Sounds of an Irish Graveyard

Last week, my mom was telling me about how, when visiting our grandparents’ house, all my five-year-old sister wanted to do was get McDonalds and eat it in the cemetery where my grandmother is buried, like they had done last time they visited. This kid owns my heart. (We also discovered yesterday that we both want to be mermaids when we grow up.) Personally, I can’t think of anything that sounds so nice and peaceful. I spend more than average amounts of time in cemeteries, so adding a McDouble to the experience sounds like perfection. This fondness for the company of names and stones (combined with a love for Ireland and Irish history that takes up the entire upper right portion of my heart) is what made me so excited to find this audio clip by Historic Graves, as part of the Day of Archaeology. Historic Graves is an Ireland-based grassroots heritage project designed to train local community groups in low-cost, high-tech field surveys of historic graveyards and the recording of their own oral histories. This three-minute clip of the noises in the Garrankinnefeake cemetery in east Cork is the most peaceful thing I’ve heard all week. I've been replaying it constantly since last night. What’s more, the website has an entire section devoted to audio and video of graveyard-related projects, as well as a blog. Oh, what’s that? I just made your day? You’re welcome.

Day of Archaeology 2011

I’ve been hearing about Day of Archaeology 2011 on Twitter for a while, and despite visits to the website I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was all about. It wasn’t until it actually happened that I really got it (way to go, Meg). Yesterday, roughly 400 archaeologists contributed to the Day of Archaeology website to chronicle what each was doing on one day, July 29, 2011, in order to shed light on what it is archaeologists actually do besides dig. Well, now that the day is over, you have hundreds of posts you can sift through and enjoy to learn about how individual archaeologists are working, researching, and loving their jobs.

Peter Watson discusses "unpublished and unpublishable" art crimes

The ARCAblog just published a post on some details of art-related crimes that author and historian Peter Watson recently discussed. Watson talked about unprovable details on various cases, such as the dealer Robin Symes' jail time, or lack thereof, and various cases of arson that occurred after his jail release; a murder involving the Sevso silver; and threats made to the children of a Scotland Yard agent involved in recovering a stolen Munch painting. The post quotes Watson: "This is a very unpleasant world so watch where you're going."

As sensationalized as this all sounds, it's really not. When I get super riled up about museums collecting looted objects, it's not just because destroying archaeological context is wrong; it's because getting artifacts from the ground to the museum is a trade that is as dangerous as the drug trade. Like in any other organized crime syndicate, peoples' lives are often taken or threatened in the process of getting artifacts to collectors. It's not just stuffy old white people slipping cash to a shady dealer; there is real violence and danger in this business. The next time you're in a museum, you should be questioning where these cultural objects came from the same way you would question where your meat and vegetables are being grown and how much fuel is being used to get them to you. Only, hopefully, people are not dying or being threatened in order to get your food to you.

Quality Tweets

Since finally joining Twitter two weeks ago, I've come across a lot of fascinating people that I never would have met otherwise. Apart from all the UCL students I've begun following/stalking, there are three people in particular whose tweets I look forward to the most, whose work really fascinates me, and who I would totally want to have tea with:

Steven Lubar, Director of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology and Director Brown University's Public Humanities Program:

Prof. Lubar recently started blogging about the behind the scenes features at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. I've interned at museums and read a lot about them, but this blog is a really interesting, entertaining, and informative perspective that gives you the bigger picture of a museum as seen by a director working constantly to improve and educate. On Twitter, Prof. Lubar's tweets and retweets on various issues and articles are always useful and sometimes pretty funny.

Nina Simon, Executive Director of The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz, California; author of The Participatory Museum:

Nina Simon's blog, Museum 2.0, is another great look at the inside operations of a museum, but this time from a smaller museum on a different coast. Ms. Simon has blogged about everything from the financial difficulties The Museum of Art and History has faced and the challenges she's had to hurdle in dealing with a museum as a business to the ridiculousness of exclamation points in museum displays. She even has a book, The Participatory Museum, which she has made available for free on the book's website. (However, I encourage you to buy it, also.) Her tweets have confirmed that, yes, she is the kind of person I would def want to be friends with.

Graham Taylor, Experiment Archaeologist and Master Potter at Potted History:

As described by his website, England, Graham Taylor offers demonstrations, workships, talks, lectures, replicas, and reconstructions in his specialties, prehistoric, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon pottery. On Twitter, he talks about pottery and his work with funny tweets like, "Making Bronze Age Beakers today for an "Emergency Order"! When did you last hear the phrase "Quick someone get me a beaker"???"

