In The Netherlands East Indies at the Tropenmuseum, sections of the
well-known ethnographic collections from Indonesia are interpreted as
colonial collections. As such, these objects and images express a
specific culture of colonialism and colonial society in which
ethnography, art, applied art and crafts from Europe and Southeast Asia
merge. For more than a century, these objects and images have played a
dynamic role in creating coherence in the ethnographic collections as a
whole. Through this new interpretation of such objects as colonial
collections, the contours of the many diverging and contradictory social
relationships that existed within colonial society become visible. In
eight essays, invited authors elaborate on this approach and challenge
the Tropenmuseum to extend its policies on the interpretation and
presentation of ethnographnic collections in a national and
international dialogue on art, cultural heritage and the legacies of
colonial culture.