Decolonial Exhibition Making: Mafavuke's Trial and Other Plant Stories

DEsCoLoniZAnDo A MusEolOgİA DEsCoLoniZAndo LA MusEolOgÍA DeCoLonisiNG MusEoLOGY 1 Museus, Ação Comunitária e Descolonização Museos, Acción Comunitaria y Descolonización Museums, Community Action and Decolonisation Editor Bruno Brulon Soares 1 Descolonizando a Museologia Descolonizando la Museología Decolonising Museology 1. Museus, Ação Comunitária e Descolonização Museos, Acción Comunitaria y Descolonización Museums, Community Action and Decolonisation Editor: Bruno Brulon Soares Comitê Internacional para a Museologia – ICOFOM Comité Internacional para la Museología – ICOFOM International commitee for Museology – ICOFOM Editor Bruno Brulon Soares Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – UNIRIO Conselho Editorial / Comité Editorial / Editorial Committee Melissa Aguilar Rojas, Tatiana Coelho da Paz, Marcela Freire Sanches, Scarlet Galindo Monteagudo, Leandro Guedes N. de Moraes, Lynn Maranda, Silvilene Ribeiro Morais, Luciana Souza, Thalyta Sousa Angelici, Paula Trocado, Elizabeth Weiser. Secretário editorial / Secretario editorial / Editorial secretary Leandro Guedes N. de Moraes Presidente do ICOFOM / Presidente del ICOFOM / Chair of ICOFOM Bruno Brulon Soares Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – UNIRIO Conselho científico / Comité científico / Academic committee Yves Bergeron, Marion Bertin, Karen Brown, James Allan Brown, Bruno Brulon Soares, Lynn Maranda, Luciana Menezes de Carvalho, Michèle Rivet, Elizabeth Weiser, Natalie Urquhart. The Special Project Museums, Community Action and Decolonisation is coordinated by ICOFOM in partnership with ICOM LAC, ICOM Brazil, ICOM Canada, ICOM Chile, MAC and MINOM. 2 Published in Paris, ICOM/ICOFOM, 2020 ISBN: 978-2-491997-15-1 EAN: 9782491997151 3 Descolonizando a Museologia Descolonizando la Museología Decolonising Museology 1 Museus, Ação Comunitária e Descolonização Museos, Acción Comunitaria y Descolonización Museums, Community Action and Decolonisation Bruno Brulon Soares (Ed.) 4 Table of contents Introdução Introducción Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Bruno Brulon Soares 1. Experiências museais pós-coloniais 1. Experiencias poscoloniales del museo 1. Postcolonial experiences of the museum . 71 Histórias para descolonizar: o Museu Nacional de Etnologia de Lisboa e suas coleções africanas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Márcia Chuva Os índios Tikuna e o mundo dos museus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Priscila Faulhaber Entre o Paraná e Roraima: reflexões sobre “Vaivém” no balanço de uma rede-de-dormir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Raphael Fonseca Decolonial Exhibition Making: Mafavuke’s Trial and Other Plant Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116 Ana S. González Rueda A Chat on Innovation, Experiments, Theory and other Fascinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Tomislav S. Šola Museus no tempo do agora: colonialismo, imperialismo e tecnologia digital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141 Luciana Souza 2. Ação comunitária e museologias experimentais 2. Acción comunitaria y museologías experimentales 2. Community action and experimental museologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 5 As pegadas inventadas pelo Museu Vivo do São Bento na Baixada Fluminense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Aurelina de Jesus Cruz Carias, Marlucia Santos de Souza, Risonete Martiniano de Nogueira El Museo Comunitario de Cabrils (Barcelona): Un proyecto experimental nacido desde la comunidad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Jordi Montlló O Museu da Parteira enquanto processo experimental . . . . . 193 Júlia Morim Memórias silenciadas e novos horizontes: O papel social do Museu do Samba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Desirree dos Reis Santos Museu das Remoções: Moradia e Memória . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Sandra Maria de S. Teixeira La dinámica con base comunitaria; actualizaciones de viejos postulados a partir de la propuesta museo situado . . 239 Alejandra Panozzo Zenere 3. Experiências queer para um ativismo museal 3. Experiencias queer para el activismo de los museos 3. Queer experiences for museum activism . 253 Museo Di, sacar la historia del closet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 Fernanda Venegas Adriazola, Fernanda Martínez Fontaine Rolando González Rojas, Fernanda Rivas Gutiérrez, Tamara Basualto Mena El museo como espacio comunitario y decolonizador: El caso del Museo MIO en Costa Rica y la recuperación de la memoria LGBTIQ+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 Lauran Bonilla-Merchav, Tatiana Muñoz Brenes Por un Museo bien chimbita: transformar el Museo Nacional de Colombia desde el Programa de Comunidades, Accesibilidad e Inclusión . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 Alejandro Suárez Caro 6 Performar o museu e ampliar seus públicos: Reflexões para matrizes queer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Ellen Nicolau, Gabriela Augusta da Silva Oliveira, Leonardo Stephens Domingues, Paola Valentina Xavier, Rodrigo Alcântara Museu Bajubá: uma proposta de cidadania cultural para pessoas LGBTI+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312 Rita de Cassia Colaço Rodrigues Luiz Morando 4. Museus, patrimônios locais e direitos humanos 4. Museos, patrimonios locales y derechos humanos 4. Museums, local heritage and human rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324 Narrativas da minha trajetória . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 Sandra Benites Povos indígenas e Museologia – experiências nos museus tradicionais e possibilidades nos museus indígenas . . . . . . . . 