First Oral Presentation

“Responding To Indigenous Perspectives: Changes, Challenges, and Common Ground”

Paper presented at the Bard Graduate Center, 38 West 86th Street, New York, N.Y., February 25, 2015, as part of Bard’s Conservation Conversations series.

The video below gives access to the oral presentation; the images cannot be shown for copyright reasons.

 

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Second Oral Presentation

Text of Paper: CONSERVATION AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
 

Symposium

ETHICAL ISSUES IN ETHNOGRAPHIC COLLECTIONS

Friday, April 22, 2011

Winterthur Museum, Delaware, USA

Text only of presentation, except for images where copyright is held by author.

 

I’d like to explore today’s theme of collaboration by expanding on some of the discussions heard in ethnographic conservation, especially those on the preservation of the cultural meanings associated with the museum pieces conservators work on.

As many of you know, there’s been a debate in the ICOM Conservation committee’s Ethnographic Working Group about keeping the word “ethnographic” in the group’s name. On the one hand, “ethnographic” is an academic word not often, if ever, used by indigenous peoples, and its origin is in the colonial era. Many people feel also that ‘ethnographic’ continues the concept of “The Other”, separating out indigenous peoples from the rest of the peoples of the world, as well as the issue of museums separating material culture from originating families and communities. On the other hand, today in some disciplines such as anthropology, ‘ethnographic’ does describe a respectful methodology for collaborative research. As well, the issue of considering indigenous concerns separately can also be contextualized in everything from the way museum departments, and conservation sub-disciplines, are still structured, to aboriginal rights, to respecting identity. But the difference, in all these examples, is who holds the power and authority. I’m not going to go further into this debate about the word “ethnographic”, but I mention it first because my talk on significance in material heritage uses some images not usually found at an ethnographic symposium or in an ethnographic collection, such as this ball gown in the collection of the Met in New York City. But rethinking boundaries is part of professional praxis, as well as being part of new discoveries, new art, and new realities in our increasingly globalized world. For example, Haida artist Michael Nicholls Yahgulanaas has used a Japanese graphic novel form to create Haida manga.

Speaking of images and words, in this talk I’ll be using the word “museum” to encompass many types of collecting institutions, and museum words such as “object”, “work” and “piece” for the many collections they house: the cultural belongings they house. As well, this talk is going to focus on textiles as the main illustration of the points I’d like to discuss.

Academics and museum staff who research textiles have traditionally been divided into two camps. I’ll call those who love the materiality of cloth and textiles, “The Material Camp”. Some of you in the audience are in this group. You have expertise in studying and working with the physical, chemical, technical and design aspects of fibres and cloth.

I’ll call the second camp “The Cultural Camp”. These campers, often in the social sciences or cultural studies, look at textiles primarily from the point of view of the “social life” of clothing, and what textiles symbolize; how, for example, textiles represent in physical form cultural aspects such as status and identity, and reflect, and, as some anthropologists have written, even create social change[i]. These two camps, the material and the cultural, both look at the relationships between what people wear and don’t wear, and what people do and don’t do with fibre, but they have approached the subject from quite different viewpoints. Each camp also believes that their perspective holds important meaning in the study of textiles, in fact can elucidate the fundamentals that matter about textiles. In other words, their “significance”.

In museums in the last three decades, the two camps, for example the conservators with our emphasis on materials, and curators with the emphasis on culture, have not stayed entirely barricaded within our camps, but neither have we embraced the other camp’s perspectives about the most informative knowledge to be gained through textile study. We have, however, become useful to each other in new ways, and I think this has come about in large part because there has been a shift in museums. As I’ll discuss in a moment, this shift has not necessarily been easy for those of us in the Material Camp. I’m talking about how people and collaborative relationships, not just physical objects, have become a primary focus in many museums. The impact of this focus is most noticeable in ethnographic conservation, but since some of you in the audience may not be in this field, and I don’t want you to zone out at what I say next, let me point out that items from indigenous peoples are found in many types of collections in the way museums have categorized themselves and their holdings. Fine art collections include both drawings and paintings by and /or illustrating aboriginal peoples, and art galleries have long collected Inuit works of art. Paper conservators work on art and on documents, both highly significant. Treaty papers, trapline maps, and original records, for instance, are hugely symbolic as well as providing significant material evidence. The Textile and Ethnology departments in several museums have battled over which domain should house aboriginal clothing, accessories, and pieces that are woven but have less drape than a textile, such as mats and baskets. Decorative arts collections include aboriginal quilled, beaded and feathered pieces. Military collections have keepsakes from native veterans.

