CAG on museums: The Australia display at King's Gate

For the last month I’ve been working on another display to go up at Newcastle University as part of Cultural Development programme between the Great North Museum and the university. It has been another interesting challenge of time and coordination- not to mention that I’ve been running all over the UK to get in some research visits as well.

Boomerang, Australia (NEWHM 1999.H1755) 

This time around the topic of the display is Indigenous Australian material culture and politics. It has been much more fun working with Oceanic art and topics again as opposed to being slightly outside of my comfort zone working with the previous decorative arts display at the King's Gate building (Material Connections blog).

South Australian basket (B002)

Decorated emu egg, 19th century

Between all my other normal museum tasks there has been a manic push to select and photograph objects to get images together for the design team’s posters and interpretation panel design...

Western Australian shield (B056)

…pack and transport objects...

Packing the objects for transfer

…and find mounts for the objects among the museum’s many recycled past exhibition mounts.

Some of the objects were mounted by the paper conservators

Some objects are reusing recycled perspex mounts

Along with dealing with the actual objects, I have had to really sit down and think about the story line and interpretation that is available with the objects we have in the collection and what is appropriate to display. Several of the objects in the Great North Museum collections were at one point deemed inappropriate for viewing because they were sacred objects. Some were also deemed inappropriate to be seen by women. There have been a lot of issues with the restriction and regulation of Indigenous Australian collections over the years and the GNM collection is no different.

That is one of the major challenges of working with not just indigenous cultural material, but also with indigenous group rights who live in the settler nations of Australia, America, New Zealand, and Canada. Telling a story through historic objects can trap a living group in the ethnographic past, when you want to express a long cultural history, but also a thriving and continuing culture. If you’re in the Northeast the Australian display will go up in the King’s Gate building of Newcastle University on the 29th November and is open to all.

CAG on museums: The Curious Case of…Philippe the Flip Flop Elephant

During the October half-term, Philippe the elephant made of flip flops, was installed at the Great North Museum: Hancock. The elephant was purchased from the Ocean Sole Flip Flop Recycling Company in Kenya in 2013 as part of the Stories of the World Project of the Cultural Olympiad which took place at the museum last year.

The elephant is made of flip flops that have been recycled as part of a local grassroots initiative in Kenya. The organisation works to educate and innovate, while providing sustainable ecological solutions for the country. Flip flops and plastics are one of the major pollutants of the Indian Ocean. Now Ocean Sole recycles around 400,000 flip flops a year and creates artistic opportunities while providing jobs in Nairobi and other coastal cities.

As a new addition to the World Collections, we decided to display Philippe the elephant in the Living Plant Gallery of the GNM, because it is a gallery that children often see when they first walk in. It is also directly below the World Cultures gallery upstairs, with other pieces from Kenya on display. The interpretation of the elephant was also intended for younger audiences and family. The Project Coordinator for the Stories of the World Project brilliantly offered the chance to give feedback, especially from children, to inform the future interpretation of the object.

The idea is to ask a changing question to audiences and allow them to leave their responses to shape future interpretation of the elephant. The first question was, ‘How do you think Philippe feels about travelling from Kenya to the Great North Museum?’ So far the responses have been quite humorous and sweet.

CAG on museums: Objects in the Great North Museum Mouse House

View of the Mouse House

The Great North Museum: Hancock Mouse House is an area of the museum especially laid out for younger audiences and families and is also the space where the Learning Workshop ‘Museum Mice’ takes place. It is run by a Gallery Interpreter who is very experienced and engaging on Thursday and Saturday mornings. It is a space where under 5 year olds learn through story telling, singing, and play.

 As part of the museum gallery space, it also houses actual objects from the collection such as taxidermy animals, items of general natural history, and ethnographic objects. The other day I had the chance to install a couple of new ethnographic objects while some really cute little kids scampered around my feet. I mostly attempted to choose interesting objects from the ethnography collection, but also rather hearty ones to stand the playroom nature of this gallery particularly.

Display case integrated into the Mouse House bookcase wall

African tourist souvenir mask now on display

Although the Mouse House space is mainly geared for child learning, it is a requirement that all children be accompanied by their parents and in that sense it is also important that museum learning for younger children also accommodates families as a whole. This can be as simple as providing a space where families are invited and welcome, providing interesting things to start conversations, and providing self-led and staff-led learning. There are a lot of factors of course that can aid or hinder family learning, but figuring out these issues has become an impetus of the museum learning programmes.

