Day 8 - a stolen hour at the British Museum (August 25, 2024)

[Editors note:  i just noticed this post i drafted over a year ago, but didn't quite finish!?  And I have 4 more posts up there in draft, still to be completed? Well, the timing is wrong, but this is a post from the London Trip last summer] 

My afternoon was going to be spent on the train back to Paris.  That left me with just a few morning hours to play around.  I determined to spend it at the British Museum, so off I went. 

I had hoped to go in the front doors, but discovered that I ought to have booked an entrance ticket time (new since COVID?).   I did not.  As I was ticketless, they sent me to the side to get in a line up (first time that had happened to me).    I was a bit worried that I would not have time to see much, but the line was moving fast, and it was lovely standing under the trees.  It also meant coming in through the Montague Place entrance, a less common experience for me. 

Indeed, the only other time I came in that was was on one of my first visits to the Museum in 2011.  The late great Peter Fitzpatrick had invited me to take a short walk with him there. We entered that way, and so my first introduction was through the room called "Living and Dying".  I recall that there had been an incredible exhibit showing all the medications a person might take over the course of their life. 

 

admiring the Haida House Fronal Pole

Back then, that particular room had also included an amazing Inuit shaman's coat.  It had seemed such a connection to the work I was doing then with Inuit law.  This time (in terms of 'Canadian content'), the room was displaying a  beautiful Haida house frontal pole. It had me immediately thinking about Carey Newman's conversations about the complicated spiritual life of sacred objects lodged in musueum spaces

I spent some time looking at a photo of the pole in place, and reading the information in the text.  So interesting to me thinking about the stories we tell, and the contexts of knowledge we assume eachother to already have.  Of course, I have questions about how such an object ended up in this space so far from the context in which it would have important social, legal, cultural (and spiritual?) meaning.  I found myself thinking about the amazing Taapwaywin podcast episode "A Box of Treasures", which takes up Haida art in British museums. It is worth re-listening to. 

• https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/a-box-of-treasures/id1647085468?i=1000583837352

Having just taught Cultural Property with Bob Howell this past summer, it was interesting to see this Hoa Hakananai'a Moai, and to think back on the conversations we had in class about this exact sculpture.   

The interpretive panels were interesting, including an account of requests by the Rapanui for the return of the sculptures (which were removed by the British Admiralty, and gifted to the Queeen, who then gifted to the museum).  

Lots of questions, of course, about what it means to have been 'gifted' something that was stolen.  Well, the panels acknowledge the controversy, indicating that the Museum is in 'ongoing discussions' with the Rapanui over questions of a possible return.   Lots of questions out there in the museum world!

And so, I headed through that room and out to the central court area.   I love this spot.  First off.... the roof!  It is an amazing work of art and architecture, filling the space with natural light, inviting the outside and inside worlds into conversation: a constantly shifting palette of white and blue and grey.

And further, I never never tire of spending time with the two amazing Haida poles from Massett.   

It remains so improbable to me to find them there.  And they are a strange connection to home.  

Just as with the frontal house pole, it is hard not to have all the questions about how they came to be there, and complicated histories of human interactions (and colonial and imperial pressures).  Standing beside them is something special.  

I find they demand my attention, inviting me to let my eyes move from bottom to top, and back.  

This of course pulls my line of vision back up to sky, as the poles point invite me to follow the connections of ground to sky.  

I know I don't have the full legal literacy to read the stories and histories inscribed there, but I have enough to know that those things ARE there, and to know I am in the presence of knowledge. 

 

In some ways, a bit like with the Rosetta stone (which I also can't read, but which is a reminder that languages are written in different ways, and are forms through which humans speak to eachother and the world around us).

And so, everytime I go to the Museum, I do stop in to pay my respects, and to feel filled up in return by their presence, thinking of all the stories and histories they carry, and of all the stories they might also have to tell about what they too have seen in return in this strange (both weird and wonderous) space.  

Amongst the weirdness is that the poles sit in proximity to the cafe area.  I don't know how to think about this, to tell the truth.  On the one hand, it is weird thinking about those poles listening in to scattered conversations amongst those sitting down to rest their feet, with a coffee, a sandwich, and some pudding.   On the other hand, there is something I also love about taking a moment for food and rest, thinking of what i have seen there was sharing space and time with the poles.  Even when I am eating by myself, I feel a bit like I am spending time in the presence of an important friend.   Yep.... my weird brain/heart.

 So... to help me remember the 'feeling' of being there, here is a video of a minute of the view while sitting in the open court having lunch: https://youtu.be/KIT0ultmW1g

And then, I headed off to another favourite of mine,  The Enlightenment Room. 

It is one of the places that just takes up 'head on' the place of colonization in histories of gathering, exhibiting and curating knowledge/objects. 

I do find it such an interesting physical space to spend time in, even apart from the content of what is exhibited there. I wondered what had changed and what was the same since the last time I was there. 

I started at the middle, and put my hands on the copy of the Rosetta Stone they have installed there, thinking about tools for translation across languages.

I also stopped for a minute at one of those wonderful 'hands on' stations there.  I LOVE those stations!   They generally have a couple of objects available to be touched and held, while one of the volunteers gives you lots of information about those objects.  

There are usually a few people gathered, and it is a chance to be learning both from the volunteers, and from what the museum visitors have to add to the conversation. 

This time, I got to pick up a hand ax/knife tool that was thousands of years old.  What a thing to feel the edges, and think about the other tools and hands that had shaped this stone to give it some purpose and function.

And I never get tired of the paper mosaics put together by Mary Delany.  The idea of a woman picking up this craft of re-creating exact copies of flower in paper.... and of starting this at the age of 72?  Something so beautiful in that! Here is a link to more about her and her work https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/late-bloomer-exquisite-craft-mary-delany of creating

Sir Hans Sloane's bird collection was there too.   That one is just a little bit unsettling.  Beautiful, but unsettling (the notion of 'having' a bird collection, I guess).

And then I headed towards the exit, with a nod to a collection of roman coins, and a moment to drop a bit of my own british change into the donations box.  

I love it that the museum is public/free.  

I also liked the opportunity to think about ways I might still make some contribution as an outsider, to acknowledge the gifts of the space, even in the face of my ongoing disquiets about the complexity of museum practices in the context of the work of truth and reconciliation.   

Lots to think about. And I am grateful for that!

That was on my mind as I headed back out through the main Great Russell Street entrance, into the light of day.  

I wandered around the entrance, enjoying the sky from different angles, and reflected in the glass of the windows.

It was one of those days where the clouds and the blue sky are in competition with eachother (vs. those days with a lovely casting of greys).   

I couldn't seem to get enough angles!

And thus endeth my report of a stolen hour at the British Museum