- " i i | m " ' 1

I 50 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES

151

KUHN, T.s. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, IL,

University of Chicago Press. THE POETICS AND n
and SCHUSTER TAYLOR, P. (1939) An American Exodus: a record of
THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING >
LANGE, D.
human erosion in the thirties, New York, Reynal and Hitchcock.
LARKIN, M. (1988) France Since the Popular Front: government and people
1936-1986, Oxford, The Clarendon Press. OTHER CULTURES 3
m
LEMAGNY, J-C. and ROUILLE, A. (1987) A History of Photography: social and
Henrietta Lidchi ^
cultural perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
MAC ORLAN, P. (1934) Paris Vu par Andre Kertesz, Paris, Societe des Editions
—I
d'Histoire et d'Art. Contents ^
PREVERT, j. and izis (BIDERMANAS) (1951) Grand Bal du Printemps, Lausanne,
La Guilde du Livre. 1 INTRODUCTION 153

PREVERT, j. and izis (BIDERMANAS) (1952) Charmes de Londres, Lausanne, La 2 ESTABLISHING DEFINITIONS, NEGOTIATING
Guilde du Livre. MEANINGS, DISCERNING OBJECTS 154
RONIS, w. and MAC ORLAN, P. (1954) Belleville-Menilmontant, Paris, Arthaud. 2.1 Introduction 154
SALGADO, S. (1993) Workers: an archaeology of the industrial age, London,
2.2 What is a museum? 155
Phaidon.
2.3 What is an ethnographic museum? 160
SORLIN, P. (1971) La Societe Frangaise, Vol. II, 1914-1968, Paris, Arthaud.
STEINBECK, J. (1966) The Grapes of Wrath, London, Heinemann (first 2.4 Objects and meanings 162
published 1938). 2.5 The uses of text 166
STOTT, w. (1973) Documentary Expression and Thirties America, London, 2.6 Questions of context 167
Oxford University Press.
2.7 Summary |68
TAGG, J. (1988) The Burden of Representation, London, Macmillan.
3 FASHIONING CULTURES: THE POETICS OF EXHIBITING I 68
3.1 Introduction 168
3.2 Introducing Paradise 169

3.3 Paradise regained 172

3.4 Structuring Paradise 174
3.5 Paradise: the exhibit as artefact 177

3.6 The myths of Paradise 179

3.7 Summary 184

4 CAPTIVATING CULTURES: THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING 184

4.1 Introduction 184

4.2 Knowledge and power 185

4.3 Displaying others 187

4.4 Museums and the construction of culture 191

4.5 Colonial spectacles 195

4.6 Summary 198

152 CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 153

199
THE FUTURES OF EXHIBITING
I Introduction
Introduction 199
5.1
As the title suggests this chapter develops the central theme of the book,
5.2 Disturbance of anthropological assumptions by representation. It is about objects, or more specifically systems of
decolonization 200
representation that produce meaning through the display of objects. Like the
5.3 Partiality of anthropological knowledge 200 two previous chapters it is concerned with the process of representation — the
manner in which meaning is constructed and conveyed through language
5.4 Anthropological knowledge as representation 200
and objects. It will consider representation in the singular — the activity or
5.5 The question of audience 202 process - as well as representations - the resultant entities or products.
Where this chapter differs is in its focus: it examines not so much language,
6 CONCLUSION 204
as how meaning is created through classification and display. Moreover it
205
contemplates this process in the particular context of objects said to be
REFERENCES
ethnographic . So the chapter is concerned with ethnographic museums, in
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 208 other words institutions whose representational strategies feature the
ethnographic objects or artefacts of 'other cultures'. It will not, however, seek
to answer fully the question of how these representational systems are
READINGS FOR CHAPTER THREE
received. The question of consumption is too large to be tackled in any great
READING A: detail here (though see the brief discussion in section 5.5 below); for a fuller
John Tradescant the younger, 'Extracts from the Musoeum discussion, see du Gay, ed., 1997.
Tradescantianum' 209
Why investigate ethnographic exhibitions and displays? Because
READING B: ethnographic museums have had to address themselves in a concerted
Elizabeth A. Lawrence, 'His very silence speaks: the horse who fashion to the problems of representation. Museum curators are no longer
survived Custer's Last Stand' 21 I automatically perceived as the unassailable keepers of knowledge about their
READING C: collections; museums are no longer simply revered as spaces promoting
Michael O'Hanlon, 'Paradise: portraying the New Guinea knowledge and enlightenment, the automatic resting place for historic and
Highlands' 213 culturally important ethnographic objects. How the West classifies,
categorizes and represents other cultures is emerging as a topic of some
READING D: debate.
James Clifford,'Paradise' 216
Two significant critiques of museums have recently been advanced. Both
READING E: take a constructionist view of representation. The first uses the insights from
Annie E. Coombes, 'Material culture at the crossroads of
semiotics and the manner in which language constructs and conveys
knowledge: the case of the Benin "bronzes'" 219
meaning to analyse the diversity of ways in which exhibitions create
representations of other cultures. By considering how meanings are
constructed and produced, this critique concerns itself primarily with the
semiotics or poetics of exhibiting. The second critique forefronts questions
of discourse and power to interrogate the historical nature of museums and
collecting. It argues that there is a link between the rise of ethnographic
museums and the expansion of Western nations. By exploring the link
between knowledge of other cultures and the imperial nations, this critique
considers representation in the light of the politics of exhibiting.
This chapter therefore considers both the poetics and the politics of
exhibiting. In doing so, it builds on the twofold structure delineated in
Chapter 1, contrasting the approach which concentrates on language and
signification, with another which prioritizes discourse and discursive
practices. The differences at the heart of these critiques will be brought out
154 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 155

by the case studies deployed. In these, the insights gained will be used in order to investigate the manner in which their meaning is constructed. Using
specific contexts to discuss how objects, exhibitions and museums function the unusual case of a horse called Comanche, it shows how even the most
to represent other cultures. mundane object can be endowed with value and thus be transformed into a
vehicle of contested meaning.
The chapter is divided into four main sections. Section 2 presents some
preliminary working definitions. First it will review what is meant by a
'museum' and 'ethnography'. Then it will reflect on how objects acquire 2.2 What is a museum?
meaning as a prelude to considering how meaning is produced within the
context of an exhibition or museum. If you look up the definition of 'museum' in a dictionary. It is likely that you
will find a definition approximating to the functional one I have chosen here:
Section 3 attends to one of the principal ways in which museums represent
Museums exist in order to acquire, safeguard, conserve, and display objects,
other cultures — the exhibition. Using a case study, it will highlight the
artefacts and works of arts of various kinds' (Vergo, 1993, p. 41]. But we must
manner in which ethnographic displays are vehicles of meaning, how
also ask: is this definition essential or historical? Does its interpretation vary
objects, texts and photographs work to create a representation of a particular over time?
people, at a precise historical moment. The focus of this section will be an
exhibition which opened at the Museum of Mankind — the Ethnography To answer this, let us seek an older, alternative definition of the museum. If
Department of the British Museum — in 1993 entitled Paradise: Change and we explore the classical etymology of the word museum (musaeum) we find
Continuity in the New Guinea Highlands. The theme of section 3 is the that it could encompass two meanings. On one hand it signified 'a
poetics of exhibiting. mythological setting inhabited by the nine goddesses of poetry, music, and
the liberal arts', namely 'places where the Muses dwell' (Findlen, 1989,
Section 4 explores the critiques that go beyond the issue of construction and p. 60). Nature as the primary haunt of the Muses' was a museum in its most
the exhibition context to question the politics of the museum. The main literal sense. On the other hand, the term also referred to the library at
thrust of this critique concerns the relationship between knowledge and Alexandria, to a public site devoted to scholarship and research. So this
power. The focus here is on the institution whose activities of collecting and early classical etymology allows for the museum's potential for
curating cease to be neutral or innocent activities but emerge as an expansiveness. It does not specify spatial parameters: the open spaces of
instrumental means of knowing and possessing the culture of others. This gardens and the closed confines of the study were equally appropriate spaces
section will consider in detail the collection and interpretation of the for museums. Museums could therefore reconcile curiosity and scholarship,
artefacts known as The Benin Bronzes. private and public domains, the whimsical and the ordered (Findlen, 1989,
Finally, section 5 will provide a brief coda to the chapter, examining how pp. 60-2).
curatorial activities have become a contested site and how the salience of the In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries an alternative and varied
critiques tackled in this chapter has had tangible effects on the policies of terminology was accorded to contemporary 'museums', depending partly on
collection, storage and display. the social and geographical location of the collectors. The Wunderkammer
and Kunstkammer (the cabinets of 'wonder' and 'arts') of European
aristocrats and princes were contemporaneous with the personal 'theatres of
2 Establishing definitions, negotiating nature', 'cabinets of curiosities' and studiolo of the erudite and scholarly
collector. British collecting occurred 'lower down' the social scale: the
meanings, discerning objects British scholar collected 'the curiosities of art and nature', establishing
cabinets with less ordered and hierarchical collections than their continental
counterparts (MacGregor, 1985, p. 147). Let us examine the constitution of a
2.1 Introduction British 'cabinet of curiosities' or 'closet of rarities' (the name given to diverse
Section 2 begins by considering the key terms: 'museum', 'ethnography', assemblages of rare and striking artefacts), to pry deeper into its systems of
'object', 'text' and 'context'. Reflecting on the meaning and function of a classification and the representation of the world that it generated and
disclosed.
museum through analysing alternative definitions will provide a basis on
which to question contemporary usage and assumptions underlying these John Tradescant the elder, a botanist and gardener, built a 'collection of
terms in later sections. Section 2 argues that a museum is a historically rarities' from his early visits to the European mainland and the Barbary coast,
constituted space, and uses this to highlight contemporary definitions of an where he collected plants and natural specimens. Later, partly owing to the
ethnographic museum. It then moves on to consider the status of 'objects' in enthusiasm of his patron, the powerful (subsequently assassinated) Duke of
|56 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES
CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 157

