Buried in the Colonial Graveyard? Indigenous Sound Ontologies, Repatriation and the Ethics of Curating Ethnographic Sounds

Abstract

In this article, Michael Fuhr and Matthias Lewy discuss the potentials and challenges of dealing with and exhibiting sounds and sound concepts of indigenous peoples and ask if and how ethnographically-informed sound curation can help 'decolonize' the museum. Drawing on historical recordings of the Selk'nam, Yagán and the Pémon, they show that ethical concerns with the ways of how European institutions handle these recordings are inextricably entwined with unresolved questions of who should possess authority and representational power over the recorded and archived sounds. Acknowledging indigenous sound ontologies can challenge the representational mode in European museum and archival spaces.

Resocializing recordings: Collaborative archiving and curating of sound as an agent of knowledge transfer

“…Together with other bags and stones, the pakara was placed in a box that was then closed and marked with instructions for future generations: bags and stones will have to be kept shut and safe in storage and will never be allowed into an exhibition. Lambos and Lewy (2018; see also Fuhr and Lewy, 2022) coined the term "colonial graveyard" to described such practices of storage or archiving that keep objects in silence and precluded from both exhibition and sharing. In the ritual of closing the box, Balbina Lambos interacted with the interiorities of the stones by performing a special song.…”