Museums and disasters

Until fairly recently many history museums approached their subjects fromquite a distance. Nevertheless this does not automatically mean thatcurators chose only consensual subjects – one need only remember theexhibition Enola Gay, which fell through in Washington in 1995. But ingeneral subjects were chosen that had already secured their places in thehistory books and they were illustrated as such by the history museums. It
was rare for museums to take their interpretation so far as to deconstruct
myths surrounding these subjects.

Recently museums have started to question their traditional role of viewing
historical phenomena from a distanced and reflected angle. Like society
itself, museums also found themselves overwhelmed by historical events.
Society challenged them to comment upon instantaneous events and tooffer their interpretation on things. This new role of the museum as a social
player, actively helping to overcome a present that could not be anticipatedin all its changes, failures and faults, faced the institutions concerned withnew challenges.

Not just political landslides can shake a society, but also unforeseen events,
such as the September 11 attacks, or natural catastrophes such as thetsunami that hit the Indian Ocean in 2004 or Hurricane Katrina, wreaking
havoc here in New Orleans. This is why it is also our duty, as museum
professionals, to use incidences of catastrophe – regardless of whether

they were triggered by man or by nature – to critically ask ourselves how
the museum, as part of society and as part of a community, should handle
these challenges and upheavals and what part it plays or can play inovercoming these trials and tribulations.

The tackling of these challenges has two sides to it: the first, very pragmatic,
deals with the following question: how do we protect the assets that haveafter all been entrusted to us to look after? In the end, this, namely theconservation and safeguarding of cultural assets, is one of the museum’s
key responsibilities. “To collect, conserve and exhibit” is the triad securely
anchored in the code of ethics drawn up by the international museum
organisation ICOM. ICOM’s Museum Emergency Programme (MEP)
performs significant work in the protection of cultural assets.
Secondly it is important to question how the museum continues its work in
the immediate aftermath of a turmoil. Museum professionals have to react
to different challenges

1. The ethics of collecting and interpreting disasters.
What special ethical issues face museum professionals as they seek todocument and interpret disasters? For example, who holds legitimate title
to artifacts (clothing, personal effects, or wreckage) collected from disastersites by museum professionals or others? At what point does the display ofhuman suffering in the museum cross the line between education andexploitation? Should museums display people’s images without theirpermission or that of their families? Is the display of human remains a
legitimate interpretive strategy (e.g. Cambodia’s Killing Fields Memorial)?

2. Establishing the truth.
Whose perspective prevails in the interpretation of disasters in museums?
Is it the perspective of victims and their families, government, the media, orthat of “experts” (historians, scientists, social scientists, etc.)? Is it possible
to present multiple perspectives? Do museums have an obligation to makeclear to visitors that all interpretations are ultimately subjective? What is
the role of politics in the interpretation of disasters—and are there stories
that museums simply cannot present, or cannot present fairly, for fear ofreprisal? Ultimately, is the museum’s version of events reliable? Is it
believable?

3. What’s the message?
Why do museums interpret disasters in the first place? Is it to simply
document or commemorate a horrific event, the loss of life? Or are there
other agendas driving the process, such as the desire to influence decision
making, to bring about change, in the present and in the future? For
example, museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki dedicated to the atomic
bombing of those cities emphasize the importance of international peaceand nuclear disarmament.

4. Exhibition design.

What are the most effective strategies for engaging visitors intellectuallyand emotionally in the story of a disaster? Should museums rely on theeloquence of artifacts alone to bear witness and carry the storyline? How
effective are first-person accounts presented via video or oral history? Are
theatrical settings, computer animations, and other high-tech approaches
most likely to appeal to visitors? How do we determine the success of thesedifferent approaches?

Museum professionals have to conduct an open, intercultural andinterdisciplinary dialogue upon the duties of disaster museums. Questions
have to be developed and thought without ready-made answers. One thingis certain: Society needs museums which can act as a forum forcommemoration and public discussion in order to actively help a
community to overcome a present that could not be anticipated in all its
changes.

Marie-Paule Jungblut
President of the ICMAH