Market stall: maritime commerce in the collections of European maritime museums

Gabriel Gee is an art historian. His research explores contemporary artistic and cultural negotiations of trans-industrial change. His interests include the development of the art scenes in the former urban industrial bastions in the North of England in the late twentieth century and have brought him into dialogue with artists and contemporary artforms engaging with maritime transformations, as well as the representation of maritime heritage, particularly in Europe. Here he ref lects on the representation of commerce in European maritime museums at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The discussion considers the balance between self and other articulated by European maritime museums, situated at the crossroads of critical debates and the practical legacies of trading histories, as they continue to shape our contemporary global societies.