Decolonising knowledge/Naming Natures Neuchatel
Exhibition “Naming Natures. Natural History and Colonial Legacy”, Neuchâtel, Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de Neuchâtel (MHNN)
- Date of the exhibition: 15.12.2024 - 18.08.2025
Data in the Wikimedia projects and other relevant resources
[edit]- Main Wikidata items:
- Exhibition: Q131928761
- Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de Neuchâtel (MHNN): Q3330885
- Category on Wikimedia Commons:
- Article about the museum on Wikipedia:
References
[edit]- [website]
- Exhibition's website
- Johann Jakob von Tschudi in the Historical Lexicon of Switzerland, entry by Tomás Bartoletti in French, German and Italian (released under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license)
- Panel discussion on Provenance and Restitution. Ready for the past? On the State of Decolonization in Swiss Museums, 31 May 2022. With Tomás Bartoletti (EUI Florence), Claire Brizon (Association Suisse de Recherche en Provenance; Musée cantonale d’archéologie et d’histoire, Lausanne), Anna Schmid (Museum der Kulturen, Basel) and Esther Tisa (Rietberg Museum, Zürich). Chair: Lionel Pernet (Musée cantonal d'archéologie et d'histoire, Lausanne)
- Conference on Decolonizing Natural Histories: Critical and Practical Perspectives in Museum Contexts (the webpage links to the panels' recordings on YouTube), 15—17 March 2023
- Conference on Re-Naming Natures: Knowing and Collecting Otherwise, 20—22 March 2025
Content presented in the exhibition
[edit]"Naming Natures: Natural History and Colonial Legacy" is a critical exploration of the MHNN's collection. It focuses on the collection from South America by Swiss naturalist Johann Jakob von Tschudi (1818–1889). Tschudi travelled to Peru in 1838 on behalf of the Natural History Museum of Neuchâtel. His voyage lasted five years, during which he collected over a thousand specimens. In his scientific work, he did not acknowledge Indigenous expertise and ignored preexisting names.
The exhibition combines science, history, and museology to question how colonial artefacts should be displayed today and reflects on possible forms of repair processes.
Topics
[edit]- Johann Jakob von Tschudi
- Peru
- colonial legacy in natural history
- museology
- indigenous heritage
- ethical responsibility in science practices
- acts of repair
Artists involved
[edit]- Denis Bertschi (also co-curator and organiser)
- Chonon Bensho
- Enrique Casanto
- Ivana de Vivanco
- Francisco Fierro Palas
- Ximena Garrido-Lecca
- Marco Herrera Fernández
- Fabiano Kueva
- María José Murillo
- Uriel Orlow
- Raúl Silva
- Elizabeth Vazquez Arbulú
- Danitza Willka
- Santiago Yahuarcani