The past 25 years has seen the rapid growth of memorial museums, cultural organisations that represent, research, educate and commemorate violent histories. Memorials to both world wars and the Holocaust were the forerunners.
Events now institutionally recognised include conflicts in Armenia, Rwanda, Cambodia, China and the Balkans, apartheid in South Africa, terrorism in the US, state repression in Eastern Europe, and the "disappearances" in Argentina and Chile.
In this thorough book, Paul Williams, an assistant professor in museums studies at New York University, analyses their rise, raises important questions and considers their social significance. Although much has been published on such museums, there is little scholarship on their development.
Memorial Museums is the first attempt to map a field of study, pulling together disparate literature and creating a work that will be a benchmark for future research.
The central and convincing argument is that these institutions warrant specific study. They are different to other kinds of museums for various important reasons.
They do not aim to display the best or the beautiful, but the worst and most traumatic; they are directly implicated in high-profile controversies; they are often aligned with truth and reconciliation commissions and human rights organisations; they hold a weighty moral pedagogy; and visitors may have a direct relationship to the event.
Memorial museums play a major role in shaping our interpretation of the past, the present and the future.
The book starts inside and works outwards. Chapter one interrogates the object. What can instruments of violence or items from domestic life elucidate?
Thoughts on a simple pinball machine in Taipei's 2-28 Memorial Museum, made from wood, nails and bottle tops, show how visitors can engage with everyday artefacts that do not seem to be part of the terror.
Nonetheless, turning an item that had a particular use into something meaningful may result in the loss of intimate knowledge, Williams ventures. "Was that gun exhibited in the display case fired in fear or in anger?" The determining moral framework may compress the answer and lead to objects overloaded with significance.
In a separate chapter, Williams looks at the difficulties in attributing certain capacities to historical photographs, such as their ability to record faithfully and aid mourning. He reflects on displaying photos taken by perpetrators, considering whether the display reinforces their actions, and considers the impact on those depicted.
In pursuing such questions, the complications of using this material are drawn out, including a discussion on human remains and the paradoxes of spontaneous memorials.
Williams then turns to the buildings and the places they occupy. Space and spatial effects are "routinely neglected within museums studies". A good point, especially given the site-specific nature of many, often built on or around the event they mark.
The architecture may intentionally evoke emotional and physical responses in the visitor, triggering a different kind of anxiety to that of the exclusion usually discussed in the museological literature.
Subsequent chapters engage with larger critical concepts. Who benefits and what are the influences of such institutions on history and memory?
Williams argues they are more than a byproduct of politics, but are now "centre stage" in shaping awareness about past events and
a vision of the future. There is a considered discussion about the contradictory impacts on the public, including mediations on identity and victim politics.
While Williams identifies memorial museums as a result of political interests, there is less reflection on why contemporary elites manoeuvre these pasts in this way. Further thought should address such interests.
This limitation is minor considering the strengths of the book. Memorial Museums will be of interest to scholars across the disciplines and practitioners in all cultural organisations.
Tiffany Jenkins is the director of the arts and society programme at the Institute of Ideas
Events now institutionally recognised include conflicts in Armenia, Rwanda, Cambodia, China and the Balkans, apartheid in South Africa, terrorism in the US, state repression in Eastern Europe, and the "disappearances" in Argentina and Chile.
In this thorough book, Paul Williams, an assistant professor in museums studies at New York University, analyses their rise, raises important questions and considers their social significance. Although much has been published on such museums, there is little scholarship on their development.
Memorial Museums is the first attempt to map a field of study, pulling together disparate literature and creating a work that will be a benchmark for future research.
The central and convincing argument is that these institutions warrant specific study. They are different to other kinds of museums for various important reasons.
They do not aim to display the best or the beautiful, but the worst and most traumatic; they are directly implicated in high-profile controversies; they are often aligned with truth and reconciliation commissions and human rights organisations; they hold a weighty moral pedagogy; and visitors may have a direct relationship to the event.
Memorial museums play a major role in shaping our interpretation of the past, the present and the future.
The book starts inside and works outwards. Chapter one interrogates the object. What can instruments of violence or items from domestic life elucidate?
Thoughts on a simple pinball machine in Taipei's 2-28 Memorial Museum, made from wood, nails and bottle tops, show how visitors can engage with everyday artefacts that do not seem to be part of the terror.
Nonetheless, turning an item that had a particular use into something meaningful may result in the loss of intimate knowledge, Williams ventures. "Was that gun exhibited in the display case fired in fear or in anger?" The determining moral framework may compress the answer and lead to objects overloaded with significance.
In a separate chapter, Williams looks at the difficulties in attributing certain capacities to historical photographs, such as their ability to record faithfully and aid mourning. He reflects on displaying photos taken by perpetrators, considering whether the display reinforces their actions, and considers the impact on those depicted.
In pursuing such questions, the complications of using this material are drawn out, including a discussion on human remains and the paradoxes of spontaneous memorials.
Williams then turns to the buildings and the places they occupy. Space and spatial effects are "routinely neglected within museums studies". A good point, especially given the site-specific nature of many, often built on or around the event they mark.
The architecture may intentionally evoke emotional and physical responses in the visitor, triggering a different kind of anxiety to that of the exclusion usually discussed in the museological literature.
Subsequent chapters engage with larger critical concepts. Who benefits and what are the influences of such institutions on history and memory?
Williams argues they are more than a byproduct of politics, but are now "centre stage" in shaping awareness about past events and
a vision of the future. There is a considered discussion about the contradictory impacts on the public, including mediations on identity and victim politics.
While Williams identifies memorial museums as a result of political interests, there is less reflection on why contemporary elites manoeuvre these pasts in this way. Further thought should address such interests.
This limitation is minor considering the strengths of the book. Memorial Museums will be of interest to scholars across the disciplines and practitioners in all cultural organisations.
Tiffany Jenkins is the director of the arts and society programme at the Institute of Ideas
Paul Williams, Berg, £19.99
ISBN 978 1 84520 488 1
ISBN 978 1 84520 488 1
