A critical investigation into the material heritage and entangled histories of Western encyclopedic museums.
This timely publication brings together a multiplicity of voices and formats to think through some of the most pressing debates around material heritage and museums today. What does it mean to build museums without collections, away from nation-states? What might the testimony of objects and artefacts tell us? How will the dispersal of power and artefacts from western encyclopaedic museums generate new forms of relationships and entangled histories?
The publication includes commissioned essays, interviews, and visual contributions from artists and writers currently exploring the terrain of material heritage, colonial heritage, reparation and museology. It gives room to speculation and imagination in dealing with these histories. The publication stems from and expands on conversations that took place through the group exhibition 'Phantom Limb' at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, 2019.
Edited by Nora Razian.
Texts by Antonia Carver, Nora Razian, Uzma Z. Rizvi, Faustin Linyekula & Omar Berrada, Noah Angell, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung & Alya Sebti, Akram Zaatari, Michael Rakowitz, Pio Abad & Marian Pastor Roces, Jumana Manna, Haytham El Wardany, Gala Porras-Kim, Rand Abdul Jabbar, Dima Srouji, Nora Al-Badri, Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Anahi Alviso-Marino.