CAESAR, WHAT'S GOOD?: THE COMPLICATED LEGACY OF CLASSICAL ART

Breaking the Glass Case | Megan C. Mahon

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In almost every so-called universal museum in the world, the department of classical art takes pride of place. The most well-known museums – like the British Museum, the Louvre, and the Met – are famous for their vast collections of Greek and Roman art, the pinnacle of the classical period. But what does the term “classical” really mean, especially when museums use it to describe a certain form of art? How is this term implicated in creating a hierarchy of artistic achievement?

Figures from the East Pediment of the Parthenon at the British Museum. Image courtesy of author.

The beginning of the answer to that question will be very familiar to Museum Studies students. In a process parallel to the inception of modern museums, the term “classical” was first applied to art during the Enlightenment, when white European scholars were beginning to run into myriad forms of artistic expression in the places they colonized. As a way to enforce the notion of white cultural superiority, these European scholars established their own standard for what the pinnacle of creative achievement should be. Ancient Greek and Roman art – statuary, paintings, mosaics – was positioned as the highest artistic standard, with every other work of art judged in comparison. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, an 18th century antiquarian often named “the father of art history,” even declared that Greek sculpture was “the summit of human achievement, past or present.” Winckelmann had obviously never gazed upon the temples of Angkor Wat, or even eaten a taco. But, more seriously, it’s worth noting that this is the same man who, when speaking of once-painted Greco-Roman statues which faded to white over time, also said “the whiter the body is, the more beautiful it is." Racism has been a part of the classical discipline since its inception.

So, how is this a problem for museums today? Well, in many institutions – the British Museum being a notable example – the “classical world” is set apart from the art and artifacts of other regions and times. Even the title “classic” suggests that this art is separate, other, original, something to aspire to rather than be judged in its own right. It’s also true that few other works of art, even those from the same time period, are deemed classical: only works from Greece and Rome are granted this title. Many museums also place Mediterranean art in the best, most expensive galleries, while many other works of art, particularly those that have a purpose beyond aesthetic value or those which do not come from Europe, are judged as “artifacts” or “ethnographic items” and relegated to less desirable locations. Feel free to argue with me if you’d like, but the truth is that museums have a lot of work to do in unpacking the connections they’ve reinforced between classical art and white European superiority.

Because the fact is that classics and white supremacy are inextricably linked. Mary Beard, a well-known archaeologist and popular non-fiction author, has commented in the past that the classical world is a “vocabulary that can be used for good or ill by would-be emancipators and oppressors alike.” Sure, but isn’t it also true that the classical tradition has been used and re-used by those in power even up to modern day? Dictators and white supremacists across time have used the classical world as an inspiration or a rallying cry for their so-called higher purpose. The discipline itself was started by people with an agenda; museums aren’t neutral, and art isn’t either.

The art world, in many ways, defines itself by what we call the classical tradition, but how can museums move beyond this? How can we remove all defining markers, and display art with no standard, no status quo, and no measure of superiority?

The very first thing to do is to do away with the word “classical” entirely, as it implies a standard by which all other art is judged. Using the terms “ancient Roman” or “ancient Mediterranean” instead will change nothing about the art except for the way that we look at it, and it’s a relatively easy thing to do. The second – and far more difficult – task is to incorporate the voices of Indigenous people into museums, particularly in Canada. When Indigenous art is interpreted by Indigenous people (such as at the Haida Gwaii Museum at Kay Llnagaay), it can be understood outside of the settler-colonial context, and outside settler-colonial, Enlightenment-based hierarchies. Allowing Indigenous people to tell their stories, in their own voices, will create more opportunities for reconciliation in Canadian museums.

The final, and most difficult thing that museums everywhere can do is acknowledge where the importance is placed in their collections. The viewing of ancient Mediterranean art is often seen as an escape from the modern world, a journey back to a time of pure, neutral beauty, removed from everyday politics. This neutral, universalist notion, as we all know, is a shield for white supremacy to hide behind. An obvious way to combat this is to include more Indigenous voices and stories in cultural institutions, so that all art can be understood in its own context. When museums can learn to place all art on the same pedestal, we’ll have true artistic and epistemic equality. Until then? Someone get Johann Winckelmann a taco.



