A message from Survival International: “The Dongria Kondh NEED YOU!”
“British mining company threatens sacred mountain. Vedanta Resources, a British company, intends to dig an open-pit bauxite mine on Niyamgiri mountain in India. The mine will destroy the forests on which the Dongria Kondh depend and wreck the lives of thousands of other Kondh tribal people living in the area. India’s Supreme Court has given the go ahead for the mine, but the Kondh peoples are determined to prevent the destruction of their most sacred site.”
“Textiles offer a text of sorts, reflecting the movement of people and the circulation of goods – the commodity fabrics and rugs made by child labor in India arrive in North America with tales of exploitation woven into the very threads. Word of the Zapatista rebellion in the Chiapas region of Mexico in 1994 was spread not only through the Internet, but also through the embroideries of the women’s collective. It is this underlying knowledge – of clothing, of stitching – combined with widespread acknowledgement of sweatshop production that allows textiles to seimotically bridge gaps that might otherwise remain chasms.”(Robertson 2007 p.217)
www.banksy.co.uk/
The idea of ‘textiles as texts’ is enticing, I would potentially expand this to all hand-craft objects, I sit writing this with another Zapatista object, a doll, in front of me, and it too reflects the hope of the rebellion across the world to me. I look on this doll and remember the many Zapatista made goods that made their way to Europe to be sold and distributed forming tangible records of the intangible roads of solidarity and support that spread across the planet from the Mexican South East. Mostly I remember the Cafe Rebelde coffee. It’s hard to imagine a single social centre without it!
These small objects – whether dolls, patches,embroidery, decorated ski-masks, bandanas, etc – are more than simply objects, as Robertson (2007) suggests they are also bridges that build links between people, physical manifestations of alternative forms of social exchange, beyond the profit margin.
However, it seems in many ways times have changed, and today the same objects take on a different social function, today Basilio (2009) writes that “popular representations of this movement for self-determination circulate as objects for tourist consumption”. The concept of purchasing objects as “consumers” and “tourists” seems so far beyond the realms of realidad that I am somewhat lost. But we are living in a time when the New York Times, although in a terribly researched article, are extolling the virtues of Chiapas as a holiday destination (Frugal Traveller 2008). And the idea of ‘rebel tourism’ and the act of ‘consumer’ in the global south should of course come as no surprise at all.
The question then I am pondering, is, as a conservator, if I am to be able to understand such objects, and if I am to approach the conservation of the cultural meaning of them, how can I do this when the social meaning has altered, or rather, more accurately now that alternative social realities run concurrently. Have these subversive objects lost their meaning? Are they no longer means by which solidarity is exchanged, are they now simply means of subsistence on a new economy of ‘rebel tourism’?
Whilst the networks of solidarity that these objects once were the physical manifestations of still exist, today they seem to run alongside other more explicitly consumer-producer networks of exchange. It seems to me that this represents a difficulty for conservators in coming to a full understanding of these objects, how to contextualise them changes depending on the concept of exchange behind the object, and also the political sympathies of not only the social relationship between thepurchaser and producer, but also of the owner.
These thoughts led me to consider other ’subversive objects’ produced by activists in places more local to myself. Particularly those from the anarchist/activist sub-culture of ‘Craftivism’. I wonder how the meanings and significance of these objects might change when they move from the street to the gallery?
The idea that crafting as a revolutionary act has been seen as bizarre for some in the liberal press (Wells 2008) who naively make comparisons to youth culture mistaking the aesthetics of punk for its theory or its raison d’être. Their lack of understanding is only emphasised by their ranting nonsense: “The knitting craze is the death of both alternative culture and feminism. But it’s even worse that that. Scratch a knitter – discover a Knit Nazi. Like the Nazis, alternative knitters have no sense of humour.” (Wells 2008). Now, I’m no scholar of the history of the Third Reich but I am pretty sure ’sense of humour’ doesn’t rank that highly on scale of problems of the basic tenets of National Socialism!
So, what is this resurgence of crafting, particularly within radical circles, in which practitioners often refer to themselves as ‘craftivists’ or ‘craftistas’, all about?
