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Notes on The Museum

In reading and talking about the ‘museum’, it is hard to form concrete borders, draw four walls, around its role in the world today. It is clear, that the museum, currently, can feel like a politically charged space. In an era dominated by the crumbling forces of capital, the global practices of collecting, archiving, conservation and modern art preservation are radically questioned. 

In Brussels in early 2024, I saw an exhibition called City Structures at VHDG. What felt special about the exhibition was a profound understanding of place; a relationship between space and work in a setting that was unlike any museum I had been in. Inside a building from the turn of the last century, was a series of four works; sculptural, photographic, projected, from four different artists that understood the current urban setting of the city through a series of fragmented visions. The exhibition felt almost empty, the audience told to wander through the space for a while before encountering the exhibited works. 

In a place far away from my home, I felt comfortably moved by the ability of the exhibition to inhabit a new space, one far from what we picture as the traditional museum. Since, I have begun to think about the endurance of ‘the exhibition’. Like the outside always has the ability to make its way in, the exhibition will find a way to adapt to new spaces; the sidewalk, the deserted shopping mall, the store front window. 

The human impulse to collect, protect, map, draw and to archive is one that will persist, inevitably. I believe that what will attribute to the endurance of ‘the museum’; as a space that cultivates these actions, is its ability to mould to new spaces, to allow room for physical change. Take up new space, question ideas of protection and preservation, enter the digital landscape with a purpose more than simply archival, and to allow for the historical definition of the museum to change with the world around it.