-i.com/musee.php.

42 Marcil 2021, translation by author.

43 https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2023/mbac-ngc/NG21-3-2021-eng.pdf.

44 https://www.gallery.ca/sites/default/files/upload/acquisitions_policy-eng.pdf.

45 https://www.gallery.ca/sites/default/files/upload/acquisitions_policy-eng.pdf.

46 https://www.gallery.ca/sites/default/files/upload/ngc_annual_report_2022-23_en.pdf, p. 41.

47 Lee, De Silva 2023.

48 https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/museum/inclusive-programming/diversity-inclusion-policy.

49 Turner 2020.

50 https://page.nomenclature.info/apropos-about.app.

51 Johansson, Bevelander 2017; Sergi 2021.

52 Eco 2010.

53 CMA 2023, p. 10.
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Mairesse 2023: Mairesse F., *Pour une perception globale de l'évolution des musées*, in "Culture & Musées", 2023, 41, pp. 39-61, https://doi.org/10.4000/culturemusees.9717

Marcil 2021: Marcil C., *Une collection au diapason de son époque au MAC*, in "Le Devoir", March 6, 2021, https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/arts-visuels/596225/musee-d-art-contemporain-une-collection-au-diapason-de-son-epoque.

McCord Stewart Museum 2022: McCord Stewart Museum, *Sustainable Development Policy*, 2022, https://www.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/app/uploads/2022/09/mccord-stewart-sustainable-development-policy.pdf.

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 2024: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, *2024-2025 Sustainable Development Plan*, 2024, https://www.mbam.qc.ca/workspace/uploads/files/mbam-plan-dd_en_final3Numerique.pdf.

Morin, Kern 1993: Morin E., Kern A.B., *Terre-patrie*, Paris, Seuil, 1993.

MNBAQ 2023: Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec (MNBAQ), *Sustainable Development Plan, 2023-2028*, 2023, https://d2u082v08vt8dt.cloudfront.net/attachments/000/206/470 original/c6f35da93c8e34f8bebda484c8cf6d46?v=1.

Philipps 2011: Philipps R. B., *Modes of Inclusion: Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario*, in Phillips R. B., *Museum Pieces: Toward the Indigenization of Canadian Museums*. Montréal-Kingston, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011, pp. 253-276.

Sergi 2021: Sergi D., *Museums, refugees and communities*, London and New York, Routledge, 2021.

SMQ 2024: Société des musées du Québec, *Musée et transition écologique*, 2024, https:// www.musees.qc.ca/fr/professionnel/content/download/50744/571622/version/190/file/ Bonnes_pratiques_musees_transition_ecologique_PDF_SMQ.pdf.

Sterling, Larkin 2021: Sterling C., Larkin, J. *Towards reparative museology*, in "Museums & Social Issues", 2021, 15, 1-2, pp. 1-3, https://doi.org/10.1080/15596893.2021.2151728.

Taylor 1999: Taylor C., *Multiculturalisme : différence et démocratie*, Paris, Flammarion, 1999.

Tooze 2022: Tooze A., *Welcome to the world of polycrisis*, in "Chartbook #165: Polycrisis – Thinking On The Tightrope", 2022, https://adamtooze.com/2022/10/29/chartbook-165-polycrisis-thinking-on-the-tightrope/.

Triquet 2023: Triquet E., *Introduction*, in "Culture & Musées", 2023, 41, pp. 23-37, https:// doi.org/10.4000/culturemusees.9712.

Turner 2020: Turner H., *Cataloguing Culture: Legacies of Colonialism in Museums*, Vancouver, UBC Press, 2020.

Vertovec 2007: Vertovec S., *Super-diversity and its implications* in "Ethnic and Racial Studies", 2007, 30, 6, pp. 1024-1054, https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701599465.
<figure><img src="image_58.png" /></figure>

Nada Guzin Lukic
Repairing Canadian art museum collections with equity, diversity and inclusion

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.3034-9699/21593
<figure><img src="image_59.png" /></figure>
# Le musée guérisseur
Les musées canadiens face à leur passé colonial

Jean-Philippe Uzel

Keywords:
Canadian Museums, Healing Museum, Reconciliation, Decolonization.

## ABSTRACT:

From 2008 to 2015, the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) sought to shed light on the residential school system to which 150,000 children were sent over the course of a century, with the aim of forcibly Christianizing and “Westernizing” them. The TRC’s final report, which concludes that a veritable “cultural genocide” took place, proposes 94 calls to action to right the wrongs of the past. Many of these are addressed to the Canadian art world and museums and have the particularity of placing the museum in the role of healer. This healing, a key element in the reconciliation process, is primarily concerned with the “survivors” of the residential schools, i.e. the indigenous students who suffered physical, sexual and psychological abuse, the after-effects of which are still felt today. In recent years, however, the theme of reconciliation has gradually given way to that of decolonization. This paradigm shift affects all Canadian institutions, but particularly museums, whose colonial history is at the very heart of their collections. But what of the curatorial function of museums in this paradigm shift? The aim of this article is to show that, in the age of decolonization, the healing museum is subject to a divided understanding that lies at the heart of the recent crisis in Canadian museums.

De 2008 à 2015, les travaux de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada (CVR) ont cherché à faire la lumière sur le système des “pensionnats indiens” dans lequel 150 000 enfants ont été envoyés pendant un siècle, dans le but de les christianiser et de les “occidentaliser” de force. Le rapport final de la CVR, qui conclut à un véritable “gé-nocide culturel”, propose 94 appels à l’action pour réparer les erreurs du passé. Nombre d’entre elles s’adressent au monde de l’art et aux musées canadiens et ont la particularité de placer le musée dans un rôle de guérisseur. Cette guérison, élément clé du processus de réconciliation, concernant en priorité les “survivants” des pensionnats, c’est-à-dire les élèves autochtones qui ont subi des abus physiques, sexuels et psychologiques dont les séquelles se font encore sentir aujourd’hui. Cependant, au cours des dernières années, le thème de la réconciliation a progressivement cédé la place à celui de la décolonisation. Ce changement de paradigme touche toutes les institutions canadiennes, mais particulièrement les musées, dont l’histoire coloniale est inscrite au cœur même de leurs collections. Mais qu’en est-il de la fonction curative des musées dans ce changement de paradigme ? L’objectif de cet article est de montrer qu’à l’heure de la décolonisation le musée guérisseur fait l’objet d’une compréhension clivée qui est au cœur de la récente crise des musées canadiens.

## Opening Picture:

Fig. 10: Thontenonhkwa’tsherano’onhnha [Aire de soins]. Espace présenté dans le cadre de l’exposition Alanis Obomsawin: les enfants doivent entendre une autre histoire au Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, du 26 septembre 2024 au 26 janvier 2025. Conception : Katsitsanoron Dumoulin-Bush, en collaboration avec ohisse – atelier de design social.
Photo : Michael Patten.

CC BY 4.0 License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
©Jean-Philippe Uzel, 2025
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.3034-9699/21594

## Jean-Philippe Uzel

Jean-Philippe Uzel is a professor of art history at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He is also director of the GRIAAC-Groupe de recherche interdisciplinaire sur les affirmations autochtones contemporaines and co-researcher of the Partenariat Des nouveaux usages des collections dans les musées d’art. His area of expertise is the history and theory of modern and contemporary art, with a focus on the relationships between art and politics. For the past 25 years, he has focused on Indigenous and culturally diverse contemporary art in North America. From 2012-2013 he was Chair of Contemporary Québec Studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3; his research program addressed differing perspectives on contemporary Indigenous art in North America. He is the author of the study Professional practices in visual arts arising from Indigenous and diversity in Montréal (Conseil des arts de Montréal, 2017) and he was the supervisor of the MOOC Ohtehra’, l’art autochtone aujourd’hui (UQAM/MBAM) on the French platform FUN-France Université Numérique (2022-2024).

<figure><img src="image_60.png" /></figure>
- Vous souhaitez même que le musée devienne un lieu de guérison. N'est-ce pas beaucoup demander à une institution culturelle ?

- Tout un mouvement en muséologie se questionne sur cette idée. Personnellement, tout ce que je fais en développant des pratiques collaboratives vise ce but de guérison des Premières Nations. Si j'ai un mandat avec un musée, le travail en préparation doit devenir une entreprise de guérison.

