Wandering in the West: A Critical Examination of the Curation of Chinese Art(ifacts) and Ideological Lessons at the Royal Ontario Museum

Abstract

Based on personal visiting experiences in the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), this research explores how Chinese art(ifacts) are displayed, constructed, and re-constructed to convey specific meanings and ideologies by the ROM. As an immigrant nation that adopted a vision of multiculturalism as official federal policy in 1971, Canada positions itself as a place that upholds values of freedom, equality, and cultural diversity. Functioning as vital educational spaces, museums play a pivotal role in facilitating cross-cultural dialogue around cultural heritage while simultaneously standing as symbols of a nation's cultural and spiritual identity. However, the way Chinese art(ifacts) are displayed in the ROM teaches a kind of unequal and hierarchical relationship, especially between European and Chinese culture. The experience of wandering through the exhibition mirrors an experience of navigating the Western world as an international student from China, where Chinese art(ifacts) and culture are placed in a marginalized position. From a post-colonial perspective, the curatorial strategies in Chinese galleries are not neutral, as they actively disseminate specific ideologies and values regarding power. I engage Eisner’s concept of “three curricula” to explore and analyze how Chinese and European art(ifacts) are displayed, and produce specific meanings through explicit, implicit, and null curricula. This research highlights how a museum functions as an educational space, the institutional responsibility to be consciously aware of the social orders that exhibitions are reifying between different cultures, and the need for a comprehensive and decolonial approach to inspiring cross-cultural understandings in museum education.