Let me ask you then – with the modern changes in museums, why aren’t all conservators, as part of our daily work, working in partnership with the originators of these pieces or with the communities of their descendants? I’m not saying this to guilt the profession. I’m asking you to explore how we and our workplaces construct what conservation is and does; how much our specialized work and our training can pragmatically fulfill; and, if we admit to them, where our individual interests actually lie. I would guess, for example, that most ethnographic conservators would rather go to a presentation on the preparation of birchbark, or the porcupine quills on the top of this handkerchief box in the Winterthur collection, than on any industrial manufacturing techniques such as might have been used in the silk cloth on its sides.

But as you all know, and as we have seen today, some conservators are given the opportunity to work directly with communities and individuals as well as with their heritage objects. For example, contemporary art galleries, including their conservators, have always placed importance on collaborative relationships with the originators of their collections, the artists, whether aboriginal or not. As a comparison, though, how often do most conservation scientists, for example, have the opportunity to work directly with a community in a partnership process? But conservation science, as we’ve seen today, can just as equally involve cultural materials with great significance to stakeholders outside the museum. And, as we’ve been discussing, many museums today are emphasizing relationships with these stakeholders.

So how much of a problem is it then for conservation if museums are highlighting people and collaborative relationships, rather than physical objects? This question, for me, starts with fundamentals – what do we think we’re preserving in museums, for whom and why? What is the purpose of conservation – conservators are, after all, trained to conserve cultural property, the standard term used in the AIC code of ethics.

I came to understand the complexity of this question of the purpose of conservation when I first started working at MOA, the UBC Museum of Anthropology, and discovered that many people, especially from aboriginal communities, had completely different ideas from the type of conservation I had been trained in about what was important to conserve, and what role, if any, conservators thought they were playing in preserving cultural attributes and the cultural significance objects have.[ii]

So let’s look at the purpose of conservation. Today’s Canadian Code of Ethics and Guidance for Practice says “the purpose of conservation is to study, record, retain and restore the culturally significant qualities of the cultural property as embodied in its physical and chemical nature, with the least possible intervention.[iii] AIC states in its code, “[t]he field of conservation deals with the physical aspect of cultural property …” [iv] Conservators’ dilemma, then, is that while ‘cultural significance’ may be embodied in physical evidence, it itself is a social construct. It is an interpretation of that evidence. It is people saying, “this costume from the show My Favorite Martian is important, is significant, whereas some other evidence is less important.” How do conservators, working within the traditional parameters of our field focused on the physical of material culture, know what is culturally significant -what we should be preserving, as, our codes of ethics also state “into the future?”

If people from communities who originated the museum’s collections want museum knowledge about their material heritage, then conservators and conservation scientists might be called on in a community consultation to share the museum’s professional point of view on preservation, or in some cases asked to treat objects or perform instrumental analysis to identify or date materials. Both camps, the Material and the Cultural, come together on these aspects. But in many of today’s museums, Conservation is still left in the rather difficult position of being a discipline focusing its work in relation to the material of material culture, in a setting increasingly placing value on the cultural aspects.

In beginning my talk by mentioning two camps, let me clarify that I do recognize that conservators appreciate not only materials but do value societal and cultural attributes attached to the objects we work on. We focus on physical materials to gain insight into culture- how an object was made, for example, or evidence of repairs or wear.

