CAG on museums: Perth Museum and Art Gallery, Scotland again…

Sunny but deceptive 

Ice sculpture in the streets of Perth

During my ongoing sojourn in the North, I have been discovering many little gems dotted around the lovely countryside. Just last week I was in freezing Perth, Scotland to go through some of their ethnography collections with the curators of the National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh. There is a Pacific Collections Review being conducted in Scotland (http://pacificcollectionsreview.wordpress.com/) with headquarters at National Museums Scotland, and they are looking at collections all over the Scottish countryside. Eve Haddow is the Pacific Review Curator conducting this research and because of my work with Maori collections over the years, she invited me to see what new things we could explore in Perth.

Maori flute (pu torino), Ramsay piece donated 1842, Whanganui

Flute carving detail

I can’t claim to be such a Maori object expert that when I see objects I can name their age, origin, and back story, but one day... I do look at Maori objects and see nothing but an amazing story, ancestral heritage, and interesting exchange/gift/removal history that I want to delve into.

A lot of the collections amassed in Perth were brought into the museum through the Perth Literary and Antiquarian Society members. The Society was established in 1784 and collected more than Scottish antiquities to include natural history and world ethnography. The most significant early objects were given by David Ramsay (1794-1860) and there were also later donations of Pacific material from J.H Dixon in 1917, A. Wilson in 1940, and L. Woodward in the 1950s.

Naturalistic Ngati Porou house panel or pou pou
exhibited at Crystal Palace in 1867

Some of the Perth objects are described as ‘unfinished’, which is an issue I find amazingly interesting for Maori objects. If something was actually unfinished, what does that say about the relationship of the giver/carver to the person receiving the object?

Whalebone ivory comb or heru, Ramsay piece donated 1842
Described as 'unfinished'

Obviously many exchanges of goods were to art dealers who sold Maori objects on to collectors, and several of these exchanges are interesting because of the extent to which objects don't look like typical Maori objects. Sometimes European materials were added to objects by Maori and art dealers alike, but in particular one piece in Perth seemed to be changed to a much further extent than usual. The Ramsay staff or taiaha below has traces of feathers, hair labelled human hair when usually the white dog hair was included, but there is also an under layer of red cloth and newspaper(?). Definitely intriguing. I’d love to know about other examples like this.

Staff or taiaha, Taranaki region, Ramsay piece donated 1842

Detail of red cloth and possible newspaper?

Detail of upper taiaha binding

There were also many different waka huia or papa hou or treasure boxes. These containers would hold the most treasured items such as hei tiki greenstone pendants or huia bird feathers, and would be hung from the rafters of the house to be seen from below.

Bay of Plenty region waka huia, also Ramsay donation

Lid of Gisborne waka huia, Dixon collection 1917

Bottom of above container

And then… we saw the ONLY relatively intact cloak with kakapo bird (parrot) feathers still attached. It was a very exciting few days- a testament to my true nerd factor.

Top side of the feather cloak or kahu kakapo, South Island 18th century
Also Ramsay collection

.

Underside of kahu kakapo where one can see the
contours in woven panels to fit over the body.Every cloak
was made for a specific person to fit them

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 museums: The Future of Ethnographic Museums in Oxford reflections

View of Radcliffe Camera from inside of the Bodleian

One of the key questions of the Future of Ethnographic Museums Conference circulated around how museums created at the height of the ‘museum age’ could be reconfigured to engage with new audiences and respond to changes in a globalized twenty-first century world. The conference was very academic and included curators, researchers, and museum professionals and therefore the discussions were driven by individuals with definite gravitas and influence in the museum world. There were many interesting points brought up in a rather philosophical reflection on the ‘future’ of ethnographic museums, spoken about particularly in terms of what is presently going on at museums around the world.

Garden view outside Lady Margaret Hall/Lady Marmalade Hall

The conference started off with the anthropology star James Clifford (!), who began proceedings with the keynote lecture. Clifford’s talk generally spoke about ethnographic museums in a fraught relationship with cultural communities in the era of globalization, using the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at UBC Vancouver as an example. MOA has come under fire by many cultures of the area who have taken up arguments over not wanting to be associated with museum because of the word anthropology. The word itself has been too connected to colonialist intentions and an antiquated view of cultures. Clifford also mentioned how the word ethnology, which was used to characterize collecting and the comparison of cultures has become completely defunct.

James Clifford!

There were other very interesting points made in the conference and very thought provoking talks, but I will summarize just a few of the things that have really stuck with me.

Sharon Macdonald spoke about the Humboldt Forum in Berlin and the intention to move the ethnographic collections to Museum Island, which Clifford also used as a point of comparison the previous night. Macdonald’s paper compared different approaches to citizenship, nationality, and issues of multiculturalism that have threatened museums through various political agendas. Both she and later Wayne Modest talked about museums shying away from difficult histories and some countries wanting to steer away from telling colonial histories at all, which prompted the attempt to close down the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. These trends outline a difficult phase for memory connected to ethnographic collections, or as Modest suggested, an active ignorance- referring to Ann Stoler’s concept of cultural aphasia as “the ‘inability to recognize things in the world and assign proper names to them’, especially in matters relating to the colonial past in Western societies”. Also very interesting in the discussion of these presentations, was the point that it is often difficult even for museum professionals to articulate to politicians and those adverse to ethnographic collections, what exactly the importance of collections are and why you can’t disregard even their more difficult national stories.

