4 posts tagged “heritage”

After two terms of work and frustration, my M.Phil group's project has finally gone online.  It's a virtual exhibition that combines objects, photographs, and archival documents from a 1934 expedition to Greenland and Baffin Island.  I selected the photos and generated the text of the site with the girls in my group.

The site is also a Google Maps mashup, so you can follow the chronology of the journey that we reconstructed from several journals and articles.  It turned out to be pretty good; the museum people are very happy with it and it's substantial piece of work with my name on it (and one that potential employers can see from across the world).  We had an opening for it in the museum last night.

So please check it out.  "Expedition" leads you to the content, and the icons at the bottom of each page bring you to the photos and objects they represent.  Let me know what you think.  Feel free to leave comments (every page has a comment box built in).

Lately my presence in the blogosphere has been somewhat diminished.  This is because I had exams today and yesterday, so I was feverishly preparing for those and the only way I could do it effectively was to divorce myself from the internet save a few email checks.  Now the exams are finished.  Hoo-freaking-ray.  Hopefully I won't have to take another exam ever again.

And now for your pleasure (more like my catharsis) I shall post the sets of exam questions.  *'s denote the ones I chose to answer.  We had three hours for each exam and had to choose three questions for each one.

SOCIOPOLITICS OF THE PAST

1. Discuss the advantages and the disadvantages that could arise from a precise definition of the word "heritage."

2. There is a tendency to refer to meanings of the past.  In your opinion, are all possible meanings equally relevant or should heritage be associated with a particular range of meanings?

3. How would you interpret the implications of the phrase "The Past in the Present"?

4. In your opinion, which are the most important contributions to the study of the links between heritage and identity?

5. Outline and discuss the use of the term "value" in Heritage Studies.

*6. "Heritage is always political."  Discuss this statement using examples.

*7. What do you see as the most important challenges for the protection of heritage worldwide in the 21st century?

8. How do different concepts of ownership and property affect the conditions of heritage?  Discuss with examples.

9. Discuss reasons for and against "hot" interpretations and the argument that emotional involvement should be stressed in heritage presentations.

10. What would you consider the most important factors affecting the relationship between heritage and the public?

11. Large numbers of unprovenanced cuneiform tablets from Iraq are appearing on the market.  Discuss whether or not these tablets should be bought, studied, and published.

12. EITHER *a) Are national and international laws an effective means of controlling the trade in illicitly acquired archaeological heritage?

OR b) Can the illegal subsistence digging of archaeological sites be justified?

MUSEUM PRACTICE

*1. Early modern museums were spaces of "wonder" and "curiosity", but today's modern institutions are very different.  Evaluate this statement.

2. How and why do museums "reach out" to their publics?

3. Describe the context which saw the emergence of museums of archaeology and anthropology in the 19th and 20th centuries.

*4. How, if at all, is the relationship between museums and "communities of origin" changing?  What impact is this having on the managements and perception of museums?

5. For institutions like the British Museum, inextricably linked with an imperial past, their historical legacy is more of a burden than an asset.  Do you agree?

6. Is meeting demands for access to collections compatible with a museum's other responsibilities?

7. Documentation to a good modern standard is the best way to ensure universal access to collections.  Discuss.

8. A major museum typically shows a small portion of its collections, and says only a little about each object it shows.  Discuss what is shown and what is said about it.

9. The museum form has been exported from its European roots around the world, but expectations of museums differ widely in different national and cultural contexts.  Elaborate on this statement with reference to at least two examples.

*10. Is legislation, such as NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act), or protocols for repatriation, the best way to resolve the ownership of cultural property?

11. In a world of ubiquitous digital pictures, can the physical objects in a museum still impress?

12. Is it important that museums are publicly rather than privately owned?

That's the title that Electronic Museum has bestowed upon the Creation Museum, which opens its doors to the public today.

I must say that I find its existence frustrating, fascinating, and frightening all at the same time.  This place is a sort of alternative natural history museum.  It cost about 27 million dollars to build and is run by Answers in Genesis, an organization that believes the Bible to be true from cover to cover.  So this place presents exhibits on dinosaurs, fossils, geology, and other topics on the assumption that the planet is only about 6,000 years old.  Evolution is one of the things they hope to debunk.

My frustration stems from my status as both a Christian and a person who is studying to be a museum professional.  I don't believe that the world was created in six days.  I don't believe that dinosaurs and human beings lived side by side (this museum has life-size models of them doing so, and they are serious).  I don't believe that the Grand Canyon was cut in a short period of time by Noah's flood.  But I do believe in God (ostensibly the same one that the Answers in Genesis folk do), and this museum is making news.  The potential for it to be seen as representative of all Christian views bothers me.  An article in the New York Times has already opined:

For the skeptic the wonder is at a strange universe shaped by elaborate arguments, strong convictions and intermittent invocations of scientific principle. For the believer, it seems, this museum provides a kind of relief: Finally the world is being shown as it really is, without the distortions of secularism and natural selection.

