Dancing without movement? Addressing the gaze in an ethnographic museum.
Do objects have a "destiny"? The costumes of the Dancers of the Light at the Ethnographic Museum J.B. Ambrosetti help us reflect on that question. If a collection can be thought of as a praxis of social memory, we must wonder what kind of memory can be built by exhibiting this kind of object. As we always face time when we confront a picture (Didi-Huberman, 2006), the path taken by these costumes will be analyzed from an anachronic viewpoint: on the one hand, how these practices continue to exist in Bolivia; on the other hand, the life these costumes gain when they are displayed at the museum, which is a device that shapes our look (Agamben, 2016). The costumes survived twice, then: among the Jalq'a communities nowadays (Bolivia), who still carry out their traditional dances with similar costumes; and at the museum, where a living memory is to be preserved.