This photo essay considers the enormity of the impact of even small changes to indigenous practices intimately linked to a specific land and sea and the subsequent threats for the survival of the culture itself.

The Republic of Kiribati comprises Banaba (Ocean Island) to the west and Christmas Island and the Line Islands to the east, with Kiribati (the Gilbert Islands) and Rawaki (the Phoenix Islands) between them. Although the land area is only 800 square kilometres, the atolls are spread over approximately three million square kilometres of ocean. This group, comprising thirty-three coral atolls, lies along the equator about half way between Hawaii and Australia. Trade winds moderate a hot, humid, tropical marine climate.

The sixteen atolls that comprise the main island group of Kiribati, straddle the equator due north of New Zealand. The land, heartbreakingly threatened by ecologically offensive nations, rises a mere two metres above the sea. The atolls are tiny peaks of vast undersea mountains that rise through the depths of the Pacific Ocean. The reefs are the defence against relentless waves upon these precarious landfalls. There is nowhere, not even in the centre of the lagoon, that the incessant roar of the breakers is not heard. The sound of the sea is inescapable in Kiribati.

Sea dominates life - this is a world of water. The nearest island is over the horizon, and a major land mass a thousand miles of endless ocean away. Only a narrow strip of land divides the ocean from the lagoon. The peaceful and gentle, the deep and strong, the inner and outer are in constant contrast.

These tiny ribbons of coral are the home of the I-Kiribati.

In April, Erica Lord performed Artifact Piece, Revisited at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center, in New York City. In reprising James Luna’s work The Artifact Piece, first presented in 1987 at San Diego’s Museum of Man, Lord asks us to reassess relationships among Native American peoples, museums, and anthropology now, after twenty year’s work at repatriation, collaboration, and Native self-representation. In addition to returning to issues of stereotype and expropriation raised by Luna, Lord broached several concerns not apparent in Luna’s work, including the position of Native women in the popular mind and the role of consumption and commodification in identity-production.

In his performance-as-installation, Luna, a member of the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians, lay stretched out on a bed of sand in a horizontal glass case, dressed in a loincloth and surrounded by personal effects and official documents, including his divorce decree and high school diploma. The work performed Native presence: against the prevalent idea that American Indian people vanished under European domination or were reduced to those traces found in static exhibit halls, Luna lodged himself in the museum as a living, animate, disruption of established power relations. As Jean Fisher put it in a 1992 Art Journal article, Luna’s work did not simply threaten to return a controlling gaze: rather, she wrote, the presence “of the undead Indian of colonialism . . . and the possibility that he may indeed be watching and listening disarms the voyeuristic gaze and denies it its structuring power” (Fisher 1992:48-9). The Artifact Piece thus came to exemplify a postcolonial critique of museums and anthropology that troubled long-standing assumptions about the relationship between “us” and “them.”

Lord’s Artifact Piece, Revisited was mounted at NMAI with Luna’s cooperation, in conjunction with an exhibit of his Emendatio, a piece commissioned by the Smithsonian for the 2005 Venice Biennale. In Lord’s hands, the physical disposition of the work did not differ much: it consisted most fundamentally of the artist’s body on display, surrounded by artifacts from her life made museum objects through anthropological commentary. This included a text panel giving the ethnographic particulars about her species (Homo sapiens), culture (Athabaskan/Dena), and region (Alaska). But where Luna’s work relied upon the threat that the museum-goer’s gaze might be returned, Lord’s depended more substantially on inviting that gaze and the viewer’s desire. Labels mounted in the case with her called attention to her pedicure (identifying her painted toenails as a component of a ritual for attracting a mate), her endomorphic body type and wide hips (suitable for childbearing), and her pierced ears and nose, specifying that while these were not traditional, they did allow her to wear ornaments acquired through traditional practices of gifting and trading. In this way, Lord called attention to ways that constructions wrought by the gaze are not only raced but gendered, such that Native American women find themselves in different relation to museums and anthropology, as well as popular culture, than that experienced by Native men. The larger issue here, the phallocentrism of the museum gaze, is a subject that goes much remarked in discussions of contemporary art and in the literature on exoticism but is comparatively absent in Native American studies. Lord provides us with a way to begin to attend more completely to the multiple desires and pleasures active in museum display.