Élisabeth Kaine (Wendat), entrevue donnée au quotidien québécois Le Devoir (13 décembre 2022)¹

01-02

De 2008 à 2015, les travaux de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada (CVR) ont cherché à faire la lumière sur le système des "pensionnats indiens" dans lesquels furent envoyés 150 000 enfants, pendant un siècle, dans le but de les christianiser et de les "occidentaliser" de force (Figg. 1-2)². Le rapport final de la CVR, qui concluait à un véritable "génocide culturel", proposait 94 appels à l'action en vue de réparer les erreurs du passé. Parmi ceux-ci, plusieurs étaient destinés au monde de l'art et aux musées canadiens. Si ces derniers n'ont pas attendu les recommandations de la CVR pour entreprendre leur "autochtonisation", celles-ci ont néanmoins la particularité de placer le musée dans un rôle de guérisseur dont les vertus curatives sont mentionnées à plusieurs

reprises dans le rapport final. Cette guérison visant très précisément les "survivants" des pensionnats, c'est-à-dire les personnes autochtones³ qui ont été envoyées dans ces écoles résidentielles et qui ont subi des sévices physiques, sexuels et psychologiques dont les séquelles se font toujours ressentir. La guérison était donc un des éléments clés du processus de réconciliation. Toutefois, en l'espace de quelques années, le thème de la réconciliation a fait l'objet de plus en plus de critiques et a laissé place à celui de la décolonisation. Ce changement de paradigme touche l'ensemble des institutions canadiennes, mais tout particulièrement le monde des musées, dont l'histoire coloniale est inscrite au cœur même des collections. Mais qu'en est-il désormais de la fonction curative des musées ? On constate que celle-ci n'a pas disparu, mais

<caption>Fig. 01: Pensionnat de Morley - Orphelinat McDougall, élèves, Morley (Alberta), vers 1885-1890</caption>

Collection David Ewens / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada / PA-182270.

<caption>Fig. 02: Enfants autochtones au pensionnat indien de la mission catholique de Fort Providence</caption>

Oswald S. Finnie / Fonds du ministère des Affaires indiennes et du Nord canadien / Bibliothèque et archives Canada / a100530-v8.

<figure><img src="image_61.png" /></figure>
fait désormais l'objet d'une compréhension clivée. Pour les conservateurs et les artistes autochtones, la guérison concerne avant tout les personnes survivantes et passe par une transformation des politiques et des modes de gouvernances des musées afin de reconnaître et de respecter la souveraineté autochtone. De l'autre côté, les directions de musées tendent de plus en plus à comprendre la décolonisation comme la façon de guérir le musée de son passé colonial pour tourner au plus vite la page d'une histoire envahissante qui ne cesse de le hanter. Ces divergences de compréhension du rôle du musée guérisseur à l'ère de la décolonisation ne vont pas sans créer des tensions. Plusieurs voix contestataires autochtones mettent en doute l'authenticité des musées à entreprendre leur mue décoloniale et les soupçonnent de rechercher par là une rédemption à bon compte en vue de retrouver "un état d'inherence"⁴ précolonial. Les directions de musée, de leur côté, commencent à montrer des signes d'impatience par rapport à la décolonisation, et ont du mal à laisser les revendications autochtones empiéter sur leurs prérogatives. Ces divergences sur la guérison décoloniale s'expriment de plus en plus ouvertement sur la place publique et ont eu pour conséquence, ces deux dernières années, le licenciement de plusieurs conservateurs autochtones de premier plan. Notre article, en se focalisant sur la mission curative du musée, vise à mieux comprendre le passage de la réconciliation à la décolonisation dans le monde muséal et les divergences auquel il donne lieu.

## I/ La guérison au cœur du processus de réconciliation

Il n'est pas exagéré de dire que jusqu'à la fin des années 1980, les musées canadiens se sont posé la question de savoir où placer l'art autochtone contemporain : dans les musées d'ethnologie ou dans les musées d'art ?⁵ La célèbre controverse qui a entouré l'exposition *The Spirit Sings : Artistic Traditions of Canada's First Peoples* organisée par le Glenbow Museum de Calgary lors des Jeux olympiques d'hiver de 1988, aura eu le mérite d'obliger les musées à répondre à cette question⁶. Afin d'en finir une fois pour toutes avec le primitivisme du monde de l'art canadien — les œuvres les plus récentes de *The Spirit Sings* dataient du début du XXe siècle —, un groupe de travail composé de représentants de l'Association des Musées Canadiens (AMC) et de l'Assemblée des Premières Nations a été mis sur pied dans les mois suivants la fin de l'exposition. Le rapport qui en a découlé, *Tourner la page : Forger de nouveaux partenariats entre les musées et les Premières Nations*⁷, a servi de guide à tous les musées canadiens pendant plus de deux décennies. Comme d'autres rapports sur les relations entre les artistes autochtones et les musées publiés dans les années 1990⁸, *Tourner la page* insistait sur la nécessité d'une plus grande inclusion de l'art autochtone dans les musées d'art canadiens. En l'espace d'un quart de siècle, il est certain que des progrès ont été faits en ce sens, aussi bien au niveau de l'intégration des œuvres autochtones contemporaines dans les collections, que de l'embauche des conservateurs autochtones dans les musées.⁹ Si cette politique d'inclusion des "voix autochtones" a
connu de réels succès dans certains musées comme le Musée des beaux-arts du Canada (MBAC) ou le Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario (MBAO), elle a aussi eu ses ratés.¹⁰ Elle a également été plus laborieuse aux États-Unis qu'au Canada, comme le remarquait en 2005 la théoricienne Nancy Marie Mithlo (Apache) en notant que “les musées sont des institutions qui s'autoperpétuent et qui maintiennent la plupart du temps leur autorité, malgré les efforts déployés pour ‘donner une voix aux Autochtones’”.¹¹

Toutefois, la tenue des travaux de la CVR entre 2008 et 2015 a radiclement changé la relation entre les Autochtones et les musées canadiens.¹² Dans le cadre du processus de réconciliation il n'a plus seulement été demandé aux musées de corrier les oublis et les erreurs du passé en donnant une voix aux peuples autochtones. Les musées ont été invités à participer, au même titre que d'autres institutions comme les universités ou les médias, à une entreprise nationale de justice sociale visant à surmonter les traumas du “génocide culturel” découlant du système des pensionnats.¹³ Le rapport final de la CVR mentionne à de nombreuses reprises que “les musées ont la responsabilité éthique de favoriser la réconciliation nationale” et que tous les musées canadiens ont “un rôle crucial à jouer afin d'examiner les injustices historiques subies par les Premières Nations, les Inuits et les Métis, d'engager un dialogue public à propos de ce qui a été fait et de ce qu'il reste à faire pour remédier à ces souffrances”.¹⁴ Il insiste sur le fait que cette réconciliation doit être centrée sur la guérison des survivants des pensionnats, et plus largement

sur l'ensemble des Autochtones qui ont été impactés par les politiques coloniales, mais reconnait également que c'est le “pays tout entier” qui doit guérir des blessures du colonialisme.¹⁵ Tout au long des travaux de la CVR, qui se sont établis sur huit années, les musées et l'“expression créative”¹⁶ (terme privélégié à celui d'“art”) ont donc été invités à participer à ce processus de guérison. Ainsi, dès 2010, la CVR a lancé un appel aux artistes pour recevoir des œuvres destinées à être montrées lors des événements qui se sont tenus dans les grandes villes canadiennes au cours desquelles ont témoigné 6500 personnes (survivants et témoins). Au cours de ces grands rassemblements, qui ont été retransmis en direct à la télévision, les survivants ont été invités à évoquer publiquement les sévices qu'ils ont subis dans l'espoir de se libérer de la charge traumatique liée à ces souvenirs¹⁷. Les œuvres commandées par la CVR étaient destinées à accompagner ce processus de guérison qui se situait à mi-chemin entre la médecine post-traumatique et la justice sociale. L'artiste Carey Newman¹⁸ a répondu à cet appel et a produit une des œuvres les plus émblématiques du processus de réconciliation, *La Couverture des témoins (The Witness Blanket)* (Figg. 3-8) conservée aujourd'hui par le Musée canadien pour les droits de la personne de Winnipeg. L'œuvre est une installation à grande échelle, prenant la forme d'une couverture en courtepointe, qui contient plus de 800 objets offerts par les anciens pensionnaires ou récupérés sur le site des anciens pensionnats.¹⁹ On remarquera qu'une telle œuvre ne relève pas de ce que l'on qualifie traditionnellement d'“art thérapie”,
<figure><img src="image_62.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 03: La Couverture des témoins</figcaption></figure>

