CAG on travel: Amsterdam

Apple, bacon and butter pannekoek

There isn’t much I can say about Amsterdam that everyone doesn’t know already… because it is amazing! Key points: Lovely Dutch people, amazing museums, cheese, pancakes and waffles, Indonesian food, and beer

Beautiful cheese wheels

This is probably just a tourist’s point of view, but a few weekends ago I partook in a little snippet of what a more normal Dutch life would be like if I lived in Amsterdam. I left for the weekend and stayed a little further out from the center in an area called De Pijp. Recently named one of the coolest neighborhoods in the world by Stylist magazine (a renowned and reliable source), and I believe this is true.

De Albert Cuypmarkt

De Albert Cuypmarkt

De Pijp is amazing. It has De Albert Cuypmarkt, which has delicious Dutch treats, which is a perfect place to do some people watching and is only about a 25 minute walk to the center. I heard accents from all over the world.

Herring, onions, pickle

Then off to the Rijksmuseum which hasn’t been open any time I’ve visited Amsterdam since I moved to Europe. I also previewed the famous Rembrandt ‘The Night Watch’ painting before I visited by watching the flashmob staged by the museum on youtube to mark its re-opening. It is really fun to watch (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6W2ZMpsxhg).

Henry Moore sculptures in garden

Stained glass window in the Rijksmuseum Great Hall

The museum was really beautiful. Both the architecture and the artworks were really engaging, and I haven’t been in a museum as busy since I went to the Louvre in Paris years ago. Not really worth fighting the crowds to take a photo of ‘The Night Watch’ when there were some much more serene galleries to take in the art and ambiance.

Sculpture gallery in Rijksmuseum

The rest of the trip focused on taking in the scenery around the edges of Old Amsterdam in Spui, eating, and drinking.

Spui

Indonesian feast

And then on to another night out in De Pijp, with all the other cool Dutch people. Most of the bars are all located within a few minutes walk of each other, but they all have very different feels, and most importantly different Belgian beers. It’s really lucky that England is so close to such a fun and beautiful city.

CAG on museums: Bede’s World

Part cultural heritage centre, part museum, and part centre for social and cultural activities in the South Tyneside area, Bede’s World offers a full day of exploration, history, and outdoor activities to its visitors. In recent years Bede’s World has been under severe financial stress and is currently in the process of rebranding itself. In the process, the museum is looking at re-interpreting its galleries, learning programmes, and the way the story of Jarrow and its famous monastic scholar the Venerable Bede is told.

Bede was born in AD 673 at a time when the area of Jarrow was a maritime hub and also the only centre of learning north of Rome. Bede translated the Gospel of John into Old English, but was also one of the first people to come around to the idea of a united England and Englishness as a unified identity for people on the island from many different places. This issue continues to be relevant to the politics of the British Isles today, and thoughts on a multicultural British identity seem to reflect the same concerns as people had in the 7^th Century AD. Bede used his faith to broker a relationship between the arts, poetry, and the local community, which deeply relates the idea behind the Bede’s World current community work.

Inside the galleries, sculptures are personalised for the display

The excavations that produced the small collections of Bede’s World were conducted by archaeologist Rosemary Cramp, and include the oldest stained glass window in the world.

Reconstruction of the glass pieces discovered, dated to the 7^th Century AD

The Bede’s World site incorporates a reconstruction of the nearby settlements and the archaeological remains of Monkwearmouth – Jarrow Priory. There are some very kid-friendly farm animals and some re-enactments of jousting matches and local farmers in the reconstructed outdoor settlement area (although I didn’t see this display). 

Cow!

Reconstructed houses based on archaeological findings

Bede’s World also works heavily with community outreach social and artistic programming by giving artists work spaces through a co-operative agreement, and many of these artists participate in community programmes giving local people the opportunity to engage directly with art. Alongside Bede’s growing cultural ties to the local community it hosts HIVE, a community radio station that allows people to get involved in presenting and research on a broad range of heritage topics.

View of the South Tyneside riverbank

Directly across from Bede’s World lie the remains of the 7th Century monastic site of Monkwearmouth – Jarrow Priory.

7th Century archaeology site of Monkwearmouth

Today St. Paul’s Church stands directly next to the remains, and the Anglo-Saxon inspired carvings inside the church mirror the style of images one can see in the galleries of Bede’s World. The church also hosts another reconstruction of the earliest stained glass window in the world.

Inside of St Paul's

Overall, my Bede’s World experience helped me learn a lot about the history of the Northeast, but also gave me a really good background for seeing the kind of work that museums can really do with local communities if everyone is motivated enough. I think that since Bede’s World is working outside of the restrictions of an overarching museum service and is able to carve its own path out for redevelopment and renewal, it is getting the opportunity to redefine the kinds of relationships and activities that local museums should be working towards. A big thank you to Museum Director Mike Benson for a wonderful and exuberant tour of the museum!

