Netherlands East Indies at the Tropenmuseum: A Colonial History

In The Netherlands East Indies at the Tropenmuseum, sections of the well-known ethnographic collections from Indonesia are interpreted as colonial collections. As such, these objects and images express a specific culture of colonialism and colonial society in which ethnography, art, applied art and crafts from Europe and Southeast Asia merge. For more than a century, these objects and images have played a dynamic role in creating coherence in the ethnographic collections as a whole. Through this new interpretation of such objects as colonial collections, the contours of the many diverging and contradictory social relationships that existed within colonial society become visible. In eight essays, invited authors elaborate on this approach and challenge the Tropenmuseum to extend its policies on the interpretation and presentation of ethnographnic collections in a national and international dialogue on art, cultural heritage and the legacies of colonial culture.