Museums and Collections

This essay examines how anthropogeographical conceptions become materialized in place names inscribed on human remains. With respect to a type of headhunting artefact designated in museum anthropology as ‘stuffed human heads’, I consider processes of inscription and theorizing accompanying the circulation of stuffed heads between New Guinea and Cambridge. I trace the micro-history of one inscription – ‘Strickland R’ – across interrelated labels, articles, texts, notes, and the head itself, in order to reveal intellectual constructs simultaneously abbreviated and materialized in the human remains. In Papua, stuffed heads were understood as evidence of the geography of headhunting and cannibal customs. In Cambridge, they were framed within anthropologist A. C. Haddon's studies on the anthropogeography of New Guinea. By abbreviating colonial and scientific constructs, the words ‘Strickland R.’ enabled the material ‘stuffed head’ into which they fused to become inextricably linked to the theory and display of ‘culture areas’ in the museum.

Devon and Cronwall, in the South West of Britatin, have a rich variety of rare and beautiful minerals formed through millions of years of geological change. Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery (PCMAG), in Devon, holds over 10,000 mineral specimens from rare and unique sites across Devon and Cornwall. Held within the main mineral collections at PCMAG are 139 radioactive minerals. This paper explores the best practice for storing the radioactive mineral collection safely in the workplace, minimising any potential hazard and risk to staff and researchers. Included in this paper are examples of how other museums have stored their radioactive minerals safely and includes relevant legislation. The storage project also allowed the opportunity to digitally image the entire radioactive mineral collection permitting PCMAG's database to be updated with images and new storage information. PCMAG worked closely with a Radiation Protection Advisor for advise and also appointed three Radiation Protection Supervisors to monitor access to the collections and reduce any potential risk further.

Entomological collections of the Goulandris Natural History Museum in Athens were reviewed. Eleven species of the family Malachiidae and six species of the family Dasytidae (Insecta: Coleoptera) were identified in the collections of the museum. A species list is provided, where the locations and dates of findings, as well as the distribution of each species and short
comments are given.

Entomological collections of the Natural History Museum in Belgrade were reviewed. Thirty-six species of the Malachiidae family were identified in the collections of the museum. New species for Serbian fauna are Charopus flavipes Paykull, 1798, Hypebaeus flavipes (Fabricius, 1787), Ebaeus gibbus (Drapiez, 1819), Ebaeus thoracicus (Geoffroy, 1785), Sphinginus lobatus (Olivier, 1790), Clanoptilus falcifer (Abeille de Perrin, 1882), Malachius scutellaris Erichson, 1840, Anthocomus equestris (Fabricius, 1781), Anthocomus coccineus (Schaller, 1783). New species for fauna of Bosnia and Herzegovina are Colotes obsoletus Erichson, 1840 and Hypebaeus flavicollis (Erichson, 1840). Ebaeus gibbus is a new species for Montenegro. An annotated species list is provided. Locations and dates of findings, as well as a distribution of each species and short comments are given.

Understanding what museums have in their collections is vital to ensure that collections are used, researched and engaged with to their fullest potential. This paper outlines a detailed review of a large spirit collection at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery (PCMAG), with funding from the Museums Association Effective Collections Programme. Different review methods are discussed including reviews that can be adapted for specific projects. PCMAG's review is discussed in detial with examples and a stage by stage process. The review resultd in teh discovery of two type specimens, two co-types and several scientifically and historically important specimens. 1241 specimens have been hilighted for transfer to other museums. Transfering the specimens has enabled the curatorial staff to focus on conservation and research for ThE specimens retained at PCMAG.

Although museums are sites of cultural, social and political exchanges, rarely (if ever) do the people employed in these cultural institutions respond quickly to contemporary socio-politics in exhibition spaces. In early 2017, the executive order (13769) for the first travel ban changed that in New York City. Straddling activism and protest, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), two of the largest and most well-respected art museums in New York City (and the world), created interpretation in gallery spaces to respond to this injustice. These socially innovative responses circumvented traditional organizational decision structures and addressed immediate socio-environmental issues. This chapter examines the role of interpretation in The Met’s curator-led tours and MoMA’s  rehang/interpretation of the fifth floor permanent exhibition galleries to include artworks by artists from the banned countries. Rooted in interpretation theory, museology, museum activism and exhibition history, this chapter argues that the future relevance of art museum exhibition could be in interpretation, which is critical in the accessibility of an exhibition, responsible for the meanings audiences create, and is essential in linking the familiar with the unfamiliar.

https://www.routledge.com/Museum-Innovation-Building-More-Equitable-Relevant-and-Impactful-Museums/Eid-Forstrom/p/book/9780367481391

Facing multiple unprecedented calamities throughout 2020-a global pandemic, economic upheaval, social turmoil, and climate crisis-museums shuttered, decimated their staff, and gutted their organizational structures. Now, they seem to struggle to maintain outward relevance in these bleak and uncertain times. What if, instead of being reactive, museums are proactive; instead of being defensive, they model social change? What if this change comes first from within? What if they rebuild differently, not guided by an insidious corporate model but one that places access, diversity, community, care, and people at its center? What if overhauling the internal staff structure-the static, hierarchical power dynamic, departmental silos, and overbureaucratization of larger institutions-results in a museum that reflects twentyfirst-century ideals of democracy? Let's envision a different museum staff structure inspired by feminist theory, social entrepreneurship, and grassroots organizations.