Œuvre d'art
de Carey Newman-Hayalth-
kin'geme
Photos d'Aaron
Cohen et Jessica
Sigurdson
Musée canadien
pour les droits
de la personne,
Winnipeg
(Manitoba).

dans le cadre duquel les patients se
livrent à différentes pratiques créa-
tives à des fins psychothérapiques.
De la même façon, la fonction de
guérison des musées, mentionnée
par la CVR, a peu à voir avec les acti-
vités thérapeutiques qui ont lieu au-
jourd'hui au sein de certains musées
en Europe ou en Amérique du Nord
qui accueillent des visiteurs mu-
nis d'une "ordonnance muséale" et
dont la visite des collections est cen-
sée soulager leur stress ou tout sim-
plement améliorer leur bien-être.²⁰
Elle consiste principalement dans
l'organisation d'espaces muséaux
consacrés à l'histoire des pension-
nats et conçus en priorité pour que
les personnes autochtones puissent
s'y recueillir et échanger entre elles.
Il s'agit donc avant tout d'une mis-
sion d'accompagnement du musée
dans le processus de guérison²¹ des
anciens pensionnaires qui par ail-
leurs ont bénéficié tout au long du
processus de la réconciliation des
services de différents organismes
de santé autochtones fournissant
des soins relevant des techniques
thérapeutiques modernes (accomp-
pagnement psychologique, thérapie
cognitive et comportementale) ou
traditionnelles (cercles de guérison,

rituels de la tente à sudation, céré-
monies du tambour).²²

Au-delà des nombreuses références
faites aux musées dans les diffé-
rents documents de la CVR, deux
appels à l'action, parmi les 94 que
contient le rapport final, inter-
pellent directement le monde des
musées. L'appel 67 est adressé à
l'AMC à laquelle il est demandé
d'"entreprendre, en collaboration
avec les peuples autochtones, un
examen national des politiques et
des pratiques exemplaires des mu-
sées, et ce, dans le but de détermi-
ner le degré de conformité avec la
Déclaration des Nations Unies sur
les droits des peuples autochtones
et de formuler des recommanda-
tions connexes". Quant à l'appel 68,
il demande que les musées cana-
diens mettent la réconciliation au
cœur de la commémoration du 150e
anniversaire de la Confédération
du Canada qui aura lieu deux ans
après la fin des travaux de la CVR,
en 2017: "Nous demandons au gou-
vernement fédéral, en collaboration
avec les peuples autochtones et l'As-
sociation des musées canadiens, de
souligner le 150e anniversaire de la
Confédération canadienne en 2017
en établissant un programme de fi-
<figure><img src="image_63.png" /></figure>

nancement national pour les projets de commémoration sur le thème de la réconciliation". De nombreux commentateurs ont vu dans cette référence à l'année 2017, à l'instar de l'artiste et théoricien David Garneau (Métis), une "date de péremption"²³ du processus de guérison. À la suite des commémorations de 2017, le processus de guérison devait être achevé et les plaies cicatrisées.

Au cours de l'année 2017, qui devait être la grande année de la réconciliation, les choses ne se passent pas exactement comme prévu par les appels à l'action de la CVR. Tout d'abord, la réconciliation n'est qu'un des quatre thèmes prioritaires retenus par le gouvernement fédéral pour le sesquicentenaire²⁴ et surtout les événements correspondant à ce thème ne sont pas organisés en collaboration avec les

peuples autochtones et avec l'AMC comme le demandait explicitement l'appel n°68.²⁵ Autre déconvenue, le Conseil des Arts du Canada (CAC),²⁶ qui avait lui-même son propre programme de commémoration intitulé Nouveau chapitre, se voit dans l'obligation de publier dans le courant du mois de septembre un communiqué mettant en garde contre la multiplication des cas d'appropriation culturelle des contenus autochtones par les artistes allochtones, et demandant à ces derniers "de démontrer qu'ils font preuve de respect et de considération véritables à l'égard des arts et de la culture autochtones à l'occasion de leur démarche".²⁷ C'est précisément ce qui est arrivé avec le spectacle *Kanata* du metteur en scène québécois Robert Lepage, consacré aux relations entres les Autochtones et les colons européens, qui n'a pas reçu le fi-

**Fig. 04: La Couverture des témoins Œuvre d'art de Carey Newman-Hayathkin'geme**
Photos d'Aaron Cohen et Jessica Sigurdson
Musée canadien pour les droits de la personne, Winnipeg (Manitoba).
nancement demandé dans le cadre du programme Nouveau chapitre par "manque d'information dans l'énoncé du projet quant à la consultation des Autochtones ainsi qu'à leur intégration dans le processus de création".²⁸

Dans les années suivantes, le gouvernement du Canada sera de plus en plus souvent critiqué pour son manque d'implication dans le processus de réconciliation qui apparaît désormais comme une opération visant avant tout "à tourner la page sur les événements passés".²⁹ Mais ces critiques n'ont pas attendu l'année 2015 et la fin des travaux de la CVR pour se faire entendre. Dès le début des années 2010 des voix autochtones avaient commencé à contester la sincérité des autorités fédérales et le bien-fondé de la démarche de réconciliation. Les artistes et les commissaires autochtones ont été parmi les tout premiers à faire entendre leurs critiques. Le numéro 74 de la revue West Coast Line, publié 2012, comportait un dossier spécial au titre évocateur Reconcile this ! ("Réconcilie ça !") soulignant de manière ironique l'injonction empressée que le Canada adressait à la CVR. On retrouve dans ce dossier l'article de David Garneau, très souvent cité, qui suggère de substituer le concept de "conciliation" à celui de "réconciliation", ce dernier laissant entendre le rétablissement d'une relation harmonieuse rompue, comme si l'époque précédant les pensionnats avait été marquée par la concorde et la fraternité entre les peuples autochtones et allochtones³⁰. En outre, Garneau note avec perspicacité que le mot "réconciliation" renvoie à l'un des deux sacrements de guérison dans la vie sacramentelle catho-

lique (le sacrement de la réconciliation par lequel un pécheur pénitent peut rejoindre la communauté des croyants). Donner à une commission qui se penche sur les sévices organisés par des congrégations religieuses le titre d'un sacrement chrétien semble, comme le souligne Garneau, pour le moins inapproprié et contreproductif. Dans le même numéro, on retrouve également un article de l'artiste Adrian Stimson (Siksika, Blackfoot), lui-même ancien résident des pensionnats, affirmant que le processus de témoignage de la CVR loin de "guérir" les survivants, leur inflige de nouvelles blessures :

"J'ai souvent trouvé les diverses idéologies de 'guérison' suspectes, souvent trop coûteuses, inutilement enveloppées dans une morale religieuse et tournées vers l'extérieur plutôt que vers l'intérieur. Cette expérience a fait naître en moi une grande méfiance à l'égard de toutes les institutions occidentales, en particulier les institutions religieuses, éducatives, les entreprises, les gouvernements et l'industrie de la 'guérison'. Je considère qu'elles font toute partie du projet colonial, des approches systémiques qui continuent à éroder l'être autochtone, un être qui, autrement, me relierait à ma culture Blackfoot, un être qui se connecte au monde naturel et au Grand Mystère."³¹
<figure><img src="image_64.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 05: La Couverture des témoins (détail)</figcaption></figure>

Œuvre d'art
de Carey Newman-Hayathkin'geme
Photos d'Aaron Cohen et Jessica Sigurdson
Musée canadien pour les droits de la personne, Winnipeg (Manitoba).

<figure><img src="image_65.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 06: La Couverture des témoins</figcaption></figure>

Œuvre d'art
de Carey Newman-Hayathkin'geme
Photos d'Aaron Cohen et Jessica Sigurdson
Musée canadien pour les droits de la personne, Winnipeg (Manitoba).

Les musées canadiens, par la voix de leur association, vont également finir par prendre leur distance avec le processus de réconciliation. Paradoxalement, c'est le rapport de l'AMC répondant à l'appel à l'action 67 du rapport final de la CVR, *Portés à l'action: appliquer la DNUDPA*³² dans les musées canadiens, qui for-

mule ces réserves dans les termes les plus clairs. Rendu public en septembre 2022, soit sept ans après le dépôt du rapport final de la CVR, le rapport de l'AMC jette un regard sans concession sur le processus de réconciliation. Dès ses premières pages, le rapport note qu'en l'espace de sept ans moins de 20 appels à l'ac-
<figure><img src="image_66.png" /></figure>

08

<caption>**Fig. 07: La Couverture des témoins (détail)**</caption>

Œuvre d'art
de Carey Newman-Hayalth-
kin'geme
Photos d'Aaron
Cohen et Jessica
Sigurdson
Musée canadien
pour les droits
de la personne,
Winnipeg
(Manitoba).

