DECOLONIZING MUSEUMS AND MONUMENTS: A MANIFESTO FOR CRITICAL REFLECTION

Scene 1: After defending the demolition of Christopher Columbus monuments on a television show in July 2020, Peruvian artist Daniela Ortiz had little choice but to flee Spain due to receiving death threats.

‍Scene 2: In June 2022, after an attempted crossing at the fences of the Spanish colonial enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described the mass arrival of migrants as a “violent assault” on the country’s “territorial integrity.”

‍Scene 3: On January 22, 2024, Spanish Minister of Culture Ernest Urtasun stated that they seek “to establish spaces for dialogue and exchange that allow us to move beyond a colonial framework or one mired in gender or ethnocentric inertia that has often hindered perspectives on heritage, history, and artistic legacy.”

‍Scene 4: On February 16, 2024, a visitor walked through the “Afro-descendant Presence” exhibition at the Museum of the Americas in Madrid and remarked: “The Spanish go fishing in Senegal, and they steal all the fish. We come to Spain, we’re illegal… I was in the Aluche prison, where all of us black people go”.


Thesis 1: Suspicion. Past and...Present? Can a state and society with a colonial past, interests, and enclaves endorse the decolonization of museums and monuments?
‍Proposal: To foster the ongoing debate on the possibilities and limits of museum and monument decolonization within critical thought. To decolonize means the dismantling of the epistemic dominance of museums and monuments.

Thesis 2: The trap: responsibility, guilt, and resistance. Originally, museums served as instru­ments of the nation-state and of colo­nial expansion. Although it presents it­self in different forms and has different effects, this continues to be the case in the present day. 
‍Proposal: To assume our present his­torical obligations and the ensuing practical consequences. There is res­ponsibility for how we integrate the past into the present, but there is no guilt for past actions. This may imply renouncing privileges and positions of dominance and power. Addressing con­temporary concerns impacting social and ethnic minorities, as well as other oppressed peoples, requires more than just acknowledging historical comp­laints in museums and monuments.

Thesis 3: Heritage. Museums and monuments to the rescue of the nation-state. Decolonizing museums and monuments is necessary in light of thenation-state cri­ses since, without structural reforms, they will continue to perpetuate inequality.
‍Proposal: Since the nation-state is a con­tributing factor to the issue, it should be questioned as the proper framework for decolonization. Expand the framework of communication and interaction to other transnational and cross-border areas, including the Global South. 
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Thesis 4: Strategy: the confession-absolution logic. Acknowledging past crimes does not absolve us of our responsibilities towards the present
Proposal: Highlight the complex rela­tionship between the past and present in that the past does not always simply "pass" but instead the actions of the past create debts in the present. 

‍Thesis 5: The objective: reconciliation. One of the objectives of the process of decolonization is reconciliation.
‍Proposal: Remain skeptical of possi­ble reconciliation as long as inequality continues to be the norm. Reconcilia­tion policies may mask an extractivist and capital reproduction agenda, ensu­ring a semblance of social peace in the post-colonial context. There can be no reconciliation where there was never conciliation.

‍Thesis 6: The gaze: Spatial syntax. Museums and monuments create mea­nings thanks to their relation to other structures and installations. In museums, it is not only the permanent exhibition that is important, but also the discourse it conveys and how it conveys it.
Proposal: Avoid sensationalistic disposi­tions in museums and monument desig­ns that exoticize and victimize the “other”. Decolonization processes must include ongoing reviews of collections and programs. They should not be even­tual or temporary interventions, nor should they be disconnected from the reality of other state and social colonial structures.

‍Thesis 7: Heritage: the farce of Universal Heritage. Museums and monuments are funda­mental pillars of heritage. As aconcept, “heritage” dictates the rules and limits as to what and how to conserve tangi­ble and intangible objects.
‍Proposal: To review and question the idea of heritage and its value in the debate, avoiding the patrimonialization of objects with a different cultural me­aning than the peoples who produced them. To review and question who and how the concept of “heritage” has been constructed, why, for what, for whom and with whom.
Thesis 8: Conservation: Saving heritage. The Conservation of objects should be roo­ted in the cultures of those that produced them, rather than assigning them a uni­versal meaning. Heritage was historically defined by the elites, constituting a form of structural and systematic violence.
‍Proposal: Decisions about objects should align with the logic of their cul­tures of origin rather than be externally dictated.