In his work, Luna drew attention to his scars, explained in label text as the remainders of injuries suffered while drinking. Alluding to Luna, Lord noted her scars and bruises, but attributed them to biking and skateboarding accidents sustained in the course of what she termed an active lifestyle. This small difference between passive, depressive drinking and active, healthful—if dangerous—biking, suggests a world of change: where Luna takes up, and even embraces, stereotype in order to confront it, Lord refuses stereotypical associations, aligning herself with an ethnically unmarked, and perhaps unexpected, community of X-sporting youth. In a similar move, Lord wore a buckskin dress, described in label text as made of “traditional materials, moose and deer hides” and “previously used in the ritual of costuming for the popular American holiday of Halloween.” With this, Lord drew attention to multiple vectors of appropriation, suggesting that “playing Indian” is a Native pursuit as much as a non-Native one.

I am interested in exploring issues around the mediation and remediation of photographs in historical exhibitions, especially those dealing with the Holocaust.

There is of course a big literature on the subject of photography and the Holocaust: James Young, Barbie Zelizer, Marianne Hirsch, Diana Taylor, Laura Levitt, Shelley Hornstein, Sybil Milton, Janina Struk, Ulrich Baer, Paul Williams, Omer Bartov, Atina Grossmann, Molly Nolan, Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann, Cornelia Brink, Habo Koch, Caroline Wiedmer, Jeffrey Shandler, Oren Stier, Carol Zemel, Brett Kaplan, Harold Kaplan, Andrea Liss, and others. However, discussion of issues specific to exhibition (design and installation) from the perspective of practitioners is somewhat elusive because pracitioners tend to do rather than write about what they do. I would be grateful if readers could point me to where in their own work or the work of others such issues are addressed.

While my primary concern is with Holocaust exhibits, the issues bear on any history exhibit. What are the protocols that practicing curators and designers develop (or do not develop) with respect to cropping, enlarging, use of details, and graphic treatment of historical photographs when designing the installation for a history exhibit? How do these protocols (or lack of them) affect decisions regarding enlargement, cropping, medium on which the photograph is printed, whether paper or glass, graphic or filmic treatment, digital projection, use in interactive display, and even 3-dimensional treatment. In other words, I am interestsed in the thinking behind all decisions that affect the presence of photographs in the exhibition. This question is especially important when the "originals" (prints made close to the time of the negative) are not shown, let alone the strip of negatives, contact sheets, and uncropped photographs (even when they exist).

I am trying to determine if Holocaust exhibition practice has developed its own protocols, raised the threshhold for what can and cannot be done, or provided the model in other ways. How do issues that have been debated at length with respect to the Holocaust play out in the exhibition of other genocides and in reflections on those exhibitions. What are some of the cultural differences and sensitivities that would make a protocol acceptable in Poland but not in the USA or Israel, in Argentina or Vietnam or Rwanda, but not in Ireland, acceptable for other genocides, but not for the Holocaust.

Atrocity photographs and traumatic images are the limit case and have been discussed at length. I am also interested in the protocols (if there are any) for presenting any photographs taken in Poland during the Holocaust, whether they show civilians looking up at falling bombs or a flowerseller on the street on a sunny summer day. Again, my concern is with curatorial and design practice and with the protocols, stated or unstated, that guide what can and cannot be done with these photographs in an exhibition .

£20,000 pa * 18 month fixed term contract, extending to 36 months subject to funding

The Hunterian Museum at The Royal College of Surgeons is one of Britain's oldest scientific museums. As well as permanent exhibitions devoted to the history of anatomy, pathology and surgery it holds extensive reserve collections. These include the Odontological collection, which contains over 10,000 specimens illustrating human and animal dental anatomy and pathology. The collection is an important resource for research in evolutionary biology, zoology and forensic archaeology.

We are looking for an Assistant Curator to develop the cataloguing and storage of this collection, and to facilitate its use for exhibitions and research. You will have a good working knowledge of primate anatomy and taxonomy, and the motivation and enthusiasm to realise the potential of a world-class research collection. A relevant degree is essential, and experience of paid or voluntary work with a natural science collection would be highly desirable. We will offer training and career development, the opportunity to pursue research interests and the chance to experience the full range of museum work as part of a close-knit team.

For further information on this role and to apply please visit our website or email humanresources@rcseng.ac.uk quoting ref. 55/08.

Closing date: Monday 15th September.

Interviews: Thursday 25th September.

We are an employer fully committed to our equality and diversity policies.

