How could we expand from the care for objects to the respect for people? From the care for collections to the respect for communities and nature? From the care for the objects' materiality to the conditions of those making the objects? How could we move from a notion of object possession to shared ownership, from locations to transits, from a history of power to one justice? Could a collection of "Stolen Objects Stories", collectively created, contribute a move towards more caring communities, a new way of living with others and reparative futures?
25 March - Friday 5.45 - 8:00 pm
5.45
- 6:00 pm
Babel - Cultural Organization
China, Macau
6:00-6:45pm
ABSTRACT
The presentation explores the case of a stolen 1,000-year-old Buddhist mummy, known as the statue of Zhanggong-zushi, which caught the attention of the international community. The statue of Zhanggong-zushi is the embodiment of God in the eyes of the locals, and the treatment of human remains is controversial and sensitive. This case opens a discussion as to how Western courts should consider religious interests in the disputes of stolen cultural property. It is very important for the art world to understand how locals feel about the loss of their culture or religion.
6:45-7:30pm
Stolen Objects from China: The Histories
and Biographies of Yuanmingyuan (‘Summer Palace’) Collections in British and
French Museums
Louise Tythacott,
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
United
Kingdom, London
This paper will explore the lives of objects stolen from China’s Yuanmingyuan, or old ‘Summer Palace’, to the northwest of Beijing. Initiated by the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662-1722) in the early 18th century, the site was developed by his grandson, the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-1795). At around 350 hectares, it included thousands of buildings across a vast landscape: it also housed China’s imperial art collections – paintings, calligraphy, porcelain, bronzes, textiles and cloisonné.
In
October 1860, at the culmination of the Second Opium War, British and French
regiments looted the buildings in the Yuanmingyuan. British troops then
proceeded to burn the entire site. This widespread destruction of China’s most
important complex of palaces, and the dispersal of the imperial art collection,
is considered one of the worst acts of cultural vandalism of the 19th century.
Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of objects are estimated to have been
stolen from the Yuanmingyuan, many of these are now scattered around the world,
in private collections and public museums.
This
paper will analyze the biographies of objects from the Yuanmingyuan in UK and
French museums. It will focus on military officers involved in the looting –
men such as Elgin, Grant, Gordon, Wolseley, Crealock, Montauban and Negroni -
and will document the trajectories of the material they brought back with them
to both Britain and France. Some of the pieces were displayed at major public
exhibitions (the 1862 International Exhibition and the Crystal Palace in
London), while other artifacts were donated or bequeathed to museums in the
late 19th-early 20th century. The talk will also explore the role of the art
market - especially Christie’s, Sotheby’s, but also smaller provincial auction
houses - in promoting the collecting of ‘Summer Palace’ loot, and the shifting
interpretations given to this material from the late 19th century onwards. Once
relocated to the UK and France, ‘Summer Palace’ material was transformed and
reformed to fit the aesthetics and tastes of the time, and the talk thus
explores the distinctive meanings and values attributed to Yuanmingyuan
artifacts by a range of British and French collectors.
7:30 pm -8:00 pm - Q&A
5:45–6:30
pm
ABSTRACT
Since the 2000s, more and more artists in Southeast Asia are engaged in research processes inspired by the social sciences, working as historians, archivists, archaeologists or sociologists, yet freely applying the methodologies of work of these disciplines. The outcome of the artists’ research is exhibited as an artwork and not presented in a written and academic format. Still, these artistic “incursions” into academic fields are challenging the established system of knowledge production and in particular its domination by local authoritative discourses. Research appears thus as a new strategy to convey legitimacy and value to counter-narratives on social, cultural, historical and political issues, while bringing forth new creative possibilities and innovative epistemological languages. Drawing from extensive fieldwork, I seek to analyze this creative entanglement of academic and artistic research in Southeast Asia, in particular in Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam, and to examine its epistemological significance as a potential new mode of knowledge production.