Further Reading

Rachel Poser (2021). “He Wants to Save Classics from Whiteness. Can the Field Survive?” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/magazine/classics-greece-rome-whiteness.html

Denise Eileen McCoskey (2018). “Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts: How Neo-Nazis and Ancient Greeks Met in Charlottesville.” Origins 11, no. 11. https://origins.osu.edu/article/beware-greeks-bearing-gifts-how-neo-nazis-and-ancient-greeks-met-charlottesville.

Krishnan Ram-Prasad (2019). “Reclaiming the Ancient World.” Eidolon. https://eidolon.pub/reclaiming-the-ancient-world-c481fc19c0e3.

ACT, IDENTITY, AND AN ANCIENT GREEK VASE

Object of the Week | Caitlin McCurdy

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In all my articles for this column, I have shied away from talking about the Greeks and their plethora of erotic and nude artifacts that fill museum’s collections. I find their thousands years history rather daunting to tackle, and the complex homosocial, inter-generational sexual relationships between men that are equally well-documented even more so. But we’re opening that can of worms now, so let’s discuss this little pocket of history through this week’s object: an amphora from the British Museum’s collection, originally from Athens of Archaic Greece, circa 540 BCE.

Front side of an Archaic Greek Amphora (c) The Trustees of the British Museum | Source

Amphorai were typically used for the storage and transport of wine and food. To create black-figure pottery, a slip that turned black during firing was applied to the pottery in the shape of figures and ornamental motifs.

I first came across this artifact in a book called A Little Gay History by R.B. Parkinson. It’s a cute, quick look at same-sex desire across history, and an interesting read to see how this desire has manifested itself in material culture across time and civilizations. Parkinson discusses the culturally approved intimacy of boys & men in ancient Greece, how they were structured by age, and the inclusion of these relationships in scenes depicted on pottery.

Cover of R. B. Parkinson's Book. Courtesy of Caitlin McCurdy

Parkinson works as an Egyptology professor at Oxford University and is a former curator of the British Museum’s Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan. He has written on the study of LGBT histories and ways in which to extend this historiography into ancient civilizations which carried different signifiers, gender roles, and meanings from our own. In an essay about his process for writing this book, he emphasized the potential social impact of engaging in the historiographic work. In other essays of his, he also describes the importance of not overextending modern labels and identities when studying behaviours and acts that feel familiar to our current moment, as in their original context they may have served a different purpose. As he states himself, “such historical interpretation is not a purely ‘academic’ matter, and research on such topics has to be irrefutably accurate or it risks a backward step.”

In my personal statement for admission to this program, I wrote that reaching into the past to find evidence of yourself can help legitimize your identity to a present that is looking for a reason to dismiss you. Museum exhibitions can help in this process, and I have had emotional moments in LGBT-themed exhibitions when confronted with effective framing of these artifacts. But it has to be done responsibly.

The treatment of these artifacts by the museums that hold them play an important part in how the public views the artifacts, and the people who created them. By framing the amphora within a context of same sex desire, questions of similarities between today's gay community and the pederastic relationships of ancient Greece come to mind.

Close Up on the British Museum Amphora. (c) The Trustees of the British Museum. Source.

The homosocial relationships between men in ancient Greece are often discussed as being early representations of gay relationships, and having the amphora included in exhibitions about LGBT identities and histories adopts this perspective. Parkinson also frames the amphora as representative in this way. As depicted in this vase, bearded men are courting younger athletic youth, reflecting how these pederastic relationships served a function unique to ancient Greece. When I asked my friend & resident ancient Greece expert Sydney Rodrigues about this phenomenon, she had the following to say:

But when are representations of same sex desires ever a quick conversation?