“The reasons for this resurgence are varied – though obviously sheer enjoyment is way up top – but many crafters, such as Stoller, also cite their personal politics as an influence. Some see crafting as a stance against mass culture and consumerism: individuality triumphing over uniformity. And then there’s the green perspective: better to turn old fabric into something original instead of contributing to landfill. There’s the subversive, punk-rock DIY attitude.” (Farry 2006)
Interestingly blowing Wells (2008) rant out of the water Farry (2006) destroys his ‘death of feminism’ nonsense by saying:
“And then there’s the feminist perspective, a re-think of the 1970s equation that domesticity equals oppression. Now that crafting is a choice rather than a necessity (mothers no longer having to knit just to clothe their kids) its association with drudgery has disappeared. Where many second-wave feminists saw crafts as synonymous with the kitchen sink, today’s young feminists see them as a potent form of expression.”
I don’t have any answers to these question, but, I am certain that they are important questions to consider if we are to understand the ‘true nature’ of the material culture we as conservators work with. I am sure that true nature if it is to mean anything must consider the social context(s) of the material culture.
Related Websites of Interest:
* EZLN: http://www.ezln.org.mx/index.html
* http://www.craftivism.com/
* The Revolutionary Knitting Circle http://knitting.activist.ca/
– Their manifesto: “Proclamation of Constructive Revolution”
* http://www.punkknits.com/
* http://radicalcrossstitch.com/
* http://punk-knitters.blogspot.com/
* http://www.microrevolt.org/ Which includes an excellent bibliography.
Books, Articles, Etc:
Basilio, M. 2009. Zapatista Tchotchkes. (Art History and Museum Studies, NYU). Material World Blog. April 17, 2009. http://blogs.nyu.edu/projects/materialworld/2009/04/zapatista_tchotchkes.html
Farry, E. 2006. ¡Viva las craftivistas! The Guardian. Monday 29 May 2006. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/may/29/gende
Frugal Traveller. 2008. In the Village of the Zapatistas. New York Times. December 9, 2008. http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/in-the-village-of-the-zapatistas/
Greer, B. 2004. Taking Back the Knit: Creating Communities Via Needlecraft. MA Thesis (London: Goldsmiths College, 2004)
Greer, B. 2008. Knitting for Good!: A Guide to Creating Personal, Social, and Political Change, Stitch by Stitch. Trumpeter Books
Railla, J. 2004. Get Crafty. Random House.
Robertson, K. 2007. The Revolution Will Wear a Sweater: Knitting and Global Justice Activism. In: Shukaitis, S., Graeber, D., Biddle, E. (Eds.) 2007. Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigation, Collective Theorization. AK Press (Oakland and Edinburgh). Available online: http://stevphen.mahost.org/RevolutionSweater.pdf
Spencer, A. 2005. DIY: The rise of lo-fi culture. Marion Boyars Publishers.
Wells, S. 2008. Punk knitting: Has youth culture gone mad?The Guardian. Saturday 14 June 2008.http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/jun/14/popandrock.stevenwells
It’s not often that you find a museum that you had not previously heard about, and that is utterly brilliant. Such as the “Hall of Flame Fire Museum”. Which I recently had the pleasure of visiting.
The Hall of Flame is sponsored by the National Historical Fire Foundation.
“The Hall of Flame Fire Museum and the National Firefighting Hall of Heroes, located in Phoenix, Arizona, has almost an acre of fire history exhibits, with over 90 fully restored pieces of fire apparatus on display, dating from 1725 to 1969. Most of the exhibits are American, but we also have pieces from England, France, Austria, Germany, and Japan. The Hall of Flame sponsors the National Firefighting Hall of Heroes, which honors firefighters who have died in the line of duty or who have been decorated for heroism. The Hall also includes a gallery dedicated to the history of wildland firefighting in the United States.”
Here’s one of my favourite objects from the collection of smaller objects. A chess set of police vs. firefighters.
Cops Vs. Firefighters
I found the exhibit of badges to be fascinating, there were shoulder badges from firefighters from all across the world. The highest concentration were from the US but there really were many countries represented. I wonder whether they were donated by firefighters who visited the museum, if so that’d be a brilliant idea.
Exhibit of Badges
The main focus of the exhibits however are the ‘big objects’ the fire trucks and associated vehicles. There is also a fantastic mock up of the old call station for the Tempe area, and within the gallery you can hear real live calls from a scanner patched into the fire service… which is simply genius! And incredibly exciting to hear the calls as they are patched through.
Fire Engine
One of the most interesting aspects of the museum, from a conservation standpoint, was the high regard and prominence of the restoration work conducted under the expert hand of Don Hale. The introduction video for the museum – which incidentally if you go to the museum you should watch first – makes note of the conservation work conducted, and indicates the signature to look out for the find pieces that have been conserved. I was even more impressed when touring the exhibit to see a sign thanking the various people who had worked to restore one of the engines. As a conservator it was wonderful to see such recognition right out there in the gallery. Brilliant.
