ABSTRACT
What constitutes museum experts’ foundational knowledge and presumptions about the Cold War? This chapter builds on ethnographic curiosity about colour in museum settings to answer this question. Colours are a useful lens onto personal and institutional perceptions as well as preconceptions. The act of being asked to call a colour to mind that represented the past was an important indicator of how professionals envisaged the Cold War in museums – infused with cultural references, nostalgia, highly specialised knowledge and sometimes personal memories. The chapter argues that given that the public space of a museum is always coloured, one way or another, and given that we all recognise the symbolic attributes of colour, a consideration of how it informs collections, displays and institutional narratives of the Cold War can enhance museum practice.