Registered charity No. 212808 www.rcseng.ac.uk

Creation Nation

[Editorial note: The following photo essay expands upon recent postings on this blog about urban exploration, extreme landscapes and the relationships between objects, exhibitions and creative community representation].

The Heartlands Project is a community-led vision to transform Cornwall’s most derelict urban area into an inspirational cultural landscape. By celebrating and reigniting Pool’s local traditions of innovation, invention, creativity and enterprise the project will contribute to re-creating a truly great place to live, work and play.

Photo credit: Angelina Boscarelli and Ollie Oakenshield of Rogue Theatre

Fusing past, present and a progressive 21st Century future, the Heartlands landscape will see the creation of an inspirational public green space, outdoor classrooms, and event and performance spaces; all supported by the highest standards of streetscaping and landscaping. The site will incorporate public art in metal, stone, sound, light, and water features. The key feature within this reclaimed landscape will be the restoration of the derelict Robinson’s Shaft minehead complex into the 'World Heritage Gateway for Mining' in Devon and Cornwall. Heartlands highlights the aims of both the Big Lottery Fund’s Living Landmarks Programme and the local aspirations for community regeneration.

One-day symposium organised by the Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Smithsonian Anthropologist Joanna Cohan Scherer resurrected the work of photographer Benedicte Wrensted in this online exhibition. Wrensted's photography career began in Denmark in the 1880s and continued following her immigration in 1895 to Pocatello, Idaho. Many of her photos were of American Indians who visited her portrait studio by choice. These powerful Indian photographs unfortunately lost their provenance and were repeatedly used in exhibits and publications as unidentified, stereotypical Indian images.

This research project brought back the identification to the photos and reunited them with the Northern Shoshone and Bannock Indian families of origin. Scherer's book, A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians: Benedicte Wrensted, University of Oklahoma Press, (2006), gives a more detailed analysis of Wrensted's work and other photographers of American Indians during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The web site is an excellent source of information regarding Native Americans and how photography influenced both the viewer's idea of the American Indians and the way the Indians viewed themselves. http://anthropology.si.edu/wrensted/intro.htm

I also found this helpful compendium of resources about photography on the web

And some other links, suggested by material world editor-at-large, Josh Bell:

Tibet Album (Pitt Rivers Museum project) - Clare Harris, Elizabeth Edwards, Richard Blurton, Project Leaders
http://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/
"The Tibet Album presents more than 6000 photographs spanning 30 years of Tibet's history. These extraordinary photographs are a unique record of people long gone and places changed beyond all recognition. They also document the ways that British visitors encountered Tibet and
Tibetans. Go to the Tibet album site." (quote from PRM site)

Southern Sudan (PRM project) - Jeremy Coote & Elizabeth Edwards Project Leaders
http://southernsudan.prm.ox.ac.uk/
"This website provides access to a detailed catalogue of the
collections from Southern Sudan held at the Pitt Rivers Museum, the
University of Oxford's museum of anthropology and world archaeology.
The Museum's holdings from Southern Sudan comprise more than 1300
artefacts and 5000 photographs. Together together, the artefacts and
photographs provide a major resource for studying the cultural and
visual history of the region. Go to the Southern Sudan site." (quote
from PRM site)

Luo Visual History (PRM Project) Gilbert Oteyo and Chris Morton Project Leaders
http://photos.prm.ox.ac.uk/luo/page/home/
"Explore around 350 historical Luo photographs from the collections of
the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, taken between 1902 and
1936. Go to the Luo visual history site." (quote from PRM site)

George Eastman House
http://www.geh.org/

Online Photographic Collections of The Smithsonian American Art Museum website
http://americanart.si.edu/Helios/features.html

Smithsonian's Photographic Initiative
http://photography.si.edu/
Attempt to integrate the diverse photographic holdings of the
Smithsonian, and make the accessible to researchers, artists and the
public.

Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/
The National Digital Library Program digitizes the Americana holdings
at the Library of Congress.

Collected Visions
Project directed by Lorrie Novak in which people submit their own
family snapshots to the archive or use existing images to create a
visual essay.
http://cvisions.nyu.edu/

aka Kurdistan
http://www.akakurdistan.com/kurds/stories/index.html
Site created by Susan Meiselas that was inspired by her book
'Kurdistan, In the Shadow of History'. The site expands upon the
books tracing of the Kurds history through visual traces, and provides
a means for Kurds to create a digital archive.