Buckingham, others were commissioned to undertake collecting to augment *) ILI w x n u c u i u x uio

the Tradescant 'cabinet', though this was always an adjunct to Tradescant's classified with wholes, the identified is
botanical interests. In 1628, upon settling in Lambeth, Tradescant listed with the unidentifiable, common
transformed his cabinet of curiosities into an ever-expanding musaeum. birds are classed with the Mauritian
After his appointment in 1630 as Keeper of His Majesty's Gardens, the 'Dodar'. The manner in which
collection was bequeathed in its entirety to his son, John Tradescant the Tradescant and his collaborators
younger. divided and subdivided the natural
world seems by today's standards fairly
What did it contain?
idiosyncratic: birds (which they
The collection was composed of an extraordinary rich amalgam of dismember), four-footed beasts, fishes,
miscellaneous objects, harvested 'with less than critical discrimination shell-creatures, insects, minerals,
according to MacGregor (1985, p. 152). In his catalogue of 1656, 'Musaeum outlandish fruit (see Extract 2).
Tradescantianum or A Collection of Rarities Preserved At South Lambeth,
The divisions implemented in the more
neer London', Tradescant the younger described the content of the museum
qualitative category of artificialia seem
in some detail.
even more eccentric. This medley of
READING A curious items produces an equivalence
between 'ethnographic' objects
Reading A at the end of this chapter contains four extracts from the 1656
['Pohatan, King of Virginia's habit...',
catalogue 'Musaeum Tradescantianum or A Collection of Rarities
see Figure 3.1); artefacts with
Preserved At South Lambeth, neer London', prepared by Tradescant the
mythological references ('Stone of
younger. Read them in the light of the following questions.
Sarrigs-Castle where Hellen of Greece
1 Extracts 1 and 2 detail the categories used by Tradescant the younger. was born'); objects that are the product
What are they? of feats of human ingenuity ('Divers
2 Consider Extracts 3 and 4 to discern what type of material is included sorts of Ivory-balls'); fantastical objects
in these categories. ('blood that rained in the Isle of Wight')
3 How does such a classification differ from one you might expect to or merely fanciful ones ('Edward the
find today? Confessors knit-gloves'). The category
FIGURE 3.1 of'rarities' appears particularly discretionary, since most of the objects in the
In Extracts 1 and 2 Tradescant the younger divides his 'materialls' into two Powhatan's Mantle, collection could be classified as 'rare, or supposedly rare, objects' (Pomian,
types - Natural and Artificial — and within these types, he further subdivides from Tradescant's 1990, p. 46) - 'Anne of Bullens Night-vayle embroidered with silver', for
into categories. He also classifies the materials into two separate spaces - the collection of instance.
closed internal space of the Musaeum Trandescantianum and the open rarities, now
housed at the
The information or interpretation contained in the catalogue indicates certain
external space of his garden.
Ashmolean
priorities. The descriptions of the Natural 'materialls' are quite often objective
The difference between Natural and Artificial 'materialls' — or naturalia and and economic except in those circumstances where the curiosity of the item or
Museum, Oxford.
artificialia — is ostensibly between that which is naturally occurring and that Originally
the particularity of its association is being recorded (outlandish fruit). This
which is derived from nature but transformed by human endeavour. The described as
kaleidoscopic view of nature predates the introduction of the hierarchical
'materialls' included under both categories are, however, exceedingly 'Pohatan, King of
Linnaean system of classification (named after the Swedish botanist, Linne),
diverse. Virginia's habit ...'.
so typical of contemporary natural history collections (and the one adapted for
ethnographical collections in the Pitt Rivers Museum - see section 4). The
In Extracts 3 and 4 we find that the category of naturalia includes naturally description of the Artificial 'materialls' is often fuller, though this depends on
occurring specimens ('Egges' of 'Estridges', 'Pellican'); mythical creatures their categorization. Those objects featured for their technical virtuosity are
( Phoenix', 'Griffin'); or objects which qualify by virtue of provenance described in this light, whereas other items are recorded in terms of their
( Kings-fisher from the West India's'), an unusual association ('... Cassawary surprising nature ('Match-coat from Greenland of the Intrails of Fishes').
or Emeu that dyed at S. James's, Westminster') or the 'curious' and colourful Some artificialia are remarkable for their association with well-known
nature of the specimen ('two feathers of the Phoenix tayle'). The categories historical characters or their exotic origins, or both, in the case of 'Pohatan,
are tolerant of a variety of materials and provenances. Natural specimens King of Virginia's habit', for instance.
from Continental Europe are juxtaposed with those of the West Indies or
I 58 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 159

The descriptions are, nevertheless, very different from those one might find the purpose of collecting which reached its apogee in the sixteenth and
today. There is little of what one might call 'hard information', or objective seventeenth centuries.
description'. Garments are not described in terms of their shape, their
The Tradescants' collection was exceptional for another reason. The
dimensions, their colour, their age, their maker or their owner, unless the
collection was personal, expansive and varied, but not exclusive. Interesting
latter was a renowned personage. The constituting materials are noted if they
specimens were placed at the disposal of serious scholars and the general
are remarkable, in the same way that the properties of naturalia are only
public:
noted if they are extraordinary. There are no references to how these
'materialls' were collected, when, or by whom. These 'facts or insights, More significant... than these distinguished visitors were the ordinary
inconsequential to the Tradescants, would nowadays be considered people who flocked to see the collection for a fee — seemingly sixpence —
indispensable elements to the proper cataloguing of materials. for the Tradescants differed ... from every collector then known of in
England - in the general accessibility of their collections. Most of these
What does Tradescant's museum represent? visitors no doubt saw the rarities in much the same light as had the
founder of the collection - 'the Bigest that Can be Gotten ... Any thing that
What is being represented here is the puzzling quality of the natural and Is Strang'.
artificial world. In the early sixteenth century a conspicuously extraordinary (MacGregor, 1985, p. 150)
object with puzzling and exotic associations was worthy of inclusion in a
cabinet by virtue of its 'curiosity' - its unusualness as perceived by the
This aspect was to come into its own once the collection had been acquired
collector. To the contemporary observer, the internal arrangement appears
by deed of gift by Elias Ashmole, who in turn gave it to the University of
arbitrary, and the terminology — 'closet of rarities' or 'cabinet of curiosities' —
Oxford, thereby ensuring its transformation into the twentieth-century public
further corroborates the view that these cabinets were the specious products
museum that bears his name - the Ashmolean.
of personal preference, non-scientific and whimsical. To dismiss these
cabinets on the basis of their exuberance, the plethora and diversity of items This exploration of the Musaeum Tradescantianum brings several important
included, and the singularity of the classificatory system would, however, be points to light about the nature of museums.
a mistake. It would deny the methods - those 'rational' principles — that 1 Representation. Collecting and uniting these extraordinary and varied
underpinned these stunning constructions: articles — be they naturally or artificially produced - into one cabinet
served to create a staggering encapsulation of the world's curiosities.
These were collections with encyclopaedic ambition, intended as a This account was, in turn, an attempt at a complete representation of the
miniature version of the universe, containing specimens of every category diversity of existence in miniature - a 'microcosm'.
of things and helping to render visible the totality of the universe, which 2 Classification. In describing the world, the Musaeum Tradescantianum
otherwise would remain hidden from human eyes. worked within a classificatory system which made a distinction between
(Pomian, 1990, p. 69) two types of objects: artificialia and naturalia. Other contemporary
cabinets included the categories of antiqua (mementoes from the past)
and scientifica (implements, etc.). The Tradescant classificatory system
To collect curiosities or rarities indicated a particular kind of inquisitiveness:
did not articulate the divisions we might use today between the real and
'curiosity' emerged, momentarily, as a legitimate intellectual pursuit,
the mystical, the antique and the contemporary, the New World and the
signifying an open, searching mind. The collector's interest in spectacular
Old. The representation of the world generated by the museum applied
and curious objects was born of an attitude which saw Nature, of which man
rules of classification and collection which were, for the original
was part, not as repetitive, or shackled to a coherent set of laws' but as a collectors and cataloguers, logical and consistent with a historically
phenomenon which was subject to unlimited variability and novelty' specific form of knowledge and scholarship, however inappropriate they
(Shelton, 1994, p. 184). For the curious, collecting was quest. Its purpose? may seem to us today.
To go beyond the obvious and the ordinary, to uncover the hidden knowledge
3 Motivation. The Musaeum is a motivated representation of the world in
which would permit him (for it was always him) a more complete grasp of the
the sense that it sought to encapsulate the world in order to teach others
workings of the world in all its dimensions (Pomian, 1990, p. 57). This
about it and to convert others to the salience of this approach. Moreover,
alternative definition of science tolerated diversity and miscellany because
quite exceptionally for its time, this representation was aimed at a larger
they were 'essential elements in a programme whose aim was nothing less
audience than scholars.
than universality' (Impey and MacGregor, 1985, p. 1). So Tradescant's 'closet
of rarities , unique though it undoubtedly was, was also part of a larger socio- 4 Interpretation. If we reflect back to the definition which began this
cultural movement adhering to a broadly unified perception of the world and section, namely that 'museums exist to acquire, safeguard, conserve and
I 60 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 161

