Constituent museum

They actually wrote a whole book on how they were to be a constituent museum. The worlds first. I think they made quite a splash in the art world. I really, really didn’t get it. So, we (a bunch of artistically inclined queers) would work with the curators to enhance our agency in the museum….and what…proceed to work together to make the role of curator redundant? Surely the project was doomed to fail? What curator in their right mind would render themselves obsolete? Don’t get me wrong I liked the idea I just didn’t get it, get it. Having thumbed through the book on constituent museums, the ideas were quite radical in some senses, a museum for the people by the people. A pithy slogan that would inspire a new way of thinking about museums. The reality of working as a constituent of a museum was exciting yet awkward meetings about possibilities, asking incessantly about remuneration and fighting with the curators. Two notable fights stick out in my mind.

Fight number one. At a meeting for the constituencies we were invited to participate as the queers, one of the project leads announced that many of the constituencies were to be transient in nature, with the notable exception of the beloved Van Abbe choir who would languish in eternal glory within the halls of the Van Abbe. The choir looked on in a way I can only define as smug. “Fuck that” I thought to myself “we’re going to outlast the choir”. So far both the OoQA and the choir still exist so we need to keep going for a few more years at least. Come to think of it this fight took place entirely in my head, but I digress.

Fight number two took place in a semi public setting and exemplifies the sort of uncomfortable particularities around budgeting for different projects. We were planning a book club inspired by Susan Sontag under the theme of “camp”, we were going to “camp” under the big tent on the second floor, tell “camp” stories (read also: gay) and generally be very camp. You get it, a very cute and quirky concept, we were (and remain) adorable.

Additionally we had been invited by H to join another book based event happening in the afternoon. We could all sign up, come together for a joint lunch and then join the afternoon session with the other group - a collective based in den Bosch exploring concepts of Afro futurism through literature and art. I was pretty excited, god knows we were not at our most intersectional in the first few years and we really, really needed to learn more. It became apparent quite quickly that some of the group members definitely wanted the free lunch but did not want to attend the afternoon session, due to the fact that it was in Dutch only. I figured that was ok, lunch was already ordered, right?

The session started really well, we had 12 attendees with varying levels of enthusiasm about the event. I was anxious as per usual and determined that everyone would feel safe and comfortable enough to share their thoughts. As the session proceeded we decided we should write some “campfire songs” with queer themes (again -adorable). At the very moment we started singing, in marches H wanting to know how many of the lunch attendees precisely would be attending the event afterwards. I was immediately on the defensive. It’s something so particularly specific to queer spaces that it’s hard to explain sometimes. If you are all there and you are sharing vulnerabilities and connecting, it really ruins the vibe when and outsider just marches in. From H’s perspective she explained that the food came out of her budget and that it was linked directly to the event attendance. Looking back I totally see where everyone was coming from, but I was always so worried that something would happen during the book club to disrupt the peace and safety and deter people from coming back that this small incident felt heavy at the time. From our perspective we were just trying to be queer and wear glitter in the tent and vibe and here comes H with her budget nonsense, we just wanted to eat some sandwiches. But that’s life under capitalism , right? These programs cost money and that money had to be allocated accordingly. Whatever, H could have chosen a better moment, I could have acted less like a small, angry guard dog.

Did we really act as constituents? Agents of the museum with purpose, power and the ability to enact change? The jury is still out, yes? Maybe? I think we got further that most people would have and we did do something really interesting and somewhat new.