Abstract
Naturalis, the Dutch national museum of natural history, celebrated its bicentennial in 2020 by launching the special exhibition, Nature’s Treasure Trove, featuring 25 ‘crown jewels’ from the collection – of which five are extinct. As a celebratory look back on the museum’s history of collecting, the exhibition navigates tensions between national culpability and national pride: culpability for colonialism and species loss, and pride in the Dutch tradition of scientific discovery. We argue that the exhibition can be seen as an exercise in repurposing a cultural memory that is essential to Dutch national identity, in a world that can no longer ignore the harm done by humans, including the Dutch.
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