Peter Rebernik wrote:
>Since it is obvious that you cannot make an objective point of view in
>historical (and other) cases in exhibitions (books, articles, discussions
>etc.) there is only one way out:
>Try to be as objective as you can, but state clearly who you are and don't
>hide behind the anonymous walls of the museum, state your name, your
>profession and the part you played in the exhibition at the entrance and in
>the catalogue. If you wnat to do more to intellectual integrity you could
>also try to state other points of view somewhere in the exhibition or
>catalogue. You have to state there that they are not what you personally
>find correct, but others might.

And there have been other stimulating comments on this very important and
vexing issue. But I'm wondering whether Peter et al's comments are rooted
in a paradigm which we have now outlived. The clue comes in Peter's last
sentence, 'not what you personally find correct'. In these days of
postmodern thought, cultural theory and other contemporary black arts, is
it still the curator's job to decide on what is 'correct' and to present
it, even though we know that it is our personal view? We have written,
thought and talked so much about the museum's role in empowering our
communities to decide on issues for themselves. So surely what we
personally decide is correct is only one view and surely we thus admit that
we can never be objective no matter how hard we may try.

So perhap our challenge is not to devote ourselves to honest and honourable
attempts to achieve the impossible. Apart fom the fact that I do not
believe we can do it, by pretending that we can, and presenting material to
our audiences as though we have, we create a false impression that what we
personally believe to be 'correct' has some objective and flawless
validity. We are in danger of trying to coerce our audiences into accepting
our personal view and we all know the dangers that lurk there. In Australia
we see our Prime Minister attempting to coerce the nation into rejecting a
view of history that sees Aboriginal dispossession as tragic and
historically based, and into accepting his view, that celebrates white
pioneering achievemnt and marginalises Aboriginal experience as both
unimpoetant and somehow their own fault. The policies that flow from that
view are obviously not going to be of benefit to Aboriginal people!

I see that our real challenge today as curators lies in drawing back from
that approach and from the foreground of our exhibitions, to seek ways in
which we can allow all voices that have views to speak through our
exhibitions. Visitors can then see how history is made, as an argument
between competing and often hostile and discordant visions, and they can
participate in the making of that history by making up their own minds on
the views presented.

This brings me to the concern expressed by Peter Boylan - 'should neo-Nazi
groups be allocated half the floor area of the National Holocaust Museum?'
I do not mean that we should hand over this task to interest groups. I
still se that we have a role in selecting what is presented and how it is
presented. Now obviously there is another opportunity for curator bias to
creep in, but I think we should try to give a fair summary of even the most
repugnant views, so that our audiences can see what the arguments were.
This must of course be carefully done so that the museum is not accused of
neo-Nazism. We wil be so accused by some people of course, simply for
presenting the material, but we need to be able to demonstrate to the
thoughtful visitor that it was not presented as our view to the thoughtful
visitor.

And I agree with Peter that we need to be identified as the authors of this
work at every stage.

I think that this is all terribly hard and I don't pretend to know how to
do it but it seems to me to offer some more useful strategies for the
future than do any attempts to be objective. I think that they are both
doomed and dangerous.

Julia Clark
Independent Curator & Interpreter