Imbalance twixt Asian, European museums

Imbalance twixt Asian, European museums

Farah Wardani, Contributor, Singapore

For centuries, Asia and Europe have been harmoniously sharing
their glory as sites of the world's cultural history. The two
continents were home to much of early civilization.

In fact, the history of Asian and European cultures also
tracks the interaction between the two continents, which has been
taking place from ancient times until today.

This historical relationship can be traced back through
material evidence kept in museums across Asia and Europe.

Museums are regarded as important centers of education,
preservation and also the presentation of history.

The problem is, who keeps the larger pieces of the historical
remains?

It is widely known that there is an unevenness in the
collections of Asian and European museums, in which the European
museums have larger collections of artifacts from Asia than the
Asian museums themselves.

On the other hand, the Asian museums hold very few European
artifacts. This imbalance has much to do with differences in
infrastructure -- where European museums have been well managed
and have ties with educational institutes and bureaucratic
structures.

A forum was created in 2000 called ASEMUS, or the Asia Europe
Museum Network, to correct this imbalance.

The network has held a series of meetings to discuss how to
deal with the issue, the first in Stockholm in 2000 which was
followed by a meeting in Antwerp last year, supported and
organized by the Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF) based in
Singapore.

This March, ASEF, in cooperation with The National Heritage
Board of Singapore and The British Museum, organized another
meeting of ASEMUS, which was meant to be the finale of the whole
series of meetings. The meeting concluded in an event called
Museum Hopping: The Asia-Europe Marketplace of Sharing Cultural
Heritage, which took place at the Asian Civilization Museum in
Singapore.

The event lasted from March 4 to March 6 and comprised
preliminary meeting among the members in preparation for the
fund-raising night that followed, and concluded with a public
discussion titled Piece by Piece: The Role of Museums in Peace
and Development.

Several significant points that were raised during the event
were, first, that the issue of repatriation is still an important
concern in the problem of the asymmetry in the collections of
Asian and European museums.

The international conventions on the repatriation of heritage
objects are not familiar to most people, and awareness of the
significance of the issue so far has not been communicated in a
two-way process.

Also, repatriation cannot be taken as simply sending objects
back to where they came from, since it again comes back to the
problem of infrastructure and bureaucracy in the different
countries, and the imbalance in the development of cultural
heritage preservation -- which includes a deeper study on history
and colonial and post-colonial discourses.

Another point raised was to question the significance of
authenticity in museum representations, relating to the role of
museums as both educational sites and conservatories. The
preservation of cultural heritage has always been haunted by the
global market in antiquities, historical artifacts and art
objects -- which also includes the problem of illegal trading and
heritage robbery.

In the case of Indonesia, it is well known that ancient
objects from around the archipelago have been distributed in
black markets and auctions throughout the world.

As affirmed by ASEMUS chairman Steven Engelsman, the purpose
of the ASEMUS network is to create a more conducive vehicle for
coping with such issues, as well as to contribute to
strengthening the relationship between Asian and European museums
to further develop the world's historical studies and heritage
preservation.

It is a task that will require greater support from the
general public -- as museums are a part of global society as
places to review our past and present lives, and also learn about
the lives of others.

In other words, they are important places that serve as an
interface to create mutual understanding between people.