Curating conflict: political violence in museums, memorials, and exhibitions

摘要

Amidst the protest movements sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hand of police officers in Minneapolis in May 2020, anti-racist demonstrators have taken over prominent statues evoking people and systems that supported the enslavement of people of colour. In Richmond, Virginia, the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee became a site of confrontations between protesters and the police (Schneider 2020). Imposing themselves as co-curators of the statue, protesters covered the imposing pedestal in colourful slogans, drawings, and homemade memorials to African-Americans killed by the police. After June 4th, when Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced the removal of the statue, protesters continued to actively re-interpret what the site stood for. Pointedly, on June 5th, two young African-American ballerinas posed at the foot of the memorial in pointe shoes, black leotards and skirts, and with raised fists. The photographs that captured the moment exclude Lee from the frame, focusing on the dancers and the graffiti. The moment was acclaimed as 'a confluence of creative expression and black empowerment' (Shaw 2020). Thanks to such interventions, the site was evolving from one primarily associated with the 'lost cause' of the Confederate States, to make space for the commemoration of black injury and the celebration of black resistance.