A Programme of Absolute Disorder

The Western museum is a battleground-a terrain of ideological, political and economic contestation. Calls for its decolonisation have washed like great breakers over the institution; almost everyone today wants to "rethink the museum". But how many have the audacity to question the very presuppositions of the universal museum itself?

In A Programme of Absolute Disorder, Francoise Verges puts the museum in its place. With a specific focus on the history of the Louvre, she centres the context in which the universal museum emerged: as a product of the Enlightenment and colonialism, of a Europe which presents itself as the guardian of the heritage of all mankind.

Discussing the impasses in the representation of slavery, and examining unsuccessful attempts to subvert the museum institution, Verges outlines a radical horizon: to truly decolonise the museum is to implement a 'programme of absolute disorder', inventing other ways of apprehending the human and non-human world that nourish collective creativity and bring justice and dignity to populations who have been dispossessed of it.