Publisher's Synopsis
What gets counted within the category of heritage, and who gets to do the counting?
What to Let Go? offers new contributions by and international roster of thinkers, authors, anthropologists, curators, artists, and poets addressing the question: what gets counted within the category of heritage, and who gets to do the counting? Addressing the increasing debate around repatriation of looted artefacts by colonial powers to the varied and dissimilar processes of renaming and removing symbols of past eras, from India and Myanmar to Apartheid South Africa, the book will also look at how China's resurgent nationalism is placing a (still developing) version of its imperial heritage at the core of its twenty-first century self-image. As these processes appear to occupy an increasingly prominent segment of the political discourse, with history seemingly becoming the major battlefield both for the left and for the right, What to Let Go? asks: how can art reconfigure our collective foundational myths?
