The Ghost of Time: A Conversation about Making Films about Museums

In this conversation, host Aisha Jamal and her guests Sameer Farooq and Marley McDonald talk about how documentary filmmakers are using the medium of film in unique ways to investigate and lay bare the museum’s history of trade, theft and violence.
Sameer Farooq’s experimental documentary “The Museum Visits A Therapist” (2022) focuses on the Tropenmuseum collection – Amsterdam’s prominent museum of ethnography – and asks what if the museum visited a therapist? What could this trauma-centered therapy session reveal?
Marley McDonald is currently in development of a documentary on American Natural History museums, entirely “The Elephant in the Room,” a purely archival film that attempts to closely listen to what collections show and hide about their past, present and future. They ask questions about what each of these projects adds to this burning conversation around art restitution, acts of preservation and museum collections.

Length: 46:30
Recorded on 16 June 2023

Moderator and Host: Aisha Jamal
Music Composer: Marcus Lori
Sound Design: Timon Misselhorn
Editors: René Blümel, Anne Rethfeldt

You can find out more about our collaborators here.