Don Hale Signature
Thanks for the Restoration
Necromancy: Helping to Lessen Our Dependency on the Funerary Industrial Complex.
Recently I have been considering that ‘avoiding death’ is a useful metaphor for classical conservation theory, but, I would never have imagined that AIC (an institution that is a working model of classical conservation theory) would provide such an intriguing case study of Necromancy!
A week ago the following message was sent to the consdistlist:
Date: 10 Jun 2009
From: Catherine Tierney
Subject: CoOL and the Conservation DistListDear Colleagues,
This is a difficult posting to write. For twenty two years, it has been Stanford University Libraries’ great pleasure to serve and support the conservation community by hosting Conservation OnLine. Sadly, Stanford—like so many other institutions—has been hurt by the economy. As a result, we have had to make difficult choices. It is with deep regret that I inform you that we are no longer able to support CoOL. We feel it is important to alert you to this change as we are aware that so many of you rely on the distribution list as a medium of communication; there are still a number of things to be
worked out.<URL:http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/june17/layoffs-061709.html>
Catherine Tierney
Associate University Librarian for Technical Services
Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources
Along with a message from Walter Henry, which I discussed at the time. However, today I wish to discuss the message above, which was met with some level of shock, confusion, and anger, and the message that was sent from AIC below. A variation on this message having previously been sent to members of AIC in the morning, and been discussed on Twitter for a couple of days before that.
Today the following message was sent to the consdistlist:
Date: 19 Jun 2009
From: Eryl Wentworth
Subject: Conservation OnLine and the Conservation DistListCoOL is Coming to AIC!
Having reviewed a proposal from AIC and following several discussions, Stanford University Libraries has agreed that AIC will be given responsibility for CoOL and the Conservation DistList. The transfer of content from the Stanford servers will take place
immediately with expert guidance from Walter Henry, John Burke, and technicians at Stanford.Our first goal is to have the DistList operational as soon as possible. Watch for one or more announcements on the DistList for periodic updates regarding the resumption of activity. Other CoOL resources will come online under new URLs as expeditiously as possible. Discussions with allied and affiliate organizations will continue.
AIC is pleased to be entrusted with these invaluable resources and for the opportunity to sustain and develop them into the future. Our goal is to keep CoOL and the DistList safe, viable, objective, and accessible for the conservation community worldwide.
Please note that the DistList is not yet accepting submissions or new registrations. Comments or questions can be sent to
coolinfo [at] conservation-us__org
Thank you for your support of this major initiative.
– AIC Executive Director Eryl Wentworth and
the AIC Board of Directors
So, what does this all mean?
Well first of all here are some links to other bloggers who have made comment regarding the original news:
* Kevin Driedger commented on his fabulous “Library Preservation” blog.
* Richard McCoy commented on the “IMA” Blog.
* The ECPN reposted the announcement, and included a message from the AIC, on their blog.
There was also a series of conversations on twitter that confusingly followed a variety of hashtags. Including, but probably not limited to: #AIC20, #coolfutur, #coolfuture, and #Futurecool.
As far as I could tell there were some major themes that ran throughout these discussions:
1. How could an institution such as Stanford not give a community of almost 10,000 users more time to organise a response to the news.
2. Anger at the lack of real information, would it be down the next day, how large an archive would it be to re-host, how much does it actually cost, etc.
3. Hope, that one of the institutions that showed a “commitment” to saving it would actually step up and do so.
4. Moving forward in new ways; various Web 2.0 options were suggested wiki’s, wikipedia, twitter, blogs, etc. I even suggested we start considering Web 3.0 and a semantic CoOL.
As I have said before I believe CoOL and the distlist to be the most significant online conservation projects in the world, as far as I can tell without such free and open exchange of information conservation simply would not happen in the way it does. I think they show that conservation is a team effort and not a competitive sport as some would have us believe. Collaboration is the key to successful conservation, and I think the collective shock at the loss of our most significant collaborative tool demonstrates that.
However, I also think CoOL could be CoOLER, I like the idea of such an acronym: “Conservation Online that Everyone Writes.” (I believe that was first used courtesy of Richard McCoy). A truly Web 2.0 CoOL. An idea that was discussed to some degree within the May 1st Twittercon and was also mentioned in the recent blog discussions after the recent demise of CoOL and the distlist.