I'm not in search of "relief" from the assault of modern science.  The writer could have sacrificed a bit of his prose in order to make a distinction between the entire Christian community and denominations affiliated with groups such as Answers in Genesis.  Two very different things.

As a museum guy, I'm also bothered by the scholarship that will be on display at the Creation Museum.  By their very nature, they are mounting exhibits that fly in the face of virtually any sort of sound scientific study.  Answers in Genesis has close ties with Liberty University, the institution founded by the late Jerry Falwell.  The school offers bachelors degrees (nothing higher) in chemistry and biology, but no other physical sciences.  No physics, astronomy, or geology.  Even biology sounds like a bit of a stretch to me; what would they teach without evolution?  The point is that they cannot attract ANY scholars, let alone renowned ones, from most of the scientific fields that can back their claims on the age of the universe.  Even if you're willing to grant that "evolution is just a theory," as Young Earthers so often say, science has gone down many other intellectual avenues to arrive at the conclusion that the universe is about thirteen billion years old.  I'm sure that Liberty would be interested in running more graduate science programs, but I suspect that they know that no one with any serious aspirations of making a career as a geologist or a physicist would want a degree with the institution's name on it.

This is the company that museum keeps.  The museum's site has a section addressing challenges to Young Earth Creationism, but it simply links to Answers in Genesis' pages dealing with various scientific subjects.  I can't imagine what their exhibits will look like.  What will their collection consist of?  What are they going to be interpreting?  There's a very good chance that this museum will just be an extension of the sermons that many fundamentalist Christians hear on Sunday.

But therein lies the fascination.  There are definitely identity issues wrapped up in this. The Times reporter was correct in implying that these people don't have much to look forward to when visiting pretty much any other natural history museum.  Darwin and the Big Bang will always be at the core of the message at these places.  Where can they go to have their views affirmed?  Cultural and intellectual access are huge heritage issues, but here is a group of people that is alienated from the natural history museum because of the very nature of the institution.  If the money is there, shouldn't they be able to build their own museum espousing their own views on science?

In principle, the answer is yes, but there's a problem.  Answers in Genesis has a highly political agenda, and this museum is a tool.  Museums need to be places where discourse can take place.  I'm not saying that they should shy away from controversy or politics; sometimes the shocking story is the one that needs to be told, or the one that has never been told.  The audience ought to be challenged.  But the Creation Museum will be forever bound to one viewpoint.  Their is no room for discourse when there is no evidence to dispute.

I'm a person of faith, and I respect the right of people to believe whatever it is they want to believe.  But I don't think that this place can be rightly said to be a natural history museum.  It would be fine if it were devoted to the enthnographic study of people who believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old.  There are plenty of meaningful things to be said about such a culture, but the truth is that the interpretation will not have been exposed to the same sort of academic rigor as the material in any other natural history museum in the world.  They're selling the public short if that's the front they hope to present.

I think that this place will be a big hit among Young Earthers, which is fine, but I don't know if they'll be able to attract skeptical or even neutral audiences (especially when tickets are twenty bucks a pop).  Maybe they don't want to (but if that's the case then I have another problem with them; museums should always be looking to relate to new and varied audiences).  They may just continue to preach to the choir, and those people aren't going to be swayed by mainstream science any time soon.

I could go on but it's getting late.  Even though I've done nothing but rail against the place, I really would like to go and see it.  It seriously sounds like a case study in how not to design a museum no matter which aspect you choose to examine.  Thanks for sticking around.  I probably could have delivered the same message much more succinctly had I simply quoted this gem from the About page on the museum's website: "We’ll begin the Museum experience by showing that 'facts' don’t speak for themselves."

The day before I left for ATP I attended a sort of "mini conference" in the archaeology department on heritage and the environment.  It was a pretty interesting day, but the most striking thing that we were shown had to be a time-lapsed video of the east Anglian coast.  It is literally falling into the North Sea.  This doesn't really have anything to do with sea levels rising or anything like that.  It's been happening for thousands of years.  The cliffs just aren't terribly solid.  Many coastal towns and villages that existed in the middle ages have simply disappeared with the passage of time.

An artist named Bettina Furnee executed a number of "interventions" in the landscape around Bawdsey and several other places.  The video we were shown was of a number of lines of multicolored flags that she put in the ground near the cliff edge as it was in the beginning of the project.  A camera was set to take a photo of the stretch of coast every fifteen minutes.  This went on for a period of at least six months, perhaps a bit longer.  Either way, the results were pretty crazy.  You just see the flags (and the cliff) drop as the waves lick the shore.  Check it out.  The version the artist showed us had slightly creepy ambient music playing in the background; this one does not.  If you're interested in the rest of the project, the details are on the website.