Museums are taking on this important work to try to make their museums reflect the diversity and the voices of the people within their collections and around them. Many museums have legacies rooted in colonialism; their collections were from wealthy donors who benefited from empires.
Part of the issue is how museums treat indigenous and other minorities in their collections. In his MuseumNext talk, Jérémie Michael McGowan, director of Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum in Tromsø, Norway, explained that indigenous works tended to be in ethnographic museums, not art museums. This distinction helps to perpetuate the idea that these cultures are no longer living and continuing their traditions. These community engagements work to fight against that sentiment and try to show the resiliency of cultures and traditions.
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