Random Things Tours: Ghosts of the British Museum by Noah Angell

During my travels, I am always trying to save some time for visiting local museums. In a nutshell, one can revisit historical fragments and periods of time, and learn about the local history and the cultural profile of a country. However, all those museums are in fact built with an intention - the choice of artifacts, texts and stories shared - as usually subsidized by state institutions. People who are deciding the final form of the texts are the results of certain school of thought and institutional footprints that are not innocent either. 

In Ghosts of the British Museum, Noah Angell is deciphering the colonial traces left in the institutional structure as well as internal planning detail of the Museum. His main interest though is to hear stories about the ghosts, imagined or real, encounters with the super natural world of artifacts, including human remains, exposed and brought here against their will. Maybe longing - if you believe in ghosts - for their far away homes they were took - or stolen - from. Bad memories can be as hunting as real ghosts. 

Through interviews with people directly involved at different periods of time in the regular operations within the Museum, Angell is trying to identify the sources of unrest and unusual encounters, while re-writing at the same time institutional histories and identifying perspectives.

Most probably, after reading this book, and some other reflections on the colonial history and the ´ghosts´ of museum artefacts, particularly in Europe, I will never look in the same way at the museums, British or other. 

Noah Angell is a seasoned artist and writer who works with oral inter-generational and social communication, such as storytelling and songs. 

Ghosts of the British Museum is a very provocative yet necessary book and it opens up so many different takes on museum history. Most probably it helps my own researches into identity, history of mentalities and historical representations.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own