Last week a very unfortunate incident occurred at the Cuming
Museum in Southwark. There was a fire that destroyed the roof of the Cuming
Museum, and two of the three displays. Only a total of 1% of the museum’s
collection is on display, but there is possibly also a lot of water damage to
the collections that were in storage.
The British Museum had objects on loan to the Cuming at the
time of the fire. There were two glazed stoneware ‘Wally birds’ made by the
Martin Brothers in 1890 on loan for the temporary exhibition Birds, Beast, and Beyond: The ceramic
artistry of the Martin brothers in the Arts and Crafts period. Though the
condition of the loaned stoneware birds is still being reported as unknown,
these incidents have really brought to light the importance of insuring objects
and the safety of museum premises.
At the moment, I’m helping with an exhibition going up in the
Bloomberg Gallery London in collaboration with the Shipley Art Gallery.
The display of the work of a British contemporary artist and collections from the
Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums will:
‘…engage visitors with new ways of presenting
and looking at both the historical and the commonplace, posing a fresh and innovative
way of interpreting ethnographic collections.’
Valuating the objects going on loan from our
ethnographic collections has been really difficult and the task has come
at very short notice.
Fijian staff |
Tongan headrest |
I have had to quickly do the best I can to valuate objects
with a very rich collection history that are important to the community of the
North. Insuring objects for loan can always be fraught with more than a few
concerns for the safety of collections, and the Cuming Museum incident really
puts the process into perspective.
African stool/headrest |
Model Northwest Coast totem pole |
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