The role museums have played in projecting political power and articulating statehood has long been a focus of architectural interest. The “Museum-nation/state” doctoral project, however, explores how the structures of knowledge that have historically been mobilized within the museum apparatus - as well as their transformations through twenty-first century globalizing practices - have been operationalized in the context of the Palestinian West Bank to constitute a “Museum-nation.” The circumstances that govern this context-specific paradigm articulated by historian Beshara Doumani are marked by very specific circumstances of transnational destabilization and political conflict. However, when explored as a theoretical framework within an era of globalized communication, time-space compression, transnational capitalism, and a condition where national frames are no longer as self-evident as they once were in the formation of identity, the “Museum-nation” apparatus presents identifiable parallels and implications relevant to understanding cultural institutions and museums across the world. Situated within a broader examination of how the museum (as a national institution or otherwise) has come to be positioned in the twenty-first century, “Museum-nation/state” establishes a critical reading of the incongruity between the political space of the state and the cultural space of the nation.

date

November 2019 -

Team

Ali T. As’ad

Sergio M. Figueiredo

Bernard Colenbrander