6:30
- 7:15 pm
The
Arrival and the Otherwise
Riksa Afiaty and Sita Magfira,
Independent
curator and artist
Indonesia,
Yogyakarta / Hungary, Budapest
ABSTRACT
In
2013, the most extensive of the 18,000 Indonesian objects in the Netherlands,
Museum Nusantara (Delft) was looking for a new caretaker. Due to the cutbacks
of the cultural budget under the Rutte government, the museum finally found a
reason to return the collection to the country of origin.
Catarina Simão,
Artist
Lisbon, Portugal
ABSTRACT
The
dimension of storage of information in the archival representation has been at
the core of my artwork since the development of The Mozambique Institute
Project (Reina Sofia Museum, 2014), about the first anti-colonial school built
in the 60’s by the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO). Since then, I started
to deepen the experience of looking into centralized archives - ranging from
the Frelimo's political archive, in Maputo, Mozambique, to the Quai-Branly
Museum Archive, in Paris, France. As for this latter case, it’s where a
collection of objects, documents and photographs come together from successive
French museums founded in the colonial era (Trocadero Museum, Musée de L’Homme
and Museum of Arts of Africa and Oceania). A specific refinement of the gaze,
in this archive, is simply due to the accumulation of visual reports on a same
object along the time, allowing a comparative view - for instance, series of
records capturing different settings of one same African objet, in order to
capitalize its value, according to favorable interpretation of its “presence”
in Europe. If the archive offers elements that one cannot see by looking at
that object live, it’s because the evaluation usually has to be done in the
light of the present time. The paradox comes from realizing that while the
exhibition space is organized geographically and strives on telling the story
of the African object in its "original place”, the archive is organically
telling the European story of that same African object. Infinity of nuances and
realities are obscured by the very “coherence” that emanates from materiality.
The very persistence of the sources blinds us to the need to imagine beyond the
construction of reality by history. Using examples of my recent work in
Mozambique and Europe, my presentation will favor the idea of a visual record
without center, yet in which connections take place critically, categories are
seen as forces that act in the object - regardless of its absence. This
practice meant to displace the indexical nature out of its pretended
neutrality, as so to allow thinking records retroactively anew as fostering
technology for concepts as “authenticity”, “coloniality”, “nationalism” or
“socialism”.
27th
March - Sunday 5.45 - 8:00 pm
Marian
Pastor Roces,
Philippines,
Manila
ABSTRACT
The paper is in two parts. The first goes into considerable grain about the Philippines and the dispersal of much of its traditional material culture. The second part considers this topic abstractly.
The Spanish colonial imperative from its outset in the Philippines, from 1571, was religious conversation as much as imperialist resource extraction. Administrative statistics for a few centuries included the harvest of almas, souls, in tallying success. The same system prevailed in the entire Hispanic world. However, the Philippines today remains in the thrall of the particular Spanish Medieval Catholicism that the conquered population (at least nominally) accepted. This virulent strain of Christianity drives unapologetic Islamophobia that has led to a 50 year secessionist war; an insidious racism pervading social organization and politics; and cultural infrastructure that in large measure, to this day, is unknowing of elevated measures of quality in the cultural production of previous centuries. The dispersal of Philippine cultural material to museum and private collections in different parts of the world is simultaneously a massive history and metaphysical conundrum, which the paper will synthesize in a political critique. Specifically, that these materials remain obscure or are totally unknown to the majority of Filipinos is a major omission of the country's cultural institutions. This lack of work, except for a few projects through a century, in itself exposes cultural institutions as neocolonial to a remarkable degree in the Philippines. The vacant space in the nation's cultural memory is the "soul" of the title. The steal did not transpire in a legal domain, but at the level of a collective imagination.
The
turn to abstract registers in the second part of the paper pivots on
considerations of materiality and the imagination. This half does not draw
insights from the Philippine information presented, instead taking the
discussion into the emergence of civil society as a global cultural force that
preserves a missionary spirit; and the non-government organizations that
inadvertently appropriate the role of representation of indigenous peoples.
