Breaking museal tradition: Guadeloupe’s “mémorial ACTe” and the scenography of slavery

Abstract

This article examines the degree to which the scenography of Guadeloupe’s new slavery memorial represents an important turning point in the narrativization and museumification of the French Atlantic slave trade and slavery. Neither purely museum, memorial, nor monument, but all three at the same time, the MACTe escapes traditional museal classification. By blurring the lines between history and fiction, connecting past and present, and juxtaposing “authenticating” historic relics and symbolic contemporary artistic creations in a nonhierarchical way, the MACTe enacts a Creole museography, whereby not one single element is placed above another.