338 Marília Xavier Cury Indigenous peoples and Museology – experiences at traditional museums and possibilities at indigenous museums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354 Marília Xavier Cury Patrimônio e identidades afro-diaspóricas: da Cabeça de Ifé ao monumento de Zumbi dos Palmares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .371 Diogo Jorge de Melo Thais Silva Félix Dias Museo callejero del estallido social en Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387 Fernanda Venegas Adriazola Coleções indígenas no Sertão imaginado: experimentações etnográficas e museais para a descolonização dos museus . 404 Camila Azevedo de Moraes-Wichers 116 Experiências museais pós-coloniais Decolonial Exhibition Making: Mafavuke’s Trial and Other Plant Stories Ana S. González Rueda* University of St Andrews – St Andrews, Scotland Based on Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano’s compound concept modernity/ coloniality, in which coloniality is posed as the darker side of Western modernity, this essay investigates the decolonial approach to exhibition making. It concentrates on the potential of exhibitions as decolonial practices that look not only into the matrix of power – as well as its production of racial and gender hierarchies on the global and local levels and their functioning alongside capital to maintain a modern regime of exploitation and domination (Quijano, 1992, 1997) – but also, following philosopher and semiotician Walter Mignolo, those practices that delve into modernity/coloniality and its denial of “knowledges, subjectivities, world senses, and life visions” (2018, p.4). In this sense, I concentrate on the knowledge production processes of the exhibition. I analyse Swiss-born, London-based artist Uriel Orlow’s Mafavuke’s Trial and Other Plant Stories, presented at The Showroom, London in 2016. The exhibition was conceived as a botany-centred political proposal that assumed the viewpoints of both South Africa and Europe (The Showroom, “Uriel Orlow”, n.d.). The show was part of Theatrum Botanicum, a broader project that delves into the various traditions of plant-based medicine in South Africa and the ideological and economic confrontation of different knowledge systems (for instance, between Bangladeshi and Sudanese communities; The Showroom, “Symposium”, n.d.). First, I examine the exhibition’s “conceptual herbarium” as a critical display strategy. Second, I problematise the project’s institutional framework, particularly, The Showroom’s community-centred educational programme. The central piece, Orlow’s two-channel video installation The Crown Against Mafavuke (2016), re-imagines and dramatizes the trial of South African herbalist Mafavuke Ngcobo and presents scenes of the current practice of traditional medicine in South Africa (including growers, apprentices, traders, and users) in documentary mode. The use of two channels confronts the re-enacted past with the present. Ngcobo was a licensed South African inyanga, or traditional herbalist, accused in 1940 of “untraditional practice”. Karen Flint (2008) observes that this charge referred to his use of the title of “doctor’”. He described himself as a “native medical scientist” and also included pharmaceuticals in his remedies, rather than just herbs. Traditional healers usually only served African communities, so Ngcobo’s main transgression was competing with biomedicine and fostering a hybrid, multitherapeutic society that obscured the demarcation Experiências museais pós-coloniais 117 between white and indigenous medicine. Ultimately, he was found guilty, and the ruling defined traditional medicine as: “…medicines such as natives can make for themselves by comparatively simple processes, not requiring a high degree of scientific skill, out of the natural substances of the country which are available to them” (“Rex v Ngcobo”, 1941, as cited in Flint, 2008, p. 4). As Flint suggests, this statement reveals the preconception of the divide between rational, scientific, modern Europe and irrational, simple, ritualistic Africa. However, Ngcobo’s case demonstrates the permeability of the boundary between the two. “Conceptual Herbarium”: A Postcolonial, Critical Framework The rest of the works in the exhibition were organised in a “conceptual herbarium”: a modular structure showed each piece as a specimen and put together a continent-wide, multi-vocal archive (The Showroom, “Uriel Orlow”, n.d.). According to Orlow (personal communication, June 22, 2018; Orlow & Sheikh, 2018), this display strategy referred to the overall title of the project, taken from English herbalist John Parkinson’s treaty Theatrum Botanicum (1640), and was a way of reflecting on the research’s problematic foundation in Europe. In the exhibition, the herbarium functioned as a critical reflection on the historical display of plants. The origins of natural history collections date back to the cabinets of curiosity of the Renaissance and collectors’ “desire to bring all knowledge into a single space” (Mauriès 2002, as cited in Cornish & Nesbitt, 2014, p. 273). Eventually, the 19th century saw the rise of the public museum, botanical gardens, economic botany collections, and – in colonial contexts – “world museums” that displayed objects from colonised territories (Cornish & Nesbitt, 2014). Orlow’s herbarium alludes to modern, scientific forms of display. Under cold, white lightning, the contemporary artworks clashed against the rigid structure, prompting questions about the long history of this exhibitionary model. Imperial expansion saw the emergence of natural history and ethnographic museums, as well as museums such as the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Brussels, the Dutch Colonial Institute in Amsterdam, and the Musée permanent des colonies in Paris which were expressly founded to promote colonialism and its civilising mission (Aldrich, 2009). These institutions were slowly transformed by dealing with the tensions brought about by decolonisation. An introductory video on the Pitt Rivers Museum’s website (2019) addresses some of these issues, directly asking: “how you can be old and new, traditional and contemporary?”