Self-empowerment projects initiated among marginalized peoples, with an
evangelical spirit (in both religious and secular senses), normatively
organizes communities to pale and degraded versions of the kind of cultural
material inaccessible or unknown to most parties involved. Governments,
operating similar enterprises for similar beneficiaries, "upscale"
and homogenize these efforts. In development circles, the operative word is
"livelihood" projects, often involving "crafts" that are
eroded versions of exquisite materials hidden from view. In art historical and
museological circles -- which have very little contact with development workers
-- the momentum is towards further exclusivity. Instead of reaching for a
resolution or a set of recommendations, the paper articulates a position on the
evangelical spirit; its corrupting force on culture and politics; and
disappearance of traditional material culture in the impact zone of this
quasi-religious force.
6:30
- 7:15 pm
Can Museums Preserve Our Stories?
Naman P. Ahuja
Professor
& Dean, School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharial Nehru University.
India,
Delhi
While
the decolonization of museums has become a fashionable phrase, Prof. Ahuja
argues that its defining parameters may be offering too little too late for the
‘developing’ world. Inequities of gender, caste, environmental degradation,
ruthless urbanization and other burning issues need urgent attention in those
countries which cannot be addressed by ‘decolonisation’ or ‘repatriation’
alone. Through his curatorial work and publications, he has tried to move the
conversation beyond the ownership of objects to focus instead on the sharing of
knowledge and the capacity building of the countries that lack a vibrant museum
sector. His critiques of the limitations and even counterproductive nature of
the 1972 UNESCO regulation prohibiting the illegal trafficking of antiquities,
have brought attention to the systemic and real problems faced by poor, “asset
rich” source countries like India. The third issue he addresses is with regard
to the larger question of the rights over artifacts: can a nation state which
refugees or diasporic communities have fled still make a rightful claim to
their artifacts? In his most recent publication on museum futures, he makes a
case that it is not just objects that are stolen but even the stories that
objects enable. Many stories in fact, are simply lost for lack of care. He
urges the museum to grow into an institution that preserves not just objects
but the many narratives they enable. In his talk, Prof. Ahuja will provide a
few case studies to illuminate how he has addressed these issues in his
curatorial practice.
7:15-8:00pm
The
history of public spaces in Mozambique: between written archives and oral
memories
Maria
Paula Meneses,
Coordinating
researcher at the Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra.
Coimbra,
Portugal / Mozambique, Maputo
ABSTRACT
At a
time when the history of public spaces has become a challenge to official
historiographies, this presentation, centered on the city of Maputo,
Mozambique, examines the political projects that have spurred the
decolonization of the urban landscape. Based on the analysis of changes in
toponymy and public monuments in the last four decades, this article seeks to
reflect on the politics of memory and representation: the ways in which a
particular version of a historical event and its agents is celebrated and
maintained for posterity. In this context, several questions arise: since the
streets are a public space, who owns the 'heritage' that is being commemorated?
Who evokes this 'heritage' as synonymous with a national community? What
historical silencing are taking place? How can changes in historical or
political processes transform the ways in which we experience history in public
spaces?
8:00-8:30
pm - Q&A
BIOGRAPHIES
Dr. Zuozhen Liu is an Associate Professor of Law at Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences (GDASS). Before joining the GDASS, she worked for Jinan University as a post-doc research fellow. She is also a part-time lecturer at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, and a part-time practicing lawyer at DeHeng Law Offices (Guangzhou).
Dr.
Liu ‘s research interests are in the areas of cultural heritage law, the rule
of law, “one country, two systems”, and the politics of identity. She published
in renowned scholarly journals, such as the Hague Journal on the Rule of Law,
International Journal of Cultural Property. Dr. Liu holds a PhD in Art and Law
from the University of Amsterdam. Her doctoral research elaborates on the legal
and ethical issues of looted and stolen cultural objects from China between the
late Qing dynasty and the foundation of PRC. Her research has been published in
the book The Case for Repatriating China’s Cultural Objects (Springer, 2016).
She has been participating in several projects, providing suggestions to local
governments on business environment, cooperation between Guangdong and China’s
two special administrative regions, and etc.