<caption>**Fig. 08: La Couverture des témoins**</caption>

Œuvre d'art
de Carey Newman-Hayalth-
kin'geme
Photos d'Aaron
Cohen et Jessica
Sigurdson
Musée canadien
pour les droits
de la personne,
Winnipeg
(Manitoba).

tion sur 94 ont été complétés³³, met-
tant en évidence le peu d'entrain du
gouvernement et des institutions
à répondre concrètement à ces ap-
pels. Le rapport *Portés à l'action* ne
se présente pas lui-même comme
un effort vers la réconciliation, mais
avant tout comme un guide pour la
décolonisation des musées : "Dans
le cadre de ce rapport, l'AMC a créé
et identifié des ressources pour sou-
tenir les musées dans leurs efforts
de décolonisation".³⁴ L'objectif de la
décolonisation teinte la plupart des
recommandations du rapport, entre
autres celles qui touchent à une po-
litique ambitieuse de rapatriement
des objets spoliés, tout particulière-
ment à l'occasion de l'interdiction
fédérale des potlatchs entre 1884
et 1951. D'une façon plus générale,
le rapport se penche en détail sur
le "degré de conformité" entre les
politiques des musées canadiens
et la Déclaration des Nations Unies
sur le droit des peuples autochtones
(DNUDPA). Il appelle à la "décolo-
nisation des politiques muséales³⁵"

<figure><img src="image_67.png" /></figure>

07

afin qu'elles mettent en pratique le
principe central d'autodétermina-
tion des peuples autochtone qui est
au cœur de la DNUDPA. Cette sou-
veraineté autochtone³⁶ passe, entre
autres, par la création d"espaces
courageux³⁷" (brave spaces) au sein des musées qui offrent un environnement respectueux pour les Autochtones et, dans certains cas, "qui permet[tent] également au musée de répondre aux besoins des pratiques de soins traditionnels³⁸".

Ce tournant vers la décolonisation, qui s'amorce après l'année 2017 et qui touche tout le milieu muséal canadien, peut donc être vu avant tout comme un constat critique sur l'atteinte des objectifs de la réconciliation. Ce constat concerne également d'autres institutions qui étaient au cœur de la CVR, comme les universités. Dans un intéressant article qui compare les politiques d'autochtonisation des universités canadiennes à travers les concepts d'inclusion, de réconciliation et de colonisation, Adam Gaudry (Métis) et Danielle Lorenz déclarent que l'on a assisté au cours des années qui ont suivi la fin des travaux de la CVR à "la perte d'enthousiasme pour une proposition politique transformative [...] trahissant le fait que 'le tournant de la réconciliation' a été plus discursif que substantiel".³⁹ Les auteurs ajoutant que seule une approche fondée sur la décolonisation peut prétendre dépasser la rhétorique de la réconciliation et transformer en profondeur l'université pour permettre une coexistence égalitaire entre Autochtones et Allochtones. Si l'on voit bien que le discours est unanime pour faire un bilan négatif de la réconciliation, qui finalement n'aurait été qu'une version quelque peu remaniée de l'inclusion, une question se pose. Qu'en est-il désormais de la guérison ? Est-ce que le musée guérisseur de la CVR a encore sa place dans le contexte décolonial ?

## II/ De la réconciliation à la décolonisation

Avant de répondre à cette question, il semble opportun de préciser en quelques lignes ce que l'on entend par "décolonisation" dans le contexte des musées canadiens tant ce concept est aujourd'hui polysémique et renvoie à des situations culturelles, historiques et politiques très différentes les unes des unes. En 2018, l'ICOFOM a mis en place un chantier sur la décolonisation des musées et son président de l'époque⁴⁰, Bruno Brulon Soares, soulignait quelque temps plus tard que la " 'décolonisation' n'est en aucun cas un terme universel [...]. Les nuances de ce terme et ses interprétations potentielles sont apparentement infinies et continuent d'évoluer au fur et à mesure que les musées se réinventent pour répondre aux nouveaux besoins et aux nouvelles demandes de la société".⁴¹

Sans entrer dans le détail d'un sujet complexe, on peut dire qu'il existe aujourd'hui trois grandes approches de la décolonisation, et par conséquent de la décolonisation muséale, qui se positionnent différemment en fonction des deux grandes formes historiques du colonialisme⁴². Tout d'abord, le paradigme postcolonial — tel qu'il a été pensé à partir de la fin des années 1970 par des auteurs comme Edward Saïd, Stuart Hall, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak —, se focalise sur les traces et les survivances du colonialisme d'exploitation aussi bien dans les anciennes colonies que dans les anciennes sociétés coloniales où l'héritage de la colonisation se fait encore ressentir, tout particulièrement sous la forme d'un racisme systémique.
Cette approche postcoloniale de la décolonisation est bien représentée aujourd'hui dans le domaine de la muséologie par les travaux de l'autrice française Françoise Vergès et tout particulièrement son dernier ouvrage *Programme de désordre absolu : décoloniser les musées*.43 La deuxième grande approche de la décolonisation a vu le jour au début de la décennie 1990 au sein du groupe Modernité/Colonialité composé d'universitaires sud-américains (Anibal Quijano, Walter D. Mignolo, Arturo Escobar...). Pour les auteurs “décoloniaux”, la colonisation est un phénomène qui commence avec la première vague de colonisation des Amériques au XVe siècle, mais qui perdure jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Selon eux, la colonisation ne saurait se réduire à sa seule dimension historique et politique, car la domination de l'Europe sur les autres peuples va imprégner l'ensemble des savoirs, des sensibilités et des croyances. Cette idéologie du colonialisme, qu'ils nomment “colonialité” (ou “colonialité du pouvoir”), est définie comme la part sombre de la modernité.44 La démarche décoloniale va dès lors consister à remettre en cause l'épistémologie et la rhétorique de la modernité en favorisant la résurgence des multiples voix oubliées et des figures invisibilisées. Dans le champ muséologique, le dernier ouvrage de Bruno Brulon Soares intitulé *The Anticolonial Museum*, qui présente la démarche anticoloniale “comme une occasion de dévoiler la modernité et la colonialité des musées”45, représente une des publications les plus récentes de ce courant. Enfin, il existe une troisième forme d'approche décoloniale, beaucoup moins connue que les deux précé-

dentes, mais qui nous intéresse ici au premier chef. Elle est composée par des auteurs autochtones issus des différentes colonies de peuple-ment comme Aileen Moreton-Robinson (Quandamooka, Australie), Glen Coulthard (Déné, Canada), Robert Warrior (Osage, États-Unis) ou encore Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Anichinabée, Canada). Ces auteurs, que l'on regroupe parfois sous l'étiquette de *Critical Indigenous Studies*, critiquent avant tout les effets persistants du colonialisme sur les peuples autochtones (dispersion et assassinats des filles et de femmes autochtones, surreprésentation carcérale, conditions de vie dans les réserves), mais participent également d'un mouvement de “ré-surgence” qui vise à créer des es-paces de souveraineté dans lesquels s'affirment les visions du monde et les traditions autochtones. Au Canada, ce mouvement autochtone de décolonisation des musées est certainement le mieux représenté par la commissaire indépendante ani-chinabée Wanda Nanibush, à la fois par sa pratique de conservatrice — elle a été conservatrice au Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario de 2017 à 2023, nous y reviendrons plus bas —, et par ses nombreux écrits dont *Moving the Museum*46 qu'elle a co-écrit en 2023 avec Georgiana Uhlyarik.

