Amid global trend of greater ‘sensitivity’ to cultural relics' origins, experts urge Singapore museums to review collections

At the same time, some experts here are also calling for these artefacts to be exhibited in a way that is"sensitive" to the context they originated from, such as by not harping on colonial narratives that could carry negative connotations.

The relics were allegedly taken from the Tamil Nadu temples in the 1970s and recently traced to the Asian Civilisations Museum , the newspaper reported. She added that curators should be sensitive about how to position Singapore within Southeast Asia without overemphasising the power imbalances arising from the Republic's own economic growth.In response to TODAY’s queries on how ACM is responding to these trends, director Kennie Ting said the museum now focuses on exploring cross-cultural perspectives"rather than civilisations in silos", and that it has been spotlighting Asian craftsmanship and design, among other things.

“Museum exhibitions can be powerful ways of telling stories to people, taking them through visual journeys that can be very moving and affective,” said Asst Prof Lim. "Asia is placed at centrestage and we explore and present how it has impacted the world historically and today, in terms of trade, systems of belief and ideology, craft and aesthetics, and style," he said.The experts also said Singapore's museums should proactively review the provenance of works and relics that are in its collections.This is in light of recent events surrounding claims from other countries to repatriate these artefacts.

Elsewhere, there have been Western museums that have complied with such claims. For example, France in 2021 returned a collection of bronze statues to Nigeria, known as the Benin Bronzes. The relics were looted from Nigeria by French forces in 1892. In a separate case, a religious artefact that is nearly four centuries old was said to have been taken from Nepal and was also traced to Singapore in August last year.

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