Pitt Rivers Museum Is... Intro Case

...can be an instrument of resistance

FIND OUT MORE

...a footprint of colonialism

FIND OUT MORE

The Pitt Rivers Museum is...

...a space of cultural representation

FIND OUT MORE

...not a neutral space

FIND OUT MORE

The Pitt Rivers Museum...

...is a footprint of colonialism

Despite several hundred years of imperialism and colonialism, the mid-20th Century marked a period when many non-European countries freed themselves from formal colonial rule. However, the past is still present, and the invisible structures of colonialism still persist today. These invisible structures, known as coloniality, shape our ideas about race, class, culture, gender, and sexuality. Coloniality divides the world into ‘the West and the rest’ and assigns racial, intellectual and cultural superiority to the West. Coloniality creates and shapes these ideas through three overall processes, by establishing Hierarchies, controlling Knowledge, and imposing White Culture and Place Names.

Find out more about how coloniality can be mapped onto the museum displays

The Pitt Rivers Museum...

...uses labels that oppress

Throughout the Museum’s labels and displays you can still find the legacy of the colonial perspective. The labels use language and imagery that is derogatory, racist and Eurocentric. Often the interpretation in the cases evades the complex and devastating circumstances by which many of the objects were collected or erases the knowledge of the peoples who made them. The floorplan diagram to the right uses a colour key to highlight how widespread the use of problematic language is throughout the Museum’s cases, including four displays marked with dots that you can visit on this virtual tour to find out more.

Find out more about the Labelling Matters project

The Pitt Rivers Museum is...

...a space of cultural representation

In a museum representation matters; as you explore the Pitt Rivers think about the power dynamics and ask yourself four simple questions:

• Who is being seen?
• Who has the power to see?
• Who is being represented?
• Who represents?

The Pitt Rivers Museum is...

...not a neutral space

The history of the Pitt Rivers Museum is tied to British imperial expansion and the colonial mandate to collect and classify objects from all over the world. The processes of colonial ‘collecting’ were often inequitable and even violent towards those peoples being colonised. Many of the objects in the Museum were collected by colonial officers, soldiers, missionaries, researchers and curators who used the British colonial network to acquire objects. The Museum also played a role in educating and preparing colonial officers for their posts in the colonies. For example, in the early twentieth century the Museum acquired 994 Nigerian objects through British colonial officers stationed in Nigeria who had studied for the Diploma in Anthropology at Oxford.

Object in focus:Sculpture of a Colonial Officer

The Pitt Rivers Museum...

Object in focus

In 2003, The story of the sculpture of colonial officer B.J.A. Matthews by a Yoruba artist illustrates the link between empire and the collecting of objects.

Yoruba artist, Sculpture of colonial officer, Nigeria, 1930s 1981.12.1

Listen to find out more

The Pitt Rivers Museum...

...can be a space of resistance

Our hope for the Pitt Rivers Museum is to make space for self-determination and to bring silenced knowledge systems and voices to the centre of museum practice, as a means of resistance against the existing dominant colonial structures. The Museum has been moving towards a more people-focused model of curatorial care by working with both local and international communities to promote self-representation and to question and counteract our historically stereotypical interpretations.

Object in focus: Plastic Buddha

The Pitt Rivers Museum...

Contentious collections

The Museum still holds many contentious collections. Human remains, sacred and looted objects, represent a lot of pain and suffering and their presence in museums can cause ongoing damage to communities today. We have started a collaborative programme of work that researches the composition of the collections with external partners in different countries. We have also started to work towards self-representation and self-determination with various communities to discuss future care and restitution.

View an illustration showing how the museum's collections map onto historical footprint of British Empire

The Pitt Rivers Museum...

Object in focus

In 2003, Tibetan artist Gonkar Gyatso became the Pitt Rivers Museum’s first artist in residence, and his work challenged the Museum’s Eurocentric view on Tibetan culture. His ‘Plastic Buddha’ demonstrates how he reinvents the traditional iconography of Tibetan Buddhism for contemporary purposes. Gyatso provides a commentary on the transformations that have occurred both in Tibetan society, as well as in the wider world, and by doing so breaks the prevailing stereotypes of Tibetan-Buddhism.

Gonkar Gyatso, Plastic Buddha, Oxford, England, 2012 2017.93.1

The Pitt Rivers Museum...

Illustration indicatinghow the largest parts of the museum's collection (pink dots, key top right)overlap with British colonial territories at the height of the British imperialism (territories highlighted in paler colour).

Labelling Matters

This project aims to identify areas of improvement and to trial ways of changing our public texts where derogatory and other problematic language is used, adapt our interpretation for specific cases that contain overly euphemistic or one-sided (Eurocentric) text labels, and identify other problematic visualisations or texts in web-based channels of communication.

Listen to Research Curator Marenka Thompsom-Odlum talk about the Labelling Matters project