CONFERENCE DOCUMENTATION / MUSEUM WHY? PRACTICE, AGENCY AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE ART MUSEUM (ENG)

INSTITUTIONS OF RESISTANCE
Presentations by Lara Khaldi and Rebeka Polsdam followed by a conversation with Line Ellegaard. Panel convened by Museum Why? partner institutions.

This panel takes up urgent questions related to institutional positionality and reimagining in times of settler colonialism and war. Museums are not neutral, as numerous critical and activist voices across art and culture have continuously insisted (some recent examples include La Tanya Autry and Mike Murawski 2019; Shimrit Lee 2022; Raicovich 2022). On one hand, art museums must come to terms with the colonial entanglement and Eurocentric dominance on which their genealogy rests. On the other hand, museums are increasingly called upon to act and work for social change in the present. But how do institutions take responsible action and safeguard artistic expression in an increasingly polarised world? How might the museum be reimagined through the notion of resistance? Responding to the panel’s thematic focus on ‘Institutions of Resistance’ Lara Khaldi, curator and artist from Palestine and currently artistic director of de Appel, Amsterdam, and Rebeka Põldsam, Estonian curator and research fellow at University of Tartu, will address how art institutions can challenge power structures and suggest possibilities for action in our changing world, with a particular focus on violent conflicts like the ones between Israel/ Hamas and Russia/Ukraine. Each panelist will speak from their specifically situated context to discuss questions such as: How can art institutions respond to urgent political and cultural debates? In what ways can they navigate and act in times of conflict? How can institutions work actively towards redistributing resources and challenge structures that serve powerful interest? And how should they participate in changing discourses of nation states and the non-normative?