Si les penseurs autochtones entretiennent des affinités avec le mouvement Modernité/Colonialité47 par le fait que celui-ci prend en compte l'asservissement des peuples autochtones, ils s'en distinguent toutefois, car ils ne prétendent pas déconstruire en priorité la vision de la modernité occidentale, mais mettent avant tout l'accent sur les visions du monde autochtones ancrées dans
l'expérience vécue des personnes autochtones. Loin, par exemple, du programme de "désobéissance épistémologique" que prône Walter Minnolo⁴⁸, — un des auteurs de la décolonialité les plus cités aujourd'hui dans le monde de l'art —, David Garneau remarque que "bien que la critique anti- et décoloniale soit essentielle, ces stratégies ont tendance à se concentrer sur la déconstruction plutôt que sur la production et à placer les colons [settlers] au centre de l'attention. (...) s'attarder trop longtemps sur la critique est démoralisant et épuisant. Nous devons également être constructifs".⁴⁹ On l'aura compris, la problématique du musée guérisseur ne disparait pas avec l'essoufflement de la logique de la réconciliation qui l'avait mis au premier plan. C'est même le contraire qui se produit. La décolonisation, au sens où l'entendent les auteurs autochtones, est vue comme le moyen de parvenir à une véritable guérison, celle-ci n'ayant été qu'esquissée par la CVR. Ce tournant décolonial affecte même les États-Unis dont la reconnaissance du système des pensionnats autochtones a été beaucoup plus lente qu'au Canada⁵⁰ et qui n'ont pas connu de processus de réconciliation. Dans un des tout premiers ouvrages à traiter de la décolonisation du point de vue autochtone, *Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums*,⁵¹ Amy Lonetree (Ho-Chunk), insiste sur le fait que l'entreprise de décolonisation des musées étatsuniens ne peut pas se limiter à simplement donner une voix aux peuples autochtones comme le prônait le paradigme de l'inclusion. Décoloniser le musée signifie avant tout que celui-ci doit "aider les communautés dans leurs

efforts pour traiter les héritages de la douleur historique non résolue en exprimant les dures vérités du colonialisme et en créant ainsi des espaces de guérison et de compréhension."⁵² Selon cette logique, Lonetree n'hésite pas à admettre que le National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) n'a pas opéré son tournant décolonial, précisément parce qu'il ne s'est pas confronté aux réalités du colonialisme: "Le silence de la NMAI n'aide pas les communautés autochtones à (...) reconnaître comment le colonialisme a affecté tous les aspects de leur vie, ni à entreprendre les changements nécessaires pour progresser vers la décolonisation et la guérison de la communauté."⁵³ Par contre, elle donne cette étiquette au Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & LIfeways qui se trouve à Mount Pleasant dans le Michigan, précisément parce qu'en disant la dure vérité du colonialisme, "il prend des mesures énergiques dans le sens de la guérison".⁵⁴

Au Canada, comme nous l'avons déjà souligné, le thème de la décolonisation s'est peu à peu imposé à la fin des années 2010 à partir de la prise de conscience que le processus de réconciliation avait été bâclé par le gouvernement fédéral et que la guérison des traumas intergénérationnels produits par le système de pensionnats sera un processus long qui nécessitera une véritable transformation des institutions canadiennes. Cette prise de conscience devient une évidence avec la découverte, en mai 2021, des restes de 215 enfants enfouis sur le site de l'ancien pensionnat de Kamloops (Colombie-Britannique) en activité entre 1914 et 1963. Cette découverte macabre a jeté une lu-
mière crue sur la réalité des pensionnats. L'événement a provoqué une onde de choc au Canada — les drapeaux canadiens sont restés en berne pendant 6 mois et la journée du 30 septembre a été officiellement déclarée Journée nationale de la vérité et de la réconciliation —, et a rappelé à l'opinion canadienne que la question des pensionnats n'avait pas disparu avec la fin des travaux de la CVR.⁵⁵

Mais avant même la découverte du printemps 2021, le tournant décolonial des musées canadiens était déjà amorcé. Le meilleur exemple en est peut-être le premier plan stratégique du Musée des beaux-arts du Canada intitulé *Transformer ensemble* rendu public en mai 2021⁵⁶. Dans ce document quinquennal, le musée fait de la justice sociale une de ses priorités⁵⁷ et entend “placer les façons d’être et les formes de savoir des Autochtones au cœur de [ses] actions”.⁵⁸ Tout en reconnaissant sa nature d’“institution coloniale”, le musée se présente comme “un foyer d’espoir et de guérison” ajoutant au passage qu’ “en mettant l’accent sur la guérison, nous ancrons notre présent et notre avenir dans le passé, et dans les savoirs des aîné.e.s et ancêtres autochtones”.⁵⁹ Mais contrairement à la logique de réconciliation, les promesses sont ici suivies par des actions concrètes. Dès le mois de juin 2021, le musée adopte une nouvelle identité visuelle, “Ankosé. Tout est relié”, développée en consultation avec la nation algonquine Anishinabeg dont le territoire ancestral englobe la ville d’Ottawa où se situe le musée. Mais surtout, en février 2022 le MBAC crée un nouveau département intitulé “Voies autochtones et décolonisation” placé sous

la responsabilité de deux personnalisés autochtones. Le département est doté d'une mission transversale qui touche toutes les fonctions du musée (collection, exposition, éducation, communication). Il s'agit là d'une réorientation majeure par rapport aux enjeux de l'intégration et de la réconciliation⁶⁰.

### III/ Deux formes de guérison, deux formes de décolonisation

Il aura donc fallu attendre que la logique de la décolonisation s'impose pour que la guérison soit prise au sérieux, comme le demandait le rapport de la CVR. Pourtant ce tournant vers la décolonisation pris dans les années 2021-2022 s'est accompagné d'une profonde crise dans les musées au cœur de laquelle on trouve deux conceptions opposées de la guérison.

La crise s'est cristallisée autour du licenciement de plusieurs conservateurs autochtones dans un laps de temps relativement bref. Le départ en 2019 de la conservatrice autochtonne Lucy Bell (Haïda) du Musée royal de la Colombie-Britannique — qui souhaitait ainsi dénoncer le racisme rampant de l'institution à l'égard des peuples autochtones — avait créé un certain malaise dans le milieu muséal, d'autant plus que son successeur, Troy Sebastian (Ktunaxa), avait démissionné deux ans plus tard pour les mêmes raisons. Le Musée royal avait cependant su atténuer les critiques en démantelant ses deux expositions permanentes consacrées d'une part aux populations autochtones (Our Living Languages: First People's' Voices in BC) et de l'autre à l'histoire de la province (Becoming BC), et en s'accordant une année de réflexion
<figure><img src="image_68.png" /></figure>

et de consultation pour repenser de fond en comble son rapport aux Premières Nations.⁶¹ Par contre, un vrai malaise a commencé à s'établir avec le licenciement abrupt du conservateur de l'art autochtone du MBAC, Greg Hill (Kanien'kehá:ka), quelques mois après la mise sur pied du nouveau département Voies autochtones et décolonisation. Greg Hill, qui était à l'emploi du musée depuis vingt-deux ans, a fait entrer près de 1300 œuvres autochtones dans la collection du musée et organisé certaines des plus grandes expositions d'artistes autochtones au Canada. Le 22 novembre 2022, il publie sur son profil Instagram le message suivant : "J'ai été licencié parce que je ne suis pas d'accord et que je suis profondément perturbé par la façon coloniale et anti-autochtone avec laquelle est dirigée le Département Voies autochtones et décolonisation".⁶² Le malaise est amplifié par le fait que le MBAC refuse de donner une explication sur les raisons de ce licenciement

expéditif — qui contraste en tous points avec les intentions affichées dans le plan stratégique de mai 2021 —, se contentant d'émettre un communiqué de presse aux termes très généraux expliquant, au nom de l'équipe dirigeante que "nous devions examiner comment nous pouvions faire les choses différemment et nous éloigner des méthodes de travail traditionnelles qui ne reflètent plus le type d'institution dont nous avons besoin et que nous voulons être."⁶³ Devant cette politique de la langue de bois, la crise dure plusieurs semaines faisant la une des journaux. Il faut toutefois attendre encore un an, et le licenciement de la conservatrice Wanda Nanibush du Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario (MBAO), pour voir la crise atteindre son acmé. Comme nous l'avons dit plus haut, cette jeune femme incarne le visage de la décolonisation des musées au Canada et, plus largement, en Amérique du Nord⁶⁴. Entre son embauche en 2017 par le MBAO comme conser-

<caption>Fig. 09: **Thontenhonkwa'tshera-no'onhnha** [Aire de soins]</caption>

Espace présenté dans le cadre de l'exposition Alanis Obomsawin : les enfants doivent entendre une autre histoire au Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, du 26 septembre 2024 au 26 janvier 2025. Conception : Katsitsanoron Dumoulin-Bush, en collaboration avec ohisse – atelier de design social. Photo : Michael Patten.
vatrice de l'art autochtone, et son licenciement en novembre 2023, elle a multiplié les initiatives au sein de musée (expositions, publications, transformations des espaces et des façons de travailler entre conservateurs autochtones et allochtones). Si les raisons de son licenciement font peu de mystères — elle avait publié sur les réseaux sociaux, une série de messages en faveur du peuple palestinien, décrit comme un peuple autochtone, subissant la violence d'une puissance colonisatrice —, celui-ci sonne comme un coup de tonnerre dans le monde de l'art canadien.⁶⁵ Plusieurs artistes et institutions annulent leur collaboration avec le MBAO, les lettres ouvertes se multiplient, dont une retentissante signée par plus d'une centaine d'artistes et de conservateurs autochtones du monde entier.⁶⁶ Cette lettre conteste ouvertement l'authenticité de l'engagement des musées en faveur de la décolonisation, et se demande si celle-ci n'a jamais été pour eux autre chose qu'une stratégie de communication.

