A1 Journal article (refereed)
Suomalaisuuden ja toiseuden rajamailla : eksotisointi Gallen-Kallelan Museon Afrikka-kokoelman näyttelyhistoriassa (2020)

Turunen, J., & Viita-aho, M. (2020). Suomalaisuuden ja toiseuden rajamailla : eksotisointi Gallen-Kallelan Museon Afrikka-kokoelman näyttelyhistoriassa. Historiallinen aikakauskirja, 118(4), 466-480.

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Turunen, Johanna; Viita-aho, Mari

Journal or series: Historiallinen aikakauskirja

ISSN: 0018-2362

eISSN: 2489-6969

Publication year: 2020

Volume: 118

Issue number: 4

Pages range: 466-480

Publisher: Suomen historiallinen seura ry

Publication country: Finland

Publication language: Finnish

Publication open access: Not open

Publication channel open access: 

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/88436

Abstract

Museums have historically played a central role in the formation of national imaginaries and national identity. As a part of this national project, museums have actively participated in the (re)production of otherness through exhibiting colonial imagery and artefacts. This article scrutinizes the Gallen-Kallela Museum’s Africa collection’s exhibition history from a colonial perspective, and elaborates how this particular museum has exhibited the collection and communicated about the collection’s colonial entanglements to the public. Through critical analysis of exhibitions from four decades (the years 1972, 1987, 1993 and 2003) we investigate what kind of a role the Gallen-Kallela Museum has played as a producer of colonial knowledge. The data includes different exhibition documentation from the museums’s archive and media publications related to the exhibitions. By focusing on the agency of the museums, we analyse how exoticism is used in the exhibitions in different decades and how these exhibitionary discourses develop over time. We argue that explicit focus on the processes of knowledge production around colonial collections can enable making the intangible heritage of colonialism visible. Addressing power hierarchies and embedded colonial ideologies is the first step in starting to overcome the colonial legacies entangled in these collections.

Keywords: museums; exhibition activity; exhibitions; history; colonialism; exoticism; otherness; valuation; difficult heritage

Free keywords: exhibition history; artefact review; exotism; colonialism; the Gallen-Kallela Museum; Africa

Contributing organizations

Ministry reporting: Yes

VIRTA submission year: 2020

JUFO rating: 2