display objects, artefacts or works of arts of various kinds', we find that the anthropology - which is itself allied to a research technique - ethnographic
Musaeum Tradescantianum fits this description as easily as a fieldwork and the specific ethnographic texts which report on these studies.
contemporary museum might. Yet the manner and spirit in which the
Musaeum Tradescantianum undertook these activities was clearly quite Until the nineteenth century most of what we would now label as
different. This is particularly evident in its mode of classification. The 'ethnographic' objects were collected in a spasmodic and fortuitous way,
way in which the Musaeum Tradescantianum acquired, safeguarded, acquisitions whose value lay in their novelty or 'curiosity'. For these objects
conserved, and displayed was in accordance with a distinct world-view to be labelled as ethnographic and to be lodged within an 'ethnographic'
which saw sense in what might be termed a hodge-podge of marvellous museum or department, necessitated the development of a human science
which would identify them as such, and therefore set in train a different
objects, a logical vision which had abandoned theological principles of
system of classification and generate other motives for collecting them. In
classification, but had yet to adopt scientific ones (Pomian, 1990, p. 64).
the context of museums, ethnographic and ethnological collections predated
So, unexpectedly perhaps, we find that our preliminary definition still holds, the establishment of anthropology, which emerged as a human science in the
but, more importantly, we have established that a museum does not deal late nineteenth century but more properly in the early twentieth century.
solely with objects but, more importantly, with what we could call, for the But the rise of anthropology as an academic discipline was significantly
moment, ideas — notions of what the world is, or should be. Museums do not linked to the rise of ethnographic departments in museums (section 4). What
simply issue objective descriptions or form logical assemblages; they this new human science (anthropology), but also the older sciences of
generate representations and attribute value and meaning in line with certain cultures (ethnography and ethnology), sought to study was the way of life,
perspectives or classificatory schemas which are historically specific. They primarily but not exclusively, of non-European peoples or nations. The
do not so much reflect the world through objects as use them to mobilize classificatory system devised in ethnographic museums is, therefore,
representations of the world past and present. predominantly a geographical or social one. The objects which ethnographic
museums hold in their collections were mostly made or used by those who at
If this is true of all museums, what kind of classificatory schema might an one time or another were believed to be 'exotic', 'pre-literate', 'primitive',
'ethnographic' museum employ and what kinds of representations might it 'simple', 'savage' or 'vanishing races', and who are now described as,
mobilize? amongst other things, 'aboriginal', 'indigenous', 'first nations', or
'autochthonous': those peoples or nations whose cultural forms were
2.3 What is an ethnographic museum? historically contrasted with the complex civilizations of other non-European
societies like China or Islam or Egypt and who, at various moments in their
To answer this we must know what the word 'ethnography' means. history, encountered explorers, traders, missionaries, colonizers and most
latterly, but inevitably, western anthropologists.
Ethnography comes from ethnos meaning 'people/race/nation', and graphein ethnography
meaning 'writing/description'. So a common definition might state that So in referring to 'ethnographic museums' or 'ethnographic exhibitions', one
ethnography seeks 'to describe nations of people with their customs, habits is identifying institutions or exhibitions which feature objects as the
and points of difference'. We are confronted by the knowledge that a 'material culture' of peoples who have been considered, since the mid-
definition of ethnography seeks to include notions of science and difference. nineteenth century, to have been the appropriate target for anthropological
In fact ethnography is a word which has acquired a range of meanings. research. Ethnographic museums produce certain kinds of representations
Contemporary usage frequently invokes 'ethnography' to describe in-depth and mobilize distinct classificatory systems which are framed by
empirical research and a variety of data collection techniques which rely on anthropological theory and ethnographic research. As such what needs to be
prolonged and intensive interaction between the researcher and her/his noted about ethnographic museums is that they do not simply reflect natural
subjects of research, which usually results in the production of an distinctions but serve to create cultural ones, which acquire their cogency
'ethnographic text'. But, historically, the definition has been far more when viewed through the filtering lens of a particular discipline. The
specific. In the British context, 'ethnography' refers to the research methods geographical and social distinctions deployed are constructed, but equally
and texts that were linked most particularly with the human sciences of they are located historically: in the struggle for power between what has been
anthropology (the science of man or mankind, in the widest sense) and called 'the West and the Rest' (Hall, 1992). Contrary to popular assumptions,
ethnology (the science which considers races and people and their we can assert that the science of anthropology, like all sciences 'hard' or
relationship to one another, their distinctive physical and other otherwise, is not primarily a science of discovery, but a science of invention.
characteristics). So when one refers to ethnographic museums today, one is In other words it is not reflective of the essential nature of cultural difference,
but classifies and constitutes this difference systematically and coherently, in
placing them within a discrete discipline and theoretical framework —
I 62 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 163

accordance with a particular view of the world that emerges in a specific wealth. The popular perception of curatorial practice as a descriptive rather
place, at a distinct historical moment and within a specific body of than an interpretative activity lends further support to this elision. But it is
knowledge. So, at any historical juncture, the specific definitions of museum clear that artefacts do not 'spirit' themselves into museum collections: they are
and 'ethnography' function as floating signifiers, naming devices which attach collected, interpreted and exhibited — all purposeful and motivated activities
themselves and serve to signify certain kinds of cultural practice. They are (as we shall see in sections 3 and 4). If, unlike other historical events, artefacts
contingent, not essential. can survive relatively intact as authentic primary material from the past, this
does not mean that they have kept their primary or 'original' meaning intact,
since the specifics of these can rarely be recaptured or replayed. The
2.4 Objects and meanings distinction between physical presence and meaning must, therefore, be
maintained.
Do the artefacts which form the core of a museum's collections provide it with
stability, amidst all this flux and contingency? Not necessarily. Any such It may be useful to illustrate this point by an example. Through the following
stability would rest on the conflation between two notable characteristics of reading we will consider how a fairly mundane object might change its
museum objects (and objects in general) - their physical presence and their physical presence meaning over time.
meaning. In the next section, we shall consider the dialectic between the two, meaning
READING B
and look at how their meanings fare as classification systems change.
Read and make notes on the edited extracts of 'His very silence speaks:
Collected objects (and written records - themselves objects) are sometimes
the horse who survived Custer's Last Stand' by Elizabeth A. Lawrence -
identified as the most persistent and indissoluble connection museums have
Reading B at the end of this chapter - paying particular attention to the
between the past and present. 'Other peoples' artefacts are amongst the most
reasons behind the horse's value as an object. How might the semiotic
'objective' data we can expect from them, and provide an intelligible baseline
tools you were introduced to in Chapter 1 equip you to understand the
from which to begin the more difficult task of interpreting cultural meanings' changing meaning of the horse as object?
(Durrans, 1992, p. 146).
Lawrence's article features the life of an unusual horse — Comanche
So objects are frequently described as documents or evidence from the past,
(Figure 3.2) - and its extraordinary afterlife as an artefact, in order to
and are regarded as pristine material embodiments of cultural essences
catalogue its changing meaning. The article is useful since common
which transcend the vicissitudes of time, place and historical contingency.
expectation would be that a stuffed horse would, in all probability, have a
Their physicality delivers a promise of stability and objectivity; it suggests a
relatively unambiguous meaning.
stable, unambiguous world.
But this is a simplification and we can see this once we turn to the question
of meaning. To treat these physical manifestations of the social world as
permanent objective evidence is to fail to make a distinction between their
undisputed physical presence and their ever-changing meaning:

All the problems that we have with metaphors raise their head in a new
guise when we identify objects. We do not escape from the predicaments
that language prepares for us by turning away from the semiotics of
words to the semiotics of objects. It would be illusory to hope that
objects present us with a more solid, unambiguous world.
(Douglas, 1992, pp. 6-7)

The fixity of an object's physical presence cannot deliver guarantees at the

level of meaning. In the museum context, a conflation may be encouraged
between the stability of presence and that of meaning. The status of the
object as invariant in presence and meaning is underpinned by the popular
representation of museums as grand institutions safeguarding, collecting,
exhibiting and engaging in a scholarly fashion with the nation's material
I 64 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES I 65

Lawrence shows that the value bestowed on Comanche as an object was not rules of social life, of history, of social practices, ideologies and usage. At
due to his intrinsic worth: as a natural specimen of the equine species, he this level, as we shall see, Comanche's meaning undergoes great variation.
was only as good as any other. His distinction was his intimate connection For obvious reasons: its connotations cannot weather, intact, the changes in
with a significant historical encounter, the Battle of the Little Big Horn which society's perception of itself.
came to be known as 'Custer's Last Stand'. This is signalled by Comanche's
Let us apply the concepts of denotation and connotation — to see how they can
changing fate as a museum exhibit. Initially displayed as an oddity amongst
further extend our understanding of Comanche's enduring popularity.
zoological specimens at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in
Comanche, initially as a living animal and subsequently as an object or sign
1893, Comanche was subsequently transformed into a valued exhibit at the
denotes immediately, repeatedly and mechanically a horse, and the historic
University of Kansas. In this second incarnation, Comanche became the site
event and traumatic defeat of which he, as a horse, was a silent witness —
of struggle, initially revolving around his proper niche, but subsequently
namely, 'Custer's Last Stand'. As a horse, he also denotes the valued bond
around his symbolic meaning.
between a man and his mount. At these two levels his meaning never
In her article, Lawrence draws out the distinctions between Comanche s changes.
physical presence as live and stuffed horse, in addition to giving an account
Comanche's connotations, however, change over time. Initially he is the link
of his shifting meaning. Here I propose to extend her analysis by
between the living and the dead, connoting the 'anger of defeat', the 'sorrow
disaggregating the different levels of meaning, using the semiological tools
for the dead cavalrymen' and the 'vengeance towards the Indians'. Later, as
provided by Roland Barthes in Writing Degree Zero (1967), Elements of
an incongruous feature in the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, he
Semiology (1967) and Image-Music-Text (1977) (previously introduced in
connotes conquest and the victory of the civilized over the murderous
Chapter 1). savage. In the twentieth century, he ceases to have an objective value,
As a lone exhibit and a stuffed horse, very little recommends Comanche, connoting alternatively late nineteenth-century sentimentalism, good
apart from his function as a sign. As you may recall from Chapter 1, the sign professional taxidermy, or a lucky charm. For some communities, his
is defined by its components, the signifier and the signified. The difference significance increases. For the Native American students at the University of
between these two components as defined by Barthes is as follows: the Kansas he forcibly signifies the extreme partiality of white historical
'substance of the signifier is always material (sounds, objects, images)', narratives and a denial of the Native American experience. These
whereas the signified 'is not "a thing" but a mental representation of "the connotations deny Comanche his role as an objective witness. They
thing'" (1967, pp. 112, 108) (my emphasis). So Comanche, both as a living transform him into a subjective and temporarily invalid symbol of white
horse, but more importantly as stuffed object, is the signifier; what is oppression. At the time of Lawrence's essay (1991), Comanche's legitimacy
repeatedly signified is 'Custer's Last Stand', or more precisely, the mental had been re-established by means of a text which navigates the reader
representation of a defeat and a military tragedy. However, such a brief towards a newer and, from today's perspective, more balanced and
semiotic 'reading' does not provide a comprehensive explanation of comprehensive interpretation of the events of 'Custer's Last Stand'.
Comanche's endurance as a powerful and changeable sign in the century Thus, Comanche's popularity derives from the shifting relationship between
since his death. It might be productive to investigate the different levels at his connotations and denotations. His descriptive power maintains a greater
which signification takes place. stability (denotation) than his relevance and meaning which are both
As you know, for Barthes, signs operate within systems, but these systems questioned and re-negotiated (connotation). It is after all the perception of
function to create different orders of meaning. In the following analysis 'Custer's Last Stand' that changes - not Comanche's link with it. Over time,
I shall use Barthes's concepts of connotation and denotation to explore the connotation this allows his meaning to be 'read' in different ways. Comanche continues
denotation to denote the historic battle, but what the battle means for Americans, native
articulation of signification around Comanche. In his usage of these terms
or non-native, has irrevocably altered - as has Comanche's function as he
Barthes courted some controversy, but here I shall bypass this debate and use
metamorphoses from oddity, to lucky symbol, to educational tool.
these terms to invoke two levels of meaning creation. Here, denotation will
refer to the first level, or order, of meaning which derives from a descriptive So, to summarize, Lawrence's article argues that the value of objects resides
relationship, between signifier and signified, corresponding to the most in the meaning that they are given - the way they are encoded. By charting
obvious and consensual level at which objects mean something. In this case, the trajectory of a once living and banal object - a stuffed horse - and
Comanche most obviously and consistently denotes a horse, and on this most demonstrating how even steadfast categories like 'horse' can acquire
people would agree. Connotation refers to a second level, or order, of extraordinary and controversial meanings, Lawrence demonstrates how the
meaning which guides one to look at the way in which the image (object) is physical presence of an object cannot stabilize its meaning. Comanche's
understood, at a broader, more associative, level of meaning. It therefore relevance derives from the fact that, as a symbol, he remains powerful, in part
makes reference to more changeable and ephemeral structures, such as the
 I 66 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES
CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 167
because his presence is differently interpreted in different periods and in
will encode it towards one or other of these, thereby guiding its interpretation
different contexts.
and circumscribing its meaning. It will render intelligible the nature, history
But Lawrence's article offers other valuable insights; the first relating to text, and cultural particularity of ethnographic objects. In so doing it will provide a
the second concerning the context. Let us survey each of these briefly as they compelling and convincing reading - it will 'quicken' and solidify the
build on some of the work of Chapter 1. meaning. Recalling Lawrence's article, we may remember that it was the label
- the text - which fixed Comanche's meaning in the most direct way and it was
the text, therefore, which became the focus of dispute and subsequent
2.5 The uses of text reinterpretation.

