Archival Future: Pacific Artistic Interventions in the Contemporary Museum of Ethnography
Lead Research Organisation:
University of East Anglia
Department Name: Art, Media and American Studies
Abstract
This project will study interventions by Pacific artists in European 'contemporary museums of ethnography' by drawing on recent scholarship on archives and archiving. Three case studies have been chosen because they are timely projects which address these issues: the artistic response of the Wiradjuri (Australia)/Celtic artist Brook Andrew to the exhibition L'Effet Boomerang (2017-18) at the Musée d'Ethnographie de Genève (Switzerland) which consisted of reworking historical ethnographic photography in a broad Indigenous Australian exhibition; the exhibition Voyage Autour du Monde, l'Aventure Maorie de Dumont D'Urville (2021), a solo exhibition by the Maori (New Zealand-Aoteaora)/Scottish/German artist George Nuku at the Musée Hèbre de Saint-Clément, Rochefort-sur-Mer (France) who responded to lithographs produced during Dumont D'Urville's exploration of New-Zealand in 1826-29; and the forthcoming work (2021-22) of Michel Tuffery, an artist of Samoan, Cook Islands and Ma'ohi Tahitian heritage, which will feature digital projections of photographs of Samoan barkcloth at the Humboldt Forum, Berlin. The artists' works are positioned on a continuum in the practice of printmaking with Nuku working with reproductions of 19th-century lithographs, Andrew with 20th-century photographs and Tuffery exploring the digital techniques to 'print' the barkcloth images on the façade of the museum, through mapping. In all three case studies, artists employ and challenge archival techniques which enable the museums to move forward with decolonisation as is necessary. Their practices provide means for the de-classification, re-contextualization and re-humanization of colonial representations of Pacific cultures in European museums and archives.
By giving room and therefore a voice to artists from Australia and New Zealand to intervene in such spaces, institutions allow alternative stories to be told. While such ventures are happening globally, Europe is currently at the centre of the discussion, with multiple projects dealing with these questions: SWICH (Sharing a World of Inclusion, Creativity and Heritage, 2018), RIME (International Network of Ethnographic Museums, 2008-13) and READ-ME (European Network of Diasporas Associations and Ethnographic Museums, 2007-10).
My methodology will be interdisciplinary and will combine library-based research with interviews, study of archives and collections, of museum curatorial practices and comparisons of the three artists' previous projects based on archival work. Through the concept of 'contemporary museum of ethnography' and my interdisciplinary approach, I want to understand the complex legacies of ethnography in museums today: how they perpetuate colonial histories, but also how they provide material for contesting them and questioning colonial dynamics.
By giving room and therefore a voice to artists from Australia and New Zealand to intervene in such spaces, institutions allow alternative stories to be told. While such ventures are happening globally, Europe is currently at the centre of the discussion, with multiple projects dealing with these questions: SWICH (Sharing a World of Inclusion, Creativity and Heritage, 2018), RIME (International Network of Ethnographic Museums, 2008-13) and READ-ME (European Network of Diasporas Associations and Ethnographic Museums, 2007-10).
My methodology will be interdisciplinary and will combine library-based research with interviews, study of archives and collections, of museum curatorial practices and comparisons of the three artists' previous projects based on archival work. Through the concept of 'contemporary museum of ethnography' and my interdisciplinary approach, I want to understand the complex legacies of ethnography in museums today: how they perpetuate colonial histories, but also how they provide material for contesting them and questioning colonial dynamics.
