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The Mischief & Malice Symposium is an interdisciplinary
graduate student symposium designed to facilitate discussions surrounding
definitions and practices in the postmodern museum with regards
to the themes of theft, vandalism, and forgery.
With their multifaceted histories and sometimes
questionable collections, museums exist in complicated ethical spaces.
This complex past inspires questions about theft, vandalism, and
forgery that can be articulated under the rubric of authority, ownership,
and the law. For example, how are notions of theft and ownership
contested by early museum collecting practices and the subsequent
desire for repatriation? Is the defacement or alteration of cultural
property – as a political act in the name of art, religion, or even
freedom of expression – always considered vandalism? What are some
of the ethical issues between forgery and appropriation art? As
the museum begins to engage in postmodern practice, these issues
are increasingly relevant. The Mischief & Malice symposium
explores the ambiguity of crime in the museum through the perspectives
of different academic traditions.
Images from the Symposium
Keynote Address
By: Dr. Adam Sellen
Dr. Adam Sellen is a professor at the Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México and an expert in the field of Mesoamerican
culture and history. His research focuses primarily on Mesoamerican
graphic systems and Oaxacan Zapotec funerary urn iconography. Recently,
this research has led him to the detection of several forged Zapotec
urns housed within major international museum collections, Toronto’s
Royal Ontario Museum among them.
Dr. Sellen delivering his keynote address at the
official launch.
Schedule
The symposium took place on Thursday April 4th 2008 and included a broad and fascinating range of speakers and discussions regarding the ambiguity of crime in the museum.
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