There has been a call for some time now, for our museums and galleries to look more critically at the accepted narratives that surround the art, objects and antiquities they house.
But this responsibility has become a shared one. No longer does it lie just with curators and museum educators to confront how they have collected, and rethink – even disrupt, as author Alice Proctor suggests – the stories that place these objects in time, but as viewers we also need to question the way we interact with these objects couched in colonialism.
Gina Fairley is ArtsHub's Senior Contributor, after 12 years in the role as National Visual Arts Editor. She has worked for extended periods in America and Southeast Asia, as gallerist, arts administrator and regional contributing editor for a number of magazines, including Hong Kong based Asian Art News and World Sculpture News. She is an Art Tour leader for the AGNSW Members, and lectures regularly on the state of the arts. She is based in Mittagong, regional NSW.
Instagram: fairleygina
