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How do we get to the pipe?
This collection is composed of ten ethnographic objects picked up during the time I was volunteering at the ethnographic collections of UCL, located in the department of anthropology. The main task I was asked to fulfil remained the same over the last few weeks. I was expected to make sure each object was in the right place and had the correct accession number corresponding to the one of the database.
Accomplishing this task I observed my body producing the same movements over and over again. Putting some gloves on, opening a cabinet, taking a drawer out, taking the objects out, unpacking, re-packing, putting the drawer back, closing the cabinet, putting the key back in its box, throwing the gloves in the bin.
It is whilst involved in such process that I once stopped for a longer moment over a drawer. I took interest in a pipe and started off considering the existing knowledge available on this object. As it is the case with a substantial part of the objects composing the collections, the current knowledge we have of the pipe (as made visible on the online catalogue of the ethnographic collections) is very limited. I therefore took up to explore what type of knowledge could one create out of first hand experience.
Looking at the pipe became more than just focusing on the crystallised far away society it would represent. Rather I asked myself ‘how do we get to the pipe?’ and thus turned my attention onto a series of objects that acted as intermediaries between the pipe and me.
Which one is the ethnographic object?
“There are as many contexts for an object as there are interpretive strategies” (Kirshenblatt Gimblett, 1991: 390)
“The semiophore reveals its meaning when it goes on display” (Pomian, 1990: 31)
Following on Kirshenblatt Gimblett’s consideration of the ethnographic object as the object “created by the ethnographer” (Kirshenblatt Gimblett,1991: 387) I formed my collection mostly out of objects that are not officially recognised under this appellation. Unlike the pipe who has a label and an accession number, the other nine objects have no existence within the official ethnographic collections, usually perceived as mere tools of conservation.
Yet claiming both these objects and the official one as ethnographic objects is thus asserting their common potential as objects of knowledge and of anthropology inquiry. Treating the nine non official ethnographic objects similarly to the tenth of this collection as semiophores, I chose to “assign” them “a value, because they represent the invisible” (Pomian, 1990: 31) shadowed by the type of knowledge enacted through the official ethnographic collections.
This is not (just) a pipe
In this sense this collection acts as an extension of the current catalogue of the ethnographic collections, aiming to explore the underlying rationale at play, the active principles of classification, the current regulations effective within its physical repository. How is the regulatory system of a scientific institution embodied in the objects composing this collection? How far do these “disciplinary artefacts” (Kirshenblatt Gimblett, 2002: 61) participate in constructing the value or “sacredness” of the official ethnographic object (Van der Griijp, 2014: 22)? Looking at the pipe is therefore not only about learning on the object as a standing alone witness of some particular culture. Rather when orienting our gaze toward the surrounding non official ethnographic objects we can start shedding light on the “who’s, how’s, and why’s” (Warner Wood, 2014: 49) of this defined ethnographic object and the way the latter construction comes into being. (Kirshenblatt Gimblett, 1991: 434)
Making visible the invisible
The collection is presented in a way that the visitor is forced to take a specific path in order to reach the objects and the knowledge that comes with. Each ethnographic object is a step on the way to the ‘official’ one. This forced virtual process mirrors the physical one one has to go through in order to get hold of an object from the collections.
Each object comes with a label that although partly following on the model of the official ones (as displayed on the online ethnographic collections catalogue) is subjectively interpreted. An accession number has been given to each of the objects, symbolically marking their constructed definition as ethnographic objects in continuity of the existing collection.
Building up knowledge from the ground, the major part of the content of the catalogue is composed of films that have been made in the course of my work at the ethnographic collections. The films not only allow the visitor to delve into a realm not usually accessible to a wide audience but also to raise some awareness of the regulatory system in which each of the objects take place and is shaped by.
References
Van des Griijp P., 2014. ‘The sacred gift: donations from private to museums’, Museum Anthropology Review 8(1)
Frey B. S., Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 2002. The dematerialisation of culture and the de-accessioning of museum collections
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett B., 1991. ‘Objects of Ethnography’, In Exhibiting cultures: the poetics and politics of museum display, Smithsonian Institution Press, London, Washington, D.C
Pomian K., 1990, Collectors and curiosities: Paris and Venice, 1500-1800. Elizabeth Wiles-Portier, Polity Press, Cambridge
Witcomb A., 1992. On the side of the object: an alternative approach to debates about ideas, objects and museums
Warner Wood W., 2014. Only the Voice of the Other: Science, Power, and Diversity’s Revolt in the Museum—A Manifesto of Sorts, in Museum Anthropology Review, Vol.8, No1, 2014
this is not (just) a pipe 