"You should never think about the pot independent of those who might gather with it. A thing without people is not really a thing."
Theaster Gates
Theaster Gates
Differing perspectives and multiple potential narratives percolated to the surface throughout the exhibition development process for Liberia at Play and influenced curatorial choices. While not contentious, these perspectives were in tension with one another, revealing to me the very specific way in which exhibition narratives are shaped by the individuals and institutions present in their production.
Gathered largely from rural villages in Liberia during the 1960's, the collection was, for the most part, everyday items for a village in Liberia: strip woven cloth and clothing, simple wooden stools, musical instruments, masks, baskets, animal skins, medicine bags and ritual items, scarification tools and tourist market items. Would the display of masks and ritual objects in the collection have a negative exoticizing effect in the eyes of viewers? Was the display of animal skins out of the question for a family museum? How would the audience judge the collection and should the curator try to control their perception? The project was further complicated by the concurrent Liberian outbreak of Ebola in the summer and fall of 2014. The local Liberian community, invited to consult on the collection and exhibition, was anxious to positively display a Liberia that was competent and modern - somewhat antithetical (from a subjective Western point-of-view) to the unrefined village objects in the 1960's collection. Never mind Liberia's history as an American colony of formerly enslaved people; a history that is fraught with its own contradictions and the source of civil tensions that remain in Liberia today.
The negative view that many in the Liberian community held toward what they considered to be back country objects could also be interpreted as one influenced by their assimilation into a westernized, Christian cultural ethos. I believe this ethos also influenced the perspective of an exhibition designer who expressed little faith in viewers' facility for open-minded discernment. The museum, for its part, wanted an engaging, uncomplicated narrative that would appeal to its largely pre-literate audience, if not the adult companions of that audience. In the final exhibition, which was delayed until 2015 when the Ebola crisis in West Africa had abated, animal skins, masks, ritual objects and Liberian history were eschewed over objects from daily life that children could relate to and images of contemporary Liberian children.
This experience made it clear that the intentions and perspectives of participants, and their relations - which included the non-human actor of the museum - greatly influence exhibition narratives, content and interpretation.
