Yohannes Mulat Mekonnen will be presenting his research paper titled “Against the Tyranny of Text: Multimodal Unwriting of Ethnographic Museums” at the 17th International SIEF Congress, taking place from June 3–6, 2025, at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
In his presentation, Yohannes critiques the sustained reliance on textual representation in ethnographic museums, examining how written text continues to constrain the interpretive range of heritages and reinforce colonial narratives. Drawing on case studies from the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne, the paper explores how text reduces the non-textual to a passive object, reliant on explanation and incapable of autonomy. This dynamic of active vs. passive reflects broader binaries, masculine over feminine, colonizer over colonized, where the former is empowered to speak and observe, while the latter is silenced and made an object of scrutiny. The paper critiques these hierarchical frameworks, arguing they facilitate colonial inscriptions on heritages. It calls for reclaiming sensoriality and rejecting textual dominance as critical steps to unwrite the museum and promote just representation.
This paper is part of the panel “Unwriting the Museum” and will be presented on Wednesday, June 4, from 9:00 to 10:45 AM.
For more details on the presentation, please visit the official conference page.
If you’re attending SIEF 2025, don’t miss this session!
Caption: © SIEF