The Tropenmuseum was looking for a contemporary art curator, and I applied. They asked me what I would do were I to get my job. As with the vacancy of director for De Balie (see below, in Dutch) I got through to the last round but ultimately didn’t land the job (the main reason being that they thought I didn’t have a sufficiently solid theoretical basis in art history). However since I enjoyed writing these plans, and thinking about how a ‘stuffy’ old ethnographic museum that wants to renew its appeal could go about doing it, I’m sharing them with you here:

A great opportunity currently exists for the Tropenmuseum to make a mark on the contemporary art scene of the Netherlands. On one hand, the contemporary art scene is booming in ‘developing’ nations, on the other Dutch art institutions are becoming more conservative and inward-looking, making them blind to these exciting developments. This can be seen, for example, in the cultural agenda of the coming season: not one groundbreaking international exhibition is planned for the future. Museums are playing it safe, as if there was no audience for new, progressive and daring exhibitions that attempt to explore how the world is changing and how that reflects in art practices on a global scale. However, this progressive art public does exist, in the Netherlands and beyond, and the Tropenmuseum would do well in embracing it and catering to its curiosity. Moreover this is a logical extension of the museum’s traditional focus on foreign cultures.
If I were to become the curator of contemporary art of the Tropenmuseum, I would organize exhibitions that show the vitality of non-Western cultures today, their responses to globalization, and how that connects to their cultural roots. The exhibitions would be multidisciplinary – a mix of contemporary art, architecture and urbanism, popular art and media and objects from the Tropenmuseum’s collection – and accompanied by a program of events consisting of music, film, presentations and research/think tank workshops.
My approach would be based on the following assumptions:
1. We need to try out novel ways to present contemporary art to the public. There is a growing ‘democratic impatience’ with contemporary art, deemed unintelligible, aesthetically unappealing and only accessible to the in-crowd. I would therefore not fear to break with current intellectual discourses about contemporary art (those of Bourriaud, Rancière and the like) and its relation to society, and attempt instead to create ‘new spaces’ for art, as I have been doing in the past years. A key feature of my past exhibitions is that they explore serious current political and sociological issues which equally affect East and West. I am attracted to art that somehow adds to our understanding of the world we live in and as a curator my goal is to transmit these insights to the public as clearly as possible, while of course leaving room for individual interpretation. Each exhibition would be accompanied by a reader/publication.
2. The Tropenmuseum attracts a well-educated public that is interested in foreign cultures and comes to learn more about them. This is the primary audience (composed largely of senior citizens and schoolchildren) to be addressed in the exhibitions. A second group, which needs to be nurtured, is composed of people whose primary interest lies in art but who approach the subject with a global scope; they come to explore the roots of other artistic traditions. A third group, which I think the Tropenmuseum has been addressing very efficiently in the last decade, is primarily sociologically orientated. They come to inform themselves about global issues, ranging from the current effects of the Netherland’s colonial past to the impact on the environment of modern agricultural practices. The latter two groups will be targeted not only by the exhibitions but also by the programs that accompany them (music, presentations, video…).
3. Whereas contemporary art used to be an exclusively ‘occidental’ affair (i.e. of Western-trained cultural elites) its idiom and practices have now been appropriated by local artists in developing nations and the urban peripheries of Western cities to challenge the Western perception of the world. The mainstream contemporary art establishment has been reluctant (or incapable) of assimilating this ‘non-Western’ art, although several attempts have been made, especially in biennials or other international exhibitions. In the Netherlands very little has been done in this regard, and this constitutes a major opportunity for the Tropenmuseum which can become the place for ground-breaking exhibitions of ‘non-Western’ art.
4. In these non-Western countries cultural elites have emerged who, while embracing globalization, are also genuinely concerned with how their own, local culture is developing. From China to the Gulf countries, from India to South Africa, and from migrant communities in Europe to native Indian communities in Latin America, institutes and private initiatives are emerging to develop links between the local and the global art scenes. These are the natural allies of the Tropenmuseum. They can provide logistical and financial support to exhibitions and offer venues to let these exhibitions travel abroad, thus expanding the institutional outreach of the Tropenmuseum and improving its international profile.
