There are important ongoing strikes at two major Canadian museums, the Museum of Civilisation and the Canadian War Museum, these strikes began on September 21st.
The strikes organized by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC – AFPC), have been running for more than 60 days, and the issues are bread and butter pay and conditions issues; job contracting, job security and wages. Ending the practice of contracting and developing equity across the board is at the heart of the matter. Striking museum workers have continued to provide a public service, but this time outside rather than on the inside of the museum, the picket line has been not only a place of protest, but also of public outreach for museology, conservation, archiving, and public events (see the PSAC news list for examples). On November 20th British folk musician Billy Bragg made a visit to the Picket line to show his support and sing a few songs, he also raised the workers cause at his big stage show earlier in the week.
“Public service workers all over the world are the first to get put under the thumb when times get difficult and this is shameful, I think. Public service workers represent us. They’re people who go out there, and in your case, tell our story.” (Billy Bragg – quoted by CBC News)
As of November 20th, 2009, the PSAC had the following update:
‘PSAC met with the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation on Friday. The union, in good faith, indicated a willingness to bargain through the weekend to get to an agreement. Management indicated that it will need several days to provide a position on the issues discussed between the parties in mediation. While talks have not broken off, the union’s bargaining team expressed frustration at this delay, particularly given that the workers at the Museum of Civilization and War Museum have been on strike for more than 60 days. PSAC remains ready to bargain, and is more determined than ever achieve a fair contract.’
Edit to add: up dates can also be followed on Twitter: @MuseumWorkers
The longer the line, the shorter the strike!
“Incredible Industry: Preserving the evidence of Industrial Society”.
The Nordic Association of Conservators have recently published the proceedings of their 18th Conference, held in Copenhagen, 25-27 May 2009. The proceedings have been published online under CC 3.0; they are free for you to download and learn from, so enjoy.
Click the cover above to open the Proceedings.
The publication includes:
Jacob Bjerring Hansen
Can the concept of industrialism be preserved? (keynote)
Bertrand Lavedrine
From mass-produced artefacts to mass treatments: the impact of
industrial development on the museum field (keynote)
Yvonne Shashoua
Plastic – has the dream material of the 20th century become the
nightmare of the 21st? (keynote)
Cecil Krarup Andersen, Troels Filtenborg, Annemette B. Scharff and Mikkel Scharff
The industrialisation of canvas production in Denmark and its
implications for the preservation of Danish nineteenth century
paintings
Jon Brookes
The St Just Coast Project 1995 – 2005
Terje Grontoft and Susana Lopez-Aparicio
Degradation of modern synthetic polymers in museums and
environmental assessment with EWO dosimetry
Kornelius Goetz, Stefan Brueggerhoff and Norbert Tempel
Action plan for industrial monuments – a proposal for research
into improving the management of large sites
Cajsa Hallgren
Flameproofed textiles in museums and conservation
Birgit Vinther Hansen
Cold storage as an alternative to mass deacidification
Karin Bonde Johansen
Preservation of sponsored films
Gunilla Lagnesjo
Modern cultural heritage; an area of research at the Swedish
National Heritage Board
Martha Leskard
Developing a policy and procedure for selecting and operating
historic objects from the collections of the Science Museum,
National Museum of Science and Industry, UK
Agnes Gelbert Miermon
Polymers in watches manufactured in the Jura region, Switzerland
George Brock-Nannestad
Gramophones and Records – the first widespread commercial
standardization
Eric Nordgren, David Krop, Erin Secord, Elsa Sangouard,
Michael Saul, Gary Paden and Gerry Hanley
USS Monitor conservation: preserving a marvel of 19th century
technology
Sharon Penton
Case study of a Ducretet inductor coil: conservation problem or
visual wonder?
Karen Stemann-Petersen
Considering the changes of appearance of iron and steel objects
during conservation
George Prytulak
Another look at painted finishes on outdoor industrial artifacts
Nynne Raunsgaard Sethia
Industrially produced paint and the perspective of its
reconstruction.
