CAG on museums: The Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Grizzly totem pole, with Japanese armor in the background

On a rare sunny English day, I did what all sane people would do and stopped by the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) while I was in Cambridge for a visit. I think what I love most about the museum is that despite the fact that it hasn’t been open for quite a while and some major (and worth a visit!) renovations have gone on downstairs, the upstairs anthropology and archaeology exhibitions are still in the same Victorian style they always were.

Alfred Haddon photograph, group of young girls SE Asia

Mexican Day of the Dead sugar skull, collected by American anthropologist
Frederick Starr 1890s

There was actually a sign in the beginning of the first floor gallery that welcomed visitors and mentioned the upcoming renovations that would be occurring to the historic exhibitions. I asked some of the staff working that day about these plans, but I was not able to come up with any conclusive information about the nature of the renovations other than the style would kept similar to the current case styles with renewed interpretation.

View of the anthropology floor

1900s Zulu and Xhosa beadwork

The overall feel of the museum is reminiscent of the Pitt Rivers Museum display which is also undergoing a refresh of case interpretation, while keeping to the similar style. One of the main benefits of going to the MAA is the ability to really scrutinize some of the larger freestanding statues. Many show how at the time that many of these objects were collected, the cross cultural moments were also reflected in the materials used that intermingled with traditional craftsmanship.

Late 19^th century canoe figurehead from Borneo,
with porcelain teacups for eyes and European metal

Solomon Islands feasting bowls

There are also quite a few hidden treasures that demand you really look in the cases at some of the smaller items on display. I really like the children’s games and dolls in the Canadian case. The female doll below is also carrying a baby on her back that you can just see the face of hidden within her sealskin hood.

Spinning top and bird scapula used for the ring and pin game

Definitely an anthropologist's paradise!

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.

Object stories and the Crimean War

Florence Nightingale

On March the 27^th 1854, Britain and France declared war on Russia, which marked the beginning of the Crimean War. This war is now generally remembered in relation to Florence Nightingale and the Charge of Light Brigade, which was prominently written about in a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, describing the bravery of the British cavalry.

France, Britain, and Russia were competing for influence over the Middle East, and both religion and the desire for Ottoman territory with valuable trade routes were the catalyst for the war. Between 1853 and 1856 in what is now Ukraine, there were many causalities on both sides of the battle- a situation that Florence Nightingale’s work brought to the forefront of national consciousness.

Russian prisoners of war

In relation to this anniversary, I was thinking about related objects in the Great North Museum. There is a tobacco pipe in the collection, which is said to have been carved by a Russian prisoner during the Crimean War. The bowl of the pipe is carved in the form of a man with a long beard, wearing smoking cap with a tassel. There was a point when Russian prisoners were taken by the English navy to Lewes in southern England, and perhaps this pipe could have been carved there. The pipe came into the museum as a gift from Mr. Campbell in 1936. Campbell also donated two other pipes from Germany and Holland from his collection. The one from Holland is also relatively whimsical in its decoration and is composed of a china bowl displaying a print of a man carrying a gun.

Pipe NEWHM: 2000.H772

This pipe will be going on display in the ICCHS Newcastle University student exhibition, Changing Faces. The exhibition opens April 16^th 2013.