As my parasocial dream professor Dr. Parkinson wrote, “I myself am not a historian of sexuality, but simply a gay Egyptologist who specialises in Middle Kingdom literature from around 1900–1650 BC.” I currently don’t think of myself as a historian of sexuality, but I think that’s slowly changing as more and more of my thesis is looking into queer theory and applying it to museums and Egyptology. But I am a gay Egyptologist, and the instinct to look at ancient Egypt and find myself there has been present since my 101 essay on Women in Egypt.

I focus on erotic artifacts because I am fascinated by what they reveal about humanity. The two things that are consistent across all cultures, from ancient Greece and Egypt into Medieval Europe, are death and sex. And we know about death: the funerary cult of Egypt, the Catholic rites of 15th century England. But death is also stagnant, it remains buried and preserved, waiting to be uncovered. Sex is elusive, a set of actions rarely depicted in material culture, and even more difficult to preserve through centuries of Western society creating taboos around discussion of such material.

(c) The Trustees of the British Museum. Source.

This amphora is a glimpse into the life of ancient Greeks, both in its use to serve wine and its depictions of a moment of life — relationships between men. Currently, the online collections of the British Museum list the amphora as not on display, but it does have an extensive exhibition history. In 2018–2019 it was included in the Ashmolean Museum’s exhibition titled Desire, love and identity: exploring LGBTQ identities. A decade earlier, in 2007–2008, the amphora was part of an exhibition at the Barbican Centre in London called Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquities to Now. 

I am intrigued by the moment when a gay man wanders into these exhibitions and peers into a display case to see this amphora. Does he see himself reflected back at him? Or is the art style too foreign, the cultural context too different from his own? Do the years of colonial interference alter his understanding of the artifact? This phenomenon is described by Elizabeth Freeman as erotohistoriography, a queer theory concept which is currently taking up a lot of real estate in my brain, and it has huge applicability for museums. Maybe by the time I’m finished this program I’ll have some answers to these questions. But more likely, I’ll continue to study the past, and look for myself there. 

"FOR GENTLEMEN OF MATURE YEARS & SOUND MORALS": BODHISATTVA TARA IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM'S SECRET ROOM

Object of the Week | Caitlin McCurdy

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The centralization of Western sensibilities regarding sex when it comes to the treatment of non-Western artifacts is nothing new. When artifacts from one culture are usurped by another, the sensibilities of that new culture may cause some willful misinterpretations on the part of the interpreter, and the history of the usurped object becomes altered. This process is highlighted in the history of a statue of the Buddhist deity Tara, and its home in the British Museum’s Secretum, or as it is known by its more colloquial name, The British Museum Porn Room.

The statue is made of solid bronze, gilded in gold, and stands 143 cm high. It was made in the 7th-8th century AD in Sri Lanka. Her lower body is covered in a tight-fitting cloth knotted around the hips, her upper body is bare, revealing prominent breasts. It is this last detail that caused so much disruption upon its arrival at the British Museum. Despite Britain’s scandalization of her, Tara does not serve a sexual or erotic role in her original contexts in Medieval-era Buddhism. Tara is a spirit of generous compassion in Buddhism. Her origins can be traced to a Hindu mother goddess, eventually adopted by Buddhists. As a Bodhisattva, she guides worshippers along the spiritual path to enlightenment.

The Statue of Tara in it's current gallery at the British Museum. Source.

Tara was looted during the British annexation of Kandy in the early 19th century in Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon. The British Governor of Ceylon, Robert Brownrigg donated it to the British Museum in 1830, where it would remain in storage for several decades due to the statue’s nudity, considered unacceptable by British standards. She was described as “dangerously erotic and voluptuous” and the British Museum determined this statue to be too obscene and sexual for public display, and only allowed approved men to view it and other artifacts housed in the same room. Tara is not a sexual entity in Buddhism, yet that understanding is now embedded in her history due to her presence in the Secretum.

Postcard Depicting 19th century Kandy. Source.

