In the eye of the beholder
Resource type
Abstract
Creator (person)
Richardson, Heather
Abstract
In my current role as an assistant curator at National Museums Scotland, I am interested in what we can learn from repaired objects. Working as a conservator with world cultures collections for many years, it was important to understand earlier repairs to inform contemporary conservation practice. Taking this interdisciplinary practice as a starting point this short paper considers how these two perspectives can inform and complement each other. How does looking at a repaired object as a curator differ from looking at it as a conservator? Do both disciplines reach similar conclusions or does their training dictate what their eyes see? It will also consider how and why these objects were being collected and importantly were these repairs made by the originating community or the collector and what can we learn from this today? Are there patterns to be seen in who collected them? Do repaired objects humanise them more than a non-repaired example?
Event title
Museum Ethnographers Group Conference 2023
Publisher
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge
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Rights statement
In Copyright