Decolonial Museology Recentered: Thinking Theory and Practice through East-Central Europe
Photo: Courtesy of Piotr Sikora (piotrsikora.com).
Decolonial Museology Recentered (DMR) addresses the lack of decolonial discourse in the Polish museum landscape and helps develop critical museology in Poland in both theory and in practice. Co-investigators Erica Lehrer and Joanna Wawrzyniak are working with Dr. Joanna Wasilewska (Director, Asia and Pacific Museum, Warsaw) to mentor student and postdoctoral researchers as we survey the range of colonial histories and decolonial approaches to museum collections and curatorial practices in Poland and the broader ECE region. The research process gives particular emphasis to the needs, challenges, and aspirations of representatives of ethnic minorities who are socially marginalized in Poland today.
We are producing theoretical and practical tools to help develop a broad conversation around decoloniality in Poland’s museums, including an edited volume representing groundbreaking, international scholarly research surveying the field of decolonial museology in the East-Central European context and considering what this regional case can contribute to the broader global discussion. A policy recommendations document, based on the insights of a Poland-based minority community consultation group convened by the project, will be debated and refined in a workshop with culture-sector leaders.
team members
Erica Lehrer
Erica Lehrer, PhD is a sociocultural anthropologist and curator. She is a Professor in the departments of History and Sociology-Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal, and the Founding Director of its Curating and Public Scholarship Lab (CaPSL). Her publications include Curatorial Dreams: Critics Imagine Exhibitions (2016); Jewish Space in Contemporary Poland (2015); Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places (2013); and Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places (2011), and numerous articles. Her exhibitions include “Souvenir, Talisman, Toy” (2013) and “Terribly Close: Polish Vernacular Artists Face the Holocaust” with Roma Sendyka, Wojciech Wilczyk, and Magdalena Zych (2018-19) at the Kraków Ethnographic Museum.
Role: Principal Investigator + Coordinating Committee
Cluster: National History and Traumatic Memory
Anna Pruszyńska
Anna Pruszyńska is a practicing architect and a MA student at the Faculty of Sociology at the University of Warsaw, Poland. She is currently a Research Assistant at the project “Decolonial Museology Re-centered: Thinking Theory and Practice through East-Central Europe”. She graduated from Warsaw University of Technology in 2019. Her BSc thesis was an architectural and curatorial proposal for the Polish Herstoric Museum in which she investigated more inclusive and less doctrinaire ways of discussing - and inventing - the past. Her academic and activist interests span across sociology of work, gender studies, and sociology of housing.
Role: Research Assistant Cluster: Museum Queeries
Joanna Wawrzyniak
Joanna Wawrzyniak is Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Research on Social Memory in the Faculty of Sociology, University of Warsaw, where she specializes in East-Central European memory processes. Her current projects include research on memories of socialism, neoliberal transformation, and deindustrialization in Poland and contributions to collaborative research on cultural heritage and memory processes in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and East and South Asia. Together with Erica Lehrer, Joanna co-leads the project “Decolonial Museology Re-centered: Thinking Theory and Practice through East-Central Europe” and is the vice chair of the action “Slow Memory”.
Role: Collaborator
Cluster: National Heritage and Traumatic Memory
naveed L. salek nejad
Naveed (Lennart Salek Nejad) is an MA Candidate in the Individualized Program (Humanities) at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal), focusing on research-creation, anti-racist modes of representation, and their role in healing (intergenerational) trauma. Naveed graduated from University College Maastricht in 2020 with an interdisciplinary BA in artistic research, gender and diversity studies, and political science. Before moving to Tiohtià:ke, they completed a 10-month education fellowship at the curatorial department of Gropius Bau in Berlin, working in public programming and diversity-sensitive outreach work with migrant communities.
Role: Research Assistant
Cluster: National Heritage and Traumatic Memory
Agnieszka (Aggie) Frasunkiewicz
Agnieszka (Aggie) Frasunkiewicz is a writer and researcher based in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). She holds a BA in Visual and Critical Studies from OCAD University, where she led the Journal of Visual and Critical Studies. Her research explores feminism and female artists working in the Polish People’s Republic, and how a distinct, homegrown feminism in Poland nurtures contemporary feminist movements in Poland. She is currently an Art History MA candidate at Concordia University.
Role: Research Assistant
Cluster: National Heritage and Traumatic Memory