. The narrator speaks about the challenge to reinvigorate the museum’s building and to rethink the interpretation of the collections. The short clip makes reference to the institution’s work with forced migrants and with the Masai in their understanding of problematic holdings and discusses bringing in voices that had been silenced in the past. This critical introduction 118 Experiências museais pós-coloniais to the museum mentions the violent use of language on the original labels and the importance of moving forward. Orlow’s use of the herbarium highlighted the highly problematic historical role of this type of museum. The Dutch Colonial Institute, for example, became the Indies Museum after the independence of Indonesia, followed by the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Royal Tropic Institute), and finally, the Tropenmuseum (Tropical Museum), which actively concealed its colonial origins for decades. Curator Susanne Legêne notes that in the 1960s, the museum’s narrative shifted to one of “cooperation, development aid and daily life in the Third World”, strictly avoiding any reference to colonial history. However, more recently, the museum has critically reintroduced the subject of Dutch imperialism and colonial collecting (Legêne 2000, p. 101 as cited in Aldrich, 2009, p. 143). In other cases, colonial museums were transformed into art and ethnography museums which focused on previously colonised indigenous cultures. In France, the Musée de la France d’ Outre-Mer turned into the Musée des arts africains et océaniens (MAAO) in the 1960s. MAAO’s collections were moved into the highly controversial Musée du Quai Branly in 2006, and its building was transformed into the Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration (Aldrich, 2009). This transnational context highlights the institutions’ privileged standpoint and their significant role not only “in building the imaginary of the national and European past”, but in taking responsibility for addressing current global struggles and inequalities (van Huis, 2019, p. 239). The most striking effect of Orlow’s juxtaposition of the contemporary artworks with the herbarium was the highlighting of the display’s classificatory order. In his analysis of the Africa Museum in Tervuren, Belgium, Murat Aydemir (2008) notes that: “…the orderly classification of the displayed objects effectively overrules the visibility and tangibility of the things themselves, which recede in the background as little more than examples or specimens illustrating the authoritative science of the display” (p. 86). In contrast, by introducing contemporary perspectives, the artworks in Orlow’s exhibition challenge the herbarium’s structure. The display strategy can be seen as an attempt to consider the exhibition as a site of decolonisation. This approach investigates pertinent forms of representation that both address “the hard truths of colonization and also [honour] Indigenous understandings of history” (Lonetree, 2009, pp. 324-325). Revisiting the herbarium alludes to the role of museums in shaping the past, as well as the present and the future. At the same time, this approach refers to current efforts to introduce indigenous perspectives into the museum through multiple voices and various narratives. At the herbarium’s far-left and closest to the entrance was a group of photographs by Subtle Agency, a group of Cape Town-based artists, titled Planting Seeds to Hunt the Wind (2012).1 It includes Death Mask, by Julia Raynham, 1. Subtle Agency is a heterodox group of Cape Town-based artists from a variety of cultural back- Experiências museais pós-coloniais 119 an image that depicts the use of uZililo (giant stapelia) as a form of magical protection against death. Other images present a ceremonial cleansing process using isidakwa/inhlanhla (wild yam), as well as Ilitha as a means to sleep and communicate with ancestral spirits (The Showroom, 2016). The series introduces a variety of indigenous contemporary healing practices and locates the plants within this meaningful context. Cooking Sections, a duo of practitioners, presented Never Die (2016): a moringa cake placed under a glass dome.2 This work refers to the commitment in 2010 of the eleven countries along the edge of the Sahara to the construction of a Great Green Wall to slow down desertification and preserve fertile land through drought-resistant species, such as moringa (The Showroom, 2016). In this case, the plant stands for resistance and for the struggle for survival. The title and the form of a cake point to its extraordinary nutritional properties. Gallery assistants offered a piece to the visitors so that they could try the cake’s sweet, unfamiliar flavour. The following work, a photograph by David Goldblatt titled Remnant of a Hedge Planted in 1660 to Keep the Indigenous Khoikhoi Out of the First European Settlement in South Africa (1993), refers to the garden as the starting point of the South African colonial project. As told by Orlow, the Dutch trading company had a problem with scurvy (a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency) due to its lengthy trips between Europe and India. The need to grow fresh fruits and vegetables led to their arrival at the Cape in 1652. The first acts of colonial violence were building a wall and planting a wild almond hedge, which still exists and was photographed