This will be discussed in my forthcoming book- the ‘Mediation of Visual Art & Cultural Heritage Disputes’, see www.carlislam.co.uk
‘Gazing’ (or ‘Active Looking’) operates as a critical mechanism for deconstructing power dynamics, reconstructing narratives, and uncovering the underlying interests of the conflicting parties.
Rather than a passive act of viewing, gazing acts as a tool of disciplined visuality that shapes how ownership, trauma, identity, and historical truth are validated or erased.
(i) ‘Deconstructing the “Dominant Gaze” and Imperial Frameworks’ – Historically, Western colonial or state institutions have utilized a specific, authoritative gaze to categorize sacred Indigenous or community objects as mere ‘scientific artefacts’ or ‘aesthetic properties’.
(ii) ‘Shifting Power Dynamics’ – Mediation encourages a transition from a top-down, dominant view to an inclusive, localized perspective. It shifts the question from legal title to who holds the cultural right to look at, interpret, and care for the work.
(iii) ‘Exposing Visual Erasure’ – The Gaze can be politically engineered to make certain histories visible while entirely ‘unseeing’ or erasing others (e.g., marginalized or occupied communities). Effective Mediation forces the Participants [‘P’s’] to confront what has been silenced behind the physical frame.
Because litigation is binary, an artwork is a ‘zero-sum commodity’.
In Mediation, ‘Active Looking’ functions as a tool for ‘re-complexifying’ narratives, i.e. by intentionally uncovering, restoring, or highlighting the missing nuances, contradictions, and multiple perspectives within a story thereby challenging flat, overly simplistic, or polarizing stories by deliberately looking for the messy details that disrupt the dominant storyline.
The Mediator guides the P’s toward engaging with the artwork’s multi-layered history simultaneously. This avoids establishing a single ‘correct’ historical timeline.
Instead of forcing both sides to agree on a single historical truth, Gazing allows the P’s to tolerate and validate diverse cultural identities and viewpoints, leading to creative compromises (e.g., shared curation, digital replicas, or restitution with scientific access).
Visual Art and Cultural Heritage Disputes are deeply emotional because the past embedded in the artwork directly affects modern communal identity, moral obligations, and spiritual values.
In Mediation, looking at the artwork forces a physical and mental deceleration.
This ‘Visual Pause’ breaks the adversarial deadlock.
It prompts disputants to discuss their immediate emotional and psychological associations with the object – thereby moving them from past rigid legal barriers, toward identifying real and reconcilable goals.