Last June, the meeting “Curatorship Experiences: museums, collections, and public history” was held in which the ICLAC Alternative Director, María Montt, spoke about the development of the curatorship for the exhibition The Journey of Guan Gong in the MNHN..
The researcher shared her experience as part of the curatorial team for this exhibition, carried out together with Carol Chan, also an ICLAC researcher, and Francisco Garrido, from the MNHN. The exhibition addresses Chinese migration to Latin America and Chile through the rediscovery of a wooden figure of the Chinese deity Guan Gong, found in the museum dating from the 19th century.
According to Montt, the exhibition demonstrates the “failure” in the search for the origin of the figure, allowing conjecture about its origin. In this sense, it allows us to address the cult of the figure of Guan Gong among migrants, and how contemporary Chinese communities continue to transmit this from generation to generation.
Failure: Reversing the Genealogies of Unsuccess, 16th – 19th Centuries
Failureis a project funded by the European Union that aims to offer critical tools to analyze and reverse narratives, both external and self-imposed, about failure. More than 150 researchers from 13 institutions across European and American countries, such as Chile, Spain, Brazil, France, Peru, Mexico, Portugal, Argentina and the United States, participate.