Hay in the Wolfson Nature Reserve

Another really interesting point was brought about by Clare Harris’s talk on the digitally distributed museum and issues of using The Tibet Album, and community reactions to the release of photographs onto the internet. The project has created a digital archive of British photography in Tibet from 1920-1950. The question of who uses these images and issues of freely circulated information on the internet is an interesting point. I’ve long wondered myself if historic photographs, or significant cultural objects are appropriate for release onto the internet. I think in terms of ethnographic material there will always be specific communities within a group or perhaps even individuals who do not want images of their ancestors or ancestral objects visible for the world to see on the internet. What kind of digital forums could encompass the concept of digital repatriation (although a difficult concept in my opinion), but maintain the knowledge that communities might want to keep restricted to themselves and made available only to them? If using the internet for digital exhibitions, social media to spread information, and online databases as the repository of museum metadata has been a major part of twentieth century museum practice, is there a step beyond for how museums can communicate to particular communities digitally in the twenty-first century?

I also took some time to reminisce about my university days and get around Oxford, so the photos are from some of those moments.

CAG on museums: The future of ethnographic museums

Wooden feeding funnel, or korere, elaborately carved with figures in relief on each side and at rear. The carvings are almost in the style of a Taranaki figure. Previously part of the Allan Museum collection. 18th century, and possibly one of the earliest korere in a European museum collection

Being excited for a conference is not my normal state of mind about extra-curricular academic work/networking, but when a conference is specifically about ethnography museums and their future I am heavily invested and deeply interested in all of the discussions and debates that might come up. I have very recently been told that ‘ethnographers are a dying breed’ and sometimes it does seem like this is true. On the other hand, with an increasing amount of students taking part in postgraduate courses in the UK related to Museum Studies, Museum Anthropology and Visual Culture Studies, there is certainly not a dying interest in ethnography and studying cultural anthropology in the museum in any way, but with government cuts to arts funding, there are certainly many fewer positions available in museums.

A fine and rare Cree moose-hide coat, the back with painted rectangular panel of dotted winged motifs in red and black. Originally part of the Darlington Museum collection. Hudson Bay, York Factory.  Maker- Sehwahtahow 1786

The upcoming conference on 'The Future of Ethnographic Museums' taking place 19-21 July 2013 at the Oxford University Pitt Rivers Museum intends to cover questions that have been raised about the modernity of ethnographic museums and whether new audiences can be attracted or not. Alongside the seeming decline in the promotion of ethnographic collections and their specialists, there is also the age old criticism of ethnography museums perpetuating a distinction between “us” and “them”, a fraught history of collecting, and the lack of 21^st century interpretation of cultural material.

The five year project being run by the Ethnography Museums and World Cultures (EMWC): A European Project is funded by the European Commission and has sought to answer questions that have been put to major ethnographic museums about their global role in contemporary society. Many museums have reacted to criticisms and have been self-reflective about their practice for many years. Museums in Australia have endeavoured to include Indigenous Australian interests in collections interpretation and displays. Many museums such as Manchester Museum have employed repatriation policies that enable indigenous groups to petition for the return of valuable ancestral objects.

A Hawaiian feather cape, or 'aha'ula, with winged motif. Triangles and border of yellow feathers on a scarlet ground of feathers, all on a vegetable fibre base. 1834

The Pitt Rivers 'Future of Ethnographic Museums' conference is the last in the series of EMWC workshops, conferences, and conversations that aim to “to stimulate debate about ethnographic museums in the post-colonial period and to envision new ways of thinking and working in those museums in the future.” I’m very interested to see the kinds of debates and discussions that are sparked by this conference, and hope that there will be a lot of examples of how these museum professionals are adapting their practice with ethnographic collections today.

CAG on museums: Documenting ethnographic collections

While making the new records for a recent acquisition of 14 objects collected from various regions of Papua New Guinea objects in the 1960s, some of the finer issues of metadata collection have been brought to my attention. By metadata, I mean the ‘structured data about data’ that is compiled in a computer and paper database about the objects that a museum holds. Some of the recent acquisition objects have been used for hunting or other purposes, and some are tourist arts. Museums document collections to help with research, curate exhibitions, develop education programs, and generally to share information about collections. Documentation work is what a few of my colleagues refer to as ‘the boring part of museum work.’

Axe, possibly tourist object 1960s, Mount Hagen Western Highlands

It’s not really boring, but it is the less glamorous part of the whole museum gig. Acquiring objects in my opinion is a really important part of the life of the museum collection. Collections aren’t meant to be stagnant in time and representative of an idea of the past. Especially for ethnographic collections, representing cultures not normally represented in the ethnographic present means continuing to build collections from the recent past and present is very important to the future.

Boar's tusk with cord attached, Siku clan, Central/Western Highlands

The partial benefit of acquiring new objects now is that most museums have very high standards of information acquisition alongside these objects or art pieces. That means that in the future there will hopefully be a lot more metadata connected to the databases in which we document collections, but it also means there are so many more issues of documenting collections.

Carved statue, Central Highlands

*Just some thoughts I’ve had while documenting (ethnographic) collections:

-The need for a consistency of terminology structure so that in the present and future users of the database may find the data they are looking for

-Will the information on the database be linked to the web for public searches and what does that mean

-Collection management works best when issues of access, use, and the rights to objects are put on a database directly at acquisition because chasing copyright permissions and doing paperwork IS actually boring

-And very importantly for ethnographic objects, the cultural groupings, language groups, and boundaries that we categorize information into for cultural objects might not always be so easy to restrict within specific terminology for the database- how do you create levels of metadata that might be useful for descendants, researchers, museum colleagues, and general audiences