Comment expliquer ces revirements de la part de certains musées canadiens qui étaient les plus en pointe sur la question de la décolonisation? Très certainement parce que la décolonisation, contrairement à la réconciliation, a posé une question très concrète aux musées : jusqu'à quel point étaient-ils prêts à transformer leur façon de faire et à accepter que les Autochtones jouissent d'une véritable souveraineté en leur sein? Comme nous l'avons vu, la question de la souveraineté est devenue très importante à la suite de la prise de conscience que les politiques d'intégration et de réconciliation ne livraient pas toutes leurs promesses⁶⁷. Or la souveraineté, principe cen-

tral de la DNUDPA, est elle-même étroitement reliée à la question de la guérison. On peut en effet affirmer que la crise qui secoue les musées canadiens depuis l'automne 2022 est le résultat du choc de deux conceptions antagonistes de la guérison : est-ce que ce sont les survivants des pensionnats qui doivent être guéris par le musée, comme le mentionnait déjà le rapport final de la CVR, ou est-ce que c'est le musée lui-même qui souhaite se guérir au plus vite de son passé colonial ?

Du côté de la direction des musées, on constate que la décolonisation est souvent de l'ordre de la métaphore⁶⁸ et tient avant tout de la croyance autoréalisatrice qui était déjà à l'œuvre dans le processus de réconciliation. Reconnaitre la réalité des pensionnats équivalait alors à se réconcilier. Aujourd'hui, reconnaître la nature coloniale de l'institution muséale équivaudrait à décoloniser les musées. Toute action supplémentaire pour implémenter cette décolonisation dans les politiques et la gouvernance du musée étant jugée superflue. C'est entre autres ce qui ressort d'un article du *New York Times* en date du 10 octobre 2023 entièrement consacré aux difficultés des musées d'art canadiens à se débarrasser de leur passé colonial et du sentiment de culpabilité qui l'accompagne.⁶⁹ Dès lors, pour de nombreux musées, la question de la guérison est entendue dans une acception bien spécifique : ce ne sont plus les Autochtones, mais les musées eux-mêmes qui doivent se guérir des affres de la colonisation. À la guérison des survivants, pensée sur la longue durée, s'oppose la guérison spontanée des musées.
Du côté des Autochtones, la décolonisation des musées est intrinsèquement liée à la souveraineté que ceux-ci sont prêts à leur accorder pour accomplir leur guérison. Les premiers critiques du processus de réconciliation, à l'instar de David Garneau, avaient déjà suggéré que la priorité de la CVR ne devrait pas être les collaborations entre artistes autochtones et artistes allochtones, mais bien plutôt les collaborations entre artistes autochtones eux-mêmes dans ce qu'il nommait des “espaces autochtones irréconciliables” qui échapperaient à la volonté d'appropriation du colonialisme.⁷⁰ Par la suite, son point de vue a évolué et sa conception s'est faite plus inclusive. Dans un texte de 2022, consacré aux “espaces non-coloniaux” des musées, Garneau définit ces derniers comme des espaces qui prennent en compte la souveraineté autochtone, mais qui sont réalisés et partagés par des Autochtones et des Allochtones.⁷¹ Garneau prend pour exemple la salle conçue pour accueillir la Manitou Asinîy (ou “Pierre de Manitou”) au Musée royal d'Alberta en attendant son rapiериement sur son site d'origine. On peut également qualifier d’“espace non-colonial”, au sens où l'entend Garneau, l'aire de soins Thontenonhkwa'tsherano'onhnha (Fig. 9) qui a été conçue par l'artiste et médiatrice culturelle kanien'kehá:ka Katsitsanoron Dumoulin-Bush dans le cadre de l'exposition Alanis Obomsawin. Les enfants doivent entendre une autre histoire au Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (26 septembre 2024 – 26 janvier 2025). Cet espace a été pensé en continuité avec les thèmes abordés par l'œuvre de l'artiste Alanis Obomsawin (Waban-Aki) qui “[mettent]

en lumière des réalités souvent dououreuses, créant ainsi un espace propice à la guérison”⁷², mais il se veut également “un espace polyvalent” ouvert à l'ensemble du public afin d'encourager la réflexion sur les zones d'ombre de l'histoire du Canada. Dumoulin-Bush insiste sur le fait que cette aire, qui se veut “décoloniale”, a été conçue avant tout dans un esprit de partage symbolisé par l'installation participative qu'elle a nommée “Éternité” (Fig. 10).⁷³ Dans une démarche de storytelling, chaque visiteur, autochtone ou allochtone, est invité à écrire une histoire personnelle ou un souhait concernant sa communauté sur une feuille de papier dont la couleur correspond à la décennie de sa date de naissance. Il est ensuite invité à rouler et à glisser sa feuille dans un des espaces du mur conçu à cet effet et à prendre en échange l'histoire d'un autre visiteur qu'il peut emporter avec lui.

Admettons, en guise de conclusion, que de tels espaces transforment en profondeur la mission du musée en faisant passer les besoins des communautés avant la conservation des objets, et c'est peut-être en ça qu'ils parviennent à renverser l'ordre colonial, c'est du moins ce que suggère David Garneau, auquel nous laissons le mot de la fin : “Les musées sont donc non coloniaux, autochtones, lorsqu'ils placent les besoins des personnes vivantes avant les biens conservés. Lorsqu'ils reconnaissent que les trésors dont ils ont hérité ne sont pas des choses inanimées, mais des désirs faits matière et que certains de ces désirs sont plus porteurs de guérison que d'autres”.⁷⁴
Endnotes

1 Baillargeon 2022.

2 Cet article s'inscrit dans le cadre des recherches du Partenariat Des nouveaux usages des collections dans les musées d'art financé par le Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada : http://www.cieco.co

3 Au Canada, les Premières Nations sont un des trois peuples autochtones, avec les Inuits et les Métis, reconnus par la Constitution de 1982. Le terme “ Premières Nations ” remplace de plus en plus souvent le terme “ Amérindiens ” qui a longtemps été en usage. Dans le cadre de cet article, nous utiliserons les ethnonymes des Premières Nations (Wendat, Apache, Kwakwaka'wakw...) pour désigner l'appartenance d'une personne à telle ou telle nation.

4 Tuck, Yang 2012, p. 3, toutes les traductions de l'anglais au français sont personnelles.

5 Phillips 1988.

6 Phillips 2011, p. 48-70.

7 AMC, APN 1992.

8 Martin 1991; CRPA, 1996.

9 Ash-Milby, Phillips 2017.

10 Kaine 2021.

11 Mithlo 2005, p. 46.

12 Rappelons que la Commission de vérité et réconciliation a été mise en place par le Canada dans le cadre de la Convention de règlement relative aux pensionnats indiens signée en 2006. Cette dernière prévoyait, entre autres, la tenue d'une CVR, la mise en place de services de santé et de guérison et l'abandon du recours collectif déposé par 15 000 anciens pensionnaires en 2002 réclamant 12 milliards de dollars de dommages à l'État canadien (l'indemnisation financière des victimes s'établira finalement à hauteur 1,9 milliards de dollars).

