Weisman Art Museum’s ‘Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections’ exhibition asks visitors to reconsider how museums construct history and who gets to define it.
On display now through May 17, the exhibition brings together artists whose work critiques the origins of museum collections, revealing how systems of science, power and storytelling meet.
Curated by David Ayala-Alfonso, the exhibition reflects on the birth of modern collections, examining how institutions have shaped narratives around objects, often through systems tied to colonialism and violence.
Rather than presenting clear answers, the exhibition leans into uncertainty.
For Katie Covey Spanier, director of public engagement and learning at Weisman, that uncertainty is intentional.
“One philosophical approach that he writes about is hesitation,” she said. “He talks about hesitation not as confusion or a lack of knowledge, but as an ethical position, a pause before we claim authority.”
The exhibition itself grew out of Ayala-Alfonso’s firsthand experience with museum collections.
“It actually came from a very specific episode,” he said, describing a 2015 visit to Berlin with a curatorial group. There, a bird specimen was surrounded by conflicting stories about its origin.
“I was fascinated with the idea that there was so much gossip around it,” Ayala-Alfonso said.
The conflicting narratives revealed deeper issues about how knowledge is constructed. The works explore themes, including colonial exploitation, myths and systemic racism tied to collecting practices.
“At its core, ‘Never Spoken Again’ slows down the authority of science and museums,” Covey Spanier said. “Rather than presenting history as stable or complete, it treats it as fragile, shaped by loss, belief, and human intervention.”
Some pieces directly addressed the absence and displacement of cultural objects. Covey Spanier pointed to artist Michael Rakowitz’s work responding to the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad, following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“The work is intentionally provisional and fragile,” she said. “ It’s not a replacement, but a kind of record, holding both the absence of the original objects and the political conditions that led to their displacement.”
Other artists approach history through symbolism.
Featured artist Claudia Peña explores archaeological sites and the cosmology of space.
“History is always changing,” Peña said. “That’s interesting to me, finding the different possibilities that sculpture can speak about.”
Her work incorporates handmade materials that emphasize variations and interpretation.
For Ayala-Alfonso, openness is key to the exhibition’s purpose.
“I want to offer the possibility of not imagining that we’re playing to be scientists,” he said. Instead, Ayala-Alfonso encourages viewers to question the systems that define knowledge.
“I want those doubts to be like part of their experience,” he said.
That same philosophy extends to how the exhibition engages visitors. Through tours, programming and interactive experiences, the museum encourages visitors to actively interpret the work. As a University museum, the exhibition has also created space for interdisciplinary learning.
“This exhibition has been an amazing platform for so many different types of conversations with both on-campus and off-campus communities,” Covey Spanier said.
‘Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections’ does not aim to resolve the questions it raises. Instead, it invites visitors to reconsider the stories museums tell and the ones they leave out.
“I thought this is very important work in the arts and world,” Ayala-Alfonso said. “I can incorporate other points of view, or other understandings of what the artifacts are.”
Through that lens, the exhibition reframes the museum not only as a piece of certainty but as a space for questioning, reflection and ongoing dialogue.
