The existence of museums globally provide an invaluable opportunity for people to learn about, experience, revisit, and appreciate the history of the peoples of the world. Even so, many believe that this history is not for museums to tell, especially when the story is being told incorrectly. Although it is undoubtable that museums provide a powerful service, the questionable nature under which museums often present culturally works needs to be further investigated.

In the museum scene from Black Panther, Killmonger references the consequences of colonialism as he proceeds to ‘reclaim’ an artifact that once belonged to his people. A fiery debate arises from this idea, sponsoring the request that illegally acquired artifacts be returned to the cultures that conceived it, especially when western museums are incorrectly displacing the stories behind these precious objects. This relates to the story of Fred Wilson, who created an emotionally charged exhibit to raise awareness of the way museums and other cultural institutions suppress aspects of history that don’t fit into a specific narrative. Twenty years later, Wilson’s exhibit is still discussed is remembered as “a benchmark in the history of museum exhibits” because of the way that it challenged the way that western museums monopolized the representation of historical artifacts.

Theoretically, with the return of illegally acquired artifacts to the country, culture, or group of people from which they originate, history would be able to be told objectively and absolutely. Although I believe that this is the way all histories of the world should be told — objectively and absolutely —  people all around the world would be subsequently deprived of reliving their and others’ history because then museums would only house a very small percentage of the world’s treasures. Therefore, I believe that it would be more just if world worked together to properly display art, artifacts, and information by developing an international library of museum collections that works to safely and efficiently transport exhibitions to and from museums around the world for an abbreviated, yet valuable, period of time. This would enable all peoples and cultures to have an opportunity to experience the beautiful products the people of the past while also enabling the rightful owners of art and artifacts to contribute the information they want to accompany the works as well as act as the official home for these works for majority of the year.

Although I realize that this is a massive task that would take years of planning and delegation along with museums across the world having to compromise, I recognize that upon completion, this system would ultimately benefit the all of the human race as well as the countries that want to reclaim what was taken from them. There is no such thing as too much work or too much time when something is worth doing, and this is worth doing.