Who owns a cultural object? Who has the right to determine cultural values? And how can public institutions best exercise cultural responsibility?
It's a timely set of questions as we consider the implications of the National Gallery of Australia's return of ancient Indian sculptures. Or the British Museum's refusal to return Indigenous objects. Or American author Lionel Shriver's (pictured) rejection of minority cultural identities while hoping that the social rejection of cultural appropriation is a 'passing fad'. Each of these events unleashes complex, painful consequences that can undermine cultural value or cultural safety.
Like many museums around the world who constantly negotiate colonial appropriations and contemporary deceptions, the National Gallery of Australia has been troubled in recent years by the problem of provenance.
In 2014, the NGA's $5m Shiva Nataraja was found to have been stolen, and former director Ron Radford strenuously defended the institution's due diligence processes. Earlier this year, two further objects, Goddess Pratyangira and Worshippers of the Buddha, have been identified as part of a smuggling operation, their documentation falsified and the conditions of their creation disputed.
'This new evidence means the NGA cannot legally or ethically retain these works,' director of the National Gallery of Australia, Gerard Vaughan, told the ABC. 'Returning them to India is unquestionably the right thing to do.'
In each case, an object acquired on the basis of its cultural value has been found to have no such value. And while public institutions exist to uphold such values, determining those values is a complex matter — as is the right to determine them.
Vaughan's statement of a clear ethical position makes a stark contrast to the position taken by the most infamous of the world's public institutions in this regard: the British Museum. As Gary Foley reminded a full house at the Greek Centre last year, the British Museum still has many significant Australian Indigenous works and cultural objects, including the skull of Bidjigal warrior Pemulwuy.
When Foley and the Dja Dja Wurrung evoked the right to repatriate rare works of Victorian Aboriginal bark art on loan to Melbourne Museum in 2003, the Victorian government changed the law, allowing the works to return to the British Museum.
"Telling stories that are not ours to tell denies people the platform, the voice and the right to tell their own stories. Exhibiting objects that are not ours to show denies people the possibility, the place and the right to present their own histories."
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