If we consider the object of Lawrence's article we find no difficulty in

identifying it. It is, after all, a horse. With ethnographic objects, taken from 2.6 Questions of context
distant and unfamiliar cultures, such convenient points of reference may be
difficult to establish, because they are not so immediately recognizable. For On reading Lawrence's article one of the points that emerges most forcefully is
these objects, the function of any accompanying text is crucial. As we have the manner in which new layers of meaning are appended to Comanche over
seen, the defining feature of ethnographic objects is that they are products of time, but in such a way that no new layer completely eclipses the previous one.
the practice of ethnography. To read and understand them, therefore, we Whatever Comanche's re-contextualization, he never completely loses his
need texts that can interpret and translate their meaning for us. 'Texts' here original meaning; it is re-articulated or added to. The palimpsest provides a
refers not only to the written word, but fabrics of knowledge that can be used useful metaphor for this process, where new layers of meaning are
as reference, including oral texts, social texts and academic texts. These superimposed over older ones, or re-articulated, once the object is placed in a
perform the same function - they facilitate interpretation. In the different context. This process, illustrated by Comanche's trajectory, is true for
ethnographic context the primary, though not exclusive, source of this all objects. It is a particularly relevant way of perceiving the overlapping
background knowledge is the ethnographic text. meanings of ethnographic collections, since they are most frequently the result
of cultural, spatial and temporal displacement. 'Almost nothing displayed in
As Chapter 1 argued, language is not an empty transparent 'window on the museums was made to be seen in them. Museums provide an experience of
world', it produces meaning and understanding. The purpose of most of the world's art and artefacts that does not bear even the remotest
ethnographic texts is ostensibly that of decoding - to render comprehensible decoding resemblance to what their makers intended' (Vogel, 1991, p. 191).
that which is initially unfamiliar, to establish a 'reading' of an event or an
object. In ethnographic texts, such a 'reading' is frequently accomplished by Ethnographic objects in historically important collections accumulate a
a translation, the transposition of alien concepts or ways of viewing the palimpsest of meanings. So we can think of objects as elements which
world, from one language to another or from one conceptual universe to participate in a 'continuous history' (Ames, 1992, p. 141), where the makers,
another. This is a far from simple process. Ethnographic texts adopt an collectors and curators are simply points of origination, congregation and
objective and descriptive mode, but their production necessitates a dispersal (Douglas, 1992, p.15): a history that extends 'from origin to current
substantial degree of translation, transposition and construction. destination, including the changing meanings as the object is continually
Ethnographic texts can only successfully decode - unravel the meaning of redefined along the way' (Ames, 1992, p. 141).
that which is unfamiliar, distant, incomprehensible - if they simultaneously Viewing objects as palimpsests of meaning allows one to incorporate a rich and
encode - translate, de-exoticize, and transform that which is alien into that complex social history into the contemporary analysis of the object.
which is comprehensible.
Contemporary curatorial practice does attempt to chart the flow by attempting
All texts involve an economy of meaning: foregrounding certain to establish when objects were collected, by whom, from where, for what
interpretations and excluding others, seeking to plot a relatively purpose, what the originating culture was, who the maker was, what the maker
unambiguous route through meaning. Ethnographic texts, more consciously intended, how and when it was used (was it strictly functional or did it have
than others perhaps, direct the reader towards a preferred reading since they other purposes?) and what other objects were used in conjunction with it.
must navigate the reader on a directed route through potentially complex and However, as we shall see in section 3, this does not sufficiently problematize
unfamiliar terrain. This preferred reading involves the dual process of the manner in which objects acquire meanings. Those who critique museums
unravelling certain meanings - decoding - but equally of selection and from the standpoint of the politics of collecting argue that such an analysis fails
creativity which allows certain meanings to surface - encoding. A basket, for encoding to address the fact that ethnographic objects have entered into western
instance, might be decoded in many ways (the work of a particular artist; a collections purely as the result of unequal relationships of power. The
fine exemplar; an ancient, unique specimen; etc.) but the accompanying text questions of context and collecting can become far more vexed than the above
framework suggests.
I 68 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 169

In order to provide a 'reading' of some depth I have chosen a case study

2.7 Summary format. The exhibition chosen — Paradise: Change and Continuity in the New
Guinea Highlands - was an unusual exhibition in many ways, most
Museums not only collect and store fragments of culture: they themselves particularly because of the manner in which it sought to examine the
are part of culture a special zone where living culture dies and dead contemporary moment amongst the Wahgi people of the Highlands of Papua
culture springs to life. New Guinea, but equally because it incorporated a record of its own creation.
(Durrans, 1993, p. 125)
It was the subject of two extended commentaries: one by Michael O'Hanlon,
the anthropologist/curator of the exhibition (Paradise: portraying the New
This section started by arguing that at different points in history museums Guinea Highlands, 1993), the other by James Clifford (Paradise, 1995), an
have had distinct ways of viewing objects and conferring meaning, value and anthropologist and cultural critic. The following section will not, however,
validity. Using the example of the Museaum Tradescantianum, we saw that dwell on its uniqueness, but more on what it can teach us about the general
museums endow objects with importance because they are seen as principles of meaning construction in the exhibition context. In this sense,
representing some form of cultural value, perhaps an unusual association, a therefore, the 'reading' presented here articulates a particular view of the
geographical location, or a distinct type of society. This initial example exhibition. It is not, nor can it be, a comprehensive assessment of the
allowed us to argue that the meaning of objects is neither natural nor fixed, it diversity of issues involved; it is necessarily selective. Those who want other
is culturally constructed and changes from one historical context to another, 'readings' should refer to the texts cited above in their original, full state,
depending on what system of classification is used. This theme was rather than the extracts included here.
elaborated in relation to 'ethnographic' objects. It was argued that the
category of 'ethnography' emerged as a particular academic discipline. It
followed that objects were not intrinsically 'ethnographic', but that they had 3.2 Introducing Paradise
to be collected and described in terms that rendered them so. This analysis
The exhibition Paradise: Change and Continuity in the New Guinea
was taken further when we considered the ways in which objects acquire
Highlands opened at the Museum of Mankind, the Ethnographic Department
meaning. It was argued that to understand the levels at which objects acquire
of the British Museum, on the 16 July 1993 and closed on 2 July 1995. During
meaning, we have to investigate the texts that are used to interpret them in the two years of its life Paradise: Change and Continuity in the New Guinea
addition to the nature of their historical trajectory. It was argued that an Highlands could be found on the second floor of the Museum of Mankind.
object offers no guarantees at the level of signification; the stability which As part of a programme of rolling temporary exhibitions, its ostensible
derives from its physical presence must be conceptually divorced from the purpose was to bring the culture and history of the Wahgi people of the
shifting nature of its meaning. Highlands of Papua New Guinea to the attention of the public in Britain. A
In the next section we will consider how objects may acquire meaning in the wheelchair ramp, a narrow corridor and two glass doors separated Paradise
distinct context of an exhibition. from the rest of the museum. Walking through them one entered the
introductory space, with a large full-colour picture (Plate 3.1 in the colour
plate section) of:

3 Fashioning cultures: the poetics of

...a genial-looking man standing] casually in front of a corrugated iron
exhibiting wall and frame window; he wears a striped apron of some commercial
material, exotic accoutrements and gigantic headdress of red and black
feathers. His face is painted black and red; a bright white substance is
3.1 Introduction smeared across his chest. He looks straight at you, with a kind of smile.