Louise
Tythacott is Professor of Curating and Museology at the School of Oriental and
African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Before joining SOAS, she worked
as Woon Tai Jee Professor of Asian Art at Northumbria University and was the
academic lead for the International Research Centre for the History and Culture
of Nanzhao and Dali Kingdoms. She was formerly Pratapaditya Pal Senior
Lecturer, then Professor, in Curating and Museology of Asian Art at SOAS
(2014-20); Lecturer in Museology at the University of Manchester (2003-14); and
Curator of Asian Collections at National Museums Liverpool (1996-2003). She was
the lead curator for the World Cultures gallery at World Museum Liverpool, with
specific responsibilities for the Asia and Buddhism displays. She has also
worked as curator of a private Burmese textile collection, an Exhibitions
Officer at the Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery & Museums, Brighton, a Managing
Editor of the journal, Museum and Society – and she continues to work on museum
projects and curate exhibitions.
Louise’s research focuses on the collecting and display of Chinese and Buddhist art in museums. She recently co-edited a volume with Panggah Ardiyansyah, Returning Southeast Asia’s Past: Objects, Museums and Restitution (NUS Press, 2020). From 2017-2018, Louise secured a major philanthropic donation to undertake research on the histories of objects looted from China’s Yuanmingyuan in British and French museum collections and is presently completing a monograph on the ‘Summer Palace Diaspora’. Her books include Surrealism and the Exotic (Routledge, 2003); The Lives of Chinese Objects: Buddhism, Imperialism and Display (Berghahn, 2011); Museums and Restitution: New Practices, New Approaches (Ashgate, 2014, co-edited with Kostas Arvanitis); Collecting and Displaying China’s ‘Summer Palace’ in the West: The Yuanmingyuan in Britain and France (Routledge, 2017); and Returning Southeast Asia’s Past: Objects, Museums, and Restitution (NUS Press, 2020 co-edited with Panggah Ardiyansyah).
Louise is an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Asiatic Society, the Royal Anthropological Institute and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Dr.
Caroline Ha Thuc (b.1974 Paris, France) is an independent Hong Kong based art writer,
researcher and curator. Specialized in Asian contemporary art, she contributes
to different magazines such as ArtPress in France and Artomity/Cobo Social in
Hong Kong. As a curator, she focuses on promoting dialogue between artists from
different cultures, while reflecting on social and political contemporary
issues. Ha Thuc holds a Ph.D. from the School of Creative Media, CityU Hong
Kong. Her research deals with artistic modes of knowledge production.
Riksa
Afiaty is an art worker living and working in Yogyakarta. She seeks to
contemplate decoloniality in artistic practice and curatorial framework. She
has been involved in exhibition making in Jakarta, Maastricht, Ljubljana, and
Brussels.
Sita
Magfira is currently an MA student in History in the Public Sphere program, an
Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees program. Prior to that, she worked as an
independent researcher/curator in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She was part of the
Biennale Jogja XV Equator #6 curatorial team, where she worked as the assistant
curator. She is also a member of Lifepatch, a citizen initiative in arts,
science, and technology. Her interests are, but not limited to, oral history,
memory, Socialism and the Third Word, transnational history (particularly on
the connection between Eastern Central Europe and Southeast Asia), de-colonial
studies, and community engaged art practices.
Catarina
Simão is an artist and researcher who lives and works between Maputo and
Lisbon. Her practice is built upon long-term research projects that entail
collaborative partnerships and different forms of presentation to the public.
Simão is known for her essay-like displays, using documentation, writing, video
and drawing. She also engages in radio shows and public talks, participatory
workshops, curating film screenings and publishing.
In Mozambique, Simão develops conditions for an artistic intervention within a social context by collaborating with local associations and institutions. She co-directed a Mozambique TV film called Djambo in 2016 and in 2019 she co-organized together with Oficina de História (Mozambique) the 1st Seminar on Restitution of art and artefacts to Mozambique (CCFM, May 2019). Since February 2020 she is co-editor of “Lutar Por Cabo Delgado”, a facebook page dedicated to composing an archive of filtered information and imagery on the ongoing war in Cabo Delgado, in the North of Mozambique.
Since 2020, Simão has been a member and part of the founding committee of AAVP – Associação de Artistas Visuais em Portugal, the organization for visual artists in Portugal.