Glass jar cases

Taking a Nigerian headdress off of display

The goal for the objects that are installed in the children’s space is to provide an outlet for interesting conversations between adults and children that stimulates engagement and exploration.

 

Putting the Ugandan drum made of hide and wood into the glass jar display

Stabilising the object mount (with extra large clown gloves)

CAG on museums: Putting up the 'Material Connections' display

Iberian female votive figure 5th century BC

The ‘Material Connections: Spanish and Portuguese decorative arts’ is officially up and running. Having such a short lead-in time, it has been an enormous task to get everything ready and up to standard. Some of the biggest hurdles for curatorial work I think happen to be whether or not the aspects of the exhibition which you need to outsource (printing, conservation, design, etc.) can be done with the same expediency that you have to get your exhibition out in. This is when I learned that doing as much as I could possibly do on my own like photography, interpretation, install, mount making, and (some of) the design would make the process move much faster than usual.

 

19th century pistol holders to go over the pommel of a horse

Making plastizote cut outs for the pistol holders

Packing objects for transport

Although it has been a whirlwind of a job, curating, researching, and installing an exhibition is one of the most fulfilling things about curatorial work. There are a lot of other aspects of the curator position that aren’t really my favourite things, but you’re always reminded that you do those slightly trivial  tasks so that when you get to do the exhibition work it gives you so much satisfaction.

Facón knife Spain 1869

Gaucho in the Argentinian Republic with facón in belt 1868,
Library of Congress Courret Hermanos Fotografos, Lima Peru

Attempted 'professional' lead image with photoshop,
6th century BC Iberian belt clasp

Plastic covered wire holders for suspended belt clasp 

Cutting out plastizote for bronze mounts

Bronzes mounted and labelled

18th century Portuguese Appliqué pinned on
fabric covered plastizote block 

Pinning 17th century Portuguese silk panel to textile mount with student

Arranging textiles once installed in the case

Title interpretation panel

Installing leatherwork and bronzes

Install completed with interpretation

CAG on museums: Mounting textiles and conservation issues

It's always been my dream to display and research textiles, so getting to learn about them and the techniques for displaying them for the Vamos Festival exhibition has been an amazing opportunity. The exhibition will be about decorative arts, and includes textile fragments from the 16th-19th century.

17th century textile fragment, Portugal

I have been working with conservation on this project because of the age and fragility of these objects, and I can honestly say I have learned more about weaving patterns, silks, leathers, and embroidery than I've ever known. There is so much specialist knowledge that one has to have to deal with the conservation and mounting of textiles that I had not accounted for previously. Because the majority of the textiles in the collection are fragments, quite small, and very delicate, many of them can only be shown lying flat.

17th century Portuguese embroidered silk

Luckily, because these textiles are going in a glass display case this will still show some of their more intricate features. Mounting the largest Portuguese textile required finding a specifically well-padded, fabric covered mount that could accommodate the light silk and embroidery found on the textile fragment. The back of the fragment shown above actually grips quite easily to the mount found with very little pinning involved. Now that a mount and the technique has been solidified, the other environmental factors such as lighting, humidity, and temperature need to be taken into account.

Back of the 17th century Portuguese textile

I learned some interesting things about silks and assessing their damage in order to choose between appropriate textiles to mount. Because of the use of synthetic dyes, a certain pattern of early damage appears as geometric slit damage, as can be seen on the textile below. This is also the result of stress and pulling to certain fibers on the textile during its use.

18th century silk altar panel

Close-up of the geometric damage

Overall, although the preparation for this exhibition has been a lot of work requiring a lot of on-the-job training on how to handle textiles, their degradation, and how best to preserve them, I feel really satisfied at having the chance to demonstrate these textiles and showcase them for the Vamos Festival. As decorative arts these objects are very stunning, and from the more practical point of view, most of these textiles belonging to an art museum are very unlikely to be displayed any time soon. There's an intrinsic value in displaying these arts for the next month so that they can be enjoyed. Working on this exhibition has demanded a steep learning curve, but I've definitely really enjoyed the research.