13 Le terme de “ génocide culturel ” est défini dans le sommaire du rapport final de la CVR, intitulé *Honorer la vérité, réconcilier pour l'avenir*, de la façon suivante : “ Un génocide culturel est la destruction des structures et des pratiques qui permettent au groupe de continuer à vivre en tant que groupe. [...] Et pour la question qui nous occupe, des familles à qui on a empêché de transmettre leurs valeurs culturelles et leur identité d'une génération à la suivante. ” (CVR 2015, 1). Notons qu'il existe actuellement un débat au Canada pour savoir si l'adjectif “ culturel ” n'est pas un euphémisme qui cache la réalité d'un génocide pur et simple. Par exemple, le Musée canadien pour les droits de la personne de Winnipeg a décidé, en 2019, de remplacer le terme “ génocide culturel ” par “ génocide ”. Voir Radio-Canada 2019.

14 CVR 2015, p. 155.

15 CVR 2015, p. 4 et 5.

16 CVR 2015, p. 199.

17 La démarche s'apparente à ce que la psychanalyse appelle l'abréaction, à savoir une “ décharge émotionnelle par laquelle un sujet se libère de l'affect attaché au souvenir d'un événement traumatique ”, Laplanche, Pontalis 2007, p. 1.

18 Carey Newman est un artiste Kwakwaka'wakw et Sto:lo. Son nom traditionnel est Hayalthkin'geme.

19 Il existe depuis 2022 une version numérique de *La Couverture des témoins* qui permet d'explorer l'ensemble des fragments de l'œuvre : https://couverturedestemoins.ca/.

20 Baujard 2020.
21 Comme le dira David Garneau : “L’art n’est pas un moyen de guérison en soi, mais il peut l’être en relation avec d’autres moyens. ”, Garneau 2012, p. 38.

22 La Fondation autochtone de guérison, pendant ses seize années d'existence (1998-2014), financera ces différents organismes à travers le Canada. Voir le site de la fondation : https://www.fadg.ca/.

23 Garneau 2012, p. 36

24 Voir le site consacré à l'évaluation du programme Canada 150 : https://www.canada.ca/fr/patrimoine-canadien/organisation/publications/evaluations/canada-150.html.

25 Le rapport *Portés à l'action* jette un regard critique sur le programme Canada 150 en rappelant que si le gouvernement canadien affirme qu'il a été complété, d'autres organismes affirment que ce n'est pas le cas, AMC 2022a, p. 129.

26 Le Conseil des arts du Canada, créé en 1957 sur le modèle du British Council of the Arts, est une agence fédérale qui jouit d'une grande autonomie par rapport au gouvernement canadien.

27 CAC 2017.

28 CAC 2018.

29 Cet objectif, loin d'être caché était au contraire mentionné dès la première ligne du mandat de la CVR : " On observe un nouveau et puissant désir de tourner la page sur les événements passés, afin qu'il nous soit possible de bâtir un avenir plus solide et plus sain ". CVR 2015, p. 371.

30 Depuis cet article de Garneau, il est très fréquent de voir écrit le mot avec le préfixe entre parenthèses ou entre crochets : (ré)conciliation.

31 Stimson 2012, p. 70.

32 DNUDPA est l'acronyme de Déclaration des Nations Unies sur le droit des peuples autochtones.

33 AMC 2022a, p. 7.

34 AMC 2022b.

35 AMC, 2022a, p. 98.

36 Nous utilisons dans le cadre de cet article les expressions “ souveraineté autochtone ” et “ autodétermination autochtone ” comme des synonymes, tout en étant conscient que certains auteurs introduisent des nuances entre les deux ; Voir Rickard 2017.

37 AMC 2022a, p. 99. Le terme “ espace courageux ” (*Brave Spaces*) se distingue volontairement d’“espaces sûrs” (*Safe Spaces*) que l’on retrouve surtout dans le monde de la santé et des services sociaux.

38 AMC 2022a, p. 106.

39 Gaudry, Lorenz 2018, p. 222.

40 Brulon Soares, Leshchenko 2018.

41 Brulon Soares, Witcomb 2022, p. v.

42 Tout d'abord, le colonialisme de peuplement qui s'est mis en place lors de la première vague de colonisation des Amériques au XVe et XVIe siècles et qui se caractérise par l'élimination des populations autochtones au profit des nouvelles populations de colons d'origine européenne. La particularité des pays qui répondent aujourd'hui à ce modèle (entre autres le Canada, les États-Unis, la Nouvelle Zélande et l'Australie) est qu'ils n'ont, par définition, jamais connu de mouvements d'indépendance. Ensuite, le colonialisme d'exploitation, qui correspond à la deuxième vague de colonisation, connait son apogée au XIXe siècle et se caractérise par la colonisation de l'Afrique, de l'Asie et du
Moyen-Orient par les nations européennes, au premier rang desquels le Royaume-Uni et la France. Ce colonialisme d'exploitation se distingue du colonialisme de peuplement par le fait que les pays colonisés ont recouvré leur souveraineté au gré des guerres d'indépendance des années 1950 et 1960.

43 Vergès 2023.

44 Mignolo 2015 ; Mignolo 2021.

45 Brulon Soares 2023, p. 6.

46 Nanibush, Uhlyarik 2023.

47 Mignolo, Nanibush 2018.

48 Mignolo 2015.

49 Garneau 2022, p. 235.

50 Alors que le Premier ministre du Canada s'était excusé en 2008 pour le rôle que le gouvernement fédéral avait joué dans le système des pensionnats, ce n'est que le 25 octobre 2024 que le président américain a présenté des excuses officielles aux Premières Nations pour la politique menée dans le cadre de la *Federal Indian Boarding School* ; CBC 2024.

51 Lonetree 2012.

52 Lonetree 2012, p. 5.

53 Lonetree 2012, p. 120. Ce jugement peut sembler étonnant pour un œil européen qui a l'habitude de voir dans le NMAI le type même du "musée du Nous" opposé au "musée des Autres" ; De L'Estoile 2007, p. 490.

54 Lonetree 2012, p. 167.

55 Des centaines d'autres tombes ont été découvertes dans différentes provinces canadiennes après celles de Kamloops. Une enquête indépendante sur les sépultures anonymes a été confiée en 2022 à la juriste kanien'kehá:ka Kimberly Murray qui a rendu ses conclusions le 29 octobre 2024 dans un rapport volumineux qui réaffirme que la priorité est de favoriser la guérison des Autochtones et de s'opposer à l'amnistie à bon compte des perpétrateurs des crimes. Voir Murray 2024.

56 Le plan stratégique du MBAC ne fait pas référence à la découverte macabre de Kamloops puisqu'il a été rendu public le 25 mai 2021, soit deux jours après celle-ci.

57 On retrouve dans ce plan stratégique certaines idées qui avaient été proposées dans la définition du musée du Comité pour la définition du musée de l'ICOM en 2019, qui affirmait entre autres que les musées devaient "contribuer à la dignité humaine et à la justice sociale, à l'égalité mondiale et au bien-être de la planète". On se souvient que cette définition avait finalement été rejetée par l'Assemblée générale extraordinaire de l'ICOM la même année ; Marshall 2020.

58 MBAC 2021, non paginé.

59 MBAC 2021, non paginé.

60 Comme le souligne le mot "décolonisation" dans le nom du nouveau département, mais également la substitution de "voies autochtones" (*Indigenous Ways*) aux "voix autochtones" (*Indigenous Voices*) qui était un thème central dans les logiques d'intégration et de réconciliation.

61 Radio-Canada 2021.

62 Watson 2022.

63 Cité dans Watson 2022.

64 Le *New York Times* la décrit en 2018 comme "l'une des vois les plus puissantes pour la culture autochtone au sein du monde de l'art de l'Amérique du Nord", Loos 2018.
65 McBride 2024.

66 Couchie *et al.* 2023.

67 Ash-Milby, Phillips 2017, p. 37.

68 Sur cette question, voir l'article très souvent cité "Decolonization is not a metaphor", Tuck, Yang 2012.

69 Onishi 2023.

70 Garneau 2012, p. 37.

71 Garneau 2022, p. 236. Cette suggestion trouve un écho dans la proposition du rapport *Portés à l'action* d'aménager des "espaces courageux" au sein des musées ;

72 MAC 2024.

73 Nous citons ici, avec son accord, les propos que Katsitsanoron Dumoulin-Bush a tenu lors d'une visite de l'aire de soin en date du 24 janvier 2025.

74 Garneau 2022, p. 245.

## References:

AMC, APN 1992: Association des musées canadiens, Assemblée des Premières Nations, *Tourner la page : Forger de nouveaux partenariats entre les musées et les Premières Nations : Rapport du Groupe de travail sur les musées et les Premières Nations*, 1992.