Marian
Pastor Roces is an art critic and curator based in Manila. Roces started
writing art criticism in 1974 and since then she has penned numerous articles
about traditional arts, museology, cultural theory, and politics. Her most
recent book Gathering: Political Writing on Art and Culture (2019) is an
anthology of her writings since the 1970s. Starting with her articles penned in
the era of Ferdinand Marcos, Roces has argued that art, culture, and politics
are inseparable.
Roces acted as the director and curator of several museums, including Museo Ng Kalinangang Pilipino (Museum of Philippine Humanities), Museum of a History of Ideas at University of the Philippines, Yuchengco Museum, Museo Marino, and Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Manila, among others. In the 1990s, she worked to create a global inventory of cultural heritage artifacts of the Philippines, which are in private and museum collections outside of the Philippines.
Naman
P. Ahuja is a curator and Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
and Editor, Marg Publications. His studies on Indian art have explored the
aesthetics of Indian visual culture, iconography and transculturalism in
antiquity, as well as the legacy of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the modern
period.
Apart from various research papers, he has authored the following books: Divine Presence: The Art of India and the Himalayas (Casa Asia and Five Continents Editions: Barcelona and Milan, 2003), The Making of the Modern Indian Artist-Craftsman: Devi Prasad (Routledge, 2011), The Body in Indian Art and Thought (Ludion, Antwerp, 2013), The Arts and Interiors of Rashtrapati Bhavan: Lutyens and Beyond (Publications Division, Delhi, 2016), India and the World: a history in nine stories (Delhi: Penguin, 2017) and more recently: The Art & Archaeology of Ancient India, Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, November 2018.
Maria Paula Meneses is coordinating researcher at the Center for Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra. Mozambican, completed her secondary education in Maputo. She obtained his master's degree in history from the University of St. Petersburg (Russia) and a doctorate in anthropology from Rutgers University (USA). She started her scientific career at Eduardo Mondlane University (Maputo) in 1989, and in 2004 she moved as a researcher to CES, where she teaches in several doctoral programs, and is coordinator of the doctoral program in "Postcolonialisms and Global Citizenship ".
Her research interests focus on post-colonial debates in the African context, legal pluralism, the role of official history, memory and other narratives of belonging in contemporary identity processes. As a researcher, she has participated in numerous research projects and is currently conducting research on affective relationships during the nationalist war in Mozambique.
She has published several books and articles, including “Knowledges born in the struggle” (Routledge, with Boaventura de Sousa Santos), and “Mozambique on the Move; challenges and reflection” (Brill, with Sheila Khan and Bjorn Bertelsen). His work is published in several countries, including Mozambique, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Senegal, United States, Argentina, Mexico, England, Germany and Colombia.
Chen
Ruida is currently a PhD candidate in International Law at the China University
of Political Science and Law. His research interests include Private
International Law, Comparative Law and International Cultural Property Law,
focusing on the return and restitution of cultural property lost overseas and
the emergence of a common international norm in the settlement of international
cultural property disputes. His papers in this field are published at
authoritative Chinese journals, e.g., Chinese Review of International Law,
Academic Monthly. He was also an intern at the National Cultural Heritage
Administration of P.R. China.
Margarida Saraiva is a researcher, curator and educator working in-between Asia and Europe, arts and cultures. She is the founder of BABEL – Cultural Organization, where she has initiated projects like Influxus, New Visions and Macau Architecture Promenade (MAP). Saraiva has curated “Representing Women 19th and 20th Centuries – MAM Collection” and co-curated Women Artists – 1st International Biennale of Macau (China), among others exhibitions and programs. Saraiva was Head of Education at Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (Porto/Portugal), working with Tate Modern and Louisiana Museum of Art and other institutions.
Saraiva is a visiting professor of Museum Management, Exhibition Design and Research Practices at the University of Saint Joseph and Institute of Tourism Studies, both in the Bachelor and Master Degrees in Heritage Management.
Saraiva
is a PhD Student in Philosophy, Art and Critical Thought at the European
Graduate School (Switzerland/ Malta). Holds a Master of Arts in European
Cultural Planning and Policies from De Montfort University, Leicester (UK),
attended a Post-Graduation in Museum Studies (Portugal) and is Licentiate in
History by the Faculty of Humanities of Oporto University.