And an interesting site that uses photography:
Graffiti Archaeology
http://otherthings.com/grafarc/

Alison Brown comments the website presents case studies of how beadwork and other materials used during the North Atlantic fur trade can be used to reflect upon family histories and the lives and experiences of those people connected to this global system of cultural and material exchanges. It is part of a larger project developed by Alison Brown, Tim Ingold and Nancy Wachowich in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, which looks at how fur trade material culture can be used to explore the social relationships between Scots and Aboriginal peoples.

Two papers and a book related to the project are forthcoming, however, visitors to the website can download the Material Histories Workshop Proceedings, which contains papers concerning the contemporary meanings of fur trade artefacts in museums and family homes.

Josh Bell, Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia

Is a hand-made, lace g-string an appropriate symbol of local cultural heritage? This has been one of the questions villagers in Koniakow, southwestern Poland, have been asking themselves since some local lace makers began to turn out crocheted lingerie in the face of falling demand for their traditional products. The production of tablecloths and ecclesiastical items in crochet lace has been a cottage industry in Koniakow since 1864, when the wife of a local schoolteacher taught the younger girls in the village the technique. The craft was passed on from one generation of women to the next, eventually developing into a distinct local style with its own vocabulary of floral motifs. Acknowledged as a craft unique to the village, it became recognized as a form of ‘folk art’ in the 20th century. Koniakow lace found its way to national and international exhibitions, as well as into the households of several European royal families and the Vatican with the appointment of John Paul II. Since 2003, bra and panty sets are churned out by members of the collective KONI-Art, along with the by now infamous ‘stringi’ – Polish for thongs. Their products are sold locally, through the village website (www.koniakow.com) and through websites located in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.

The commercial success of this crocheted lingerie demonstrates the ability of the small-scale manufacture of specialized goods to flourish alongside the global flow of mass-produced commodities. Yet, the innovative application of traditional motifs and techniques for the creation of this new line of products has not been without its challenges. The ‘stringi’ and their producers have been met with some resistance from within the community itself, as well as from the Catholic Church. Religious authorities have labeled the new line of products ‘indecent’ and the media reported that some craftswomen were reluctant to admit they make lingerie for fear they would be named and shamed in church. The Association of Folk Artists (Stowarzyszenie Tworcow Ludowych) has refused to grant the lingerie the official status of ‘folk art’, seeking to assert its right to determine and control ‘Koniakow lace’ as a brand (Grygar et al. 2004). Indeed, media interest in the story has done nothing to allay the social tensions that have appeared in Koniakow since the activities of the KONI-Art group in 2003. Rather, feasting on the story, the media has been eager to present the conflicts as a result of a liberal, young minority challenging an elderly, conservatively Catholic population within the village community. The Polish press has been keen to represent the ‘stringi’ as a symbol of burgeoning modernity, a thread that has been eagerly taken up by the international media.

Yet, while the image of grannies crocheting racy lingerie undoubtedly makes for eye-catching journalism, for the anthropologist it provides a case study for a much wider range of issues, particularly the relation between the transmission of craft knowledge and commercial innovation. Quite clearly, the emergence of the ‘stringi’ has challenged established norms and brought out latent conflicts surrounding issues of (sexual) morality, gender and entrepreneurship. The craft, however, is cultural knowledge shared by the majority of the women in this village and thus also a shared resource of income. The discussions and conflicts surrounding the application of a traditional technique for making ‘stringi’ can then be seen as an articulation of an ongoing negotiation of boundaries between the legitimate use and the misuse of craft knowledge. The relationship between tradition and innovation is a question of the political economy of knowledge, rather than simply the emergence of new material forms. The boundary between ‘tradition’ and ‘innovation’ is drawn through the constant renegotiation of who should know and how they should use their knowledge.

In July, I shall be going to Koniakow in order to conduct my first extended period of fieldwork in the village and these are some of the issues that will be informing my approach. Initially, I seek to understand why such issues as sexual morality, religious piety and adherence to craft tradition become the chosen vehicles for the articulation of this negotiation. Secondly, I seek to understand how the political economy of knowledge influences, and is influenced by, commercial practice. With the perhaps somewhat naïve enthusiasm of an amateur lace maker myself, I regard the emergence of Koniakow lace lingerie as a sign that the common prediction of the hand-made as a dying form of production is misconceived. I wonder what this case tell us about the emergence of new markets for craft objects in the globalised world.