5. The Tropenmuseum has been dogged by its image of a dusty, old-fashioned museum presenting the developing world in a static, almost derogatory manner. Primitive arts collected by ethnographers and other amateurs in the colonial period still seem to dominate the current exhibition. The curatorial staff at the Tropenmuseum has been doing its level best to make exhibitions that address contemporary social and cultural issues, daringly showing contemporary popular and high art alongside its ethnographic collection. This effort may have been noticed and appreciated by the public but, to the frustration of the curators, has not been picked up by the contemporary art establishment. The knowledge and the ambitions of the staff of the Tropenmuseum could be harnessed as a driving force to produce contemporary art exhibitions, along the lines laid out above, that would finally allow the Tropenmuseum to break out of its old skin and assume a new, forward-looking identity. Closer collaboration can be envisaged between the Tropenmuseum and other forward-looking Dutch cultural institutes to allow for coordinated programming (in the fields of, for example, theatre, music, dance, debates and film).
6. The acquisition of a work of art by a museum is an important step for both the artist concerned and the museum, in term of collection policies. It is also an important structuring force in the art-world, as collectors, curators, auction houses etc. attach great value to the presence of an artist’s work in a museum collection. I would therefore suggest focusing on upcoming artists that already have a sufficient body of work behind them but are not yet cherished by the art market. The average price of an artwork would be between ten and twenty thousand Euros and the piece would be selected on its value as a testimony to an important cultural shift in the society in which it is produced.

Examples of themes for possible exhibitions:
• Revival of a regional culture and community around the Arabian Sea;
• Resurgence of native Indian culture in the America’s;
• Art, technology and tradition in the Far East (Korea, Japan, China);
• Africa challenges Western culture
• Graphic storytelling and contemporary art in South Asia
Case Study: the Arabian Sea Today.
Today as in the past the Arabian Sea witnesses intense cultural exchanges among the peoples living along its shores. In this era of globalization we often forget the importance of regional exchanges, comfortably assuming instead that the West is the center of global relations. A visit to the port cities of Mumbai, Karachi, Bandar Abbas, Dubai, Muscat or Zanzibar proves that, to the contrary, social and cultural relations between these cities are not only intense but also developing rapidly. For most of these populations the West is a no-go area because of its restrictive visa policies, but travel among the countries bordering the Indian Ocean is relatively easy.
This exhibition reveals how the fascinating cultural cross-fertilization, now abetted by communications technology, new business opportunities and cheap travel, is expressed in contemporary art, local media, architecture, clothing and folk art. It will be accompanied by a reader and a program of events. Input will be expected from the staff of the Tropenmuseum to provide the cultural-historic background, identify objects in the museum’s collection that can illustrate this background, and particularly in the fields of clothing/fashion (if this expertise is available) and folk art.
A Dutch documentary maker could be commissioned (with support of the Dutch public broadcasting service) to travel the networks linking together communities around the sea. This would provide a much higher visibility to the exhibition. Moreover the Tropenmuseum could try to collaborate with institutions such as De Balie, Paradiso and Arcam on coordinated programming.
Artists: Naiza Khan (Karachi) – Manora Island installation; Riyas Komu (Kerala/Mumbai) – paintings of the Iraqi football team and/or photos of the ‘British’ cemetery in Karachi; Jitish Kallat (Mumbai) – drawings and paintings about the miracle of the clean water in Mumbai Bay; Jerome Symons (Netherlands) – billboards for the Indian workers in Dubai; Gita Meh (Iran) – soffreh food installation; Lamya Gargash (UAE) – photos of the Presence Series; Huma Mulji (Lahore) – Arabian Delight; etc.
Visual Projects: CAMP collective (Mumbai) on dhow trade to Somalia; Iranian Government: Kesh Island (Iran) development plans; Aga Khan architectural restoration project of Zanzibar; socio-economic study with photography of Gadani Beach shipbreaking yard (Pakistan); the cultural impact of migrant workers from Kerala in the Gulf and back home.
Events: Rock Group from Bandar Abbas (Iran); documentary and fiction film cycle; presentations by leading scholars from the Indian Ocean region; Bidoun Project Library of contemporary art in the Middle East
External support: Anupam Poddar (private collector, India); some of the galleries in Pakistan and the Emirates; private collectors in the Gulf region; the sultanate of Oman; the Aga Khan Trust for Culture
The exhibition could travel on to Abu Dhabi, hosted by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage department (ADACH) in Al Manarat, for example.