What is it about?
The exhibition was organized by a State-run museum against a background of difficult relations between the State and Catholics. This article explores how the exhibition was conceived and how the ideas of the curators were implemented by examining negotiations among different stakeholders involved in the exhibition.
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Why is it important?
We have discussed an experiment of a new case study of a small exhibition in a museum on a theme considered sensitive in Vietnam, particularly in the context of land conflicts between local authorities and the Catholic Church and lay believers. Through the perspective of insiders, we wanted to provide an insight into a topic that used to be considered “sensitive” and to show how the curators could overcome obstacles to achieve the objective of the exhibition. The greatest lesson we learned was the best solutions can be found through straightforward dialogue and discussions in a spirit of mutual respect.
Perspectives
This is my first exhibition I was the team leader, with my older colleagues who had a lot of time working in the museum than I was . The biggest difficulty is to reconcile the relationship and the ideas of the members of the group. Moreover , my colleagues and I had to set out the problems are considered "possible offensive" both to the government and the Catholic community, to have the most "neutral" exhibition that we could. This exhibition gave me a lot of experience on the responsibility of curator , and above all the responsibility to the communities that we exhibited.
Vu Thi Ha
Vietnam Museum of Ethnology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Exhibition on Catholic Culture: Dialogues and Negotiations at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, Curator The Museum Journal, April 2016, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/cura.12150.
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