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.