Week 6

 This week, I read the following pieces A Virtual Museum Preserves Black Lives Matter Protest Art by Leah Feiger and Should human remains be displayed in museums? by Julia Deathridge. The article by Leah Feiger describes how George Floyds memorial has transformed from a memorial to part of a virtual "museum". George Floyds memorial has been added along with black protest artwork to preserve the history of the protests. The reason "museum" is in in quotes is because of the negative history museums have with preserving African culture. Really, the collection of art and the memorial is seen as a database that cannot be taken by anyone. In a way, its a privately owned digital museum that removes itself from the colonization of its contemporaries. This database provides a hopeful future for the preservation of art. While the art featured may be destroyed or unviewable to those who are out of state, it can be easily accessed and permanent through the database, safe from those who would seek to alter or remove it.


“I Am Not A Threat,” PiM Arts High School

The other article discusses if human remains should be kept in museums. According to the article, the handling of human remains didn't really change until 2005 and many tribes have requested to have the remains of their ancestors back. Even those who have specifically requested for the museum to not take their bodies, such as Charles Byrne, have had their wishes defiled for the sake of education for museum visitors. In the end, the question of how much does this really educate visitors and how valuable is a persons body to science? To me it would seem that the body doesn't really add any educational value to a museum tour that a dummy skeleton wouldn't already add. Seeing the actual bones of someone in a museum is off putting to say the least and any "educational value" that could be obtained by dissecting a body to find what made the person intelligent, isn't really worth the effort to me.

Feiger, L. (2020, August 24). A Virtual Museum Preserves Black Lives Matter Protest Art. Retrieved September 30, 2020, from https://hyperallergic.com/581979/virtual-protest-art-museum-black-lives-matter/ 
 
Deathridge, J. R. (2017, March 28). Should human remains be displayed in museums? Retrieved September 30, 2020, from https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/2017/03/28/should-human-remains-be-displayed-in-museums/ 

Comments

  1. IsabelOctober 2, 2020 at 12:06 PM

    Hi Nathan, I think you did a good job of addressing the ideas in these articles. The Virtual Museum of Black Lives Matter protest art is a really interesting concept. Do you think that more museums/art exhibits might move towards this format in the future? The issue of displaying human remains is a very complex one. I’m inclined to think that they shouldn’t be displayed without consent (from either the people themselves or their direct ancestors), but in some cases (such as mummies from thousands of years ago), getting this consent isn’t really possible.

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  2. Cayla PeasleeOctober 4, 2020 at 6:45 PM

    Nathan,
    The articles you chose had very different subjects which I enjoyed. The first article you discussed, do you think that a digital copy of a piece of art is enough? I know that it is great to have the back up but I am concerned that the world is trying to digitalize everything and we stand the chance of losing traditional artforms. As for the second article, I agree with you that the bones themselves could be replaced in museums with replicas and serve the same educational purpose. I believe that the human remains should be returned to their families. Great subjects this week!

    Cayla

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