In Kenneth Clark’s 1969 Civilisation series, viewers were hardly ever taken outside Europe. It was a classic piece of television, and I was one of thousands of people whose eyes were opened by it. But he made only one brief trip across the Atlantic and, even in Europe, never got to Spain.
In producing a new version of this series (a dialogue with Clark, rather than a strict “remake”), the BBC team has taken a proudly international and multicultural view. We introduce viewers to mosques in Istanbul, the terracotta warriors in China, Indian miniatures and African bronzes, as well as Ely cathedral, French impressionism and the paintings of the Florentine Renaissance.
The title of the original series has been significantly changed by the addition of an “s”. It has become plural, “Civilisations”, to dispel any sense that there is just one version of civilisation – namely our own. In the new series, civilisation is an idea that is contested (even between the different presenters) and has very ragged edges. And there is certainly more than one of them. “One person’s barbarity is another’s civilisation,” has become my motto.
There is an overlap between this television project and the modern museum, in terms of achievements and problems. It is not only intellectually correct to celebrate a much wider range of cultures, it is also visually and culturally exciting, and opens the eyes even more widely than Clark did.
But there is more to diversity (and more complexities) than simply putting a wider range of cultures on display, important as this is. When we were making the new Civilisations, I did wonder whether having an elderly white lady (that’s me!) claim to be an authoritative guide to the world’s diverse cultures was in some ways almost as ethnocentric as Clark’s euro-focus.
And there are difficult issues over the politics of display. There is always a fine line between objectification and admiration. To put an 18th-century snuffbox under a museum spotlight, or in front of a television camera, is different from putting a South African textile there. Issues of power, hierarchy and empire regularly get in the way of how we look. But we can, I hope, learn to resist those issues (without ignoring them).
I remember a discussion more than 10 years ago that took place in the ethnographic gallery of the Manchester Museum about the restitution of the Elgin marbles. In the middle of all the fine words about repatriation, a Nigerian woman got up and said that when she saw objects from her own culture in a museum case here she felt proud that visitors were being encouraged to look at them and take them seriously.
I took her words with me when we were making Civilisations.
Mary Beard is a historian and one of three presenters of the BBC Civilisations television series.
The first episode of Civilisations will air on BBC Two on 1 March. The Civilisations Festival takes place from 2-11 March and comprises events at more than 250 museums, galleries, libraries and archives across the UK.
In producing a new version of this series (a dialogue with Clark, rather than a strict “remake”), the BBC team has taken a proudly international and multicultural view. We introduce viewers to mosques in Istanbul, the terracotta warriors in China, Indian miniatures and African bronzes, as well as Ely cathedral, French impressionism and the paintings of the Florentine Renaissance.
The title of the original series has been significantly changed by the addition of an “s”. It has become plural, “Civilisations”, to dispel any sense that there is just one version of civilisation – namely our own. In the new series, civilisation is an idea that is contested (even between the different presenters) and has very ragged edges. And there is certainly more than one of them. “One person’s barbarity is another’s civilisation,” has become my motto.
There is an overlap between this television project and the modern museum, in terms of achievements and problems. It is not only intellectually correct to celebrate a much wider range of cultures, it is also visually and culturally exciting, and opens the eyes even more widely than Clark did.
But there is more to diversity (and more complexities) than simply putting a wider range of cultures on display, important as this is. When we were making the new Civilisations, I did wonder whether having an elderly white lady (that’s me!) claim to be an authoritative guide to the world’s diverse cultures was in some ways almost as ethnocentric as Clark’s euro-focus.
And there are difficult issues over the politics of display. There is always a fine line between objectification and admiration. To put an 18th-century snuffbox under a museum spotlight, or in front of a television camera, is different from putting a South African textile there. Issues of power, hierarchy and empire regularly get in the way of how we look. But we can, I hope, learn to resist those issues (without ignoring them).
I remember a discussion more than 10 years ago that took place in the ethnographic gallery of the Manchester Museum about the restitution of the Elgin marbles. In the middle of all the fine words about repatriation, a Nigerian woman got up and said that when she saw objects from her own culture in a museum case here she felt proud that visitors were being encouraged to look at them and take them seriously.
I took her words with me when we were making Civilisations.
Mary Beard is a historian and one of three presenters of the BBC Civilisations television series.
The first episode of Civilisations will air on BBC Two on 1 March. The Civilisations Festival takes place from 2-11 March and comprises events at more than 250 museums, galleries, libraries and archives across the UK.