The 19th century in England saw a rise in Victorian sexual hysteria where it was believed that to protect an impressionable public from moral decay, the “moral perils of erotica” must be kept from them, which lead to the establishment of the Obscene Publications Act in 1857. This line of thought emerged while Britain was looting and pillaging countries across the world, in which they often found objects they determined to be of an “obscene” nature, but yet served no such purpose. This evidently led to complications when the artifacts were returned to Britain and distributed amongst their museums. With this act in mind, the British Museum established their Secretum where objects seen as too obscene or perverse were displayed for the viewing pleasure of “gentlemen of mature years and sound morals.” Men who wished to view this room had to prove that they met the arbitrary requirements to do so. Women and men of lower classes were denied access.

British Museum, 1857. Source.

What is sexual culture? And who decides who has access to the perceived obscene? The regulation of sexual culture is well documented in British history, even well before the establishment of the Obscene Publications Act or the Secretum. Considering this with the development of museums during the 19th century in Britain, clear distinctions were being drawn between art, material culture, and the obscene. The people in power decide what is obscene and what can and cannot be seen. This is directly tied to what artifacts can be held in museums and the narratives we choose to present them with as we put them in exhibitions. By collecting certain objects in one spot that gentlemen believed were for their eyes only, the British Museum decontextualized and redefined objects they stole.

While the statue of Tara is now housed in the British Museum’s China & South Asia gallery, it was not originally defined by its own culture, but rather what the colonial powers perceived it to be. That the nudity of a colonized and racialized deity was considered dangerous and erotic by the same museum that displayed and revered the nudity of Greco-Roman statues for their artistry exemplifies the long lasting and engrained Victorian sensibilities of Britain’s most identifiable museum.

ALL THE THINGS: BBC'S THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 100 OBJECTS

Object of the Week | Carly Hall

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If you had to select 100 objects to depict the history of the world, what would you choose?

BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum decided to tackle this question, producing a 100-part radio series written and hosted by the former Director of the Museum, Neil MacGregor. The 2010 series, titled A History of the World in 100 Objects, was a hit; MacGregor captured the imaginations of millions of listeners as he recounted 2 million years of human history. The project was so successful that the British Museum was awarded the Art Fund Prize in 2011 for hosting the series.

The History of the World in 100 Objects collection. Source.

I’ve listened to the series in the past, and I too was enthralled by MacGregor’s storytelling and by the history of the objects. I was caught up in the symbolisms and the deeper, greater meanings and implications of the objects. But I’ve always wondered about the selection process in choosing the objects. The list is divided into 20 groups, each group covering a few hundred years of human experience. These groups are then composed of 5 objects intended to demonstrate important themes of each group (i.e., the Mass Production, Mass Persuasion [1780-1914 CE] group is made up of a ship’s chronometer from HMS Beagle, an early Victorian tea set, Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave,’ a Sudanese slit drum, and a suffragette defaced penny). All objects were chosen exclusively from the British Museum’s collection; however, the online collection allowed international institutions and individuals to submit objects they felt deserved a place in world history. Some examples include Sputnik 1, 1979 Honda Civic, the condom, and a JFK/Johnson election campaign badge.

Now if you’re anything like me, you’re probably thinking: how can someone possible condense 2 million years of human experience into 100 objects? We have created a limitless inventory of objects for countless reasons and purposes, and it seems like an impossibly daunting task to choose a handful of things to describe our collective experience. Moreover, analysing The History of the World in 100 Objects requires us to consider the person/organization creating the list. Admittedly, I do not know BBC Radio's and the British Museum's intentions in creating this broadcast series. However, it seems to me that selecting popular objects exclusively from the Museum's collection (such a Parthenon Sculpture, a Hoa Hakananai'a Easter Island Statue, the Sutton Hoo helmet, the Lewis Chessmen) is a way to remind audiences of the Museum's power and seniority as a globally renown institution. On the flip side, it is a way to present objects to the public on a grander scale; the radio series, book, and online collection is internationally available free of charge.