‍Thesis 9: Destruction. Vandalism. The intervention of social agents on monuments and objects is often linked to violence without recognizing the­se actions as forms of resistance. It is alarming that a society defends its statues more than its citizens. The first violence is not the destruction of monu­ments but the appropriation of public space by the social elite.
Proposal: Avoid criminalizing monu­ment intervention that aligns with other forms of resistance. Discredit “vandalism” as a racist and classist term, and acknowledge the historical legitimacy of anti-colonial, anti-patriarchal, and anti-capitalist ico­noclastic movements. .

Thesis 10: Resignification: against monumentali­ty and bias. Counter-monumentality is part of an im­perialist aesthetic, which promotes nega­tive aesthetics that maintain or reinforce the subalternity of what is remembered. Meanwhile, the elites build nineteen­th-century monuments that have similar interests to those of their “great men”. 
‍Proposal: Recognize the historical lega­cy, the anti-colonial monumental lan­guages and the relevance of subversive monumental practices.

‍Thesis 11: Opportunity. Fashion. The decolonization of museums and monuments implies a historiographical revision that runs the risk of making the anticolonial resistance invisible,both past and present (physical, racial, ma­terial and epistemological resistances). We did not invent decolonization; it has been a constant, evident in the different forms of anti-colonial resistance.
‍Proposal: Undertake a critical historio­graphical review that recognizes and values past strategies, applying them transversally to the present.
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Thesis 12: Historical coherence and historio­graphical debate. Public debates on colonial memory and its eventual decolonization must be grounded in sound reasoning and built around contrastable historical proces­ses. This does not imply that we should go out and search for homogenous, one-dimensional, or definitive interpre­tations of history or of how we relate to other communities, especially those with whom we share a past, that are predicated on subalternity, exploita­tion, and power dynamics. Since all history is the history of the present, we must be morally and professionally receptive to different perspectives and approaches to the past as well as the effects that it still has on the pre­sent, including racism, sexism,and xenophobia (amongst others).
‍Proposal: Avoid, denounce and discuss with the negationist positions of colo­nial history, such as “museums were a scientific project, without any link to colonialism” or “Spain never had co­lonies, it had viceroyalties, so there is nothing to decolonize”. These are fallacious ar­guments that are tainted by an absurd nominalism. These arguments also promote non-critical judgements that result in the reproduction of dicho­tomous, moralistic and Manichean positions (“black legend” vs. “pink legend”). We believe, therefore, that the public debate should be based on a well-founded historical argument and on the irrefutable historical fact of the already proven existence of the coloni­zation exercised by the old European empires. 
‍Thesis 13: Interest: the money trail. Museums and monuments are financed by public and private corporations, some of which have colonial links or interests.
‍Proposal: Review the budgets of museu­ms and monuments and the underlying public and private structures. Denounce the sponsorship of companies linked to colonial exploitation and enforce ethi­cal and deontological behavior from administrations and museums. Review the decision-ma­king processes and legislation of mu­seums and monuments. Promote laws for anonymous, non-repayable and no-strings-attached patronage.

‍Thesis 14: Management: an institutional X-Ray. Institutions are subject to economic processes such as service outsourcing and the precariousness of work.
‍Proposal: Implement and reinforce de­mocratic policies in museum manage­ment. Ensure the traceability of collec­tions and donations, both material and economic.

‍Thesis 15: Participation: suspect ing inte locutors and their exclusionary frameworks of political and cultural participation. Museums and monuments are often guided by elite interests, many of which are often inaccessible, non-inclusive and non-democratic.
Proposal: There can be no decoloniza­tion without the active and determined participation of those who are repre­sented: they are agents, not victims. A democratic cultural policy must be directed and sustained by society as a whole. We must avoid being captured by elite and deference policies that do not inscribe the complexity of “reality” itself. Broaden and review participation that includes museum decision-makers. Do not confuse participation with at­tendance and passivity.
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‍Epilogue: We stand in the face of a historical opportunity. In other con­texts, such as occupied Palestine, even the possibility of a peaceful process of decolonization is denied. According to a January 2024 report from the Palesti­nian National Authority, twelve museu­ms in Gaza, including the Pasha's Palace Museum, were destroyed due to Israel’s invasion and military incur­sions. Furthermore, Spain has a histo­rical responsibility towards colonized peoples in Latin America, Morocco,the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, and Western Sahara. We affirm self-deter­mination processes and raise our voice against all types of colonization and destruction of culture and humanity.

‍Disclaimer: This document was developed during the workshop Decolonizing museums and redefining monuments in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula: towards a manifesto (UNED,Madrid, April 23 and 24, 2024). We understand that the issues discussed here do not exclude reflection from other geographical and political logics. This is a joint proposal by a group of academics, professionals and activists. We do not intend to reach a single consensus but to establish agreements, accepting dissent and differences to continue debating in a proposal to accompany the process of decolonization of museums and monuments.