Objects in Oxford
Oxford was a riot of object-based activity when I visited last week, with a stimulating conference and at least two unusual and challenging installations.
The conference was the annual one for the Museum Ethnographers' Group (MEG) and was on the theme of 'Writing on, around, and about things.' This came out of last year's conference and was designed to get participants thinking about the ways in which we record, label, and discuss collections. It led to a stimulating series of papers ranging from South African rock art, to Greek textiles, to Tahitian ritual objects, to coins, to 'toas,' to artefacts from the Northern Ireland troubles, to musical instruments. But, the labels and documents that accompany these objects were also considered in their own right. We saw hand-written and typed labels, letters, reports, acquisition forms, museum databases, books and more. It really made me think about the wealth of ways in which collectors and curators have thought about their objects.
But, the main thing that I brought away from the conference was how crucial it is for the museum world to engage with new digital media. Even the good old museum database seemed to be seen as constricting creativity rather than a new tool to think through, and there seemed to be a slight general fear of the computer's role in the museum. This blog, I suppose, is one small example of the ways in which I think museums must start to engage more widely with their audiences, something which has, incidentally, also been discussed in the latest Museum Journal ...
And, in the vein of engaging more widely, two of the Oxford University Museums are staging unusual shows at the moment. The grass to the front of the University Museum of Natural History is currently home to 'Ghost Forest' by Angela Palmer: a set of monolithic tree root structures from Ghana which lie on plinths, looking strangely vulnerable yet powerful. This is an impressive and thought-provoking show, but I felt was much less successful in Oxford than it had been in Trafalgar Square last year. This is no doubt due to a combination of the starkly contrasted urban environment, dramatic lighting, and taller plinths in Trafalgar Square, bought I also felt the trees were not as engaged with by visitors as they had been in London. They seemed to who have lost some of their power, while gaining vulnerability.
Around the corner, the Museum of the History of Science, has just opened its new show 'Ethometric.' Shows at the MHS are always intelligent and creative and lead you to new ideas about science and its history. Ethometric is no exception. Staged, unusually, in the basement gallery, it features a series of invented instruments by sound artist Ray Lee, which create a sonic installation at specific 'show' times. The instruments are odd and intriguing, and work beautifully among the real instruments in the gallery. It would be hard to tell the 'real' and the 'imagined' apart in a museum store. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend one of the shows so missed the aural side of this experience, but enjoyed the objects in their own right nonetheless, and saw many other visitors doing the same: certainly interacting with this museum in new and exciting ways.