While the website has a space for audiences and museums to submit their own objects, it would have been beneficial for the British Museum to partner with other institutions and cultural leaders. Doing so would have allowed the list to better reflect human history, not only by being inclusive to other collections, but also by reflecting culturally diverse voices. I'm not saying that the list is not culturally diverse. There are objects from many other counties and regions outside of Europe, such as North and South American indigenous communities, Africa, China, India, Iran Japan, Oceania and Russia. However, I cannot say for certain whether or not BBC and the British Museum collaborated with living source communities for this project.

I suppose that's the problem with trying to narrate human history using only 100 objects from just one institution; you risk overlooking objects that hold great importance to specific individuals or cultures. However, in keeping with the scope of the original list, the following is a brief list of objects from the British Museum that I think could have made the list:

A wampum belt, possible produced by Delaware or Iroquois peoples of North America. Wampum belts are significant forms of communication. They are records of history, transcending and challenging Western perceptions of legal documentation, especially pertaining to treaties between indigenous communities and European settlers.

Source.

Hans Burkhardt’s 1948 lithograph, “After the Bomb.” an apocalyptic scene expressing the horrors of war and the terrifying possibility of nuclear holocaust. The invention of nuclear energy and weapons has impacted humans socially and politically, with fatal, long-lasting repercussions as seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Chernobyl.

Source.

Paa Joe's eagle-shaped coffin, created in 2000. Humans have always placed importance on the funeral celebrations/arrangements for their deceased. The Ga-speaking people of Ghana began creating these artistic coffins in the 1950s, introducing a new tradition of figurative coffins inspired by the eagle-shaped palanquins historically used by community leaders. The creation of new machinery, carpentry workshops, and the emergence of middle classes propelled this style of coffin to national and international popularity.

Source.

Ilka Gedo's self portrait. Ilka was a Holocaust survivor, and completed a series of self-portraits in 1944 while she was in the Budapest ghetto. Honestly, I was surprised when I saw that the original list excluded an object associated with World War II or the Holocaust. I don't know what draws me to this self-portrait, but I find something beautifully defiant and resilient in creating art amidst the horrors of war.

Source.

I encourage you to take a look at the The History of the World in 100 Objects and the British Museum's online collection and decide for yourself if you think they've missed something. In the meantime, I will leave you with a question: what object do you think is fundamentally essential to The History of the World in 100 Objects?

TOXIC MUSEUMS AND TOXIC DONOR RELATIONSHIPS

Muse News | Amy Intrator

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In today’s Muse News, I am focusing on two recent museum news stories that exemplify two different threats for museums: dangerous collections and dangerous donor relations.


Uranium Ore and the Grand Canyon Museum

What happened?

For 18 years, three 5-gallon buckets of uranium ore were stored dangerously close to exhibits and visitors at the Grand Canyon Park Museum. On February 4th, Elston “Swede” Stephenson – the safety, health, and wellness manager for Grand Canyon National Park – sent an email to all Park Service employees to warn them that they might have been exposed to an unsafe level of uranium ore. Stephenson didn’t send the email through proper channels, but rather, he sent the warning to fellow Park employees. He worried that there was no action to warn employees and visitors about their potentially dangerous levels of exposure to radiation. The email goes so far as to accuse the lack of communication on a “top down failure.”

Image of Grand Canyon Park, where one of the onsite museum buildings was housing uranium ore for 18 years. Source.

How did we get here?

The buckets of uranium ore were first discovered in March 2018. After the buckets were discovered, they were safely removed from the premises of the museum, but according to the Park’s safety manager, visitors were “exposed” to uranium levels that exceeded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safe limits. Any visitor to the museum could have been exposed to the radiation, but the discovery is all the more alarming since the buckets were found near a taxidermy exhibit where  school groups stopped for presentations that sometimes lasted as long as 30 minutes. Museum visitors’ safety was compromised due to a confounding level of negligence.


