Taking into account the start of the museum evolution will always bring to mind how those in power will always control the publicization of valuable items. It isn’t surprising that in the 16th century “collections were rarely open to the public and remained the playthings of princes, popes, and plutocrats” (5). But in the same way today, it is still the wealthy who can skew the art market, inflate prices, and define what is considered worthy of being viewed. In the same way that art is shared, who controls the way the audience interacts with it? When the 3D scans of the bust of Nefertiti were shared online, who was really in control of the artefact?

Another point I take interest in is the way Michael Ames writes about how history and pieces of society and nature, “by virtue of their location…are implicitly compared with and subordinated to contemporary established values and definitions of social reality…limit[ing] their audiences’ abilities to make sense of collections and place them in broader social contexts” (12). In a video that I watched of a Native American musician at the Field Museum in Chicago, he explains that walking through the halls dedicated to Native American history, full of seemingly historical artifacts and clothing items, made him feel as if his present was being erased. The mere fact that those items are protected and coveted make it seem like his past is worth more than his present. In the same way that images of historical black figures are often reproduced in black in white to make the days of segregation feel farther away than they actually are, our perceptions of what we see inside museums make it hard for us to picture those same occurrences outside of museums. Additionally, while museums can shape how we see the world, how do our internal biases increase their effects?