CAG on museums: Artist reflections on ethnographic collections- The George Brown collection

 Porcelain labels made in response to the George Brown collection.
Photo credit: Chris McHugh

At Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, there is currently a display on called ‘Community in Clay’ that showcases the work of mixed media artist Chris McHugh. McHugh is a doctoral candidate at Sunderland University with a background in archaeology. He has spent the past years researching historic pottery, Sunderland Museum and collection histories, and has also worked in Japan studying the George Brown collection in Osaka (http://communityinclay.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/community-in-clay-exhibition-of-ceramic.html).

This exhibition explores history and material culture of Sunderland, but also the historical event of the removal of the George Brown collection from the Northeast of England (see the previous post for the history of the GB collection sale) to its current location in the National Museum of Ethnology Osaka, Japan.

The George Brown collection on display at the
National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. Photo credit: Chris McHugh

Trobriand Islands canoe prow at the National Museum of Ethnology
Osaka, Japan. Photo credit: Chris McHugh

The vessels McHugh has created artistically respond to the Solomon Islands lime containers from the Brown collection. The decoration on the vessels echoes the original decoration found on the lime containers in Japan while also referencing the importance of ceramic vessels in 19^th century Sunderland. McHugh reflects that Sunderland ‘was a busy port and pots bearing maritime imagery are common’. The time that George Brown set off to explore the Pacific in the 19^th century was the same time in which the Northeast was a thriving maritime centre. While explorers were discovering new places (to the Western world) and collecting objects to memorialize their experiences, the prosperity of the Northeast influenced the production of a material culture that embodied the wonder and fascination of a world increasingly connected through industry, trade, and colonization.

Details of pieces based on George Brown Collection. The black line imagery
comes from decoration etched into a piece of bamboo from the Solomon Islands.
Title: George Brown Series, porcelain, glaze, stains, decals and pink lustre.
Photo credit: Chris McHugh

Porcelain binoculars from a series of pieces entitled  'Explorer's Kit'.
The text is taken from the Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens'
register from the 1800s. Photo credit: Chris McHugh

The connections drawn between collectors, artistry, and heritage of the Northeast are celebrated in McHugh’s work, and such interactions between artists and the museum are very timely. Several large collaborative artist exhibitions outside of art museums have brought new audiences to cultural institutions and new awareness to a variety of subjects. Re-thinking ethnography collections from an artistic point of view becomes an interesting way of thinking about the intersections between museum history and art, but also imbues objects with an extra layer of history.

A contemporary cabinet of curiosities. Photo credit: Chris McHugh

CAG on museums: The incident of the George Brown collection sale

Reverend Doctor George Brown, missionary and explorer

The George Brown Collection was accumulated through the efforts of Reverend Doctor George Brown. Brown migrated from England to New Zealand in 1855, not originally as a missionary, but he was converted and worked across the Pacific in Samoa, Fiji, New Britain, and New Ireland.  Brown was knowledgeable about the customs, people, and languages of the islands he had worked on as a Wesleyan Methodist missionary for over 48 years, and in that time he also amassed a very important collection of diverse objects. After Brown passed away in 1917, a large portion of his collection was housed in his hometown of Durham and purchased by the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle as a teaching collection. Then acquired by Newcastle University, and not the Natural History Society of Northumbria who owns most other ethnographic collections in the Hancock Museum, curatorial staff helped with the George Brown collection management and in 1974 a few objects were on display.

Late 1970s photograph of the George Brown collection in the Hancock Museum

In 1985 the George Brown Collection was purchased by the National Museum of Ethnology at Osaka, Japan for £600,000 with the exception of some objects that were individually valued at over £16,000 and could not be granted export permits. There were strong objections to sale of such an important collection of Pacific objects from the curators at the museum and anthropologists elsewhere. The Hancock Museum gained an unfortunate reputation and the sale by Newcastle University was criticized for its ‘display of naked philistinism on the part of an otherwise respected university’. Indeed, the collection was deemed by the university as a disposable duplicate collection of sorts with several examples and similar types of objects already existing in the other ethnography collections.

 

Malanggan tatanua mask New Ireland,
George Brown collection © National Museum of Ethnology Osaka, Japan 

 

Tatanua mask of Wellcome Collection origin
currently on display at the Great North Museum: Hancock

The debates about the sale occurred not only in England and Japan, but also across the Pacific about issues of museum ownership, national pride, and issues of depleting cultural resources from newly decolonized countries. Many debates were sparked across museum curator networks and collections management professionals about whether museum collections are disposable assets, what are trustee obligations to protecting collections, and what is the benefit to a collection in storage without access readily available to it, alongside many other issues.

