Cultural Content #6
Featuring the Smithsonian, Ashmolean and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museums Wales
Good morning Cultural Content subscribers…
…& welcome to edition 6. It’s Black History Month in the US, and the theme of this edition looks at race and restitution, and how two cultural organisation dealt with the weighty topic in an elegant and illuminating way.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture: King’s Speech
This podcast tells the behind-the-scenes story of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech – including the fact that the speech script doesn’t include that line; “the ‘I have a dream portion was improvised, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t years in the making”. The podcast is rooted in the collections item; the typed manuscript Dr King had in front of him on the day, which is on display at the Museum. The episode expertly unpacks the significance of the document, and what other material Dr King was drawing on when he improvised one of the most historic speeches of all time.
The Ashmolean: Fingerprints podcast
The Ashmolean’s Fingerprints podcast launched in late January this year and finishes at the end of the month. The series starts with the premise that “invisible fingerprints cover every object in the Ashmolean… from makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers and creators. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped the Museum.”
As with Smithsonian’s King’s Speech podcast, the episode begins on a micro level – looking in detail at a small Sumerian votive offering. The wider macro narrative looks at how this statue – many millennia later – came to be passed from Indian soldier, to colonial commanding officer, to the Ashmolean, and traces the physical evidence of those transitions: “the gash on his body is like the physical trace of the violence of war and empire”.
And one from LGBTQ+ History Month: Amgueddfa Cymru / National Museum Wales
In general, I think it’s easier to tell complex histories of oppressed audiences in longer form formats (like podcasts or blogs). Here is a quick exception. I had no idea there was a Lesbian and Gay Men Support the Miners movement, but this short tweet gave me a surprisingly micro history of a movement I was delighted to find out more about.