Reclaiming history

The Great Court

Over the last two decades, major museums have presented themselves as increasingly inclusive. However, visual exploration suggests they have shored up white, heteronormative, masculinist neo-liberal claims. For instance, in the British Museum’s Great Court the architectonic stages the old imperial order as the foundation for new capital, with the Reading Room covered with over 60 patrons’ names. The court’s support for its donors and patrons comes at the expense of other legacies. Below, I look at a couple of the issues created by the British Museum’s narrowing of its gaze.

Anne Damer

A likeness of the sculptor Anne Seymour Damer sat in the BM’s front hall for more than a hundred years, greeting museum visitors. As a queer historic figure, or ‘ghost like us’, she encouraged recognition and a sense of ‘sexual community’ (Oram 2011, 192–193). In Damer’s place, we are now met by the Weston Family name. The Westons’ paid for the BM’s refurbishment of its entrance through the Garfield Weston Foundation. Their use of the family name, blurs their ancestral relationship with Garfield Weston who has been described as Canada’s leading investor in South Africa during apartheid (Legge, Pratt, Williams and Winsor 1970, 381). Damer tacitly supported imperialism, so this is not a call to trade the Westons’ name for hers. Rather,  her positioning at the museum door (as a queer, woman artist) provides evidence of a more heterodox museum past than we have in the age of late capital.

Library

The BM used to support long-term engagement through the Reading Room library. Here female, queer and black participants, including activists, conversed and created for 140 years. Then in 1997 its books were moved to the British Library and this shared practice ended.

In 2024, the Reading Room reopened with printed information boards about some of its famous users: Marcus Garvey, Karl Mark, Sun Yat-sen, Virginia Woolf, Mohandas Gandhi, Sylvia Pankhurst and Beatrix Potter. This information brings museum history into view. However, the library is inaccessible beyond its front entrance and visitors are not invited to use it for creative, political or transgressive ends. One might question what the museum would look like if this were made possible.

I discuss these themes in Reclaiming History in the British Museum Entranceway: Imperialism, patronage and female, queer and black legacies 2023.

References
Legge, G., C. Pratt, R. Williams, and H. Winsor. 1970. “The Black Paper: An Alternative Policy for Canada Towards Southern Africa.” Canadian Journal of African Studies/Revue Canadienne Des Études Africaines 4 (3): 363–394. doi:10.2307/484068.
Oram, A. 2011. “Going on an Outing: The Historic House and Queer Public History.” Rethinking History 15 (2): 189–207. doi:10.1080/13642529.2011.564816.