Let’s look at works in fibre and cloth as examples. Textiles are among the most personal of material heritage, the most ubiquitous, and represent multiple facets of individual and social meaning.

At the same time, no one, not academics and not even we conservators, experience the same sense of a particular textile that its maker had, or its wearer. We appreciate it through intellectual knowledge or analysis, and we often derive pleasure from working with it. But it is not the same sense of pleasure as had the child who originally played with this fox.

The meaning, the significance of the fox, has changed.

Likewise with this pincushion in the shape of a chair.

You might see it as representative of a class of patterns, or materials in vogue in a certain era. I chose this particular image because it brings back warm memories. My great-grandmother made it, and I remember it, still full of pins, in my grandma Ida’s cupboard near her sewing machine, in the apartment above the one where I grew up. So is this significant? Is this rather banal piece of personal information important to know about this object? Is it different from another grandchild, my age, on the Northwest Coast saying, “I helped my grandma dig spruce roots to make this hat”. Or, “Now I weave, in my tradition, and teach it.” However you balance out this comparison, what is important in these two granddaughters’ experiences is not only the technology of preparing roots for basket-making, or wool for weaving, or seeing the pins for sewing, but the memories, thoughts and emotions for which the object is a touchstone.

Let me use the analogy of a three-dimensional work in fibre to explore the dimensions of an object or work of art that might create part of its meaning, but are less accessible to museum procedures and to conservators, although they might have an impact on our work.

How would the child’s sense of play impact a conservation treatment on the fox? We would already have assessed whether or not to leave on the stains from dirty fingers. But again, this is intellectual assessment, only one way of appreciating an object. Only one way that an object has meaning.

Another illustration of these different dimensions of meaning might be seen in the following five examples of archaeological pottery, although, equally, one ceramic might easily elicit all five responses. An archaeologist might see this ceramic as evidence of a trade route or the class structure of ancient Chinese society. An art historian might value the aesthetics hundreds of years ago, the imagery. A conservator’s curiosity might be for the residue found in the bottom of the lamp. With questions of identification and analysis, the conservator, conservation scientist, ceramics researcher or curator, and hopefully, a contemporary potter, might join forces to know more about the materials. An indigenous viewpoint might focus on identity, this fragment found in their territory as support for social justice issues and claims to the territory’s resources.[v]

These examples of objects made from clay are intended to represent more than simply differing viewpoints. That, again, would imply knowledge-based interests only. But as we know, even just one artifact can carry many dimensions of meaning. Here’s another example:

Iconic figures such as these from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, are more meaningful to those younger than myself. The deep meaning of a piece can often be tied to an emotional sense of connection, in this case developed in childhood, as so often happens, and revisited later, and that connection will be the deeply felt significant dimension.

Another example: perhaps the person examining the cultural property today is an artist, and the artistic or formal qualities of the piece – shape, colour, tactile qualities, for instance – will influence, even unconsciously, the artist’s own work. Likewise a practicing potter will add greatly to the study of ceramics in ways that an academic researcher would not know about. There are many dimensions to meaning.

So, if conservators are supposed to be preserving the cultural significance of the works we treat, I want you to think about how we can acknowledge in our decision-making processes these deeply-held dimensions of significance – the emotional, the connection to identity, the experiential, the inspirational – without shifting our conservation field, our expertise, from a focus on the object, to a focus on the people. I may be wrong, but if you think you are already focusing on people, let me ask, rhetorically, for you to think for a moment how you spend most of your working time.

How can conservators really appreciate, value, and give weight to all the aspects people are expressing about a particular object, without accepting the corollary that preservation would then become an action done for people rather than for the safeguarding of the materiality of objects? I am referring here to a statement I began this talk with, that today in many museums Conservation is in the rather difficult position of being a discipline centred on preserving the physical aspects of cultural materials, as defined in our codes of ethics, but in a setting increasingly placing value on their human relationships.

You might reply that the cultural dimensions of meaning that the object holds are indeed referred to in general terms by conservation codes of ethics. So let’s look further at “meaning”.

