Why Museums Should Embrace “Lived History”

During a month-long intensive program in Istanbul I attended during my undergraduate degree, I stayed in an old neighborhood of the city. Every day to get to class, I would walk through a crumbling Byzantine arch and wall to cross the street, weave through many neighborhoods to get to the old Sufi lodge where I attended classes (Sufis are followers of an ascetic branch of Islam). In this complex there were many buildings—a kitchen, a classroom area, and a sort of circular building, when just at the right time of day, if you peaked through the wooden window screens, you could see some Sufis engaging in sama—more popularly known as “whirling dervishes.” 

My time in Istanbul, I felt, was characterized by what I called “lived history”. Not to be confused with “living history” (which involves performers recreating historical scenes, events, or living conditions), I see the term lived history as modern people engaging with structures, materials, and traditions that the academy may view as historic. When I started working with Kera Collective and after finishing my Master’s degree, I started to think more about how the idea of lived history could potentially change how history is framed in museums. 

On the left is an old Byzantine wall and on the right is the Sufi lodge in Istanbul. Taken by Lina in summer 2018.

Experiences of Lived History 

First, I acknowledge that engaging in lived history is something that I have observed more so in parts of Asia than in the United States. In Lahore (modern-day Pakistan), there is an old “walled” city, which today functions as a downtown area. Meandering through its bazaars, I found balconies, homes, and towers that were inhabited by locals. I stumbled across a 17th century mosque nestled within a bazaar (Wazir Khan Masjid) that locals around me used as their central spot to pray. Locals interacted with these seemingly archaic, historical, medieval structures nonchalantly, because these structures were a part of their everyday lives.

Likewise, the old Byzantine walls in Istanbul weren’t an element that was boxed off, set in museums, or framed as separate from today. The lodge that I attended classes in was not a historical marvel, but rather simply a classroom. Rather than treating the lodge as an off-limits area, I was interacting with it, engaging in it, and becoming a part of its existence. 

To me, as a person raised in the West as part of the larger South Asian diaspora, I understood the mosque, the balconies, and the bazaars fundamentally differently than how the locals viewed them. I saw these as historical entities, structures that should be preserved before I visited. Coming in as an outsider, I had thought of history and the contemporary as two separate, unconnected elements, but after living in Istanbul for a month, I started to understand history and the contemporary as fundamentally intertwined. There is a beauty in seeing history that is actively lived in, structures that are actively used rather than sitting behind a glass wall in a museum, tethered away from the lands where they were constructed. 

On the left, a balcony in the walled city of Lahore, Pakistan. On the right, the interior of the Wazir Khan Masjid. Taken by Lina in summer 2021.  

Reorienting Existing Frameworks

Rather than presenting lived history as a reenactment—a way to “step back into time”—I want to see lived history being presented as it exists in the modern world. On a trip to the Met earlier this year, I recall seeing balconies, tombstones, and other objects present in the Asian and Islamic Art exhibitions. They were presented as historic items, but you would find these objects today in any society in Asia! When everyday items like shawls, jewelry, prayer rugs, tombstones are presented as historic, an “otherization” occurs.

I then propose to practitioners to incorporate the idea of lived history into their frames of reference when developing exhibitions and museums. As the museum industry evolves to become more and more diverse, accessible, and equitable, we must also grapple with frames of references that are racist, imperialist, or othering in origin.