How then should we understand the legacy of Frederick Horniman, and the museum that carries his name? My ongoing PhD titled, ‘Museum Collections and Legacies of Imperialism: Curating Colonial Violence at the Horniman Museum’ asks just this. (It should be noted that Topple the Racists also describe Horniman as a “plantation owner,” however the Horniman family did not own tea plantations and mostly purchased Chinese tea at auction in London). In fact, Topple the Racists a crowdsourced map of UK statues and monuments linked to slavery and racism, describes Horniman as an “arch colonialist, exploiter of empire and shameful collector of native human artefacts”. In recent years, campaigns such as Rhodes Must Fall and Decolonise This Place have joined long-running indigenous activist movements, to demand that museums and other heritage institutions reckon with their imperial pasts.įollowing the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol during the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, many previously well-regarded historical figures have also come under renewed scrutiny.įor these reasons, the charitable reputation of Frederick Horniman appears increasingly unstable, and the history of the museum he founded to ‘bring the world to Forest Hill’ needs to be reappraised.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |