The article contributes to considerations on
the exhibits of colonial origin that exist in Western culture,
and on the institution of museum with regard to the terms
of postcolonial theory. Moreover, it addresses practical issues
concerning museum’s policy towards artefacts of non-
European origin. I referred to the basic concepts used in
the theory of postcolonialism, such as: otherness, hybridity,
mimicry, the Third Space, and to the interpretation of collectibles
– “semiophores” (carriers of meaning) – as named
by Krzysztof Pomian. I presented issues related to museum
exhibitions, and the existence of museums in countries affected
by colonialism, using the examples of: the return of
Maori heads (mokomokai) from French museums to New
Zealand, permanent exhibitions of the Cinquantenaire
Museum in Brussels and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam,
activities of the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, and the
temporary exhibition in Berlin – “Deutscher Kolonialismus:
Fragmente seiner Geschichte und Gegenwart” from 2017.
The problems that have been examined reveal the hybrid
structure of “semiophores” coming from outside Europe,
which makes both their reception by the viewer and the way
of their presentation by the museum difficult. The article
helps to realise that displaying the “otherness” of the non-
European cultures is quite a challenge for curators, similarly
as the concept of such institution like museum must be
for these cultures. This results in creation by the museum
of the so-called Third Space. The soonest research should
give an answer to the question asked by Professor Maria
Poprzęcka: To what extent history of art co-created the massive
structure of cultural supremacy and intellectual and artistic
domination, which found its institutional and material
form in museums that were being erected all over the world.
The Third Space of Northern Ireland: An Analysis of Seamus Heaney’s Bog Poems from Postcolonial Theory
