ABSTRACT
Debates on museum activism and the need to decolonise museums and heritage practice have gained more visibility recently – especially in the aftermath of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Yet, despite decades of increasing attention on decolonisation, inclusivity and anti-racist museal practices, the ability of museums and heritage sites to turn into brave, decolonial spaces of cultural plurality and societal change remains a mystery. This chapter offers new insights into this debate by focusing on the decolonising potential of external activist interventions – particularly ones that combine direct protests at museum spaces with an active online presence. The examples vary in scope: the anonymous Sami art collective Suohpanterror focuses on indigenous rights, Mwazulu Diyabanza's engages European colonial heritage from an Afro-European perspective, and Alice Procter works from the perspective of White majority populations. The examples discussed in the chapter also differ in their primary mode of protest. Suohpanterror's activism takes the form of a visual and aesthetic protest, Diyabanza's guerrilla interventions have a strong performative dimension, while Procter's Uncomfortable Art Tours focus more on the knowledge potential of heritage.
By analyzing interventions by artists and activists seeking to challenge the coloniality of contemporary museums and heritage practices from the outside, the chapter charts forms of agency that can provide genuine and sustainable alternatives to hegemonic interpretations of heritage offered by contemporary European museums. By doing so, the chapter also sheds light on the – at times strained – relationships between museums and the diverse publics they seek to serve.
