Ethnographic collections and museums displaying them are currently facing a crisis of representation which is deeply political. Negotiations mainly take place on a national and institutional level. Yet, in order to deal with conflicts and problems that arise around ethnographic collections in a way that allows for and affirms new relationships being formed outside the realm of representational power, new perspectives and methodological tools from a grassroots level are needed. Intersectional approaches and a renewed attention to relations around ethnographic objects, especially a rethinking of the categories “artwork” versus “ethnographica”, offer a promising route for engaging with heritage as a common ground. As such, they may enable relational politics outside the centres of power. A “queering” of anthropologist Alfred Gell’s art nexus model can be instrumental for the study of queer (non-normative) relations around artworks, including so-called ethnographic objects. The paper proposes an understanding of queerness as a method in the art and museum context, informed by the anthropology of art and kinship, queer studies, and museum studies. This methodology-in-the-making should be part of a toolkit with which researchers and arts practitioners will be able to understand and actively co-create queer relations around objects in ethnographic collections and beyond.
Article published 18 January 2024
Ikonotheka: Art theory and history journal of the Institute of Art History, University of Warsaw, Special Issue on Queer Heritage: Central Europe and Beyond
Bredenbröker, Isabel. “Queering Alfred Gell’s Art Nexus - Making non-normative relations in the museum context”, Ikonotheka, Special Issue: Queer Heritage - Central Europe and Warsaw: Warsaw UP, 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31338/2657-6015ik.32.4