This week, we’ve been reading ‘The Whole Picture: The colonial story of the art in our museums and why we need to talk about it’ by Alice Procter. Alice Procter is a historian of material culture and the creator of the ‘Uncomfortable Art Tours’, which highlight the stories of imperialism in our national art institutions.
“I do the work I do because I want museums to be better” Procter said in an interview in the Financial Times in May 2020
Procter’s storytelling skills are obvious in the book. Written in an accessible language, the compelling case studies range from the historic to the contemporary.
We learn about the enduring power of Tipu’s Tiger - taken by the East India Company following the killing of the sultan of Mysore at the Battle of Srirangapatna in 1799 - now a visitor favourite at the V&A.
With Kara Walker’s 2014 A Subtlety Or The Marvelous Sugar Baby - we’re asked to confront the array of emotions and uncomfortable reactions the piece triggered - and the part it played in building the artwork’s meaning.
She gives space to the reader to consider complex and thorny issues in an informed and sensitive way, from colonial history and cultural restitution to the display of human remains.
Proctor writes in her book:
“Commemoration is a political act, and it is also a process rather than an end. We have to keep rethinking, keep reframing whom we commemorate and how.”
“You are not being difficult when you ask for a fuller, deeper history. You are a visitor - you have powers - and you can make trouble if you want to.”