In today’s globalized, multi-vocal world, for an object in a museum collection, its ‘objecthood’, as I’ll call it, is acknowledged as having many equally valid meanings that come from different perspectives. These include differing cultural perspectives, viewpoints from different individuals, and also differing experiences in relation to that object.

Add to these different but valid meanings the recognition, as stated in the codes of ethics, that we are preserving multifaceted aspects of cultural property – the “physical, conceptual, historical and aesthetic considerations”[vi], as the Canadian Code of Ethics says – that may or may not be present in a single object. Understanding and arriving at decisions about preserving the meaning of a work is complex; sometimes it can be easier to just preserve the physical object, to get into that energy mode at work where you just want to get something solved and done.

But focusing on conserving the physical object brings us right back to this shift in contemporary museums, away from a primary focus on collections and towards people and collaborative relationships. I’m interested in this, for this talk to a conservation symposium, because, with actions done for people…well, people can present a conundrum sometimes for conservators – for example, when we think they might be putting a piece at physical risk.)… I’m referring here not just to indigenous people’s needs for cultural items, but to some regular -or irregular -museum practices and events: certain public programs, fund-raising receptions in galleries, filming movies in museums, or many other often less-than ideal conservation situations, including, of course, exhibition.

You may well argue that some of these examples have nothing to do with enhancing the meaning of the objects, but what about important ceremonial events, whether traditional or not? In England I was told of regimental silver being taken out of a military history museum and used for toasts during the regiment’s annual ceremonies.[vii]

Now, regarding the question of preserving meaning, I agree that Conservation has changed through the decades, for example in adding the concept of preserving the intangible aspects of material culture to our principles and practices. Preserving intangible heritage is concerned with preserving cultural significance, I think you’d all agree. So let’s consider briefly preserving the intangibles.

In preserving these intangible attributes, we often leave them alone, fulfilling another contemporary conservation principle, minimal intervention -because many times they are not for conservators to preserve. As Gloria Cramner Webster , a ‘Namgis (Kwakwaka’wakw) elder, and director emeritus of the U’Mista Cultural Centre in British Columbia said, “Your job is to preserve those things. Our [‘Namgis] job is to preserve the culture those things have meaning in.[viii]

At the same time, for conservators preserving “those things”, intangible qualities and the social context of the objects, can and do influence technical conservation decisions. As the conservator Virginia Greene wrote, “The [conservation] decision often involves compromise between preservation of information, prevention of further deterioration, potential for damage during treatment, and the possibility of cultural misrepresentation.[ix] In textile conservation, for instance, there have been many discussions concerning preserving the symbolism of commemorative materials such as flags and banners.[x]

But there is more. In a 2006 article in the AIC Journal the authors, Mary Brooks and Dinah Easthop, pointed out that in the cleaning of textiles, our, the museum’s social context, not just the object’s social context, influences conservation decision-making.[xi] They identified four paradigms that operate behind -the-scenes-, as it were, to influence conservators’ cleaning decisions. Two examples are the long-standing association of cleanliness with social and/or moral worth, and, the art historical canon that places status on textiles that look the way the canon values.

In the contributions from the IIC Congress in 2006, Renata Peters and Dean Sully conclude, in their conservation discussion of materials from wartime,

“that neither object meaning nor conservation decisions can be viewed objectively and that conservation has to be viewed as a social process governed by economic, political, religious, social and cultural dynamics, rather than a primarily technical process.”[xii]

Again, let me ask rhetorically, are these ideas something that conservation practice and teaching emphasize, or are they something that we acknowledge and pay lip service to, but in fact we spend most of our time concentrating on materials, analysis and treatments or preventive conservation. What is the balance, the necessary and achievable balance, in our specialized profession?

Let’s look further at cultural significance. Conservators preserve for “society” (a word used in both the American and Canadian codes). Which society, and who in that society gets to choose what is culturally significant? The indigenous or other originating community? The curator? The donor? The art critic? The lobbyist? Do high auction prices validate a work of art as significant, or terrific media attention? Is cultural success the same as cultural significance?