WTF MFA

The other day my good friend, The Obedient Woman, was talking about all her warm fuzzy feelings for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and their recent Dale Chihuly exhibition. I just sat there, being all like whatever, until I had to admit that my feelings toward the MFA definitely aren’t warm or fuzzy, even when Dale Chihuly is involved. (I admit, the man has a magical way with hot sand.) The Obedient Woman and I are the kind of friends that call each other “dumb ass” affectionately and search out exhibitions of books made from human skin. (Surprisingly, not all that hard to find in Boston. Who knew.) So, as surprised as she was to hear that I’m not big on the MFA, she knows me well enough that her first question was, “Do they have a naughty collecting history?” And I was like, “GIRL, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE WEARY HERAKLES BULL CRAP THEY’VE BEEN PULLING THE LAST TWENTY YEARS.”

After decades of denial and uncooperative bad behavior, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is finally returning the top half of a statue known as the Weary Herakles; they have owned the bust since it was gifted to them by Leon Levy and Shelby White in 1981, while the bottom half has remained in Turkey, the sad victim of a violent looting. This Boston.com article does a very good job of summing up the saga from start to finish but, you know me, I’m never quite satisfied with how little the media does to reinforce the fact that the MFA totally and royally screwed the eff up. Perhaps more than any other museum, the MFA has suffered from Acute Museum Denial. Despite the obviousness of this particular case (a molding of the two pieces proved they fit PERFECTLY), they have refused to gracefully acknowledge and apologize for their heavily tainted collecting history and the blatant shows of disrespect they have engaged in by denying Turkey and other countries the return of their own cultural property.

This kind of behavior is the anti-thesis of what museums are for, or at least what they should be for. Art is not simply a pretty thing; most of the time, it is also a cultural object that holds significant meaning for the culture that created it and the modern peoples acting as custodians of that culture. The golden era of taking without questioning is over; museums are no longer the sole owners of their collections, nor do I think they should be. The globalization and digitization of our world has made it increasingly impossible for these institutions to hoard history for themselves, as has been customary. The evolution of information technology has empowered origin countries to take back what was stolen from them, and museums are slow-moving in realizing that the game has changed. I think that because of these surges in the evolution of information technology, my generation has a very different understanding of “ownership”, particularly as it applies to cultural property. I think that more than any other era, our various technologies have taught us how to share information. I really hope this inherent belief in the fair and equal sharing of information for education will greatly affect how we retool museums when we ourselves are museum professionals and scholars.

Yale creates Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage

Really really rich people + education = the founding of the Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, which was funded by a gift of #25 million dollars from Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin ’78. The Institute will be focused on the conservation and digitization of art and artifacts; the conservation core will work on providing specialized tools and new technologies and methods to reduce the threats to cultural objects, while the the digitization side will apply new technological tools to capture, store, curate, and share findings and materials digitally. Over time, the Institute would like to build its faculty and staff resources to become more involved in addressing preservation issues in the field. It was also noted in the article that a program of online courses will be developed based on the University’s cultural heritage collections.

This makes me a happy camper. However, as psyched as I am to see all these new opportunities for some quality hardcore academia in cultural heritage studies, I hope Yale will remember its undergraduate students as the Institute develops. We like fancy research opportunities, state-of-the-art-equipment, and internship opportunities too. Yalies past and future, you better demand it.

Grad Program Guide: Newcastle University

I’ve been googling “cultural heritage studies grad program” every now and then, mostly to see if I missed any programs the first bajillion times I searched it. The Newcastle University International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies’ many programs didn’t pop up until the second or third afternoon of avid Googling, but the persistence was worth it. Newcastle University doesn’t just have a Cultural Heritage Studies MA or a Museum Studies MA, or even an MA that combines the two. No. Why have one or two programs when you could have six programs in this field, each with multiple degree types: Art Museum and Gallery Education, Art Museum and Gallery Studies, Art as Enterprise, Heritage Education & Interpretation, Heritage Management, and Museum Studies.

