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.