The British Museum has apologised after a tweet from one of its curators saying ‘sometimes Asian names can be confusing’ on exhibition labels saw it accused of racism and dumbing down, reports the BBC.
BBC news writes:
The British museum in a statement has ‘apologized for any offence caused’ following a row which escalated after Jane Portal, from the London institution’s Asia department, said ‘sometimes Asian names can be confusing’ on exhibition labels and continued: ‘We have to be careful about using too many,’ prompting a string of critical tweets.
The statement added: ‘Jane was answering a very specific question about how we make the information on object labels accessible to a wider range of people.’ Answering a question as part of the museum’s #AskACurator initiative, Ms Portal said ‘we aim to be understandable by 16 year olds’ and the length of the wording on information labels could be limiting.
‘Dynasties & gods have different names in various Asian languages,’ she wrote. ‘We want to focus on the stories.’
