Slavery, Memory, and Museum Display in Baltimore: The Great Blacks in Wax and the Reginald F. Lewis
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: This paper meditates upon a conundrum: Can there be a right way to represent the traumatic experience of Atlantic slavery within the context of a museum setting? The analysis deals with the question by focusing on the radically contrasting museological, aesthetic, and ethical codes of the Great Blacks in Wax Museum, and the Reginald Lewis Museum, both situated in Baltimore, Maryland. Three key sites are isolated for discussion: the names of the museums, their approaches to the topic of the Middle Passage, and lynching. While both museums have made important cultural contributions to the public memorialization of highly charged subjects, the Great Blacks in Wax emerges as the more radical institution, closely in touch with the dynamic and creative museum aesthetic of the wider Black Atlantic Diaspora, and of Brazil in particular.
Source: Curator The Museum Journal
Author: Marcus Wood
Institution: University of Sussex
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2012424864