ABSTRACT
‘Where are we now?’ both a simple question, calling for a simple answer, and a provocation inquiring into the location – ‘where’ – of a social body – ‘we’ – at a given moment – ‘now.’ As a conceptual line of inquiry, the provocation raises a number of philosophical concerns, especially when asked within the colonial museum, where the positioning of a social body within this time-space creates another by implication. Rooted in Enlightenment philosophy, this othering serves as a form of racialised aggression; whereby anything/being that is not White or Western is ethnicised, fetishised, and presented as less-than-human for spectacular consumption. This short case study will reflect on the curatorial practice of Clémentine Deliss. Specifically, her ‘path-breaking’ exhibition Object Atlas: Fieldwork in the Museum, held at the Weltkulturen Museum (Frankfurt) in 2012. Rather than providing an art-historical examination of this exhibition, this case study will critically examine the conceptual work behind Deliss’ notion of the post-ethnographic museum: a museum whose collections research uses reflexive and creative methods to critically examine its history and status as a monument to colonial violence.