In this section we move from discussion of the object to the practices of (Clifford, 1995, p. 93)
exhibiting. It is the exhibition context which seems to provide us with the
best forum for an examination of the creation of meaning. Exhibitions are The introductory panel, 'Paradise', on the left of the photograph, disclosed
discrete events which articulate objects, texts, visual representations, the aim of the exhibition: to show 'something of the history and culture of the
reconstructions and sounds to create an intricate and bounded Wahgi people of the New Guinea Highlands'. It then introduced the
representational system. It is therefore an exceedingly appropriate context structuring themes of the exhibition - change and continuity.
for exploring the poetics of exhibiting: the practice of producing meaning poetics of exhibiting
through the internal ordering and conjugation of the separate but related
components of an exhibition.
 r

I 70 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES

ACTIVITY I
Read as much as you can of the panel text from Plate 3.1 and consider how
PLATES 3.1 -3.XV: Views of the Paradise
the exhibition is being introduced - what does the text tell you about the exhibition, Museum of Mankind, London
significance of the term 'Paradise'?
How might this establish a preferred reading of the exhibition?

This introductory text tells us a number of things: primarily, that Paradise

symbolizes both change - the transforming effect of coffee wealth - and
continuity- the capacity for cultural forms to adapt to transforming
circumstances. This tension is symbolized by the elements of the
photograph: the birds of paradise feathers versus the corrugated iron for
example, both integral to the picture, and by implication, Wahgi life. But this
introduction also foregrounds the issues of representation: Paradise, the
exhibition - the reconstruction of reality - is a subversion of Paradise, the
'myth' — the stereotype of the South Pacific. In contrast to a false image, it
implies, this exhibition proposes a corrective, more authentic description of
a particular South Pacific community. Closer to the truth but not
all-inclusive — we are only shown 'something' of the history and culture of
the Wahgi. So the introduction alerts us to the veracity of the reconstruction
or representation. Although it makes claims of objectivity and
representativeness, it disavows claims to comprehensiveness.
So even at the moment of entry we are drawn into the practice of signification
and construction. The introductory panel contains within itself the structure
of the whole exhibition, providing us with a mental map. We learn of the
rationale of the exhibition and are alerted to its possible future content. So
this initial panel sets the parameters of the representation and establishes a
distinct narrative and sequencing.

What is the exhibition about? Wahgi history and culture.

What does this mean? It means recent contact, change and continuity
reflected through material culture, including adornment, as transformed and
preserved through the income from cash-cropping coffee.

The introductory narrative helps to guide the unfamiliar visitor through

difficult and potentially dazzling terrain - the complexities of Wahgi culture
could not, pragmatically, be fully explicated in this restricted exhibition
space. To generate a meaningful path through the exhibition, the curator, the
designers and technicians must choose which objects to display and which
display methods might achieve the greatest impact, as well as what kinds of
information might be included in the panels, label text or captions. These
choices are in part 'repressive', in the sense that they direct the visitor
PLATE 3.1
towards certain interpretations and understandings, opening certain doors to
The introductory
meaning but inevitably closing off others.
section of the

But let us consider the importance and use of the photographic image exhibition

ate 3.1). We might first remark that the persuasiveness of the text is
signi icantly enhanced by the photograph that accompanies it. Photographs
 ••••IHMMBNMHMHfi

PLATE 3.1V Wall case containing Wahgi items of adornment, old and new. Note the headband made of
flame-coloured Big Boy bubble gum wrappers.

PLATE 3.11 Foreground: (right) the bridewealth banners and First Contact display; (left) the compensation
payment poles. Background: wall cases and free-standing glass cases containing Wahgi wigs and other items
of adornment.

PLATE 3.V Bolyim house (right). Note the simulated pig jaws strung around the middle, and upturned beer

Id
PLATE 3.Ill Sequential parts of the exhibition: (left to right) coffee production, the trade-store and bottles around the base.
shield displays.
 PLATE 3.VIII Coffee production
display, panel text and photographs.
Note the similarity between the
display and the photographs
featured on the panel.

PLATE 3.1X First Contact

display, showing First Contact
panel with black-and-white
photographs displayed against
enlargement of black-and-white
PLATE 3.VII Coffee production display. Note the artificial coffee bush, the coffee beans drying on the photograph taken by Mick Leahy.
plastic sheeting, the hand-powered coffee pulper, and weighing scales.
 PLATE 3.XII Trade-store display. Note the warning on the door (and weighing scales from neighbouring
PLATE 3.X First Contact display, showing kula coffee production display).
jimben spears against scene painting (reflecting
photograph in Plate 3. IX).

PLATE 3.XI First Contact display, showing

bridewealth banners, and the and after' panel text
and photographs. Note the similarity between the
blow-up of the middle photograph and the PLATE 3.XIII Interior of trade-store display, showing the variety of products on sale.
reconstructed bridewealth banner.
 CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 171
PLATE 3.XIV The side of the trade-store
can ease the work of representation within the exhibition context by virtue of
display, showing how a connection was created
their verisimilitude. As we shall see later, photographs in this exhibition
with the neighbouring shield display.
were also used more actively in the practice of signification.

The personal image which initiates the exhibition declares that this is not the
South Pacific as we all know it from the Rogers and Hammerstein film — a
stereotype — this is an authentic Waghi. The image denotes Wahgi reality; it
is one of a collection of photographs which objectively records an event - the
opening of the store. It purports to be an adequate and truthful reflection of
the event. But this denotation of Wahgi 'reality' has meaningful effects.

First, it 'naturalizes' the text: by this I mean that the photograph makes it
appear less as a construction of Wahgi reality than a reflection of it, since
both the 'reality' and the effects of the processes being described in the
exhibition (those of change and continuity) are represented in the
photograph. The concept of 'naturalization' is an important one which will
be taken up through this analysis and later on in this section in the
discussion of 'myth'.

But the photograph relays a complex message. It includes connotations of

the hybrid nature of adornment (the bamboo frame is covered with imported
fabric, the paints are commercially produced); the ambivalence of coffee
wealth and its effect on taste (the adoption of black plumes for adornment);
the nature of a typical Papua New Guinea trade-store (reconstructed in the
main gallery). These only become clear once the visitor has completed the
full circuit of the exhibition: on passing this photograph on the way out s/he
may 'read' it more fully, being less startled by its exuberance and more aware
of its encapsulation of the exhibition themes.

Second, it tends to legitimate the photographer/curator voice since the image

denotes and guarantees O'Hanlon's having been there in the Highlands. It
connotes authentic anthropological knowledge which means being
-jmssse appropriately familiar with the Wahgi. By association it authenticates the
objects: they were collected while he-was-there.

E
THE MAKING OF

IS*
AN EXHIBITION

But this brilliant photograph has an additional 'ethnographic' purpose. It

4 connotes difference in all its exotic resplendence (a connotation incorporated
§s!
a mm into the exhibition poster) while simultaneously domesticating and

m
'.v.-.
transcending it. As one's eyes move from photograph to text, what is at first
stunning and vibrant but indecipherable - except for the smile - is
subsequently translated. This is recognizably a wealthy man in the midst of
a celebration. He quickly becomes known and familiar to us. He is not
simply 'a Wahgi', he is Kauwiye (Andrew) Aipe, a genial entrepreneur.
t:
Moreover he is welcoming us to the exhibition space, to the Wahgi way of life
and the context in which Wahgi artefacts acquire meaning. Once the exotic is
translated and proves hospitable, we can proceed into the remainder of the
exhibition space.

This brief introduction alerts us to the type of construction and representation

attempted in ethnographic exhibitions. Ethnographic exhibitions most
PLATE 3.XV Panels on 'The Making of the Exhibition', showing the process of collecting in the field with
the assistance of the Wahgi, and the process of exhibiting in London.
I 72 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES I 73