Yvonne Shashoua, Michelle Taube and Torben Holst
Protection of iron and steel in industrial heritage objects
Ulrich Stahn
Proposal for the conservation of weathered steel objects at the
National Trust Estate of West Penwith, Cornwall and at the West
Harbor in Berlin
Norbert Tempel
Recovering the Icon? The restoration of the Zollern II/IV
Colliery Engine House in Dortmund
Robert Turner and Shane Casey
The conservation of a Victorian ship and a Victorian bridge
Vigdis Vingelsgaard
KLEVFOS Forever – how long is that? A new conservation plan for
a pulp and paper mill
Sue Warren
Hazards in industrial collections of the Canada Science and
Technology Museum Corporation Ottawa, Canada
George Prytulak (moderator speech)
Diversity, commonality and connectivity.
Starbucks Fuck Off by the Space Hijackers
A short run exhibit recently opened in London entitled: ‘Signs of Revolt’. The exhibit looks back at the last ten years of social movements against capitalism, war, and climate chaos, and draws a wide spectrum of contributors from the art and activist movements. The exhibit chose N30 as a starting point and follows ten years in the movement up to the upcoming climate justice mobilisations in Copenhagen in December 2009.
The exhibit opened on Friday 13th, and was followed by a weekend long “Festival of Radical Communication”, which included a discussion by Indymedia about independent media in the age of Web 2.0, which I am especially looking forward to seeing/reading when the footage/transcript is soon made available.
The event has featured in several reports, including some photo’s, on london Indymedia: (1, 2, 3, 4).
And there are also a couple of Flickr sets available: 1, and 2.
http://signsofrevolt.net/
The exhibition runs for a week until Sunday 22nd at:
The Old Truman Brewery,
Shop 14,
Brick Lane, E1.
Persecution of witches (source: wikipedia - public domain).
I’ve been kicking several ideas concerning witchcraft around in my head for a while now, and been dropping them into a blog post, that has never managed to form shape enough to post, and then funnily I noticed that Pete at Newcurator blog just announced his new column in: museum id magazine a column called ‘Not Witchcraft‘.
“Back in May, a minister of the Copperbelt region of Zambia made a statement that museums were academic sites that helped promote tourism and not centres of witchcraft. Zambia still has a Witchcraft Act that can punish practitioners with jail time.
There are many who prefer the more traditional process of accusing someone of harvesting child organs and beating them to death. Understand the severity of the situation for a politician to make this statement on International Museums Day where the theme was museums and tourism. ‘Please don’t set fire to our museums and their staff. We need them so people visit our country.”
- (Extract from: Not Witchcraft)
His use of witchcraft as a metaphor got me thinking again about my post concerning witchcraft, and about the very real reality of witchtrials in contemporary society. Stories of witches and horrific punishments continue to filter through the press from various countries around the world, such as this video from India. In fact in many ways despite the stream of stories in the media, it could be said that this is one story that is not being covered enough! A human rights seminar at the United Nations recently highlighted once again the very worrying trend, of the ever growing war against women, accused of being witches. This report put the number of women and girls murdered around the world annually for being witches into the “tens of thousands” and assaulted, beaten, stripped of property and banishment ran into the millions. Various agencies quite rightly reported the situation as a “Witch Frenzy”.
I was wondering how museums represent ‘the burning times’ as Wicca refer to the European Witch Trials; I note that the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall, has a whole section of Persecution, you can even search their online catalogue using that as a search term. I also noticed that there are other Witch related museums about, such as the Salem Witch Museum that also discuss these times. But I am unsure as to what level of analysis they give to the events? I’d be interested to know from anyone associated with museums of witchcraft, or, anyone who has visited these museums. I’ve unfortunately not had the opportunity to visit any museums of witchcraft, although I do hope to, I did however, particularly enjoy watching this video of the Rev. Christine Musser taking a guided tour of The Museum Of Witchcraft in Boscastle with curator and owner Graham King.