When a textile enters a museum collection and is handled with gloves, is this conservation ritual giving new status or meaning to that piece?

In all these cases, whatever your conclusion is, you would probably agree that cultural values are deeply felt, interpreted, superimposed and subsequently read as the truth; yes, this work of art, item or site is important.

The designation of ‘importance’, then, may result in – or be the result of – broad public recognition, or, institutional recognition. Importance may also come from local community or smaller-group collective recognition, and, it may come from individual experience and life-histories. Sarah Harding, a law professor, states,

“The […] things and places we identify as “cultural property” […] are the products of and reflect our collective experiences in their creation, in their formal dedication, and in the on-going reinscription of their meaning […]. [But] the significance of much (if not most) cultural property and heritage originates not in the public realm but in personal experiences, everyday life, and local contexts.” [xiii]

In addition, Harding points out that personal experience is not only to state, for example, that family memorabilia, such as a wedding dress or a christening gown, are highly significant to particular individuals. Harding is also saying, and this is easy to illustrate with an iconic textile, that the piece is significant, not only because an individual or a community has deemed it thus, but because it becomes personally significant for every visitor or viewer each time they experience it. Harding states, “The significance of cultural property is the product of multiple interactions.” [xiv]

This point concerns conservators. Not only are we part of a profession centred on the material of material culture, more than being experts in its sociological meaning, but now we can be criticized for working against preserving certain kinds of cultural significance. Why? Because preventive conservation, to arrest deterioration, often limits these ‘multiple interactions’ that Sarah Harding is discussing. Is it not hypocritical for conservators to state their desire to preserve the culturally significant aspects of material heritage, when our professional field values preservation over access?

If today museums and their collections are supposed to be about people as much as objects, what are conservators comfortable in accepting, in terms of, as the Canadian Code states, “maintain[ing] a balance between the need in society to use a cultural property*, and to ensure the preservation* of that cultural property”[xv]

Ruth Phillips, an art historian (that is, a Cultural camper), writes,

“I think the answer lies at least in part in realizing that in the past, we thought of an object as a sort of a self-contained package of information, from which data could be retrieved. Today objects are viewed as material embodiments of social and cultural perspectives and relationships that are increasingly multi-vocal. Objects are made by people and used by people for cultural purposes. Objects have dynamic cultural biographies that do not end but only change [if] they enter museum collections.”

So Dr. Phillips is asking the Material campers to make sure they are looking at works in broader terms than simply as self-contained packages of information. How often does our time in the lab accommodate this, in most workplaces, and have us doing, for instance, more than brief research into written records, or allow us enough time to establish relationships with people and learn about cultural contexts? In addition, what hasn’t been included in Ruth Phillips’ short quote are the so-called ‘felt’ dimensions, such as the deep emotions, attachments, and often unvoiced knowledge and skills that are part of creating significant meaning.

Back to the divisions between the two camps that I discussed at the beginning. There are now new developments in The Cultural Camp that I’d like to mention. These Cantonese Opera Costumes in the collection of MOA, the UBC Museum of Anthropology would be analyzed in conventional material culture studies for what they tell us about gender, class or cosmology. Today some Cultural Camp academics reject the division between studying social meanings, and studying materials and technology. One scholar, in transcending this difference between the two camps, has said that, “the sensual and aesthetic -what cloth feels and looks like – is the source of its capacity to objectify, [in other words, to represent in physical format], … cosmology … power and values.[xvi]

The following is an example from contemporary cultural studies where cultural significance can come from the nature of the fibre itself. The anthropologist Kaori O’Connor (has discussed how in the 1950s “wash and wear” became desirable, but by the late 1960s the category “natural” took on highly charged symbolic meaning, and synthetic cloth came to carry negative moral values. Production of synthetic fibres then turned to niche markets, such as athletic clothing. O’Connor says that what is important here is a very basic form of materiality, the fibre itself. The difference between polyester and Lycra, for example, is telling, because synthetics are concocted in order to achieve specific goals. They are developed and produced in relation to, and so take an active part in creating, social trends and needs.