usually adopt the format of contextualizing and reconstructing. Curators/ We could think of these methods of display as different but equivalent
designers work with objects and contextualize them so that these assume; techniques, but this interpretation is not wholly adequate. In the Paradise
purpoTe role; objects are commonly selected as representative, rather than example, the selection of these different contexts was influenced by lack of
unique, examples. As both cultural expressions and physical proof, these funds which meant that the curator was obliged to use a display structure
provide insights into cultural phenomena of which they are taken to be inherited from the previous exhibition (O'Hanlon, 1993, pp. 82-5).
physical manifestation ('representation'). The visitor is, therefore, drawn into
Here we are concerned with the effects of these different display techniques.
a new and different world in which unfamiliar objects might be made Paradise utilized a diversity of display techniques, so its richness allows us
intelligible, where the design encourages the distance between the visitor and
to address the different levels in which methods of display create contexts for
the 'originating culture' (the culture from which the objects were the production of meaning.
appropriated) to be reduced. Since the primary purpose of such exhibitions
the translation of difference - to acquaint the viewer with unfamiliar All these forms of display incorporate Wahgi material culture, but the
concepts, values and ideas - their key motive is communication through different techniques affect our perception and reaction to the objects. Let us
understanding and interpretation. Ethnographic exhibitions are typically illustrate this by taking a simple example. A simple reconstruction such as
syncretic (pulling together things from different sources). Nevertheless, the coffee production display (Plates 3.VII, 3.VIII) includes artefacts known
though their ostensible form is that of mimesis, the imitation of reality , their as Wahgi because of their context of use. They are included because of their
effectiveness depends on a high degree of selectivity and construction. It is role in Wahgi life. These are not ostentatious objects but mechanical and
this - the poetics of exhibiting - that the rest of this section will address. mundane items which appear to need very little interpretation. They
exemplify the literal reality of Wahgi life in which they feature quite heavily.
The combination of the artefacts is not ambiguous, it is 'obvious' they belong
3.3 Paradise regained together: the accompanying photographs show just such a combination of
artefacts being used by the Wahgi. So the visitor is encouraged to trust - by
[T]he next, larger, space [of the exhibition] draws you in. It contains virtue of the presence and combination of artefacts - that this is a 'reflection'
striking things: a reconstructed highland trade-store, rows of oddly of Wahgi reality. Such representations work to denote 'Wahgi reality' and
decorated shields, wicked-looking ... spears, and bamboo poles covered connote the 'naturalness' of the display technique.
with leaves which, on closer inspection, turn out to be paper money.
The glass cases, in contrast, establish distance by placing the object in a more
(Clifford, 1995, p. 93) sterile and ordered environment (Plates 3.II, 3.IV). This more conventional
museum approach connotes the artificiality of display technique.
The themes of the next large space are those of contact and coffee, war, shields Ethnographic objects are rarely made for glass cases, nor are they habitually
and peacemaking. It is here that we notice the full effect of the design of the selected and disaggregated from other associated objects while in use.
exhibition, the cacophony of colour and objects promised by the initial Putting material artefacts in glass cases therefore underlines the dislocation
photograph of Kauwiye Aipe. and re-contextualization that is at the root of collecting and exhibiting. So
whereas reconstruction may establish a context which evokes and recreates
ACTIVITY 2
the 'actual' environment of production or use of an object, glass cases render
Look at a selection of photographs of the exhibition spaces following the the objects more distant; they do not merge into their context in the same way
introductory space (Plates 3.II-3.V). These will give you a flavour of the as they might if they were placed in a reconstructed site (Plates 3.II, 3.III).
exhibition. When looking at these, consider how the objects are
exhibited. How might different methods of display affect your These distinctions are amplified by the use of text. In the reconstructions,
perception of the objects? numerous objects are displayed in combination and assigned communal
labels; but in the glass cases the objects are given individual identities. Each
In the exhibition we discover that there are several methods of display. I object, then, is accorded a particular value, interpreted and explained. So in
have disaggregated them as follows: open displays the presence of the object and its context or presentation
• on open display - shields (Plate 3.Ill) eclipses the fact that it is being represented. The fact of representation is
obscured. We perceive here the process of naturalization, as the objects
• table cases - shells, items of adornment (Plate 3.II) appear naturally suited to this context, seeming to speak for or represent
• wall cases - items of adornment (Plate 3.IV) themselves. In glass cases, however, the work involved in representation is
• reconstructions — bridewealth banners, trade-store, bolyim house made more overt by virtue of the artificial separation and presentation of
(Plates 3.II, 3.Ill, 3.V) the object.
• simulacra - compensation payment poles (Plate 3.II).
174 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 175

But there is one last type of display that remains unmentioned --the ACTIVITY 3
simulacra The differences between reconstructions and simulacra ar
Looking at the photographs of the First Contact display carefully
subtle TTie reconstructions are partially 'authentic' artefacts - made by the
(Plates 3.IX, 3.X, 3.XI), examine how the texts and the images are used in
museum technicians according to Wahgi design and incorporating Wahgi the context of this discrete space. You do not need to dwell at length on
materials, be it shells, fibre or trade goods. The simulacra of
this. Simply reflect on the different types of texts used in this display.
real Wahgi objects such as the compensation payment poles (Plate • >• What might their roles be? What roles are the photographs given: do they
These are neither genuine Wahgi objects, nor do they incorporate them, bu illustrate, amplify, authenticate the text? How might these photographs
as objects they draw from Wahgi 'reality' in their design. We can designate denote a changing historical period?
them after Barthes, as 'trick effects': since their purpose is to make what is
heavily connoted pass as denoted (Barthes, 1977, pp. 21-2). Their presence Let us consider the 'texts' and what narrative techniques are used, before
is initially unquestioned - they appear to denote 'Wahgi reality unti we moving on to consider the function and significance of photographs in
see the 'real thing' in the photographs on the curving adjacent wall Paradise. As in most exhibitions Paradise used several types of texts:
(Plate 3.II). At first these banners appear authentic, it is the accompanying 1 Panels. These contain thematic information or delineate a particular
text and photographs that intentionally alert us to their subterfuge: arena of human activity.
2 Labels. These are assigned to particular objects, offering explanations of
The ... banners made of banknotes only really make sense when one sees how the object is articulated in its social contexts.
the nearby color photograph of men holding them aloft in a procession. 3 Photographic captions. These exemplify or subvert certain concepts or
The 'Ah ha' response comes when looking at the picture, not the object. descriptions contained in other texts.
The banners are strange and beautiful in their way, but clearly simulacra
... They become secondary, not 'the real thing' seen so clearly in the The difference between these texts is quite subtle. Panel texts connote
image. authority but are, conversely, more interpretative. Labels and captions, on
the other hand, are more 'literal'; they claim to describe what is there. This is
(Clifford, 1995, p. 99)
partly determined by space. Nevertheless these texts work together and
separately, each encoding through the semblance of decoding. The difference
But their presence is nevertheless important, since these tangibly simulated between these texts, but also their contribution to signification, can be
objects smooth the representational work: if the text interprets and directs the exemplified at the level of translation.
reading of the object, then the object draws the reader to the text. The trick
Ethnographic exhibitions frequently make use of indigenous terms within the
is to validate the text. The presence of these simulacra in conjunction with
substance of their texts. This is done for many reasons, partly to
the Teal thing' in the form of the photograph anchors the representation of
acknowledge the insufficiency of translation, but equally because in an
Wahgi peace-making and compensation written about in the accompanying
ethnographic exhibition it accords 'a voice' to the people featured. Such
text. concessions to indigenous language have, furthermore, proved popular and
acceptable to the audiences who visit ethnographic exhibitions. But utilizing
indigenous languages has certain effects. On labels, they are often entered as
3.4 Structuring Paradise
descriptions to signify the object - the bolyim house, a mond post - and a
This part of section 3 will examine how images and texts can be used to connection is created between object and description which appears
create meaning in the exhibition context, by analysing a specific display in transparent, definitive and transcendent. This is a bolyim house - no need
Paradise. for translation (Plate 3.VI). Panels frequently have sayings, asides or
proverbs, in unfamiliar languages encouraging the reader to enter,
Clearly texts and images can have a number of functions. In order to momentarily at least, into the conceptual universe - the way of seeing - of the
disaggregate these I shall use the terms 'presentation', 'representation' and people concerned. In the First Contact panel, for instance, Kekanem Goi's
'presence'. I will use the terms presentation to refer to the overall presentation remark recounting his first reaction to the patrol's arrival ['Alamb kipe gonzip
arrangement and the techniques employed; presence to imply the type of presence alamb ende worn mo?') is translated ('Is it ghosts, the dead who have come?')
object and the power it exerts; and representation to consider the manner in representation to denote the shock of the encounter between the Whites and the Wahgi (Plate
which the objects work in conjunction with contexts and texts to produce 3.IX). But equally the process of inclusion is a complex one, involving
meaning (Dube, 1995, p. 4). selection, translation and interpretation. Meaning must be altered so that an
allegory or metaphor deriving from one culture is made comprehensible in the
language of another.
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So here we see that, though texts impart information, they are also economies photographs, in the exhibition context, can accord a presence to ephemeral
of meaning, selecting what they would ideally like the visitor to know - what artefacts — artefacts that would be destroyed in their proper social context:
is important. They also reinforce certain aspects of design. In the Fmrt the bridewealth banners and bolyim house for instance - and those that
Contact display the spears are not given labels, but one can easily 'read' them cannot be exported legally - such as the Bird of Paradise feathers (Plate 3.1) -
since their arrangement (Plate 3.X) overtly reflects the content of one of the or practically - the Wahgi themselves (Plate 3.XV).
large photographs (Plate 3.IX). No overt guidance (text) is needed since they
In the Paradise exhibition, therefore, photographs have three effects: they
can be interpreted against the photograph.
enhance the presentation of the exhibition; they substitute for the physical
This is one of the functions of the photographs in the First Contact display. presence of ethnographic 'objects' or 'subjects'; and they ease the work of
At one level the type of reconstruction attempted seeks simply to mimic the representation by providing a 'real' context which either contextualizes the
content of the photographs. The scene painting reflects the image of Mick object or allows a blueprint for the display design.
Leahy's encampment (Plate 3.X), the reconstructed fence and the group of
kula jimben spears — some collected in the 1930s, others in the 1990s —
recreate the situation in the black-and-white photograph of the Leahy patrol
3.5 Paradise: the exhibit as artefact
camp (Plate 3.IX). The bridewealth banner reflects the colour picture, itself a In the preceding sections we have considered how objects, texts and contexts
blow-up of one of the pictures in the panel (Plate 3.XI). This is not all. The have worked in conjunction to produce meaning. Let us bring these to bear
images, in addition to authenticating the (re)construction and the objects, on the trade-store exhibit to examine how the context of display, and by
serve to connote the passage of time. This is related by the quality of the extension the exhibition, can be considered as a fiction and an artefact. The
reproduction (grainy/clear) and its type (colour/black and white) — a message word fiction is not used here in a derogatory way, but rather in its neutral
easily understood. The 'faded' colour of the bridewealth banner picture sense: the Latin verb fingere from which fiction derives means that
(taken in the 1950s) contrasts with the 'true' colour of the other, more recent, something has been fashioned and made through human endeavour.
pictures (taken in the 1980s) and the black-and-white grainy reproductions of O'Hanlon himself boldly acknowledges his role in this process of authorship
those taken in the 1930s (Clifford, 1995, pp. 99-100). The interplay and (1993, Introduction, Chapter 3). As an articulated but bounded
proximity of these images of changing quality and type reinforces the theme representational system, the trade-store will be used here as a metaphor for
of the text and locates the objects to create a very rich representation of the Paradise exhibition as a whole (Plate 3.III).
change and continuity.
The trade-store clearly operates on the level of presentation. It mimics a
But some photographs have a function which go beyond that of presentation 'real' Highland store with a corrugated iron roof. The reconstruction is
and representation. In the Paradise exhibition they are equally a substitute 'authentic' even down to its incorporation of the usual notice on its door - No
for presence. In the case of the bridewealth banners, most particularly, the ken askim long dinau (Don't ask for credit) - and the floor - sandy and
large blow-up photograph substitutes for the object (Plates 3.II and 3.XI). littered with beer bottle tops (Plates 3.XII, 3.XIV). The hodge-podge of goods,
Moreover, the photograph - the representation of the real banner - all imported, purposefully attempts to 'capture something of the raw colours
overshadows the adjacent reconstruction - the partially authentic artefact of such enterprises' (O'Hanlon, 1993, p. 89) (Plate 3.XIII). And is their
which incorporates real Wahgi shells and fibre - by being far more splendid: function purely presentation? No. The presence of these goods clearly
heightens our power of imagination; the combination is fascinating; each
item draws our attention. One stops to read the different brand names -
It is no longer a question of a photo providing 'context' for an object. We
Cambridge cigarettes, LikLik Wopa ('little whopper' biscuits), Paradise
confront an object that cannot be present physically, a 1950s bridewealth
Kokonas (coconut biscuits), Big Sister pudding, the ubiquitous Coca Cola -
banner - long disassembled, as is its proper fate. This banner has been
and to take in the exuberance of the display.
'collected' in the photographs. Given its prominence, the color image
seems somehow more real, in a sense more 'authentic' than ... the less On the level of presence, the items denote 'the expanding range of goods on
impressive older banner propped beside it... sale' (O'Hanlon, 1993, p. 89), most particularly what can be bought with
(Clifford, 1995, p. 100) coffee wealth. The store was intended as 'a reconstruction, stocked with the
goods which would be on sale during the Wahgi coffee season' (panel text).
So these objects are genuine and representative samples of the totality of
Clifford comments that, for him, this is preferable. Collecting would artefacts that could be found in a store (they were brought over from Papua
artificially remove the object and make it immortal, whereas collecting the New Guinea). The store enlivens the representation of Wahgi life. Its presence
object-as-photograph provides a legitimate alternative: recording the existence - as an artefact in its own right - anchors the narrative in the panel text, which
of the object without interrupting its proper cultural disposal. So
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CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 179