AMC 2022a: Association des musées canadiens, *Portés à l'action : appliquer la DNUDPA dans les musées canadiens*, 2022, https://museums.ca/uploaded/web/TRC_2022/Rapport-AMC-Portesalaction.pdf.

AMC 2022b: Association des musées canadiens, *Portés à l'action : Ressources*, 2022, https://museums.ca/site/movedtoaction/resources?language=fr_FR&.

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Baillargeon 2022: Baillargeon S., *Trouver des façons de décoloniser les musées*, in "Le Devoir", 13 décembre, 2022, https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/774398/le-musee-use.

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Brulon Soares 2023: Brulon Soares B., *The Anticolonial Museum : Reclaiming Our Colonial Heritage*, London-New York, Routledge, 2024.

CAC 2017: Conseil des arts du Canada, *Soutenir les arts autochtones dans un esprit d'autodétermination et non d'appropriation culturelle*, 2017, https://conseildesarts.ca/-/media/Files/CCA/Corporate/Governance/Policy/CCA/CACSoutenirLesArtsAutochtones.pdf.

CAC 2018: Conseil des arts du Canada, *Mise au point*, 10 août, 2018, https://conseildesarts.ca/medias/2018/08/mise-au-point.

CBC 2024: The Associated Press, *Biden apologizes for past U.S. policy on boarding schools for Indigenous children*, 25 octobre, 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/biden-apology-residential-schools-1.7363368.
Couchie et al. 2023: Couchie A. et al., *Statement of Concern from Members of the International Indigenous Arts Community to Institutions Worldwide*, 28 novembre, 2023, Statement of Concern from Members of the International Indigenous Arts Community to Institutions Worldwide – IndigiNations.

CRPA 1996: Commission royale sur les peuples autochtones, *Rapport de la Commission royale sur les peuples autochtones : volume 3 : vers un ressourcement*. Ottawa, Affaires indiennes et du Nord Canada, 1996, http://data2.archives.ca/e/e448/e011188231-03.pdf.

CVR 2015: Commission de vérité et réconciliation, *La réconciliation : Rapport Final de la Commission de Vérité et Réconciliation du Canada : volume 6*, Montréal-Kingston, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2015.

De L'Estoile 2007: De L'Estoile B., *Le goût des autres : de l'exposition coloniale aux arts premiers*, Paris, Flammarion, 2017.

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Gaudry, Lorenz 2018: Gaudry A., Lorenz D., *Indigenization as inclusion, reconciliation, and decolonization: navigating the different visions for indigenizing the Canadian Academy*, in "AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples", 2018, 14, 3, pp. 218-227.

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Laplanche, Pontalis 2007: Laplanche J., Pontalis J.-B. (eds.), *Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse*, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2007.

Lonetree 2012: Lonetree A. *Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums*, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

Loos 2018: Loos T., *A Canadian Museum Promotes Indigenous Art. But Don't Call It 'Indian'*, in "New York Times", 13 juillet, 2018, p. AR 1.

MAC 2024: Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, *Aire de soins - Thontenonhkwa'tsherano'onhnha*, 2024, https://macm.org/expositions/alanis-obomsawin/.

Martin 1991: Martin L.-A., *Politique d'inclusion et d'exclusion : l'art contemporain autochtone dans les musées d'art du Canada*, Ottawa, Conseil des Arts du Canada, 1991.

Marshall 2020: Marshall 2020, *What Is a Museum? A Dispute Erupts Over a New Definition*, in "New York Times", 6 août, 2020, p. C 6.

MBAC 2021: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, *Transformer Ensemble. Guide pour le plan stratégique 2021-2026 du Musée des beaux-arts du Canada*, 2012, https://www.beaux-arts.ca/a-propos/plan-strategique.

McBride 2024: McBride J., *Why Did Canada's Top Art Gallery Push Out a Visionary Curator?*, in "The Walrus", 28 août, 2024, https://thewalrus.ca/why-did-canadas-top-art-gallery-push-out-a-visionary-curator/.

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Mignolo 2021: Mignolo W. D., *Parce que la colonialité est partout, la décolonialité est inévitable*, in "Multitudes", 2021, 84, 3, pp. 57-67.

Mignolo, Nanibush 2018: Mignolo W. D., Nanibush W., *Thinking and Engaging with the Decolonial: A Conversation Between Walter D. Mignolo and Wanda Nanibush*, in "Afterall", 26 mars 2018, https://www.afterall.org/articles/thinking-and-engaging-with-the-decolonial-a-conversation-between-walter-d-mignolo-and-wanda-nanibush/.
Mithlo 2005: Mithlo N. M., *'Red Man's Burden': The Politics of Inclusion in Museum Settings*, in "American Indian Quarterly", 2005, 28, 3/4, pp. 743-763.

Murray 2024: Murray K., *Lieux de vérité, lieux de conscience. Sépultures et fosses communes anonymes et enfants autochtones disparus au Canada*, Ottawa, Bureau de l'interlocutrice spéciale indépendante pour les enfants disparus, les lieux de sépulture et les tombes anonymes liés aux pensionnats indiens, 2024, https://osi-bis.ca/fr/.

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Phillips 1988: Phillips R., *C'est de l'art indien ; où va-t-on le placer*, in "Muse", 1988, 6, 3, pp. 68-71.

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Stimson 2012: Stimson A., *Suffer Little Children*, in "West Coast Line", 2012, 46, 2, pp. 68-78.

Tuck, Yang 2012: Tuck E., Yang K. W., *Decolonization is not a metaphor*, in "Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society", 2012, 1, 1, pp. 1-40.

Vergès 2023: Vergès F., *Programme de désordre absolu : décoloniser le musée*, Paris, La Fabrique, 2023.

Watson 2022: Watson H. G., *What's going on with the National Gallery of Canada's high-profile layoffs?*, 14 décembre, 2022, www.cbc.ca/arts/what-s-going-on-with-the-national-gallery-of-canada-s-high-profile-layoffs-1.6686053.
<figure><img src="image_69.png" /></figure>

Jean-Philippe Uzel
Les musées canadiens face à leur passé colonial
<figure><img src="image_70.png" /></figure>
# Poetics in Museological Crossroads: Nosso Sagrado, enchantment and the passage of time

Pedro Marco Gonçalves, Arantxa Ciafrino

Keywords:
Nosso Sagrado, Museology, Museum; Musealization, Re-Musealization.

## ABSTRACT:

The article examines the processes of musealization and re-musealization of the Coleção do Nosso Sagrado, a collection of sacred objects that narrates a history of religious oppression in Brazil within a colonial context. An analysis of three specific pieces and their custodial processes at the Museu da República, managed in shared custody with researchers and religious leaders, serves as a case study for a critical, decolonial, and reparative museology.

L'articolo esamina i processi di musealizzazione e ri-musealizzazione della Coleção do Nosso Sagrado, una collezione di oggetti sacri che narra una storia di oppressione religiosa in Brasile in un contesto coloniale. L'analisi di tre specifici pezzi e dei loro processi di conservazione presso il Museu da República, gestiti in custodia condivisa con ricercatori e leader religiosi, costituisce un caso di studio per una museologia critica, decoloniale e riparativa.

### Pedro Marco Gonçalves

Pedro Marco Gonçalves is a Museologist, Curator and Researcher. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Museology at the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro - Unirio (2023), with research focused primarily on museum decolonisation, museological exhibitions and museums in Candomblé grounds. With the Laboratory of Experimental Museology, he researches the Museu Memorial Iyá Davina - Ilê Omolu Oxum, a museum inside a Candomblé temple. E-mail: pedromarcogoncalves@gmail.com

### Arantxa Llanos Ciafrino

Arantxa Llanos Ciafrino is a Museologist, Art Historian and a Researcher. Currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociomuseology with a Research Scholarship from UNESCO at the Universidade Lusófona. She acts as a doctoral researcher at CeiED - Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Education and Development as part of the research project "CARIM: Contemporary Art: A Pathway towards Inclusive Museology". She holds a Bachelor's degree in Museology from the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro - Unirio (2016) and a Master's degree in Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture, from a program organised collaboratively between the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Museo Reina Sofía (UAM, 2016-2017). E-mail: arantxa.ciafrino@ulusofona.pt

## Opening Picture:

São Jorge, source: Nosso Sagrado/Museu da República. Photo by Oscar Liberal. Yet no provenance identified.