The Oil Giant and the British Museum

What happened?

On Saturday, February 16th, 350 activists gathered inside the British Museum’s Great Court to protest the Museum’s relationship with BP, an oil giant with a history of exploitation. The protesters wielded signs denouncing BP, particularly the company’s exploitation of Iraq’s oil fields after the Iraq War. The protesters, part of a group called “BP or Not to BP?” were particularly infuriated by BP sponsoring the current exhibit at the museum titled I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria. The exhibition focuses on Middle Eastern art, so BP’s sponsorship – given the company’s history in the Middle East – seems particularly distasteful. The group included many climate change activists who wanted to draw attention to BP’s exploitation of the land and unparalleled damage to the environment. In addition to the museum’s relationship with BP, the protesters also claimed that the artefacts featured in the exhibit were unlawfully removed from Iraq, and therefore the British Museum is exhibiting “stolen goods.”

Hundreds of activities from the pressure group BP or not BP demonstrates in British Museum against BP’s sponsorship of the exhibition "I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria." . . . #BP #britishmuseum #museum #climatechange #protest #bpornotbp #NoWarNoWarming #DropBP #Ashurbanipal #fossilfree #ClimateStrike #Ashurbanipal #AncientHistory #Climatejustice #BritishMuseumprotest #decolonizemuseums #climatechangeisreal #protest #londonprotest #demonstration #onepicperday2019 #metroldn #timeoutlondon @BP_plc @britishmuseum

A post shared by Dinendra Haria (@dinendra_haria) on Feb 16, 2019 at 1:33pm PST

How did we get here?

BP is sponsoring the current exhibition, but the British Museum has a relationship with the company that spans over 22 years. The Museum boasts that this corporate sponsorship, which has now been renewed until 2022, allows millions of visitors to view the museum’s exhibitions, but this “success story” conveniently omits the details about the company’s reputation. The public is beginning to pay more attention to museums’ sources of funding, and this protest exemplifies the danger when museums are aligned with “tainted” donors. Other recent protests, like those of Nan Goldin, take over museum spaces in order to command visitors’ attention and force visitors to consider museums' misaligned ethics.


Where do we go from here?

Although the two news-breaking stories are technically unrelated, the two cases both demand a closer look at museums’ accountability to their publics. With the Grand Canyon Museum, there was a failure to communicate and act on a major risk to the public’s health and safety. With the British Museum, there was a failure to critically assess the museum’s funding sources and reconsider corporate sponsors in light of public outcry.

These two different cases both exemplify that museums are at their weakest when they lose public trust. From failing to communicate a major health risk to failing to reconsider donor relations, these two institutions now have extensive work to repair their relationship with the public and restore their reputation as cultural institutions.

MUSEUMS AS SITES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

MUSINGS ABROAD

BY: KRISTEN MCLAUGHLIN

Over the last six months or so of me writing the Musings Abroad column, I often think about how the museums I write about work together on an international level. In an increasingly globalized world, what do museums do, both actively and passively, to change, develop, enhance or decrease relationships between different countries, their governments, and their heritage/art institutions?

A Japanese McDonald's sign from 1975 from the National Museum of American History. Source.

What do I mean by international relations between museums? 

Museums are not the neutral and objective spaces many people have liked to believe over the past half a century; museums are political and contribute to social change on a local and wider scale. Museums have the ability to become symbols of cities or nations. Museums contribute to international relations by exhibiting collections from different nations and loaning objects across borders. Museum professionals are working more and more abroad, training in one country and working in another, bringing different policies and methods to different countries. Some museums work directly with different governments to ensure artifacts or remains are repatriated or exhibited, such as museums around the globe working with the Haida in repatriating their ancestral remains with communities and the Canadian/BC government.

Should Museums Care About International Relations?