 

CONCLUSION

We’ve seen how, in both camps in textile studies, there has been positive movement towards valuing the type of knowledge that was formerly relegated to the domain of the other camp. In conservation there has been positive movement towards incorporating key elements into our work using “Cultural Camp” rather than mainly “Material Camp” thinking.

But I’d like to end this presentation on cultural significance by giving you more than this “positive movement towards” as a formal conclusion. I can’t, not if you are looking for a conclusion in the sense of an outcome to an argument, or the solution to the questions raised. There is also no conclusion to this discussion in the sense that museums, conservation, and societies will continue to change. This talk is, then, in the author Alberto Manguel’s words, “less an argument than a string of observations”.[xvii] It’s for you, younger than myself, to think about these observations and take them further into your active conservation practice.

So I leave you to think about the following questions:

Question 1. What is the impact on the conservation of collections if cultural property is, as the Canadian Code says, preserved and restored, as appropriate, for present and future generations,[xviii] but, and these are my words now, so that cultural significance is experienced, is felt, not just preserved?

And, how is that life, that meaning of a textile, an object, a work of art, conveyed to those further removed from the spark?

Question 2. If looked at pragmatically and honestly, do we or do we not approach the work in conservation as actions done for people rather than for collections?

If it is for people, then what does this mean for our work in conservation? Your work. Are you, at a minimum, going to research differently, for example discuss your work with people other than associated professionals, or read in literature outside of your own area? Does your museum structure support this for a conservator?

Do you expect a shift in your thinking about acceptable levels of physical risk to collections? And how would you draw that line, as a conservation professional bound by our AHD codes of ethics? – AHD being, as one English writer has described, ‘authorized heritage discourse’[xix]. Finally, what strategies will you devise to convince your management that working with people is part of conservation practice, not just, for example, preparing objects for exhibit or conducting instrumental analysis? Consultation and partnership are complex processes. They vary each time, take up considerable time and resources, and involve different skills. One is always learning. I’d like to see all conservation professionals:

1. at a minimum read at least a couple of the excellent papers on consultation that are in our literature -two, for example, that I’ll mention are in the AIC Journal – by Jessica Johnson, Susan Heald and others at NMAI in 2005, and Glenn Wharton in 2008[xx]

2. argue to be part of a consultative process, and to be there from the beginning, to hear what’s expressed around the table about the whole project and see how it develops, what people value in the process as well as what they want to achieve. If you aren’t there from the beginning because this isn’t the form the process takes, then your work when you’re called in includes understanding more than just the conservation part of it.

A few here are lucky to work in museums whose mandate and practices -and a budgetary commitment – give people in every department a chance to work directly and collaboratively with originating communities and individuals. Along with a mission statement and practice that promotes this, some museums develop partnership relationships more readily because their geographical or political proximity to indigenous communities and organizations, or the nature of their collections, has chivvied along museum/community relationships. For those of you who are students, in your consideration of future workplaces I think it is important to find out about institutional expectations and practices concerning the role of conservators.

Question 3. How far are conservators, in our specialized field, able to go, professionally speaking, in extending the life, not just the existence, of a piece in a collection?

This symposium has been part of the answer. What is your part in the answer?

Question: For example, raise your hands if you are, lets say, a conservation scientist, a fine arts conservator, a photo or paper conservator, or a furniture conservator… or a student in one of these areas? -Keep your hands up if you’ve been part of a community consultation or have read either of those papers I mentioned discussing the processes of community consultation, even though they refer to ethnographic conservation?

-Did you read the papers because you had to for school? (Put your hands down!)

-Do you work for NMAI? (Put your hands down!)

[No hands were left up]

So let me leave you with these thoughts: after today’s symposium, are you more interested in reading one of those articles about how to form better relationships with people from a community, AND, are you going to ask to be part of a consultative process when your workplace is engaged in one.

Thank you.

 

 

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