I want to be in all these programs, but I’m particularly taken by the Heritage Education and Interpretation program. The Master of Arts is a 12 month course full time, and 24 months part time; a Postgraduate diploma is 9 months full-time and 18 months part time; and a Masters of Heritage Practice (what!) is 24 months full time and 48 part time. This program is intended to prepare students to work in the heritage sector and to equip students what the skills and knowledge they might need for research degrees. Modules familiarize students with the workings of the museum, gallery, and heritage sectors and allow opportunities for students to “rub shoulders” with students from other programs, as well as engage in program-specific seminars. Like most programs, there is a compulsory 8-week work placement at a heritage sit or organization, followed by the dissertation. The Centre as a whole has close ties with international bodies like UNESCO, national organizations and museums, and heritage organizations like English Heritage and the National Trust.

Newcastle’s website has been wooing me hard, and I can’t put my finger on why, exactly. The Centre’s main page lists 10 reasons to study at ICCHS; the first reason is expert and friendly staff. After seeing a lot of programs emphasize how competitive they are, it’s really nice to just see a program that says, “Hi. We’re friendly, we know our stuff, you should study with us.” Other reasons include the employability of students (boo ya), the vast range of guest lecturers, the intensity of the course, the hands-on approach to teaching and learning by doing, and the dynamism and closeness of the community’s work, trips, seminars, society, and parties. This school actually reminds me a lot of the school I already go to with its emphasis on hard work, joyous parties, and its unique ability to bring the world to its doorstep though it may not be in a major city like London. Is this the British Bennington? Do the kids at Newcastle University also wear too much plaid, talk about how art itself pisses them off, and eat vegan for health purposes while smoking multiple packs a day? Oh man. I want to go to there.

Pompeii theme park: it's a good idea, and I won't even be condescending when I tell you why

Via Twitter, I heard this bit on BBC radio earlier about having a historical theme park outside of Pompeii. I want you to take four and a half minutes to listen to it, and just marvel at how ridiculous this clip is. They had Caroline Lawrence, an archaeologist turned children's writer, come onto the show to talk about this amazing idea only to have it be massively, condescendingly, buffoonishly (I don't care if that's not a real word) shot down by Prof. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, director of the Herculaneum Conservation project and master of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge.

Lawrence (who I think has the most calming voice I've ever heard) believes that having a historical Pompeii theme park near the ruins could alleviate the stress that tourism places on the ruins; provide an environment that would give people, especially children, a much better idea of what we have learned about Pompeii through archaeology by bringing it to life; and create a source of funds for maintaining and excavating the ruins. I agree with her. She's written this list of top ten ideas for why this could work, every one of them a gem. I think this is a rock star of a concept, and I'd like to see it happen.

However, Wallace-Hadrill's contribution to this discussion, though it takes up the majority of the four minutes, is the verbal equivalent of an incredulous laugh. I really hate it when people get nervous about disagreeing with someone, so they put on that "I'm-chuckling-because-I-think-your-idea-is-stupid-and-you-don't-know-anything-about-it-but-let-me-simply-explain-it-for-you-like-you're-a-dumb-child" tone. It's like, either respect me as a person and tell me straight up as an adult why you disagree, or just hush your mouth. Instead of responding with a suggestion for how this idea could be better, how it could be funded, or suggesting his own ideas for how Pompeii should be promoted and preserved, Wallace-Hadrill only states that it should be preserved but that no one has any money to do it properly. And then he accidentally ends up saying something that supports Lawrence's idea, and tries to save himself by sounding even more didactic. So...what's your big idea then, dude? Obviously, Prof. Wallace-Hadrill is hiding his big idea from us all if he's so dead set against other people's fresh takes on a frustrating situation.

Please bear with me

Because Google Adsense decided one day that it had had enough of me and wouldn't let me repeal their termination of my account, I'm trying out a new ad program. Even though I have it set up to approve ads myself, I'm still seeing Sexy Russians on the side of my page. I hope you don't, but if you do, please know I am not personally endorsing mail order brides and that this is just a super funny and hopefully temporary glitch. Ha ha.

Virtual renderings prove looting in Buddhist caves

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

SAFE's blog Cultural Heritage in Danger just posted about this PBS report by Jeffrey Brown on an exhibition, "Echoes of the Past", that focuses on looted Buddhist icons from a group of sixth-century caves called Xiangtangshan in China. This exhibition features virtual renderings of the caves that put back the sculptures back where they originally belonged and can physically prove that pieces have been removed from the site. The exhibition originated at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, is currently at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. until July 31, and then will be heading to Dallas and San Diego.

This kind of research would be another huge benefit of art museums teaming up with institutions for degree programs.