The Rijksmuseum’s slavery exhibition, 5 June–29 August 2021: review article

Abstract

In early June, after months of closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Rijksmuseum finally greeted its audiences with an exhibition theme that the museum had never mounted before: Slavery. The exhibition focused on the role of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in trans-Atlantic slavery and the Dutch East India Company’s (VOC) colonial slavery in Southeast Asia between the 17th and 19th centuries. It marked the museum’s first attempt to show the most unsettling aspect of the nation’s past and this exhibition review sets out to access and assess its intent to re-frame the museum collection in terms of enslavement.