conversely interprets the meaning of the whole and the miscellany of goods deepen the impression of entering the Wahgi physical and social world
which it contains. because they work on an affective, emotional level. Amplifying the themes of
Considering the context of display - the trade-store - the arrangements of the exhibition, these sounds 'collected in the field' denote the Highlands but
these objects seems appropriate, 'natural' even. Imagine these trade goods connote tradition (through sounds of jew's harp, singing) and change (through
the recognizable sound of bingo). So what at first seemed different, is with
ordered in a glass case: the isolation would affect our perception, drawing us
repetition made familiar and the visitor is encouraged to imagine they are in
to the object rather than the combination. It is the contrived miscellany of
the New Guinea Highlands. But this representation of 'how-it-really-is'
objects in the trade-store that makes it compelling and produces meaning; the
necessarily supports a distinct thematic narrative about the way in which
whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. The trade-store is itself a system of
change and continuity shape contemporary Wahgi life.
representation, externally and internally narrated. Each object is interpreted
through its label, which cross-refers to others, the advertising slogans and to Thus we can think of Paradise, the exhibition, as a complex representational
the panel text. Furthermore the store goods are interpreted in two different system featuring objects (made and used by the Wahgi), reconstructions (of
languages - tok pisin (the local lingua franca), and English. These trade Wahgi material, of Wahgi design, but made by Museum staff) and simulacra
labels reaffirm difference but also transcend it. whose cogency derives from the articulation of these different elements into a
narrative with texts, images and sounds. At one level the Paradise exhibition
The trade-store is an enabling context which 'quickens' our understanding of
is 'typically' ethnographic: its focus is the socio-cultural whole that is Wahgi
the ambivalent impact of coffee wealth, transforming exchange relations, life, and it uses objects as exemplars, each a sample of a representative type
encouraging warfare. But this representation is articulated with the adjacent whose presence guarantees the veracity of the representation. It is equally
displays (Plate 3.Ill), coffee production - the source of money - and the typical in the sense that it is necessarily selective: what we are presented
shields, which connote in their design and form 'South Pacific' beer cans with is a representation of Wahgi life, authored and partial.
(Plate 3.Ill, 3.XIV). Indeed the trade-store, though denotative of a 'typical'
Highlands store, has another level of artifice — two 'trick effects'. O Hanlon
tells us that he has had to cut away the front to permit visibility and 3.6 The myths of Paradise
surreptitiously included 'South Pacific' empties along the far wall, not
In the preceding analysis two things were learned:
because this is representative of reality, but because a reference to beer must
be included in a depiction of New Guinea life (1993, pp. 89—90). Their 1 the extent to which exhibitions are constructions,
inclusion here enables us to make an effortless move to the next display 2 that the end of this construction is to persuade, to render 'natural' or
(Plate 3.Ill and 3.XIV). 'innocent' what is profoundly 'constructed' and 'motivated'.

The display takes us back to the initial image and functions covertly as a The first point has been extensively investigated, the second point is that
focal point for our other senses. It is the first time one can remark the change which concerns us now. The point of departure - the argument to follow - is
in the scene painting and it is from the trade-store that we become aware that simply that all cultural producers - advertisers, designers, curators, authors
the sounds can be heard. What effects might these have? (including this one) - are involved in the creation of 'myths' in the manner in
which Barthes defines this. As a consequence, these producers are inevitably
Let us first take the case of the scene painting. In the introductory space, the holders of symbolic power.
scene painting is restricted to the depiction of two mountain ranges and the
sky. In the main exhibition space it is varied to denote the physical and We shall look at 'myth' by critically assessing the contrasting accounts of
social environment of the Highlands of New Guinea, alternatively dense both Clifford (1995) and O'Hanlon (1993) concerning the production of
Highlands vegetation (behind the trade-store and the hand-coffee mill) and exhibitions. The Paradise exhibition, unusually, included panels and text
an enclosed camp identical to the one in the photographs of the Leahy which highlighted the conditions of production of the exhibition, the role of
expedition or a Wahgi village (behind the bolyim house and mond post). The the author and curator and his relationship with the community he chose to
represent. Such a candid account is placed at the end of the exhibition, and so
scene painting works with the photographs and the reconstructions to
in a sense one 'reads' the exhibition as a partial truth, retrospectively. It is
innocently denote the Wahgi world, to reflect the physical environment of the
worth noting that it is precisely because the Paradise exhibition was not a
Highlands of New Guinea 'as-it-really-is'. This denotation of Wahgi reality is
standard unreflective exhibit, but a resourceful and complex exhibition that
affirmed aurally, by the continuous looped three-minute tape featuring New
addressed the problematic aspects of its own production and political
Guinea early morning sounds, cicadas, singing, jew's harp, but also bingo
accountability, that it has provoked such valuable and reflexive comment, of
calls, issuing from the trade-store. These sounds locate the visitor in the
a kind that can push the student and cultural critic alike beyond simply
Highlands. Providing a contrast with the busy London streets, but equally
stereotyping the process of exhibiting.
with the quiet reverence of the other galleries, these aural representations
I 94 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 195

be seen as the seats of institutional power. She investigates the relationship 4.5 Colonial spectacles
between power/knowledge in three separate museum contexts: the Hormman
Museum, the British Museum and the Pitt Rivers. Coombes shows the The interconnection between power and exhibiting outlined by Coombes
distinctions in their discursive constructions of the Benin Bronzes but (1994a, 1994b) seems most persuasive when one explores the issue of 'living
connects these differences to struggles for power within and between these exhibits': the peoples that were brought over to feature in the colonial,
institutions. At the Horniman, Quirk alters his opinion of the Benin Bronzes, national and international exhibitions staged in Europe and America in the
once these are displayed at the British Museum, to gain prestige. For Read nineteenth and twentieth centuries (see the discussion of 'the Hottentot
and Dalton, at the British Museum, the transformation in their discursive Venus' in Chapter 4, section 4.4). Let us review the work of Foucault to
construction of the Benin artefacts is linked to bids for power and recognition power and visibility discern how power and visibility or spectacle are joined.
within the British Museum (and to their being thwarted in their desires to Foucault's analysis of power/knowledge incorporates a theory of visibility.
purchase the totality of the Bronzes). The Pitt Rivers, predictably perhaps, Foucault can be thought of as a 'visual historian' because he examined the
manages to incorporate the Benin Bronzes into a typological display of manner in which objects and subjects were 'shown'. He argued the
casting technology and therefore a display on ironwork, paying particular phenomenon of 'being seen' was neither an automatic nor a natural process,
attention to the cire perdue method. but linked to what power/knowledge guides one to see - it relied on one's
Coombes articulates a further argument which considers the link between the being 'given to be seen' (Rajchman, 1988). Furthermore, in the human
Benin Bronzes and colonial power. She argues that these Benin artefacts did sciences, what is seen and counts as 'evidence' is most usually linked to
not come to occupy the status of artefacts by accident, but by virtue of corrective action. The human sciences therefore differ from the hard sciences:
colonial appropriation (Figure 3.7). She deepens this connection between appropriation perceiving electrons does not elicit questions of what to do with them, but
'seeing' the poor, the infirm, the mad or 'savages', unleashes precisely these
colonialism and collecting by observing that the artefacts were sold to pay for
questions (Rajchman, 1988, p. 102). So being made visible is an ambiguous
the Protectorate.
pleasure, connected to the operation of power. Applying this to the instance
So in summary, by considering the historical articulation of several sets of of ethnographic objects: in the Pitt Rivers Museum the subtlety and
discourses, Coombes shows how a body of knowledge can be created not only significance of differences in material culture can only be properly 'seen' if
around a particular region of the world, but also around the material culture one is implicated in a discourse that applies an evolutionary schema in which
that it produces. She demonstrates how there is consistency despite these objects can be used as 'proof' of the discourse and thus differentiated,
disagreement. Discourses, she argues, work in formations which frame the ordered and classified in that way.
manner in which one can think and talk of these objects and the subjects that The link between visibility and power is rendered most compelling when one
produce them. She incorporates a discussion of power, concluding that considers human subjects and in particular the great spectacles of the
collecting and exhibiting are the by-products of colonial power. So in colonial period - the national and international exhibitions that were
relationship to a particular category mounted in Great Britain between 1850 and 1925. These exhibitions were
of objects - the Benin Bronzes - she notable for a great many things: their promotion of exploration, trade,
argues that knowledge is indissolubly business interests, commerce; their dependence on adequate rail links,
yoked to power, and in this case colonial trading networks, and advertising; their launching of now familiar
institutional power since it is the products: Colman's mustard, Goodyear India rubber and ice cream; their
museum and its internal struggles notable effect on the institutionalization of collecting and internalization of
that shape how the Bronzes are commerce (Beckenbridge, 1989). Among these other notable distractions,
ultimately perceived. they provided another type of spectacle: the display of peoples. In this
section we will look, very briefly, at ethnographic displays which showed
Let us push this analysis further by
people, not objects.
considering the link between
exhibiting and looking. The Exposition Universelle (Paris) in 1867 was the first to include colonial
subjects as service workers, while the first exhibition to inaugurate displays of
people simply as spectacle- as objects of the gaze - was the Exposition
FIGURE 3.7 Universelle (Paris) of 1889. These 'authentic' manifestations of'primitive
British officers of the Benin punitive culture' became a popular feature of most exhibitions into the early decades of
expedition with bronzes and ivories taken this century. The last exhibition to feature dependent peoples in this manner
from the royal compound, Benin City
1897.
 REPRESENTATION: CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SIGNIFYING PRACTICES CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES I 97
196

