Roundtable with Ayesha Fuentes, Elena Holzhausen and Claudia Augustat

Museums today are often seen as secular spaces, some actively trying to distance themselves from their religious etymological origins – the Greek word “mouseion,” meaning a temple of the Muses. Nonetheless, museums such as the Weltmuseum Wien continue to house ancestors and the dead, and contain powerful objects: Yurupari flutes from the Colombia-Brazil border are deliberately unseen in the exhibition, being spiritual entities that cannot be viewed by uninitiated individuals; in a related gesture, the altar ensemble of a spirit medium from Northeast Thailand was gifted to the museum as a space capable of containing the altar’s power.

This roundtable centers on the apparent contradiction that arises between the secular museum as a home to such spiritual artefacts, questioning whether the museum really is a secular space and how this status impacts the meaning, value, and care of the artefacts in collections.

Offering perspectives from Europe and the Global South, this round table brings together several panelists:

Ayesha Fuentes – Objects conservator and researcher specializing in the care of material religion; PhD, SOAS University of London; Conservation Research Associate, Cambridge University Library.

Elena Holzhausen – Art historian, diocesan conservator, and Head of the Art Department of the Archdiocese of Vienna.

Claudia Augustat – Cultural anthropologist and Head of the South America Collection at the Weltmuseum Wien; former project leader of the EU-funded project Taking Care: Ethnographic and World Cultures Museums as Spaces of Care.

The roundtable is organized by GloCo Heritage Studies Vienna in collaboration with the Weltmuseum Wien.

Round table in English
To participate in the event, all guests need a valid museum ticket.
Participation is free for annual ticket holders, Weltmuseum Wien Friends, Patrons, Members and Ambassadors as well as ICOM members and holders of the Kulturpass.
Registration: online
Meeting point: Forum of the Weltmuseum Wien, Admission from 6:30 PM