Museums and Social Justice: Towards Reckoning and Change

A manifesto for museological change that examines the outcome when acquisitions policies, permanent collections and exhibitions become increasingly important battlegrounds for social justice. Museums are facing a reckoning. Thrust to the forefront of difficult conversations around toxic philanthropy, increased corporatization, decolonization, repatriation and legacies of theft and looting, many of our cultural institutions are undergoing a period of radical transformation, seemingly redefining their very function and mission to address new public concerns. But who owns the past? How bloody is too bloody? And whose museum is this, truly? Museums and Social Justice addresses these questions and more, shedding light on pressing issues such as why an oil giant attempted to sponsor an arctic exhibition at the British Museum; why Berlin’s Humbolt Forum is exhibiting British-looted objects from Benin; and why the Baltimore Museum of Art has made a public commitment to acquire more works by women artists. Using such events as case studies, Dr. Maura Reilly engages with pioneering arguments in and around matters of diversity, access to heritage, decolonization, patrimony and racial equality, and outlines specific action plans to confront these challenges, avoid reputational controversy and maintain confidence in our public institutions.