Yes cultural artifacts should be returned to their religion of origin. The artifacts should be returned to their religion of origin because that is where the artifact came from. So it is like we are stealing the artifacts from that religion. If we keep taking all the artifacts from a religion and putting them in a museum people could almost completely forget about that culture. Most of the artifacts that we take and put in museums have special value to the cultures. In the passage it says “ many artifacts and works of art have special cultural value for a particular community or nation.” when the people who take the artifacts from the culture take things it takes away part of their culture. In the passage it states “it was exported illegally
There is an ongoing debate on whether the Parthenon Marbles, now located in London, England, should be returned to their original homeland of Athens, Greece. The marbles were removed from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin from 1801-1812 and transported to England. They were sold to the British government in 1816 and put in the British Museum where they have been for the last 200 years. I believe that the marbles should now be returned to Greece, not only because of the method and circumstances surrounding their removal, but because they are original pieces of the oldest and most symbolic structure in Greek history that epitomizes the pinnacle of Ancient Classical Greece and the beginning of western democracy through artistic ingenuity.
The debate of the reburial of excavated Native American sites has been going on for quite some time now. I believe that the wealth of knowledge gained from these discovered artifacts and bones yield much more valuable information than simply placing them back into the ground, causing them to be lost forever. The remains of Pre-Columbian Native Americans should not be reburied and should be studied and documented for the sake of history and a better understanding of it.
This can include valuable elements or artifacts belonging to a different culture, and can easily be a violation of their rights. In the 1981 movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dr. Indian Jones seems to be a master of appropriating cultural artifacts coveted by other cultures. A scene that portrays this idea is the scene at the beginning of the film where Indy is determined to steal a golden idol from a South American Tribe. It is obvious by the many booby-traps that protect this idol, that the tribe members do not want this item out of their possession. Though its importance to the tribe is quite clear, Indy dodges the traps in order to retrieve the idol for his own motives. While he does not successfully get away with this mission, his little disregard for the tribe’s important artifact is definitely noted through his reckless attempt to retrieve
Baxandall, Michael. "Exhibiting intention: Some preconditions of the visual display of culturally purposeful objects." Exhibiting cultures: The poetics and politics of museum display (1991): 33-41.
In this manner, western cultures command great power by being able to represent their own heritage as a higher ranking than the “primitive” art of Third World nations that is often exhibited: “It also means the power to define and rank people, to declare some as having a greater share than others in the community’s common heritage—in its very identity” (Duncan 102). These are the important findings of Duncan’s (1991) analysis of cultural imperialism, which I agree with in terms of the greater influence of American and European museums to ritualize their status as a first world modern nation. More so, American/European museums get greater funding to superimpose their culture over museums in third world countries, which defines the overt power of the museum as a “temple” for first world art. These are important aspects of Duncan’s view that the disproportionate presence of western art throughout the world is based on a primarily imperialistic notion of cultural superiority in the presentation of American and European heritage on a global scale. In my opinion, I feel that western museums deliberately impose their cultural values in terms of “modernity” as a means of ranking themselves above lesser nations. Certainly, the increasing popularity of “primitive”
Cultural heritage gives us sense of belonging. The values should be preserved by the virtue. Culture emerge as people struggle to live a better life. So cultural is inescapable. When we start seeing culture was more of away of living, the obstacles will brought down and people will end up having no boundaries .
For years on end, countries have been fighting with big museums from other countries for ancient artifacts that belong to the original countries. The argument of whether or not the museums should be able to keep them still remains. It is the right of the country to have their own artifacts. It is imperative for countries to be able showcase their historical artifacts, therefor museums should return them to their rightful owners.
?Any work of art owes its existence to the people and culture from which it has emerged. It has a functional and historical relationship with that culture.? Michael W. Conner, PhD#
This also brings up the questions of: Can cultural appropriation be defined and can it be avoided? With the new fads of Chinese character tattoo's, Hindu god t-shirts, and the selling of such things as Native sweat lodge kits and ceremonies, does this not show that North Americans can appreciate other cultures and that western culture has become a product of a multicultural society.1 Through examples of film and art, sports, and religion, I will answer the following questions and specifically how cultural appropriation has affected North American First Nation peoples. There is much confusion when it comes to the meaning of cultural appropriation. The literal meaning begins with Culture-Anthropological: the sum total of the attainments and learned behaviour patterns of any specific period, race or people; Appropriation's meaning is to take for one's own use.[2] Most people today then know cultural appropriation then as "to take someone else's culture to use for your own purpose".2 I believe that the argument is not that appropriation is "stealing", as some people claim, but that it does matter how a person goes about putting to use the knowledge
Other countries that are taking these artifacts that aren’t even theirs are way out of line. In the third
In a word, cultural heritage belongs to where it is created. Based on this precondition, cultural artifacts can be shared by all the human being only when its owner offers this on his own.
‘Copying, reinterpreting, quoting, and translating are all terms that have been utilized as alternative descriptions for the phenomenon known as “appropriation”, the action of taking or making use of something without authority or legal right. This practice often involves borrowing, mimicking, or even stealing, and it is highly contested and criticized in the contemporary art world’ (Gorman, C 2013, p. 215).
A museum gives us insight on the culture from an out standing point of view, and the things we are shown are supposed to be looked at from the outside. The people who decided what things to exhibit did not belong to that community saw it, and decided what they considered is different to what we are used to, and what we would be interested in learning from that. The display of things in a Museum are things that we look at as something that is outside from normal. In contrast to the movie or movies, where scenes substantially show how the person felt and dealt with situations and tools from their own perspective, with their own knowledge and experience and through different means such as real images, sounds, language and others produces a different knowledge on the racial discourse. When looking at exhibitions in museums the other culture is unknown, and almost uncomfortable to us, but in movies we can be standing in their
The Egyptian authorities petitioned for a loan of the bust in 2011 in order to showcase it in their new museum near Giza. They were denied their right to the bust, even temporarily. The bust was constructed and resurrected in Egypt, making them the lawful and deserving owner of it. As far as I am concerned, any cultural and historical piece of art or history of a country belongs with them, unless said country made an active decision to do otherwise with their property. United Nations Charter and UNESCO Constitution both state per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 27), "Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in the scientific advancement of its benefits. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary, or artistic production of which he is the
Is it possible to be a Muslim without believing the validity of the prophecies of Mohammed? Is it possible to be a Christian without believing in the resurrection of Jesus? My definition of religion transformed greatly during my studies the past few months. Even as a religion major at St. Olaf College I thought of religion very narrowly, as a construct of metaphysical beliefs. But I've come to realize that religion runs far deeper than my Lutheran mind previously conceived.