Much of this chapter discusses the manner in which national museums contribute to imagining and defining a nation, both for citizens and wider international communities. Emphasis is placed on the importance of acknowledging the relationship between museum reality and performance, when identifying how the national museum contributes to the production of the nation. Knell states that museums have not always been cold and factual spaces; one and two centuries ago, Hazelius’ social engineering and Lenoir’s stenography expressed an inclusion of fictions and illusions, while their contemporaries conformed to what is coined the Enlightenment museum – focusing on aesthetic and intellectual distance to create exhibitions free of bias, a revelation pioneered by Bourdieu. Despite amendments to eliminate cultural bias and social divisions from the practice, they remain. National museums’ difficulty writing cultural diversity into their nation’s story, material possibilities of objects that anchor nations in national museums, using art internationally to set a national identity, professionals' and communities' differing views on what the museum is – are but a few examples that bring awareness to the illusion of change, and allows one to look past simply imagining how museums contribute to the nation.