I have to admit that as I was reading through Dolly Jørgensen’s Ghosts Behind Glass: Encountering Extinction in Museums, I sometimes wondered what, exactly, I was supposed to be feeling. Sorrow for the many extinct species described in the book, certainly, and anger at humanity’s general disregard for most of its fellow creatures on the planet, sure, but what about the museum exhibitions themselves? At the end of a chapter titled “Cursed Treasures,” Jørgensen, a history professor at the University of Stavanger in Norway and co-editor of the journal Environmental Humanities, writes: “Museums owe it to [extinct species] to tell their stories. To put these treasures on display and face up to the curse. To allow them to haunt our halls. Can telling their stories lift the curse? Maybe not. But it’s all we have.” Honestly, that doesn’t seem like much.
It is really only in the book’s epilogue, when Jørgensen is “weighing the value of displaying extinction,” that she comes out with what seems like a thesis: these displays are similar to those found at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile. Specifically, they enact three functions identified by sociologist Amy Sodaro: “truth-telling about history and preserving the past; serving as a solemn space of remembrance to help heal and repair; and instilling visitors with a ‘never again’ ethic.”
Those are admirable goals, and perhaps extinction exhibits do work toward them. However, my overall sense of the museums described so carefully by Jørgensen, and illustrated with her vivid color photographs, was the futility of their endeavors. Even if visitors do leave, vowing, “Never again,” it’s unclear what they are supposed to do to prevent further extinctions. More to the point, Jørgensen has lavished so much attention on the museums’ examples of extinct species that we can’t help but feel that whatever happens in the future, it’s too late for them.