So far I have made it sound as if international relations are secondary to a museum's purpose as a heritage preservation institution. Rather, I believe international relations are integral to those museums that have international collections. In a world that is becoming more and more globalized, our museums can no longer isolate themselves from their sister institutions across the world. By being proactive in building relationships abroad, museums can be at the forefront of active engagement and participation in issues wider than themselves.

Examples

International Entities - ICOM and UNESCO

ICOM, or the International Council of Museums, is a network of over 37,000 members who are a part of the global museum community. They are a leading entity in museum ethics. There is a specific ICOM Canada website for Canadian entities or individuals interested.

UNESCO or United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, is perhaps one of the more well-known global heritage entities, focused on heritage protection on both a tangible and intangible scale and on world heritage sites. Recently they've been working with museums in war-torn areas to attempt to provide protection and planning for collections.

Individual Museums - The Art Gallery of Ontario

Last month I attended the Ontario Museum Association (OMA) conference, where I sat in on the talk "Ontario Museums and Cultural Diplomacy". An interesting case study was the exhibition Small Wonders, on the Boxwood Miniatures exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario. I had seen the exhibit myself and was completely blown away by some of the work they had done in breaking down the layers of these objects and comparing them to worldwide collections. At the conference, Dr. Alexandra Suda from the AGO talked about how it was truly an international collaboration between different museums, not only in researching different collections for their exhibition but in sending the exhibition to two other museums: The Met Cloisters in the USA and The Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands. This demonstrated all the work that goes on behind-the-scenes of an exhibition.

Sample object from the exhibit Small Wonders at the AGO. Source.

Individual Museums - The British Museum

One example stands out as to how cultural exchange can greatly affect political relationships, both negatively and positively. The exhibit in 2005-2006 Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia, was a global exhibition put on by the British Museum that was planned to travel worldwide as well. Some of the objects in the exhibit were loaned by two Iranian museums, the National Museum in Tehran and the Persepolis Museum. This exhibition occurred during a time of strained political relations with Iran because of its increased nuclear armament. The British Museum had agreed to loan the Cyrus Cylinder in return for their loans; however, with increased political tensions the British Museum released statements declaring they would wait to make sure they were loaning the object into a safe environment. This caused great strife with the Iranian government, which threatened to sever all cultural relations and accusing the Director of wasting time and making excuses.

When the cylinder was finally loaned in 2010, it provided a chance for other discussions to slowly start up again. This entire situation is demonstrative of the fact that museums and other cultural institution do in fact have great political power.

The Cyrus Cylinder. Source.

The Future

I am interested in seeing what the future of international relationships are through museums. We are well aware of presidents and prime ministers traveling the globe on trade missions, discussing topics such as job creation, trade deals, and resources. These talks frequently take place in a cultural context; being shown different dances, cultural practices, important locations, and more. Despite this, the topics of cultural exchange do not seem to make the headlines.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau write messages on traditional Ema wooden plaques at Tokyo's Meiji Jingsu Shrine, one example of many that incorporates a country's cultural values into political visits. Source.

Perhaps this is because the work is being done in the background by different cultural institutions within these nations: partnerships are made, exchanges happen, and citizens from different countries learn about others around the globe by visiting. Is it up to our individual museums and art galleries to create those transnational relationships? Are museums meant to be global or local? Can they be both? These are the questions I want to leave you with as you visit your next museum. Think about the exhibits. Who have they worked in partnership with? Are objects from the local area or from abroad? Where do their staff, visiting interns, and visitors come from? Should museums be doing more or less to contribute to international relations?

PERSONAL CONNECTIONS AND PERSONAL COLLECTIONS

COLLECTIONS CORNER

BY: KATIE PAOLOZZA

Have you ever found yourself visiting a museum multiple times, only to realize that you're re-tracing your steps? Being inspired by certain galleries and objects is part of what makes a museum visit memorable and special. I understand the tendency to revisit those objects; we're chasing a feeling, an inquiry, or maybe by understanding more about the objects we can understand more about ourselves and why we're drawn to them.