Another witch story that I have long been interested in, is that of the so called Bideford witch trial, and was written about in the book: “The Trial of the Bideford Witches” by Frank J Gent (1982). For which a commemoration plaque hangs on the wall of Rougemont Castle, near where I used to work.
Plaque for the 'Bideford Witches' at Rougemont Castle, Exeter.
What is incredibly interesting about this trial is that it is widely believed that the source of the conspiracy to kill these women was guilt, coupled with the issues of gender and poverty. Guilt from failing to give to these women when they were in the street begging for change. It seems to be a common thread throughout history that during times of economic and social upheaval patriarchal system take on a brutal, indeed homicidal, form. This can also be observed at perhaps America’s most famous witch trials the ‘Salem Witch Trials’ the mixture of fundamentalist Puritanism and land disputes arising from increasing family sizes, seems to have been the catalyst for the accusations of witchcraft. Levied mostly against single women (unmarried or recently divorced) living on land that would revert to the colony upon their death. The excellent book ‘Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body, and Primitive Accumulation’ by Silvia Federici (2004) describes the connections in more detail. Interestingly, the author has also written a shorter paper entitled:
‘Witch-Hunting, Globalization, and Feminist Solidarity in Africa Today’. (Silvia Federici, 2008). Which appeared in the journal: The Commoner. In which she states:
“Most important, like the European witch-hunts, the new witch-hunts are taking place in societies that are undergoing a process of “primitive accumulation,” where many farmers are forced off the land, new property relations and concepts of value-creation are coming into place, and under the impact of economic strain communal solidarity is breaking down.” (Federici 2008 p.10)
“while mobilizing against these egregious violations of women’s rights, feminists should put on trial the agencies that have created the material and social conditions that have made them possible. These include the African governments who do not intervene to prevent the killings or punish them; the World Bank, the International Monetary Find and their international supporters, whose economic policies have destroyed local economies, fueling a war of all against all. Most crucially, feminists should put on trial the United Nations, that pays lip service to women’s rights but treats economic liberalization as a Millennium goal, and watches in silence while old women, in many parts of the world, are demonized, expelled from their communities, or cut to pieces or burnt alive.” (Federici 2008 p.2)
So the question is, what role can, and will, museums play in ending this tragedy? A tragedy that thanks to Zambian minister Mwansa Mbulakulima on International Museums Day has entered into consciousness of the museum community.
Some additional news sources that have recently covered Witch hunting include:
(Johann Hari) The Independent, (Faith Karimi) CNN, Daily Mail, (Shakti Sombrero) Panic Watch, (Richard Petraitis) Infidels.Org , (Jeremy Vine) BBC, Channel 4
Workroom of PG Dip Textile Conservation students at the TCC in Hampton Court Palace (1976-1999). Source: TCC Website Image.
The Textile Conservation Centre, that was until recently a part of Southampton University, closed amongst much protest from the heritage industry itself, the loss of the preeminent centre for textile conservation training in the world was felt by many.
However, all is not yet lost, the staff of the TCC along with the foundation that ran the centre have recently set up a web presence www.textileconservationcentre.co.uk to allow alumni to continue to interact, and to be a face for their desire to see aspects of the TCC’s work continue in the future.
This is their website’s welcome message:
“Welcome to the Textile Conservation Centre’s (TCC) new website. This site has been prepared by the staff of the TCC, supported by the Textile Conservation Centre Foundation (the TCC’s supporting trust), in order to:
* mark the closure of the TCC on 31st October 2009
* give updates on the TCC and the TCCF
* serve as a gateway for contacting TCC friends and colleagues
* record part of the TCC’s legacy by providing records of key achievements.The TCC was founded by Karen Finch OBE in 1975, when it was established as a charitable trust based at Hampton Court Palace. In 1998 the TCC became part of the University of Southampton and relocated to a purpose-designed building on its Winchester campus. The Centre will be closed by the University of Southampton on 31st October 2009. The TCC Foundation is currently in discussion with several organisations and Trustees hope that a future will be found for key aspects of the TCC’s work.”