by Goldblatt. The wall protected the colonisers’ fruit and vegetables from the grazing cattle belonging to the Khoikhoi (The Showroom, “Symposium”, n.d.). Goldblatt’s work is accompanied by Orlow’s The Memory of Trees (2016), which includes Milkwood Tree, a photograph of a 500-year-old tree in Woodstock, a suburb of Cape Town, presented as witness to the killing of Portuguese explorer Dom Francisco de Almeida and his men by the exploited Khoikhoi. Later, it became known as the “Old Slave Tree of Woodstock”, a spot where slaves were beaten and killed. Eventually, it was renamed “The Treaty Tree”, as a monument to the start of the second British occupation, succeeding that of the Dutch. Lombard Poplar, another photograph in this series, depicts a tree in Johannesburg that functioned as a landmark for Ruth Fischer’s house, a place that offered protection to apartheid fugitives (The Showroom, 2016). This selection of photographs plays a significant role in the exhibition. Against the herbarium’s backdrop, these works challenge the ethnographic use of photography: for instance, contrasting modern and primitive technology and portraying African realities as unchanging – devoid of temporality and history (Aydemir, 2008). In her study of the Kew Museum of Economic Botany, Caroline Cornish argues that photographs supported an imperial narrative of improvement, which was instrumental to colonisation and botanical research. She argues grounds who came together in 2012 to explore everyday healing practices in Southern Africa. Subtle Agency is Bradley van Sitters, Niklas Zimmer, Noncedo Gxekwa, and Julia Raynham. 2. Cooking Sections is formed by Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe. 120 Experiências museais pós-coloniais that photography represented the presumed superiority of the coloniser and assisted in positioning the latter as “best suited to administer territories and their natural and human resources” (2015, pp.119-120). Photographs were an integral part of the interpretive framework of economic botany museums and instilled scientific authority. Cornish underlines their fundamental role in the curatorial framing of botanical specimens: photographs signified mechanical objectivity, demonstrated processing methods, constructed a transformative account from cultivar to commodity, and symbolised imperialist control. In summary, they built a narrative of improvement centred on the production of imperial wealth. At The Showroom, this device was upended: rather than acting as illustrative props, the images offer a counter-perspective that complicates the historical account by presenting the trees as central agents in both the consolidation of and resistance to colonial rule. The exhibition adopted a postcolonial approach, a stance that responds to the increasingly felt crisis of ethnographic museums since the 1980s, which has demanded the redefinition of its role from the exhibition of other cultures to that of an intercultural meeting point (Boursiquot, 2014). This moment is mirrored in a shift in perspective within anthropology: the attempt to “[see] ourselves amongst others […] a case among cases, a world among worlds” (Geertz, 1983, 16). The postcolonial perspective deals with the interrelation between past and present, former empires and their colonies, and the proliferation of what theorist and critic Mary Louise Pratt (1992) has identified as “contact zones”. She defines such zones as: “…social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination […] (and) their aftermath as they are lived out across the globe today” (p. 7). Rather than concentrating on strategies of inclusion, Mafavuke’s Trial and Other Plant Stories investigated the postcolonial concern with the rewriting of history. This perspective involves looking for ways of breaking down the dominance of the exhibition space and highlighting the violence of display (De Angelis, 2014). Through its examination of the confrontation and cross-fertilisation of various medicinal practices in South Africa, Orlow’s project furthers the recognition of what sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos and colleagues (2008) call the “epistemological diversity” of the world. Santos and colleagues note that the dominance of modern science – which supported the ascendancy of the West – involves the suppression of non-scientific forms of knowledge and their social practices. They argue that social emancipation must be based on the supersession of the monoculture of scientific knowledge by an “ecology of knowledges”. While the political relations of colonialism have been widely recognised and criticised, Santos and colleagues note that colonial epistemic monoculture is still understood as a form of development and modernity in opposition to notions of “underdevelopment”, “the Third World”, and the “global South”. In contrast, Orlow highlighted two issues to which sociologist Thokozani Xaba (2008) has Experiências museais pós-coloniais 121 drawn attention: the disenfranchisement of Africans from their holistic understanding of health and illness and the potential cooperation between indigenous and “scientific” medical practitioners. By bringing together a “constellation of knowledges”, the herbarium proposed learning as a process of unlearning the dominant system of knowledge and representation. Having argued that Orlow’s exhibition presented a critical, postcolonial approach, we now turn to how the show’s institutional framework reveals the project’s more liberal aspects. Rethinking Communal Gallery Practices In what follows, I examine the institutional framework in which this epistemological challenge took place. In Mignolo’s words, I look into “who and when, why and where is knowledge generated” (2009, p. 2). I address the interaction