The Future of Digital Data, Heritage and Curation critiques digital cultural heritage concepts and their application to data, developing new theories, curatorial practices and a more-than-human museology for a contemporary and future world. Presenting a diverse range of case examples from around the globe, Cameron offers a critical and philosophical reflection on the ways in which digital cultural heritage is currently framed as societal data worth passing on to future generations in two distinct forms: digitally born and digitizations. Demonstrating that most perceptions of digital cultural heritage are distinctly western in nature, the book also examines the complicity of such heritage in climate change, and environmental destruction and injustice. Going further still, the book theorizes the future of digital data, heritage, curation and the notion of the human in the context of the profusion of new types of societal data and production processes driven by the intensification of data economies and through the emergence of new technologies. In so doing, the book makes a case for the development of new types of heritage that comprise AI, automated systems, biological entities, infrastructures, minerals and chemicalsall of which have their own forms of agency, intelligence and cognition. The Future of Digital Data, Heritage and Curation is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of museums, archives, libraries, galleries, archaeology, cultural heritage management, information management, curatorial studies and digital humanities.

Climate change has become one of the most significant and fastest growing threats to cultural heritage around the globe. Yet cultural heritage sites and collections also serve as invaluable sources of resilience for communities to address climate change. In March 2020, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Collections Program convened the symposium “Stemming the Tide: Global Strategies for Sustaining Cultural Heritage through Climate Change” to empower cultural heritage authorities, managers, and advocates to pursue more ambitious engagement and collaborative approaches to climate change. Speakers explored six categories of cultural heritage identified by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS): Cultural Landscapes and Historic Urban Landscapes, Archaeological Sites, Built Heritage (Buildings and Structures), Cultural Communities, Intangible Cultural Heritage, and Museums and Collections.

My Icon Museum – Project of a Scenario for the Icon Museum in Supraśl
Icons are among the most interesting and least known
objects of sacral art. Discovered rather late by researchers and
collectors alike, they comprise the object of quests conducted
by collectors and museum staff. The oldest Polish icon collections
date back to the second half of the nineteenth century, and
were created in Warsaw and Cracow. Today, icons are gathered
and stored in numerous Polish museums, i. a. in Łańcut, Biała
Podlaska, Szamotuły, Olsztyn and Białystok. The article discusses
a scenario for a museum of icons which are the property of
the Podlasie Museum in Białystok. The author proposes adapting
one of the wings of the former Abbots’ Palace in Supraśl
for an exposition which would feature basic questions associated
with the art of the icon. The exhibition should begin with
a virtual display of Early Christian art conceived as an introduction
to knowledge about the icon. The next interior recreates
the studio of the isographer – a painter specialising in icons
– full of prepared and primed boards as well as a whole arsenal
of painter’s tools. The following showroom is conceived by its
designer as a presentation of fundamental questions relating to
the theology and symbolic of the icon as well as an explanation
of the concept of reversed perspective. The successive part of
the museum is planned as a display of frescoes from Supraśl,
one of the most interesting historical complexes of monuments
in this part of Poland. The project foresees a diorama – a stage designed presentation of the miraculously preserved sixteenthcentury
frescoes and a virtual tour of a church. The following
showroom will be devoted to iconography – the theme of the
icon and associated messages and stories explaining particular
themes. The visitor will then see the most interesting paintings
and icons from Podlasie known as the miracle working likenesses
of the Madonna and Child. Here the author planned
an exposition of such objects as Our Lady of Supraśl, Kodeń,
Leśna, Różanystok, Hodysz and others. The exposition will be
accompanied by accounts linked with the miracles ascribed to
the paintings as well as graphic emulations and prayers connected
with the depictions. The temporary exhibition showroom
should be used for demonstrating assorted problems linked
with icons, such as the history of various Christian creeds in
Podlasie; it should also attempt bringing the public closer to the
history of Old Rite and Uniate icons as well as characterise the
icons of Podlasie.
The selection of icons for the purpose of a museum presentation
must be particularly meticulous in order to emphasis their
merits. The objects should be supplemented with commentaries
and explanations assisted with modern media – computers,
special programmes and multi-media transmissions.

