Decolonizing the Museum: Unhighlighting Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s Iconic Laestadius Teaching Laplanders (1840)
This essay presents a decolonial analysis of the French painter François-Auguste Biard’s Le Pasteur Laestadius instruisant des Lapons (1840). A highlight at Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (Northern Norway Art Museum) in Romsa/Tromsø, Biard’s work represents the pastor Lars Levi Laestadius (1800–1861) preachi...
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10037/29852 https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2022.2161063 |
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ftunivtroemsoe:oai:munin.uit.no:10037/29852 2023-09-05T13:20:55+02:00 Decolonizing the Museum: Unhighlighting Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s Iconic Laestadius Teaching Laplanders (1840) Gullickson, Charis 2023-03-08 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/29852 https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2022.2161063 eng eng Taylor & Francis Gullickson, C.A. (2023). Talking Back to Art Museum Practices: Seeing Public Art Museums in Norway Through the Lens of Institutional Critique, Feminism and Decoloniality. (Doctoral thesis). https://hdl.handle.net/10037/29854 . Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies Gullickson CA. Decolonizing the Museum: Unhighlighting Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s Iconic Laestadius Teaching Laplanders (1840). Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. 2023 FRIDAID 2135177 doi:10.1080/1369801X.2022.2161063 1369-801X 1469-929X https://hdl.handle.net/10037/29852 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) openAccess Copyright 2023 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 Journal article Tidsskriftartikkel publishedVersion 2023 ftunivtroemsoe https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2022.2161063 2023-08-16T23:06:45Z This essay presents a decolonial analysis of the French painter François-Auguste Biard’s Le Pasteur Laestadius instruisant des Lapons (1840). A highlight at Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (Northern Norway Art Museum) in Romsa/Tromsø, Biard’s work represents the pastor Lars Levi Laestadius (1800–1861) preaching to a group of Sámi people outside their goahtis in winter. Exhibited in 1841 at the Salon (1667–present) in Paris, the painting originates in sketches Biard did during his travels with the French expedition La Recherche to Scandinavia and Spitsbergen in 1839. Taking this centrepiece from Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s collections as a reference point, I discuss the original colonial context in which it was painted, with particular focus on Laestadius’s role in assisting the French explorers with the collecting of Sámi human remains in the name of science. I then make a leap in time to the museum’s acquisition of the work in 2002 and its subsequent display in Romsa. At that time, the painting represented the institution’s costliest acquisition, and substantial media coverage and fundraising were used to come up with the funding to secure it. Once in-house, Laestadius Teaching Laplanders was immediately presented in a “neutral” display as one of the museum’s most treasured works. My analysis applies decoloniality as a framework for acknowledging institutional blind spots, countering museum neutrality, and recognizing the interwoven complexities of Indigenous and settler coexistence. It aims to intervene in art museum practices to emphasize the ongoing need for healing from colonial trauma through reconciliation and reparation. By exposing the museum’s disregard for and implication in the colonial legacy of this work, I will insist on the ethical inability of neutrality in museum displays and the inherent need to “unhighlight” Laestadius Teaching Laplanders and other art with similar problematic histories and contexts. Article in Journal/Newspaper Lapons Northern Norway Sámi Tromsø Spitsbergen University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive Auguste ENVELOPE(-61.617,-61.617,-64.067,-64.067) Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum ENVELOPE(18.959,18.959,69.648,69.648) Norway Pasteur ENVELOPE(140.099,140.099,-66.625,-66.625) Tromsø Interventions 1 24 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive |
op_collection_id |
ftunivtroemsoe |
language |
English |
description |
This essay presents a decolonial analysis of the French painter François-Auguste Biard’s Le Pasteur Laestadius instruisant des Lapons (1840). A highlight at Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (Northern Norway Art Museum) in Romsa/Tromsø, Biard’s work represents the pastor Lars Levi Laestadius (1800–1861) preaching to a group of Sámi people outside their goahtis in winter. Exhibited in 1841 at the Salon (1667–present) in Paris, the painting originates in sketches Biard did during his travels with the French expedition La Recherche to Scandinavia and Spitsbergen in 1839. Taking this centrepiece from Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s collections as a reference point, I discuss the original colonial context in which it was painted, with particular focus on Laestadius’s role in assisting the French explorers with the collecting of Sámi human remains in the name of science. I then make a leap in time to the museum’s acquisition of the work in 2002 and its subsequent display in Romsa. At that time, the painting represented the institution’s costliest acquisition, and substantial media coverage and fundraising were used to come up with the funding to secure it. Once in-house, Laestadius Teaching Laplanders was immediately presented in a “neutral” display as one of the museum’s most treasured works. My analysis applies decoloniality as a framework for acknowledging institutional blind spots, countering museum neutrality, and recognizing the interwoven complexities of Indigenous and settler coexistence. It aims to intervene in art museum practices to emphasize the ongoing need for healing from colonial trauma through reconciliation and reparation. By exposing the museum’s disregard for and implication in the colonial legacy of this work, I will insist on the ethical inability of neutrality in museum displays and the inherent need to “unhighlight” Laestadius Teaching Laplanders and other art with similar problematic histories and contexts. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Gullickson, Charis |
spellingShingle |
Gullickson, Charis Decolonizing the Museum: Unhighlighting Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s Iconic Laestadius Teaching Laplanders (1840) |
author_facet |
Gullickson, Charis |
author_sort |
Gullickson, Charis |
title |
Decolonizing the Museum: Unhighlighting Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s Iconic Laestadius Teaching Laplanders (1840) |
title_short |
Decolonizing the Museum: Unhighlighting Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s Iconic Laestadius Teaching Laplanders (1840) |
title_full |
Decolonizing the Museum: Unhighlighting Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s Iconic Laestadius Teaching Laplanders (1840) |
title_fullStr |
Decolonizing the Museum: Unhighlighting Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s Iconic Laestadius Teaching Laplanders (1840) |
title_full_unstemmed |
Decolonizing the Museum: Unhighlighting Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s Iconic Laestadius Teaching Laplanders (1840) |
title_sort |
decolonizing the museum: unhighlighting nordnorsk kunstmuseum’s iconic laestadius teaching laplanders (1840) |
publisher |
Taylor & Francis |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/29852 https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2022.2161063 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-61.617,-61.617,-64.067,-64.067) ENVELOPE(18.959,18.959,69.648,69.648) ENVELOPE(140.099,140.099,-66.625,-66.625) |
geographic |
Auguste Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum Norway Pasteur Tromsø |
geographic_facet |
Auguste Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum Norway Pasteur Tromsø |
genre |
Lapons Northern Norway Sámi Tromsø Spitsbergen |
genre_facet |
Lapons Northern Norway Sámi Tromsø Spitsbergen |
op_relation |
Gullickson, C.A. (2023). Talking Back to Art Museum Practices: Seeing Public Art Museums in Norway Through the Lens of Institutional Critique, Feminism and Decoloniality. (Doctoral thesis). https://hdl.handle.net/10037/29854 . Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies Gullickson CA. Decolonizing the Museum: Unhighlighting Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s Iconic Laestadius Teaching Laplanders (1840). Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. 2023 FRIDAID 2135177 doi:10.1080/1369801X.2022.2161063 1369-801X 1469-929X https://hdl.handle.net/10037/29852 |
op_rights |
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) openAccess Copyright 2023 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2022.2161063 |
container_title |
Interventions |
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1 |
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24 |
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1776201530894974976 |