Grygar J., Hodrová L. and Kočarková E. (2004) Koniakowská Krajka™. Vyjednávání tradice a lidovosti uměni ve Slezských Beskydách. In L. Hodrová and E. Kočarková III. Antropologické symposium. Plzeň: Aleš Čeněk.

Selected press:
Hańba z trzydziestu kwiatków Wysokie Obcasy (20/10/2003)
Koronkowie stringi budzą kontowersje Gazeta Wyborcza (24/8/2003)
Polish lace makers at odds over recent switch to G-strings The Wall Street Journal (4/6/2004)
Pope’s altar cloth makers turn to a more profitable line – thongs The Independent (8/8/2004)
Verushka’s Secret The New York Times (15/5/2005)
Heilige Höschen Stern (13/4/2006)

This event is being organised as part of a programme of events throughout 2008 to mark the 150th Anniversary of Robert Owen’s death.

This major international conference will be a two stage event appealing to both academics from a range of disciplines and co-operative practitioners. The first part of the conference (from the morning of Thursday 11th September to lunchtime on Saturday 13th) will consist of a series of interdisciplinary thematic sessions exploring various aspects of Owen’s ideas and their contemporary and future relevance. The second part of the event (from lunchtime on the 13th to lunchtime on the 14th) will have a practitioner focus. It will consist of invited speakers, interactive workshop sessions and the AGM and Annual Research Roundtable of the UK Society for Co-operative Studies.

Owen Memorial Plaque, Wesley Street, Newtown, Wales

This event is orginaised by the UK Society for Co-operative Studies in co-operation with partners including the Co-operative Group, Co-operative College and New Lanark Heritage Trust.

The conference will include a tour of the New Lanark Mills Visitor Centre and a Dinner on the evening of Saturday 13th September.

www.co-opstudies.org

Regarded as one of the most difficult and effective of the martial arts, Aikido is derived from adapting and blending ancient Japanese martial arts like Jujitsu, Karate and sword fighting with breathing and meditation studies. My research investigates the interdisciplinary synthesis of ideational flow and the practice and philosophy of the art of Aikido. To what extent can design leadership based in Aikido transform co-creative flow?

The project questions what new behaviours, skills and tools can assist designers to meet the demands of contemporary knowledge creation whilst maximising 'ways' of spreading ideas? Overall, this research seeks to understand and reflect on existing disciplinary experiences through researching other creative 'pathways' – such as ‘Aikido’ – to reflect on how designers think instead of purely what designers think. Hence the project will investigate how designers can connect broader understandings of ‘leadership’ with specific design knowledge to enhance creative performance. The emphasis is on how designers can potentially ‘manage’ their thinking within the ideation process – maximise “ways” to spread ‘memes’.

Photo credit: Toshiharu Sawada Shihan. Photograph by Richard Haslon, Senior Instructor, Wellington Aikido Club, Inc.

Over a three-day period, audiences in New Zealand have been offered an unprecedented opportunity to observe Toshiharu Sawada Shihan (7th Dan, Kimori Dojo, Nagoya) and local Wellingtonian Aikido practitioners in training.

One of the ideas here was to observe specific patterns of behaviour, use of language, and symbols. The research also explores the conceptual possibilities of applying Aikido theories beyond the conventional ‘dojo’ setting – referred to as “Takemusu Aiki” or “Courageous and Creative Living” (Saotome, 1993; K. Ueshiba, 1984; M. Ueshiba, 2002) …

Http://www.everydaylifeofobjects.net

The link above, leads to a a new virtual environment recently completed by Professor Laurie Beth Clark in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where you can download a virtual maze filled with a matrix of familiar 'objects' (which are actually digital images of real objects found on retail or personal websites). Spectators navigate this maze to view the objects (an experience somewhere between a museum and a shopping mall) and, by clicking an object, trigger sound bites that have been gathered from interviews with over two hundred individuals who have and keep things, and about what they acquire and why.

Its makers comment:

I believe a post on The Everyday Life of Objects would be of interest to your readers because it explores an experience common to us all- our relationship to our stuff. It poses simple questions about the objects we surround ourselves with, such as, "What do you accumulate?" "How do you decide what to keep?" "Do you want things you don't have?" The answers are personal, critical, and candid.