Beautiful or Mournful? The Contested Meanings of the Tsunami Museum in the Post-disaster Landscape of Banda Aceh, Indonesia

This chapter critically explores the process of storing memories of the 2004 Tsunami disaster in Banda Aceh’s “beautiful” tsunami museum. Drawing on interviews and observations at the Tsunami Museum, the chapter argues that the museum has emerged as a new symbol representing Banda Aceh as a disaster area. However, this museum is selective in its representation, forgetting other key defining aspects of Banda Ache’s history, particularly memories of the thirty-years (1946–2005) of conflict, a painful period of Acehnese history. It is contended that the Tsunami Museum deliberately masks this conflict, and instead focuses on the 2004 tsunami in a manner that promotes government action in Banda Aceh in a positive light. The museum’s monumental form and beauty project a sense of authority and tranquillity to mask the memories of conflict. Applying Kaplan’s theory of unwanted beauty to our analysis of the Tsunami Museum, we argue that while memorials adopt authority and tranquillity to enhance a sense of remembering, this very beauty can be manoeuvred to exclude ugly memories. In sum, we contend that what you see in public spaces is not a complete story.