in Britain took place at the British Empire Exhibition (1924-5) at Wemb ey FIGURE 3.8
(though some might argue it continues today in other forms) (Benedict et a Igorots eating dog
1983, p. 52). As displays, dependent peoples were brought over to provide ^ meat in the
viewers with the experience of being in other worlds; situated in 'authentic Philippine exhibit
villages, they were asked to re-enact, for the viewing public, their everyday at the St Louis

lives. These peoples were classified in terms of the geography of the Louisiana

exhibition, but equally, sometimes, according to putative notions of their Purchase

'relationship' to each other in evolutionary terms. At the St Louis Louisiana Exposition, 1904.

Purchase Exposition of 1904, where people from the Philippines were

accorded a significant place in the Hall of Anthropology, the various villages
and their tribes were helpfully ordered in a fashion which 'faithfully'
portrayed the evolution of human development, from the lowest to the
highest level (Greenhalgh, 1988, p. 101).
In the era where the primary data used for the comparison of cultures was
often provided by colonial administrators and not anthropologists, such
displays provided remarkable opportunities. The 'armchair anthropologists
of the period were initially keen to derive benefit from the presence of these
authentic living 'specimens' or scientifically significant objects. These
human exhibits provided valuable evidence for an emerging discipline. They
geography of power. The display of people was a display of a power
were real, authentic exemplars of 'primitive' people, 'survivals' of other
asymmetry, which these displays, in a circular fashion, served to legitimize
histories, 'vanishing races' or genuine 'degenerates' (depending on the
(Benedict et al., 1983, p. 45; Coombes, 1994a and 1994b, p. 88). The
particular anthropological discourse one held). On their bodies were written
exhibitions and displays can equally be thought of as 'symbolic wishful
the traces of earlier cultures. This physical evidence provided 'proof' that
thinking' which sought to construct a spurious unity (a 'one world' framed in
could not otherwise be obtained but which could tangibly substantiate evolutionary terms) in which colonizer and colonized could be reunited and
contemporary physical anthropological discourses. In 1900, W.H. Rivers,
where those of 'vastly different cultural tradition and aspirations are made to
who was to become an influential figure in British anthropology, suggested appear one' (Benedict et al., 1983, p. 52).
that 'the Anthropological Institute should seek special permission from the
exhibition proprietors in order to "inspect" these people prior to the exhibits Thus, a Foucauldian model allows one to argue that being able to 'see' these
opening to the general public' so that evidence could be collected (Coombes, native villages and their constituent populations was clearly neither a
1994a, p. 88). 'natural' process, nor an accidental one, but a socio-historical one, which was
associated with and reinforced standard museological representations of
They could be and were measured, classified and photographed. peoples through ethnographic artefacts. The argument which connects
Photographic representations in the shape of photographs of anthropometric museological representations with spectacular ones is supported when it
measurements or colour postcards fuelled scientific speculation and popular becomes clear that certain of the ethnographic collections featured in the
belief. The popularity of these exhibitions - many millions of visitors from colonial, national or international exhibitions, or the photographs of these
all walks of life trooped past native villages - helped to support the dominant visitor peoples, were often incorporated into the ethnographical collections
popular discourse that other cultures were 'survivals' or 'savages'. This was or archives of established museums.
particularly so when 'primitive' or 'savage' customs came into view: the
So here the relationship between scientific knowledge (anthropology),
Igorots at the St Louis Fair purchasing, roasting and eating dog meat
popular culture, the geography of power (colonialism) and visibility
(Figure 3.8) or the Ainu at the Japan British Exhibition of 1910 photographed
with a bear skull. (photograph, display) is rendered particularly overt. But a note of caution
must also be inserted. The Foucauldian model is a totalizing one. By this I
So one can argue that the blurring of 'scientific' and 'popular' anthropological mean that a Foucauldian model produces a vision of museums and exhibiting
discourses served in more or less subtle ways to legitimize and substantiate a which is primarily based on a belief in social control. If Coombes' (1994a)
discourse of European imperial superiority (Greenhalgh, 1988, p. 109). To analysis is taken to its logical end point, that even the Benin Bronzes fail to
understand these displays the visitor had to bring certain kinds of knowledge pierce the solid structure of pre-existing ethnographic disclosure, then one is
with him/her, reinforced by other representations - photographs, postcards, left with questions of how intellectual paradigms change. How have we come
museum displays, paintings - and had to be implicated within a particular
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CHAPTER 3 THE POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EXHIBITING OTHER CULTURES 199

to the point where such artefacts as the Benin Bronzes can be 'seen' as art derives from a historically unequal relationship between western powers and
when previously they could not? And how are we to understand this new other peoples.
state of knowledge? Although Coombes' longer text (1994a) provides a much
more comprehensive account of the tensions in the process of exhibiting,than We have seen that, at one moment, what allowed a human subject to be
the extract presented here, it is nevertheless the case that a Foucauldian- transformed into an ethnographic object was a particular relationship of
based analysis argues convincingly that collections are not extracted knowledge to power in association with wider social changes whereby, in the
willingly from originating cultures, they are always excisions, removed, often exhibition context, the colonizer/seer/knower was made separate and
painfully from the body of other, less powerful, cultures. These collections, distinct from the colonized/seen/known. In this section, therefore, it has
been argued that, just as power reduced cultures to objects (in the Pitt Rivers
it further argues, assume the rationale of education to be to lend future
collection), it also allowed the objectification of human subjects (in displays).
purpose but also to justify the original act. Collecting is constructed as a
In this manner the ability to display ethnographic objects or subjects required
pursuit inevitably dogged by its own history, always betrayed by hidden
certain types of knowledge (for interpretation and narrative) allied with a
intent. Collecting is, in short, a discredited and ignoble activity. This
particular relationship of power.
Foucauldian critique links collecting and exhibiting to such an extent that it
puts into question whether the ends can ever justify the means. Provocative
and thought-provoking though this critique undoubtedly is, it fails to
produce either a convincing evocation of the paradoxical relationship 5 The futures of exhibiting
between ethnography and the museum, or an acknowledgement of the
bureaucratic and pragmatic decisions at the heart of the process of exhibiting. 5.1 Introduction

4.6 Summary The very nature of exhibiting ... makes it a contested terrain.
(Lavine and Karp, 1991, p. 1)
This section has specifically addressed the politics of exhibiting. It has
advanced a significantly different view to the one proposed by Mary Douglas The purpose of the last three sections has been to contextualize and analyse
(see section 2.4 above), namely that objects circulate in continuous history the practices of exhibiting, using theoretical models which forefront the
where makers, collectors and curators are simply points of origination, poetics and politics of representation. So now if we re-evaluate our original
congregation and dispersal, in a circular system (1992, p. 15). In this view, definition of the museum, namely that it is an institution which exists 'in
the activities of collecting and exhibiting are not neutral, but powerful. order to acquire, safeguard, conserve, and display objects, artefacts and works
Indeed it has been argued, through using a Foucauldian model, that it is of arts of various kinds' (Vergo, 1993, p. 41), we find that these terms have
impossible to dissociate the supposedly neutral and enlightened world of acquired far from objective or neutral meanings.
scholarship on one hand from the world of politics and power on the other.
So this section does not focus on the production of meaning, but the linkages While those types of analyses that we have attempted in the previous sections
between representation and museums as seats of institutional power. The have become more commonplace, they cannot account for the complexity of
examples used substantiate the proposition that significant linkages existed the exhibiting process or the position of present-day museums. An analysis
that forefronts the poetics of exhibiting, by examining the product - the
in the nineteenth century between desires for institutional power, the rise of.
exhibit - rather than the process of exhibiting, runs the risk of wishing to fix
anthropology as an academic discipline, and the popularity of colonial
discourses. meaning to the exclusion of the 'hidden history' of production. Similarly an
analysis that seeks to investigate the politics of exhibiting may produce an
Thus, an argument that considers the politics of exhibiting advances the view over-deterministic account revolving around social control, which may be best
that museums appropriate and display objects for certain ends. Objects are illustrated by taking nineteenth-century examples. In this brief coda to the
incorporated and constructed by the articulation of pre-existing discourses. chapter, I shall provide four reasons why these two models of representation
The museum becomes an arbiter of meaning since its institutional position might have become popular, and how the adoption of such perspectives has
allows it to articulate and reinforce the scientific credibility of frameworks of altered the practices of exhibiting. In so doing I shall argue that we have
knowledge or discursive formations through its methods of display. reached a turning point in the history of ethnographic museums in particular,
but equally of museums in general. As you may notice, I link the changes in
Moreover we have found that an argument about power/knowledge can be ethnographic museums to changes within the discipline of anthropology but
articu ated around exhibiting and displays, particularly in terms of visibility. also to wider changes in society and therefore to the consumers of exhibits in
1 he politics of exhibiting means museums make certain cultures visible, in western nations.
er wor s t ey allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of power. This