between aesthetic and socio-political spheres in the configuration of the exhibition and its public. The Showroom states as its mission: “We commission and produce art and discourse; providing an engaging, collaborative programme that challenges what art can be and do for a wide range of audiences including art professionals and our local community” (The Showroom, “About”). Reading closely, there is an emphasis on process and knowledge production – rather than presentation – as well as on a participatory outlook, the intention to question the boundaries of art and its purpose, and, notably, a clear drive towards diverse audiences, differentiated as the art world and the “local community”. The gallery was previously dedicated to supporting the work of emerging artists. Under the directorship of Emily Pethick (2008-2018), it concentrated on “emerging practices and ideas” (Phillips, 2014, p. 18). Evidently, the gallery constantly dealt with the question of its role within the local community and the tension between aesthetic and social realms. The Showroom’s programme occupies a paradoxical position between its institutional status and the endeavour to destabilise established systems of knowledge. Based on Pethick’s conversational approach, the gallery was conceived as a “site of sustained inquiry”, where change was enacted at a micro level (Pethick, 2008). Pethick was determined to challenge stable structures and categories of knowledge through a principle of horizontal knowledge (Phillips, 2014). Social change was envisioned to occur as a ripple effect, which was initiated locally. The gallery’s activities are primarily oriented towards its immediate context. Since 2009, The Showroom has been located at the Church Street Market and Edgware Road area of London. One of the most deprived wards in the country, it is surrounded by – although disconnected from – more wealthy areas (Phillips, 2014). The neighbourhood is home to diverse communities from the Middle East and Africa and has the fourth-lowest median household income in London. Fifty percent of children in this area live in poverty. The Showroom’s move to Church 122 Experiências museais pós-coloniais Street was determined by the possibility of working within the area through a more educationally driven programme (Gray, 2012; McQuay et al., 2012). Here, I specifically concentrate on the gallery’s approach to participation and collectivity in relation to the ambition to destabilise the dominant system of knowledge. The focus on the neighbourhood’s community is most evident in The Showroom’s Communal Knowledge programme, an initiative “specifically oriented towards local interaction” (Phillips, 2014, p. 16). It invited artists to develop collaborative projects within the Church Street community. Led by Louise Shelley, it started with “conversations around shared interests and concerns, […] to generate playful and experimental venues for critical reflection on issues at stake locally” (The Showroom, “Communal Knowledge”). The programme consisted of three artist commissions per year that usually took the form of workshops or long-term, off-site collaborations, one of which was developed into an exhibition. The procurement of long-term activities was fundamental to building strong relationships and reflected a keen attention to process. Although the intention was that Communal Knowledge would inform and exchange ideas with other areas of the gallery, it was nonetheless clearly distinguished from the gallery’s exhibitions programme and still required, for Pethick, “working on different levels” (Phillips, 2014, p. 19). What does this distinction imply? In the case of Orlow’s exhibition, under Communal Knowledge, the artist developed a cross-cultural medicinal plant garden at 60 Penfold Community Hub (a local care home) and a complementary manual. For the artist, the garden was a way of anchoring the exhibition in the gallery’s context and establishing a real dialogue with the local communities, as well as activating an engagement with the issues explored by the project. The garden was built in collaboration with gardener Carole Wright, the Church Street Bengali Women’s Group, the Penfold Hub Gardening Group, and the Penfold Hub Centre (The Showroom, “Medicinal garden”; U. Orlow, personal communication, June 22, 2018). My point here is not to challenge the value of these communal activities. Instead, I seek to question the differentiation and interaction among the exhibitions (as aesthetic investigations mainly directed to an art-informed audience) and Communal Knowledge activities (focused on effecting change within the local community). How is the public conceived in each case? Does this distinction reinforce or diminish actual divisions? It is essential to examine the notion of communal engagement put forward by the gallery. Critic and curator Miwon Kwon (2004) notes the centrality of institutional forces at work in this kind of collaboration. Communal Knowledge programme curator Louise Shelley (personal communication, April 28, 2017), described to me her understanding of community as “groups coming together around shared interests […] to build affinities on areas of common ground”. Taking a shared interest as a point of identification can be seen, however, as a “reductive […] essentializing process (that implies a) self-affirming, self-validating ‘expression’ of a unified community” (Kwon, 2004, p. 151). As Kwon observes, the institutional, bureaucratic mediating framework remains out of sight. These “images of coherence, unity and wholeness” constitute for Kwon an ideal conception of Experiências museais pós-coloniais 123 community that overlooks tension and conflict and involves a disciplinary purpose (2004, pp.151-154). Therefore, acknowledging the impossibility of