It is to my mind imperative that as AIC take over the running of CoOL that they continue to open up all the information freely to all, and also continue to develop the fabulous work of Walter Henry, one recent suggestion was to begin RSS Feeds for the DistList, I think AIC should make this a priority. Next priority should be to work to clear copyright on everything on CoOL, and to release its free use on wikipedia. Then finding a replacement for the DistList that allows even greater sharing of information, to include images, audio, video, etc.
Most importantly AIC should not consider CoOL/DistList to be an AIC Asset, it shouldn’t be considered part of the AIC, the success of the site and list have always been to my mind partially at least connected to the fact that they are independent of any institutional conservation body, and it is with some trepidation that I learnt this morning of the move to AIC, although if the alternative is total loss then I guess I just have to have some hope and faith that it’ll all work out.
Now these resources are “saved” and the potential for their loss has been, or is being, fully understood, it’s about time we began to share that information onto multiple platforms and to expand on the potentially unlimited ability of 10,000 conservators around the world who are the community that make up that list to contribute to conservation content online. Imagine 1,000 words each would equal 100,000 words of new conservation information available to all.
So, in the words of Walter Henry…..
ONWARD.
“In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose states evolve with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect).”
(Source: Wikipedia)
Bifurcation diagram of a logistic map, displaying chaotic behaviour past a threshold.
I use the internet constantly as a factory for ideas, searching through links in forums and social networking sites finding new ideas and searching for words and authors from within those ideas, often these searches bring me back to wikipedia, or to interesting blogs and online journals I hadn’t heard of before. I have begun to think of this pattern of seemingly random but naturally dynamically evolving research system as somewhat chaotic hence the title of this post.
In this utterly self indulgent post I want to present a few of my recent searchings and thoughts that pertain to them.
Process Philosophy and Alfred North Whitehead:
I had never heard of either Alfred North Whitehead nor Process Philosophy before I ran across the names on an email list discussion. Searching wikipedia (my immediate port of call for many questions) I discovered that there are some interesting ideas to be had, that may potentially be useful ideas for contemporary conservation theory and a history of science of conservation. The central idea of “Process philosophy” (or Ontology of Becoming) is explained on wikipedia as an idea that identifies metaphysical reality with change and dynamism.
“There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.”
(Source: Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, recorded by Lucien Price, p. 13, 2001).
Education:
I have recently been very interested in alternative approaches to education, and was very pleased to come across the idea of EduPunk on an online anthropology discussion forum. I have suggested before, and continue to believe, that the DIY culture is increasingly gaining in significance across all aspects of the world, including museums, and that Web 2.0 has helped enable this growth in recent years, simply put… punks not dead. I actually like the idea of developing PresPunk (preservation punk).
However enough of the tangent, back to edupunk, I read a blog about edupunk, and was pleased to see that Nina Simon’s Museums 2.0 was given as an example of EduPunk, searching for more information I immediately came across the inevitable entry on wikipedia that led me to a whole host of other interesting articles, blog posts and ideas, and was led to an article that summarised Edupunk as having 3 main strands:
* Reaction against commercialization of learning
* Do-it-yourself attitude
* Thinking and learning for yourself.
(Source: Rowell, Laurie (2008-07-08), “”Edupunk” Rocks the (Virtual) House”, eLearn Magazine).
Elsewhere, I also particularly liked the phrase “Never mind the pedagogues” from the New York Times article:
Kuntz, Tom (October 17, 2008), “The Buzz for ‘Edupunk’”, New York Times.
Rhizome:
Another interesting find in the world of education was the use of the philosophical concept of rhizome as a metaphor for the development of a Web 2.0 educational model.
The idea itself wasn’t this time something new to me, as the “Rhizome” idea from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s book “A Thousand Plateaus” the second part of two volume: “Capitalism and Schizophrenia”, is an idea I have seen used before, however, not in this context, this metaphor seems to me to be a very useful one and I believe it holds validity in the conservation, and probably all other, use of Web 2.0 too.
“Collaborative knowledge construction is also being taken up in fields that are more traditionally coded as learning environments. In particular, social learning practices are allowing for a more discursive rhizomatic approach to knowledge discovery. Social learning is the practice of working in groups, not only to explore an established canon but also to negotiate what qualifies as knowledge.”
(Source: Cormier, D. 2008. Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum. Innovate 4 (5).)
That’s all for now… I’m off to follow the links and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
