Reflections and memories

There’s something about military museums across the world that seems similar – the metallic, musky smell; sense of national pride; and a narrative, which, almost always, seems to highlight the victorious accomplishments of the home nation’s military and horrific actions of the enemy. Personally, I find it hard to connect with the objects on display, and the people they represent, because of the lack of personal memory or insight into that person - it is almost as if soldiers become faceless figures and names. You are seldom told of the soldier’s everyday life, if only briefly though a short label. This thought every much reflects my experience of the Vietnam Military Museum where I found it difficult to connect with the objects due to lack of communication (in English anyway) of its significance, background story and the role it plays in the wider context of the conflict it represented. Perhaps this is because military personnel are regarded to be representative of a nation, and therefore, the museum assumes the soldier’s intentions and experiences are universally understood? However, when museums present exhibitions that draw on memories of everyday people who were affected by war, my experience is completely altered – I become much more empathetic and can put myself into someone else’s shoes much easier. Maybe this highlights my own lack of patriotism and struggle to understand wars and conflicts. Or perhaps it is because I can more easily relate experience of war with  stories my Grandad told me of growing up in London in WWII during the Blitz. Would my experience be different if my grandad had told me stories of fighting in conflicts?

I have been to many museums and sites that commemorate or represent traumatic and devastating events affecting everyday people. Some of these sites include Ground Zero, site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, New York; Anna Franks Huis, Amsterdam; The Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles, which details the poor treatment of Japanese Americans living in Los Angeles during WWII; and The Peace Dome Memorial Museum, Hiroshima, site of the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan by Americans at the end of World War II. While these museums also focus on war and conflict, they provoke a very different emotion to that of military museums through alternative perspectives and focus on everyday people. For me, these sites have one thing in common: the use of in-depth story telling through personal memories and narratives leaves me feeling a deep connection with and empathy towards the people represented through the objects on display. Through the memories represent in these museums I am able to put myself in that person’s shoes and often become quite emotional – particularly in Hiroshima (where I struggled to hold back tears during most of my visit). I personally have no connections to these countries or the events that affected these people, but the memories captured in these museums have stayed with me.

What is interesting about museums that focus on traumatic events is that the objects on display are almost always everyday items (or at least not objects typically related to violence). A lunchbox is no longer a lunchbox but becomes the storyteller of a child worker who tragically got killed by the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The object’s meaning is completely transformed and recontextualised through the memory connected to it; yet, if the museum did not communicate the object’s association with people or events then it would be difficult to relate to the object or understand its significance. Would the object have any significance at all if we were not told the story the object has to tell, particularly for future generations who, with out context, may never be able to connect with or relate to objects associated with conflict and the trauma it causes? What is an object without a narrative, I wonder? The stories an object prompts can be such a powerful and emotional tool, both in terms of active memory and commemoration. The challenge for the museum ensuring these stories are told in an ethical and respectful way.