L’article consacré aux 15 monnaies de l’empereur Nerva qui se trouvent dans le Musée archéologique et ethnographique: 7 deniers, 3 sesterces, 1 dupondius et 4 as. Toutes les monnaies ont été achetées. Sur la base d’une comparaison aux trouvailles, en particulier aux trésors, et sur la base des informations des maisons de ventes, l’auteur évalue leur popularité et leurs paramètres de poids.

The paper is dedicated to the 15 coins of the emperor Nerva from the collection of the Archaeological and Etnographical Museum in Łódź: 7 denarii, 3 sestertii, 1 dupondius and 4 ases. All the coins were purchased. Author evaluates them popularity and weight parameters based on a comparison to finds, especially hoards and informations from the auction houses.

Jewellery occupied an important place in the various life stages of Central Asian women. Individual jewels that formed sets depending on which parts of the body they were worn on had in a steady form and a particular meaning in the past. Most of the items of jewellery were designed to decorate the upper half of the body, and among the most numerous sets there was a set of head ornaments. These were mainly various types of diadems, paired and individual pendants that were attached to the headdress or to the hair and, last but not least, earrings of various shapes and sizes. The collections of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures feature a set of head ornaments from Uzbekistan dating back to the late 19 th and early 20 th century when the jeweller's creations of the region were still of high quality. The set is represented by jewellery of three local styles-Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent.

Canadian artist Paul Kane lived in a century when foreign cultures were expanding across North America. Indigenous cultures were encouraged to adopt different world views and alter the way they made a living. Kane—aware that Aboriginal cultures were changing—set out to produce a visual record of Indigenous peoples and the land they inhabited before such a record was no longer possible. From 1845 to 1848, Kane journeyed extensively across Canada, taking graphite, watercolour, and oil-on-paper sketches of the peoples he met and their cultural practices.

As Kane worked on the final art, in some cases certain details were changed and compositions altered. With the “Near Infrared Reflectography” technique we can “see” Kane struggling with the oil-on-canvas compositions in his studio. “The First Brush: Paul Kane and Infrared Reflectography” delves into comparisons between painted versions of the same scene and reveals the initial painting and the copy. Beneath the surface of the finished painting lie his initial renderings, his first drawings, and painted efforts that expose his original intentions for the painting. Were they true to the sketch? Did he wrestle with a desire to present in grand fashion, but then resist the temptation?

This book is a unique insight into Paul Kane’s thinking and artistic processes between the years 1849 and 1856 as he painted in his Toronto studio. It explores the issue of truthfulness in Kane’s art and his struggle for composition. Additionally, these comparisons expose Kane’s response to external pressures, as well as his steadfastness to a realized vision.

The Australian AIDS Memorial Quilt is arguably the most recognizable artefact of the AIDS Crisis in Australia. Consisting of over 800 panels, most of the quilt is now divided between a public museum (Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney) and a community organization (AIDS Memorial Candlelight Vigil & Quilt Project, Melbourne). This paper compares the accessibility and meaning of the quilt depending on its location. In doing so, it argues that neither is a 'better' custodian for these objects as their differences are also the source of their unique contribution to the care and interpretation of the quilts. The tensions that exist between museums and LGBTIQ communities were exposed when the proper residence of one of the panels was disputed. I use this case to suggest that equitable collaboration can only occur if museums take more cues from communities.

Faking is an act through which an object is provided with an identity not belonging to it, in order to deceive and to benefit from somebody’s detriment. Faking concerned archaeological finds, contemporary art sculptures, documents, furniture, paintings, relics and so on. Musical instruments were not spared by this phenomenon, which in contrast was a standard feature in the history of those artifacts. From the most ancient known cases in the middle of the 16th century until the most recent ones at the beginning of the new millennium, forgery of musical instruments has never ceased and counterfeited, plagiarized and altered products were spread nearly in every continent.
This kind of falsification flourished as it eased the availability of very sought-after works, which otherwise were scarcely achievable because of economic reasons or shortage of specimens. Namely it was able to exploit the widespread demand for high performing musical instruments, for evidences of early musical cultures and for goods to invest in. Therefore its actions were focused on the most important parameters of an instrument: age, place of origin and maker’s identity.
When the first detailed research into the Florentine antique dealer Leopoldo Franciolini was published forty years ago, organology began to link his name with forgery of musical instruments as automatically as excessively. Indeed several other forgers operated before, at the same time and after Franciolini. Some of them may be mentioned, for instance Isaac Ehe, the Voller brothers or Yuko Kanda. Yet most of the fakers remained anonymous.
Finally, on the one hand faking musical instruments was undoubtedly a common practice, but on the other hand detecting the nature of the fake must not be forced. If the purposeful intention of deceiving cannot be observed, then an unauthentic instrument – for example a replica – cannot be consequently judged to be false. In the same way, if the building of a musical instrument cannot be associated with one individual maker, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is not genuine.