When The Dust Settles -

Museums are not neutral spaces and their official stories often obfuscate untold and unseen counter-narratives. While working as a cultural worker and embedded researcher at the Van Abbemuseum, Camille Guibaud encountered a dust ball. An unwelcome but inevitable and revealing element, the dust ball was used to trace the institution’s interdependencies, including the labour of cleaning and caring that sustained the institution’s existence. It also raised a host of concerns regarding ethical research and its dissemination. In a performative lecture, the dust ball becomes an allegory to reflect on the care and considerations that must go into voicing the untold narratives living within museum walls.