It was half past noon when we opened the door to the Museum Van Loon. At the front desk the museum guide told us that from room to room there was a special exhibit on the Van Loon’s colonial past and also to see the garden in bloom. The Van Loons, co-founders of the East India Company, got rich fast and, judging by the size of their staircase, didn’t mind too much tax. In contrast, the inequality and hardships of their plantation workers were vast, yet it is the laborer’s story being told in the museum.
Each room was lined with black sheeting on which we could examine photographs, artifacts, and video interviews to get different views about the workers like power at the table, creating space, and family and ancestors. In the latter, the exhibit illuminates a family tree for the workers to give them the same attention given to the Van Loon ancestry. In ways like this, the museum became as much about the workers whose labor built the Van Loon’s wealth as it does about the Van Loons themselves.
Looking at things differently, I thought what might it be like if the family crests on the Van Loon family tree were designed today as a smartphone app icon is made to convey a company’s message the same way a family crest expresses a lineage.
I wonder how the Van Loons would feel about the exhibit, modern times, and modern changes or if they’d only care about the stock exchanges. A Van Loon descendent and her children live on the Museum’s top floor and I wonder too what they think about the exhibit. Furthermore, did they have any say in addressing the family’s exploitative history? I’d like to hope that the Van Loon descendants appreciate the way in which their lineage is recast in favor of recognizing past inequalities to help improve modern museum policies.
