Twenty-five years ago Jeanne Cannizzo resigned from her position as
curator for the Royal Ontario Museum. She had been hired on contract as a guest
curator, and the “Into the Heart of Africa” display was her first big exhibit.
Cannizzo debuted the collection in November 1989, yet by March 1990, she had
submitted her resignations to the Museum as well as the University of Toronto.
Surprisingly, her resignations were accepted without question; no offers of
financial compensation to ensure she stay. Furthermore, Cannizzo did not pursue
criminal action against those who vandalized her home, nor against those who
disrupted her class and verbally harassed her from her career. The latter
culminated in a guard escort home from the university, and a faxed resignation.
Cannizzo went on to leave Canada to teach in the British Isles.
I realize that one should never use ‘ignorance’ as defense for one’s
actions, but I feel that both Cannizzo and the Canadian public were guilty of
reactions steeped in ignorance and naivety. The museum was initially happy with
November’s uneventful opening and moderately good reviews. However, by March
1990, a group appeared and publicly denounced the exhibit as profoundly racist.
This announcement was delivered by the (questionable) Coalition for the Truth
about Africa (CTAA), via Ontario’s Ministry of Citizenship. The demonstrators
and pickets initially demanded changes to artifact labeling, along with removal
of several violent images. However, by May, the demands became more radical.
They were demanding an inclusion of the contribution of specific Africans to
medicine, mathematics, science, etc. This did not fit with the premise of the
exhibit, to show Canadian colonial attitudes at the time; but the protestors
were adamant. Anti-exhibitors also demanded (along with the previous changes)
the curator to be someone of African descent, thus inferring a form of reverse
racism. Finally, the CTAA demanded a public apology and closure of the exhibit.
To determine what the demonstration was about, or why there was such an
extreme reaction to Into the Heart of Africa, one must also take the pulse of
Canadian society at the time. Canadians were in the midst of political
correctness. Thus, prior to installation, the Royal Ontario Museum
intentionally hired a Ugandan-Canadian publicist to assist Jeanne Cannizzo. The
Museum also hired an African-Canadian art organizer to help Jeanne plan the
exhibit. (Interesting that no one denounced or challenged the exclusion of
these men during Jeanne’s public humiliation, or included them during
accusations of Cannizzo being racist. Perhaps this is because the hired helpers
were African-Canadian, another inclination of the CTAA’s reversed gender and
racial bias.
Four months before opening, black leaders were invited to The Royal
Ontario Museum’s presentation of the exhibit’s purpose; advertising and
promotional materials were tested on a core group of African-Canadians. Thanks
to feedback from this proactive approach, the title of the exhibit was changed
from “Into the Heart of Darkness”, to “Into the Heart of Africa”. Despite
Canada’s claims as being a gun-free, tolerant, society, Toronto was in the
public eye because of recent controversy over several police shootings of black
youth. Media talking heads were denouncing policemen as being racist. Anything
that appeared remotely politically incorrect was routinely held up and
publically denounced. All of this was happening at the same time as Cannizzo
was attempting to organize an exhibit on Canada’s historic relationship with
Africa.
Once Cannizzo received and incorporated feedback from the special
interest groups, she could focus on the installation. Her main train of thought
was how to show the public how a ritualistic African object could come into
missionary hands, then furthermore be determined as museum worthy? What should
be the criteria? What was the artifact’s history? Previously, the Museum would
acquire and display aboriginal collections, usually chronologically or by
regional band. The present African collection was the result of individual
donations, over the years, rather than a directed and predetermined
acquisition. Subsequently, a single topic, title, focus, theme, or chronology,
could not be agreed upon as the objects were from all over Africa, throughout
the years.
Cannizzo concluded that the exhibit should reflect the attitudes of the
collectors at the time of collection. Therefore the actual wording of the
persons involved would become the object’s narrative. The aim was that the
viewer would feel shame and disgust at the racist entitlement the colonial
collectors held. Again, Jeanne’s ignorance overshadowed reality, as Cannizzo
truly believed the viewers would instantly recognize the racist narrative, and
is able to understand implicitly it was not present day narrative.
In our current environment of not wanting to offend anybody, Jeanne set
about arranging the African collection. She attempted to separate the 375
objects into similar groupings, e.g.: British, Military, Religious, etc. and
she displayed the actual text from the artifact’s accompanying historical
papers. To ensure the viewer’s understanding, Cannizzo used quotation marks to
separate the ‘views of the past’ from the usual museum narrative. Despite all
of its politically correct preparation, people actually viewed the exhibit’s
quoted texts as being literal and current. Visitors felt that the quotes were
merely a re-inscription of racist attitudes that the Museum held! Jeanne
Cannizzo mistakenly assumed the Canadian public was intelligent enough to view
the exhibit ’s artifacts, and historical texts, for being the misguided, racist
arrogance they were. In hindsight, she was naïve in her overestimation of
museum visitors’ unconditional racial acceptance. By adding a strong moral
narrative (that she purposely avoided, thinking people didn’t like being told
what to think) to each grouping, Cannizzo could have highlighted the historical
level of racism presented.
In its review, The Globe and Mail claimed “One had to be literate and
sophisticated to view it as the curator intended”. Jeanne Cannizzo felt so sure
that the public would view the many images the way she did, that they wouldn’t
even need the accompanying text. In fact, several items clearly stated
Cannizzo’s opposition to the racist, Colonial view. She didn’t understand how
people could arrive at any viewpoint other than a non-judgmental one.
Again, the newspapers solved some of the mystery by observing that the
average Museum viewer did NOT bother to read any of the text. Once again, blame
ignorance for Jeanne overlooking a viewer’s refusal to read accompanying text.
This is a solid example of political-correctness-gone-wrong, and I am
annoyed that a woman’s career and life was forcibly disrupted because some
vocal people don’t understand irony, or cannot ‘read between the lines’. These
uninformed protestors were incapable of independent thought, and succumbed to
mob mentality. Because a squeaky wheel (CTAA) was demanding politically correct
oil, the general Canadian public allowed an exhibit to be publicly censored;
ensured the exhibit would not make money via future rentals; and commandeered
the departure of a talented curator. The last insult was that the African
objects were removed from public view and hidden away.
Ivan Karp wrote a book on such occurrences called, “Exhibiting Cultures:
The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display”. A
quote that I appreciate and I feel brings some understanding to people’s
personal reactions is by Brenda Austin Smith who says, “It is difficult to
remain detached from depictions of racism “in history” when racism itself is
not history?”
Bob
Roeglin, probation officer. He travelled to Brazil, Russia and England.
