Ethnographical museums collect widely but do not dig deeply

 In his publication Museums of Influence (1987), Kenneth Hudson described how he had visited 37 museums that made significant changes in the 200 years of museology. He dismissed ethnographic museums as those that exhibited objects from exotic cultures without attempting to communicate essentials features of the societies more easily conveyed through film, video or even lectures. He laments the absence of ambitions, fears, poverty, disease, climate, cruelty, brutality, blood, sense, smell and therefore cohesion to the exhibits. “Ethnographical museums collect widely but do not dig deeply” (Hudson 1987:vii) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.