Making and unmaking Indonesian Islam Legacies of colonialism in museums

When Indonesia is presented in museums, the focus is often on Hindu-Buddhist art or the heritage of the country’s non-Muslim cultural groups. A similar situation exists in relation to Islamic art. Museum collections and exhibitions, with very few exceptions, focus on art from the so-called central lands of Islam and seldom pay attention to Indonesia. This thesis examines the silences surrounding Indonesian Islam in museums in the Netherlands, through a study of the colonial framings and their durabilities to the present. A variety of archival sources is used to write detailed histories of Indonesian objects that are currently present in Dutch museums, following them during instances of collecting, classification, interpretation and public display. Through readings of the objects themselves as well as the study of their biographies, the study investigates the various meanings attached to the objects by their Indonesian makers and users and their re-appropriation in the hands of Dutch collectors and museum staff. The analysis focuses on the long-term effects in the present, in particular in relation to the decolonisation of museums. In the Netherlands, the narrative of Islam as art and religion had a continued presence in museums, with Indonesia only playing a minor role. This thesis argues, first of all, that this condition is related to the situatedness of colonialism in Indonesia and, concomitantly, a number of interlinked conceptions that made Indonesian Islamic art as a museological notion inviable. Secondly, that the narratives of Islamic collections in the Netherlands have alienating effects, and today constitute a structural injustice which requires repair beyond repatriation and re-interpretation of individual objects.