Many museum DAMS favor objects, art and artifacts from the dominant western culture. Preservation at its lowest common denominator is currently optimized for the Global North, European and American forms of artistic production.
Is this appropriate if museums are to be relevant, responsible caretakers, community partners, and stewards?
A challenge: Many communities of color, and indigenous artists in the Global South, have cultural heritage that isn’t neatly scanned or stored by DAM systems: for example crafts, fiber art, clay, cave drawings, scrolls, totems, masks, carvings, ceramics, headdresses, textiles, monuments, folklore, rituals, music and more.
Meeting the challenge: This session will unpack ideas on preserving and honoring Global South traditions and artforms and explore key questions:
- Are museums enacting predictable bias, by prioritizing western artforms and ways of knowing?
- Has DAM technology magnified colonization, re-inscribed unjust systems of classification, and functionally erased the preservation of global south cultures?
- What should be done?
- How could DAMs contribute to the delivery of solutions?