Fijian sperm whale tooth necklace © National Museum of Ethnology Osaka, Japan

Twenty-seven years later these debates still occur in the museum realm and at times ideals of museum collection and object retention seem harder to defend than ever. It costs money, takes a lot of time, and space to only work with a policy of museum retention. With the current state of play, arts budgets in the UK have been cut, employees made redundant, and many museums run mainly on volunteer based help, youth schemes, and short-term contracts. Changes to circumstances, the social makeup of cities, and attitudes mean that disposing of collections in the present can later be a regrettable decision. Art museums especially in America, have long sold artworks in order to purchase new and prestigious works, but there is little parallel to the situation of ethnographic collections in the UK. The Code of Ethics of the American Association of Museums also has a de-accessioning policy that permits the practice in terms of care of the collections, but not for operational costs.

What about the idea of museums as research institutions? Although admittedly serving a smaller community of academics, researchers, and descendants who use collections as a keys to family histories, the benefit of holding on to collections to operate as research institutions must present a valid part of the museum mission. For national and regional UK museums, collections represent heritage held in trust for the benefit of the public. I’m not opposed to letting go of any collections at all, but I would argue that it is very difficult to know enough about individual objects, let alone entire collections, to put a definite values on them that will account for their loss to local communities, researchers, and museum audiences in the present and future.

CAG on travel: Western Scotland and climbing Ben Nevis

View from the train to Glasgow

My Scotland adventure started after work last Friday, with a lovely train journey up to Glasgow to start my Western Highland experience. Since I arrived pretty late, my lovely hostess with the mostess made dinner and we headed out to experience Glasgow nightlife. First stop was a proper old man-like pub serving ales and local attitude. Then we went on to a really amazing bar that used to be a church called Òran Mór.

The church bar Òran Mór

The former church is host to a lot of music and shows, and although the inside has been remodeled, it was a lot of fun having a drink in a church!

Loch Lomond

The next day was on to serious adventures across Western Scotland. There are many cute towns scattered around and Scotland is just so green, grey, and beautiful. Luckily, there has actually been a summer this year and people were out in full force enjoying the beautiful Scottish outdoors.

Rest and be Thankful

After you get past Loch Lomond and the Trussachs National Park, there is a reststop called Rest and be Thankful, which sits at the top of a rather steep incline, but is also just another excuse to take some time to look at the view.

Loch Fyne Restaurant was too close to pass up 

Because of my insane love of seafood, the fact that the original Loch Fyne Restaurant was so close certainly created a must-stop-by situtaion. I will never forget those delicious scallops or the best salmon fishcake of all time. Possibly also the healthiest meal I had in Scotland (ignore pool of butter), since the other meals consisted of full Scottish breakfasts and ‘fish suppers’… AKA fish and chips.

Cross in Kiells Chapel, a Late Medieval 13th century church

View from chapel near Tayvallich

To walk off lunch, the next stop was Tayvallich and a lovely little walk around the point, which was a mix of heather, sharp volcanic rock, and lots of wet wet soil. I did really enjoy the walk and even saw a seal, but I definitely underestimated my little visit to church in Glasgow the night before, and I was very ready to take a seat by the time I got back.

Oban

Oban was the next stop on the list, and it was a very picturesque town. If I were early enough next time I’d take a tour of the Oban whiskey distillery, but other than the local chippie and popular fish suppers I didn’t do much there.

After having an amazing and adventurous day in the Western Highlands, we finally reached Fort William. It seemed like most people there were also going walking or climbing since those were the majority of clothing stores, and everyone was dressed like they had been hiking all day.

An ominous start to the Ben Nevis climb

After such a perfect sunny day on the Saturday, on Sunday it rained and rained. Not terribly though, so climbing Ben Nevis was still a possiblity. Not exactly a clear visibility kind of day, I assumed that climbing 1,344m (4,409ft) would be pretty difficult and that halfway would probably be just fine.

Low visibility

 

Sun really trying to break through

Once you get to the halfway point of anything though, it’s kind of hard to turn back. You get addicted to the idea that the first part wasn’t that hard, so why not just keep going. In all honestly, had it been pouring down rain and less than 10 meters of visibility I probably wouldn’t have continued up the mountain, but those clouds kept lifting and fooling me into temporarily pushing on.

Half visible loch, the halfway point

And even though I made this unfortunate face…

Really wasn't that bad!

…I am really glad I made it to the top. It was a really good mountain for me to judge how much more training I really need for higher and more technical climbs, so I guess if I’m going to be serious about this hobby I really have something to go on now. Five hours up and back- boom!

Still an ice patch near the top at the end of July

Slightly easier to stand so close to the edge when you can't see to the bottom