BY COVERING the high steel fence that briefly surrounded the White House this month with slogans, messages and the portraits and names of black Americans killed by police, protesters transformed it into a tableau of anger and grief. Before the barrier was taken down, they carefully moved the signs onto a nearby wall in the newly named "Black Lives Matter Plaza". Washington's Smithsonian museums are now taking preservation efforts a step further. Curators from two institutions on the Mall-the National Museum of African-American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and the National Museum of American History-along with the Anacostia Community Museum, in the city's predominantly black south-east, are working together to collect remnants of the biggest protests seen in America in half a century. The venture reflects an increasing enthusiasm among museums for "rapid-response collecting": gathering artefacts as big moments unfold.
展开▼