an ideal community is the first step to the formulation of alternative conceptions. For Kwon, the idea that the project will affirm the participant community implies the conception of public art as reassuring, useful, and enjoyable. Art is seen as a form of protection and empowerment against alienation and exclusion. The problem is that this notion of empowerment – in opposition to deprivation – obscures the systemic causes of discrimination and marginalisation and risks presenting participants as passive victims (Kwon, 2004). This discussion is particularly pertinent to decolonising projects, like Orlow’s. Scrutinising such formations provides crucial insight into the educational relations at work and whether they support or undermine the exhibition’s subversive aims. How ought we address the consensual erasure of difference? Philosopher JeanLuc Nancy’s (1991) conception of community is pertinent here: he recognises the paradox of a movement of coming together that simultaneously questions its idealisation. Community, in this sense, is grounded in the notion of relationality – in the acknowledgement of its multiplicity and dynamism. Interrelations are constituted by interruptions, disjunctions, and dislocations; community is conceived as both a problem that involves social and political complexities and as a form of resistance. This contingent rather than essentialist conceptualisation challenges conciliatory and unproblematic understandings of the public and the contribution of such views to the “colonisation of difference” (Hinderliter et al., 2009, p. 18). Taking this into account, the garden appears as an institutional justification of the exhibition which, at the same time, undermines the latter’s criticality. The kind of community discussed above entails a distinct pedagogy. I suggest that educational theorist Noah De Lissovoy’s work on the questions that globalisation presents to education is highly relevant to decolonial curatorial approaches. De Lissovoy (2015) stresses the need to look at the relationship between critical, empowering projects and epistemological frameworks. A central notion to contest is “cultural identity”; the decolonial perspective demands addressing the complexities of this concept. It puts forward an understanding of difference that encompasses ways of being and knowing and conceives solidarity on this basis. The notion of “inclusion” is also called into question: De Lissovoy points to the culturally determined space it presupposes. Scholar Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández has also put forward a “decolonising pedagogy of solidarity” that questions the very definition of the human and, subsequently, the institution of forms of inclusion and exclusion and their reinforcement of social boundaries (2012, p. 49). This pedagogy involves reimagining social relations based on difference and interdependency, rather than agreement and self-interest. He asks: “Does solidarity require similarity, shared interests, or a common destiny, or can it work in a context committed to an incommensurable interdependency? Does solidarity (necessarily) imply a hierarchical relationship […]?” (p. 50). 124 Experiências museais pós-coloniais These are vital questions that can assist in departing from the idealised understanding of community upheld by The Showroom’s Communal Knowledge programme. De Lissovoy (2015) calls for a critical approach that goes beyond a simple questioning of the given and instead assumes a different basis. Marginalised perspectives become the starting point in the process of supplanting a model of inclusion and transforming educational practice. On the one hand, Orlow’s exhibition needs to be analysed as a project hosted by a Western institution, an established exhibition space that can be seen to appropriate other perspectives for its own critical ends. The project does not overcome this problematic delimitation. The exhibition presents a decolonial pedagogy as other systems of knowledge take centre stage in an effort not to overthrow, but to de-centre, the dominant epistemology. On the other hand, however, the development of the garden presents a simplistic conception of community. The Showroom’s educational programme takes for granted its social development framework. However, De Lissovoy associates the notion of development with “a decomposition of already existing indigenous knowledge, resources, and networks” (2015, p. 106). His approach goes beyond critical education to look at development as a frame of democratising, dialogical, or critical practices and points to its underlying universalist assumptions. It highlights the reproduction of this logic and its relations of dependency on the teacher (or in this case, the artist), who: “…centrally and indispensably mediates the passage of students to a sophisticated critical curiosity that is able to reflect on the historical situatedness of their own consciousness” (De Lissovoy, 2015, p. 115). Although Orlow led the exhibition, there was also a recognisable effort to put forward a more horizontal organisation and a diverse, collective perspective, both in the incorporation of works by other artists and the involvement of community organisations in the setup of the garden. The artist’s ambivalent position is reflected in his suggestion that although he “initiated, led it, and shaped it to a certain extent, it was still a collective, communal effort” (U. Orlow, personal communication, June 22, 2018). Similarly, regarding his films, he commented that although he directed them and wrote the scripts, they are the result of a collaboration – hence the need to distinguish between authorship and authority. Still, it is useful to bear in mind De Lissovoy’s questions regarding the implications of pedagogical authority: can the artist assume the position of another participant, instead of that of the leader? What kinds of practices can facilitate not only the recognition of an “ecology of knowledges”, but also a rethinking of educational purpose and meaning? There is a need to diversify principles, questions, and starting points, as well as to challenge the very notion of knowledge. For De Lissovoy, this requires moving beyond the dominant/subaltern opposition and away from what he calls the “geography of reason” (2015, p. 121). Only then can border modes of knowledge Experiências museais pós-coloniais 125 acquisition and dissemination multiply. This also means shifting the geopolitical focal point of enunciation that is the basis of the teacher’s (or the artist’s or curator’s) authority. De Lissovoy describes a movement from introducing minority perspectives, to the acknowledgement of a global framework. Furthermore, he calls for a departure from the postcolonial introduction of peripheral knowledge to the decolonial option, that is, foregrounding indigenous and non-Western thought as the central starting point of historical investigation. In its epistemological subversion, the exhibition moves towards a decolonial critique. However, the project could also correspond to what feminist writer and scholar Sara Ahmed calls the “fantasy of being-together as strangers”, where the ethnographer (in this case, the artist) is praised for sharing his authority (2000, p. 64). Finally, De Lissovoy’s rethinking of “community” provides a helpful basis for decolonial curatorial approaches. “Community” usually refers to a negotiation of differences and a unifying effort. De Lissovoy draws attention to a sense of “community” more closely associated with “the common” and “communism”, described as “the radical coming together of individuals under the sign of equality” (2015, p.148). This conception implies a threat to both wealth and privilege within the social order and knowledge distribution structures. De Lissovoy thinks of community as a “small way of making new selves and new worlds […] (and) [discovering] new categories and possibilities” that, even within their limited visibility, contest the social order (2015, p. 153). Along with Judith Butler, he considers community’s basis in our dependence on each other. He refers to a literal, physical vulnerability to one another that links the concept directly with difference. This understanding is even more relevant in a socially, economically, and politically interrelated, interdependent world. De Lissovoy’s conceptualisation aims to generate a kind of being together based on this inter-dependence that moves towards a “moment of radical sharing of being (that is) transgressive and unruly” and confronts the capitalist logic (2015, p. 158). He stresses the difference between imagining and inhabiting possibilities. In his view, education is not only concerned with a hopeful envisioning of the future; it can also be grounded in the present. This pedagogy of community takes place fleetingly as “a moment of constitution of a different world […] (that can) burn holes in the fabric of the given” (De Lissovoy, 2015, p. 161). As a practice, it demonstrates “the persistent and ineradicable agency of people” (De Lissovoy, 2015, p. 162). This constitutes a demanding proposition that is nevertheless worth pursuing. The conceptual herbarium functioned as a self-reflective display strategy and the means to deal with the problematic historical display of plants in Europe from a postcolonial standpoint. The presentation of contemporary artwork within the herbarium’s structure reveals some of the challenges that decolonisation presents to exhibition making: for instance, that of rethinking the relationship between past and present. In this case, photography assumed a fundamental role in directly confronting ethnographic exhibition techniques. Most importantly, the herbarium sparked a process of unlearning and brought about an epistemological challenge to the Western worldview. However, my analysis of the exhibition’s institutional framework highlighted the inconsistencies em- Experiências museais pós-coloniais 126 bedded in The Showroom’s distinction between its art-world and local audiences, its exhibitions and educational programme, and Orlow’s show and medicinal garden. Decolonial exhibition making involves questioning our understanding of communal engagement, inclusion, development, authority, and knowledge. This paper also puts forward a conception of community based on difference and inter-dependence as a valuable option that can support audience-building practices. *Ana S. González Rueda holds a PhD in Museum and Gallery Studies from the University of St Andrews (2019). Her work concentrates on exhibition histories and pedagogies. She is Research Assistant of the EU-LAC Museums project (University of St Andrews), and Researcher in Residence at the Decolonising Arts Institute (University of the Arts London). E-mail: asg22@st-andrews.ac.uk. References: Ahmed, S. (2000). Strange encounters: Embodied others in post-coloniality. London: Routledge. Aldrich, R. (2009). Colonial museums in a postcolonial Europe. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, 2(2), 137–156. https://doi. org/10.1080/17528630902981118. Aydemir, M. (2008). Staging colonialism: The mise-en-scène of the Africa Museum in Tervuren. In M. Aydemir & A. Rotas (Eds.), Migratory Settings (pp. 77–98). Amsterdam: Rodopi. Boursiquot, F. (2014). Ethnographic museums: From colonial exposition to intercultural dialogue. In I. Chambers, A. De Angelis, C. Ianniciello, & M. Orabona (Eds.), The postcolonial museum: The arts of memory and the pressures of history (pp. 63–73). London: Routledge. Cornish, C., & Nesbitt, M. (2014). Historical perspectives on Western ethnobotanical collections. In J. Salick, K. Konchar, & M. Nesbitt (Eds.), Curating biocultural collections (pp. 271–293). Kew Publishing. Cornish, C. (2015). Collecting photographs, constructing disciplines: The rationality and rhetoric of photography at the Museum of Economic Botany. In E. Edwards & C. Morton (Eds.), Photographs, museums, collections: Between art and information (pp. 119–137). London: Bloomsbury. De Angelis, A., Ianniciello C., Orabona M., & Quadraro M. (2014). Disruptive encounters – Museums, arts and postcoloniality. In I. Chambers, A. De Angelis, C. Ianniciello, & M. Orabona (Eds.), The postcolonial museum: The arts of memory and the pressures of history (pp. 1–23). London: Routledge. De Lissovoy, N. (2015). Education and emancipation in the neoliberal era: Being, teaching, and power. Palgrave Macmillan. Experiências museais pós-coloniais 127 Flint, K. E. (2008). Healing traditions: African medicine, cultural exchange, and competition in South Africa. Ohio: Ohio University Press. Gaztambide-Fernández, R. A. (2012). Decolonization and the pedagogy of solidarity. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 41–67. Geertz, C. (1983). Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive anthropology. Basic Books. Gray, K., Mossop, S., & Pethick, E. (2012) Why do galleries work beyond the site of the institution? In M. Steedman (Ed.), Gallery as community: Art, education, politics (pp. 103–120). Whitechapel Gallery. Hinderliter, B., Kaizen, W., Maimon, V., Mansoor, J., & McCormick, S. (Eds.). (2009). Communities of sense: Rethinking aesthetics and politics. Duke: Duke University Press. Kwon, M. (2004). One place after another: Site-specific art and locational identity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Legêne, S. (2000). Identité nationale et ‘cultures autres’: le use colonial comme monde à part aux Pays-Bas. In D. Taffin (Ed.), Du Musée colonial au musée des cultures du monde (pp. 87–102). Paris : Maisonneuve & Larose. Lonetree, A. (2009). Museums as sites of decolonization: Truth telling in national and tribal museums. In S. Sleeper-Smith (Ed.), Contesting knowledge: Museums and indigenous perspectives (pp. 322–337). Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. Mauriès, P. (2002). Cabinets of curiosities. London: Thames & Hudson. McQuay, M. A., Pethick, E., & Steedman, M. (2012). The philanthropic mission. In M. Steedman (Ed.), Gallery as community: Art, education, politics (pp. 185–195). London: Whitechapel Gallery. Mignolo, W. D. (2009). Epistemic disobedience, independent thought and de-colonial freedom. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(7–8), 1–23. https://doi. org/10.1177/0263276409349275 Mignolo, W. D., & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On Decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke: Duke University Press. Nancy, J. L. (1991). The inoperative community (76). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Orlow, U., & Sheikh, S. (Eds.). (2018). Theatrum Botanicum. Berlin: Sternberg Press. Pethick, E. (2008, December 4). Resisting institutionalisation. ICA. Retrieved July 16, 2020, from https://archive.ica.art/bulletin/resisting-institutionalisation 128 Experiências museais pós-coloniais Phillips, A. (2014). How to work together. Think Tank. Retrieved July 16, 2020, from https://howtoworktogether.org/think-tank/andrea-phillips-how-to-worktogether/ Pitt Rivers Museum. (2019). A quiet revolution [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo. com/332644477 Pratt, M. L. (1992). Imperial eyes: Travel writing and transculturation. London: Routledge. Quijano, A. (1992). Colonialidad y modernidad/racionalidad. Perú Indígena, 13(29), 11–20. Quijano, A. (1997). Colonialidad del poder, cultura y conocimiento en América Latina. Anuario Mariateguiano, 9, 113–121. Rex v. Ngcobo. (1941). South African Law Review. South African National Archives Repository (GES, 1788, 25/30M), Pretoria, South Africa. Santos, B. S., Nunes, J. A., & Meneses, M. P. (2008). Opening up the canon of knowledge and recognition of difference. In B. S. Santos (Ed.), Another knowledge is possible: Beyond northern epistemologies (pp. xix–lxii). London: Verso. The Showroom. (n.d.). About. Retrieved July 16, 2020, from https://www. theshowroom.org/about The Showroom. (n.d.). Communal knowledge. Retrieved July 16, 2020, from https://www.theshowroom.org/programmes/communal-knowledge The Showroom. (n.d.). Medicinal garden launch and tour with Uriel Orlow and Michael Heinrich. Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://www.theshowroom. org/events/medicinal-garden-launch-and-tour-w-slash-uriel-orlow-and-michael-heinrich The Showroom. (n.d.). Symposium: Theatrum botanicum and other forms of knowledge. Retrieved July 16, 2020, from https://www.theshowroom.org/library/symposium-theatrum-botanicum-and-other-forms-of-knowledge The Showroom. (n.d.). Uriel Orlow: Mavafuke’s trial and other plant stories. Retrieved July 16, 2020, from https://www.theshowroom.org/exhibitions/urielorlow-mafavukes-trial-and-other-plant-stories The Showroom. (2016). Uriel Orlow: Mafavuke’s trial and other plant stories. Exhibition booklet. Van Huis, I. (2019). Contesting cultural heritage: Decolonizing the Tropenmuseum as an intervention in the Dutch/European memory complex. In T. Lähdesmäki, L. Passerini, S. Kaasik-Krogerus, & I. van Huis (Eds.), Dissonant heritages and memories in contemporary Europe (pp. 215–248). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Experiências museais pós-coloniais 129 Xaba, T. (2008). Marginalized medical practice: The marginalisation and transformation of indigenous medicines in South Africa. In B. S. Santos (Ed.), Another knowledge is possible: Beyond northern epistemologies (pp. 317–351). London: Verso.