Personally, the most frustrating thing about being moved by an object is my inability to engage with it on a multi-sensory level. I love material culture, and when I see artifacts, I want to pick them up. I'm curious about their texture, whether they would look the same from close-up, how they smell, and if they are heavy or light. When I cannot do those things (and there are good reasons we can't), I do what a lot of people do: I take a picture.

Here's a horrible picture I took of a Maiolica dish at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford:

Here's one I tried to take in one of the European Galleries at the ROM:

This is the clearest picture I could get of the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum:

And it was so difficult to get a clear shot of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre that I gave up and took this picture of everyone else trying to take a picture:

Notice a pattern? Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of great pictures of museums from my travels, but even in the good ones there is always something about the objects that I cannot capture. I take a picture because I think it will help me remember how it felt to see that object in person, and because having my own record of the object makes me feel a bit like it's part of my own collection. That's why I've kept my flawed, blurry images. They are a photo journal of what has intellectually and emotionally captivated me over the years. 

Digital collections and social media platforms like Pinterest make it even easier for us to collect and save what inspires us. And while I firmly believe that digitizing collections is both necessary and convenient, I will always choose physical material over anything digital. The two work well together anyway, so luckily I don't have to choose. 

I am also always aware of how lucky I am to simply have the option to visit museums so frequently. In tense times, with the number of safe spaces steadily shrinking, it's comforting and humanizing to step outside of ourselves and be immersed in things that are all at once familiar and new. The objects came before us, and most of them will outlive us and remain constant long after we are gone. 

That's kind of nice, don't you think?  

THE MINECRAFT MUSEUM

TECHNOLOGY TUESDAYS

BY: JENNY FORD

The Minecraft British Museum in all its glory!

The British Museum is already taking shape in Minecraft. Twenty days after announcing the project in September, the façade and courtyard were complete. The aim of the institution's ambitious project is to build the entire British Museum in Minecraft, including exhibits and artifacts.

But the British Museum isn’t the first to take advantage of the game's success. Other museums are using the sandbox game as an educational tool to draw younger audiences and connect their collections to the virtual world. Take this example based on the Tate Modern, where users can jump into paintings in a Minecraft world.

There is no doubt Minecraft has been a runaway success, selling nearly 54 million copies as of June 2014. The game allows users to build whatever they desire out of textured blocks in 3-D generated worlds.

 

Musemcraft and the British Museum

The British Museum is recruiting the public through Reddit to help build their Minecraft museum, and the initial uptake seems positive. The project is part of the museum's public debate on the future of the institution, which, among other things, is considering “how the public interacts with collections – and how that might impact on the physical spaces themselves.”

Other museums are also taking this to heart, integrating Minecraft into their programs as an entry point for public engagement. The Auckland Museum in New Zealand is working with high school design students to recreate aspects of New Zealand's First World War history in the game.

Students are using museum collections as reference points to create battleships, dugouts, trench systems, and historical battle sites. Once students have finished building, the museum hopes to make their Minecraft map downloadable.

Minecraft farmers working away in the AMNH map!

But some institutions are also bringing Minecraft into the museum itself. The American Museum of Natural History in New York was one of the earliest institutions on the Minecraft bandwagon, using the game to connect younger audiences to exhibitions. In a 2013 program, a Minecraft simulation complemented the exhibition Our Global Kitchen, which explored the complex food systems from the farm to the table.

Sounds a little dull for a 15-year-old, right? Enter Minecraft. Program participants started their day working in Minecraft where they looked at the cycle of food production in the game. They then compared the virtual food cycle to the one presented in the exhibition.

The AMNH's Foodcraft program.

The one-day program turned into a series of classes aimed at grades 8 to 12. The 2013 Minecraft in the Museum program taught participants about geology, biodiversity and poison (which connected to a special exhibition).

So, does the future of museums lie in the virtual realm, or is Minecraft another fad museums are taking advantage of? As the British Museum nears its virtual completion, it will be curious to see how people interact with this new museum platform.