Meaningful Losses - Deaccessioning as an Integral Part of Sustainable Heritage Work

Abstract

The central aim of this thesis is to uncover how deaccessioning can be used as a sustainable tool in heritage institutions as well as discuss the paradigmatic shift that lays the crucial foundation for the practice to be fully embraced. Research shows that while deaccessioning in recent years has been accepted as a necessity for managing the overwhelming growth of collections, the practice is handled with ambivalence: Removing objects from a museum collection is still taboo seen through the lens of traditional notions of what museums are supposed to be and do. A foundational shift in epistemological ideas about what collections represent and what role they are to play in society needs to take place. This shift has already begun to emerge but is not yet fully integrated into everyday heritage work in Western museums. Through the analysis of three highly different deaccessioning cases in Norwegian and Danish museums, this thesis seeks to demonstrate the complexities of the loss caused by deaccessions, and how these losses might generate meaning and knowledge. Each case is used as a window to critically explore themes that can contribute to a paradigmatic change in the heritage sector.