From dark histories to bright futures

I was contracted by the Übersee-Museum Bremen to speak to the participants of the digital Oceania project which intends – ostensibly – to revamp the museum’s sizeable collection from Oceania. What I discovered was that the changes it plans to make are far more transformative, radical and far-reaching than that.

My interest in this project sprung from various factors – one was that I’d worked with the Übersee-Museum before, at an earlier stage of this project when they were setting up fellowships for Pacific Islanders to work with the museum. This was in the wake of their experience with Critical Friends – a process whereby the museum hosted talks from professionals around the world discussing the problems they faced in their separate fields.

From my conversations then and now, it seems clear that the senior staff in particular found great value in these exchanges and that they took on board any criticism that could apply to their institution without being reactive. When I spoke to senior staff including the director Wiebke Ahrndt, and Etta Grotrian, they were both visibly excited by the possibilities that Critical Friends had unleashed and I was struck by the radicalism of this approach and the sincerity of their willingness to relinquish control of the conversation. It was the attitude that was sorely missing from my own experience of working in my department of the culture industry, publishing.  

In a series of conversations with each member of the team over the last few months, I have been slowly coming to an understanding of what I think is at the heart of “the blue continent” (the Oceania Digital Project) and indeed at the heart of the Übersee-Museum. I shan’t go into great detail here about what the project is except to say that it is as Samoa-facing as it is Germany-facing, which feels extraordinary in itself. It is not simply a corrective to old, out of date labels and research, it’s a whole new way of using the knowledge the museum possesses. 

As I learned from the head of the Natural History Department who is running the Citizen Science part of the project, one of its ambitions is to share their knowledge of Oceania (garnered from objects taken under colonial administration) with its own inhabitants. The looting of knowledge for the benefit of Europeans is one of the newer subjects, I understand from Michael Stiller, under discussion among Natural History professionals, moving on from the erroneous idea that the field of science is somehow morally neutral. As Michael Stiller says: “The information [colonial administrators] took from colonies was never shared with indigenous people, never used for the benefit of these countries or their people. So the question for me now is that how can we give this information back to them, how can we turn exploitative history into a more positive future.”

After a few false starts and a learning curve regarding digital content, the pilot venture of Oceania Digital was – to the surprise of many – a Facebook group (Facebook is the favoured social media of Pacific Islanders, it’s the easiest to connect to, it uses the least data.) With the support of external consultant Franziska Mucha, this was implemented to a great extent by the Australian-Samoan curator Mitiana Arbon whose academic research included the use of social media in the Pacific islands. Oceania Digital’s opening act was opening up access to collections by way of physically putting images on Samoan Facebook groups, seeking out groups interested in history, in old photographs, in Samoa’s colonial past. The result was a generous and seemingly unself-conscious outpouring of engagement with these images either of places or of objects, a mixture of facts and memories but also more intimate connections such as the content of people’s dreams. I was duly interested in this but it took me a few days to realise how extraordinary this really was and to then feel a sort of belated anger that these revolutionary things are all possible should someone have the will to do them. Western museums in my opinion still too often have their cake and eat it – craftwork from former colonies is admired by Western experts but the people who created these things, those who practice these crafts today, aren’t invited to comment on them. 

There’s also the related issue of select people of colour feeling that they must speak not just for themselves but also for their own culture, with the various fears of misrepresenting it or somehow being perceived as selling out for a coveted role in a Western institute. It’s a bind I know well from publishing and could relate entirely when I spoke to Aiga, a Samoan intern on this project who had come across from the National University of Samoa. While she greatly enjoyed her role on Oceania Digital, there were things she felt she had to be mindful of:  

“I am always conscious of representing Samoa, of representing (CSS) the Centre for Samoan Studies and of representing my family. To me being a good representative means many things, one of which is to do a good job and to open up opportunities for other people. It’s also means that I feel responsible speaking on behalf of my community. For example, there is a section in the exhibition featuring traditional tattoos and this gave me an opportunity to show my tattoo. Initially I felt honoured to be able to share this but then I wasn’t so sure. I began to feel that my tattoo doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to my motherland and it is part of everyone’s tattoos. Other Samoans may criticize me for trying to explain its meaning to foreigners.

I am also aware of the burden of providing the wrong impression of Samoa so I take my time to answer things. Just because I am from Samoa, I am not an expert on every aspect of it and it’s important to me that I not offer expertise on all things Samoan simply on the basis of living there.”

That Aiga felt comfortable enough to share her concerns speaks volumes of the openness and sense of security offered by the rest of the Oceania team.  

Etta Grotrian, the project leader, comes across as someone sincerely dedicated to change. In her words: European museums cannot continue to take the role of explaining how the world works on the basis of objects collected under colonialism. 

She would like the afterlife of this project to be people discussing what the purpose of museums should be in future along with putting a much greater focus on how to provide access to collections to people who can’t physically come into the museum. Etta said that she thought the future of museums was for them to be in a dialogue with the rest of the world. As she says, “I think the afterlife of this project would be to encourage a dialogue about museum collections, about museums as colonial projects, a dialogue. I believe it will help us define the future of museums.”

“The attitude of starting something without having a clear idea of where it would go was a crucial part of the process. We came to Oceania Digital with minds open to any possibilities.”

I contrasted this with the way in which I had experienced the culture industry – in my case publishing – engaging with diversity and I increasingly believe that looking for the certainty of a solution might in itself be the problem. What I have come to consider following my conversations with Oceania Digital is that the Übersee-Museum makes the space for a workplace culture whereby one can say ‘we know something is the matter but we’re not entirely sure what to do about it.’ As Museum Director Wiebke Ahrndt puts it: “The attitude of starting something without having a clear idea of where it would go was a crucial part of the process. We came to Oceania Digital with minds open to any possibilities.” 

Another radical element of the blue continent project was the transparency of the process, to the extent that the process itself became the basis for the exhibition: As per Etta, The digital experience was becoming an exhibition on what we learned and our process and not an exhibition on the things we know about Oceania.” 

Does this mean that good intentions and a spirit of adventure ensure that a project will run smoothly from the get go? Franziska Mucha, an external museum practitioner who joined the project early on found that the newness of uncertainty, of discovery could also be experienced as daunting.  

As she says: “I learned that the fear of new processes for many team members meant a sort of paralysis – not knowing where they were headed made them feel like they couldn’t do anything at all. The more open your process is, the more disciplined your routine has to be. Trust the process!” 

I found this fear was experienced less by senior staff who understand that ‘mistakes’ are how data is gathered and how a solution is reached, as per Michael Stiller:  “Within this project we are on a voyage and no one knows the way at the beginning.”

We live in a post-colonial world which cannot be undone, there is no return to Eden, I know this at a visceral level coming from Pakistan, a country created as a direct result of the British Raj. Perhaps the only answer is being able to talk about it. It’s almost amusingly ironic that the recent thirst for inclusivity hasn’t thought to include more voices, and that strategies are still being drawn up by people at the top who’ve always belonged to this world. Even in this, they cut us out. Honest communication is only possible when the Western professionals who have traditionally been at the top of the ladder in any exchange are willing to relinquish some of that power. The Übersee-Museum is proof that this can be done and furthermore that it is both in ethical but also practical terms a way forward for all cultural bodies who wish to maintain their relevance, grow their market, and to learn.