Politics of Exhibiting

Join The Mosaic Rooms and Leighton House Museum for a special panel discussion on the politics of exhibiting. Comprising the panel are Henrietta Lidchi, Dr Nirmal Puwar, and Catherine Hahn.

A selection of the works in our current exhibition, The Future Rewound & The Cabinet Of Souls, aim to raise questions about the continuing influence of past social forces on methods of representation today, from colonial spectacles to present day museum archives.

This panel discussion will give further perspective to this, looking at the issues behind the politics of exhibiting other cultures. The speakers will talk on early colonial spectacles, living exhibits, museum collections and their construction of knowledge and truth, and issues of display and power. They will reference past and contemporary exhibitions and museums and raise questions about methods and approaches for display in the future.

Henrietta Lidchi is the Keeper of Department of World Cultures at National Museums Scotland and an anthropologist and curator. She has written on history of ethnographic displays.

Dr Nirmal Puwar is a senior lecturer at the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths University. She specializes in post colonialism, institutions & critical methodologies.

Catherine Hahn has written about the South African National Gallery (1930-2009).