‘Cultural production, the military and propaganda are all tied up’
What inspired you to study Pakistan’s museums?
Varda Nisar: When I moved to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital city, I kept seeing this national monument on my daily commute. The monument is made up of four large petals that represent the four main ethnic communities in the country. This idea — that Pakistan only consists of four ethnicities — struck me, because there is an ongoing struggle by different communities to be recognized, represented, and have their voices heard.
Once I started noticing that monument, I started looking at other places. I've been going to museums in my home city, Karachi, all my life. But I had never dug deeply into the narrative. And once you start digging, you realize that these museum dioramas of ethnic groups sitting in their villages is such an old, colonial way of framing ethnic minorities. It perpetuates certain stereotypes.
Tell me more about Pakistan’s museums.
VN: In Karachi, there are just a few public museums. They're not like the ones we imagine in the West. Most of these public museums in Pakistan have had the same displays since they were made, and they are very outdated. The community voice in those museums is absent.
It’s also important to note the connection between cultural production and military dictatorships in Pakistan. The army has been a very powerful institution since Pakistan’s inception in 1947. The army runs our foreign affairs and makes all our important decisions.
What I see in my research is that dictators constantly use culture as a tool. When they build museums or large infrastructure projects like dams, the language they use is wrapped around ideas of modernity. ‘We are making a modern museum;’ ‘We are finally going to have an art museum in this corner of the city which is completely inaccessible by public transport.’
The military also invests millions of dollars making these high-budget movies and nationalistic songs. Cultural production, the military and propaganda are all tied up.
How can museums become more inclusive spaces?
VN: If museums do not take the initiative to be inclusive, especially towards minorities, then we are going to continue to isolate and exclude people, while simultaneously making museums redundant. Museums can play a part in bringing people in and making them feel welcome. That can be achieved by exhibiting works from minority groups and regions, engaging in dialogue with them and changing ideas about them.
Learn more about Concordia’s Public Scholar Program.
Join the roundtable event, The Logic of Postcolonial Museums, at 4TH SPACE (1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.) or watch online on March 6 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Join the live podcast event, What did we get ourselves into? Reflections from Emerging Curators, at 4TH SPACE (1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.) or watch online on March 7 from 1 to 2 p.m.