In their collections and buildings, museums often carry more than just traces of religion and spirituality. Entry points and custodians for a broad array of artifacts, museums curate and narrate stories of religion, past and present, for a wide audience. These are also contested narratives, so museums are increasingly called upon to address a critical and transparent examination of the colonial and sometimes violent provenance of many of the things in their care and reflect how notions of reconciliation function as a pathway to publicly remember national histories of exclusion, xenophobia, and violence.
Featuring a public panel on Thursday evening and a two-day (non-public) multidisciplinary workshop bringing together renowned international curators and scholars, “Museums, Religion, and the Work of Reconciliation and Remembrance” will galvanize a conversation about religion and public memory across theoretical, curatorial, and historical perspectives. – organized by Prof. Dr. Pamela Klassen and Prof. Dr. Monique Scheer.
