Episode 32: Labelling Matters

[MUSIC] Welcome to the Euro Cleo Podcast, pastime, talking in teaching history. My name is Andreas Holtbraya. I'm your host for today's podcast. I'm joined by Melanie Rantrie. Welcome. Thanks very much. This lovely to be here. Welcome to the hey. You joined us from England today by the train, and you are currently a learning officer for secondary. And young people at the Bitts-Reverse Museum in Oxford in England. Although you also just told me that you will be leaving soon to join the Ashmolian Museum in Oxford, as head of schools and universities. But currently you're with Bitts-Reverse Museum in Oxford, where you also deliver taught sessions, teaching resources, and teacher professional development, relating to the collection of the museum with a focus on the coloniality history and the arts. Yes, that's definitely what I do. You're here in the Hague and in the Netherlands now, because we are co-organising an international symposium tomorrow in Leiden. It is about some of the issues we will talk about today, which is exactly about your expertise on museums and the coloniality and collections, and how it all ties together with history education as well. Yes, yeah. That will be my focus thinking about how it connects to my teaching, which is learning outside the classroom, but often connects with teachers learning within the classroom. So Melanie, first off, I just want to ask you, what is the Bitts-Reverse Museum? What kind of museum are you working for? The Bitt-Reverse Museum is a museum of anthropology and archaeology. The Bitt-Reverse Museum is one of the Oxford University museums, so they form an organisation called Gardens Libraries and Museums, which includes the Bitt-Reverse, the Museum of the History of Science, the Ashmonian Museum, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and also actually the Botanic Gardens, the Arborietum and the world-famous Bodleian Library as well. So yes, it's part of a bigger organisation, but the Bitt-Reverse has a very long-standing history. How curious about the name, who is Bitt-Reverse? General Bitt-Reverse is the person who gave the founding collection of the museum. So the Bitt-Reverse Museum has a founding collection of around 20,000 objects that were given by General Bitt-Reverse. He amassed the collection during the course of his career, which was a military career during the time of the British Empire, and then the museum opened its doors in 1887 to house that collection. So he gave his collection to Oxford University. So the collection in the Bitt-Reverse isn't owned by the Museum. It's owned by the University of Oxford, all the Oxford University Museum's collections are. He gave the collection to the University of Oxford on three conditions, I would say. So the first condition was very modestly that he wanted his name to be above the door, and if you go to the Bitt-Reverse you will see that above the kind of the doorway it says Bitt-Reverse. So that was one consideration, and the other consideration is that he wanted a purpose-built building to house the collection. So as I said before, as part of Gordon's Library of Museums, you have the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. So that is an enormous, great, big, beautiful museum that was the first science department for Oxford University, and the Bitt-Reverse building is built on the back of that. The architect for the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, there were two and they were Woodward and Dean, and then Dean's son is the person who designed the Bitt-Reverse Museum. So he designed the extension for his father's incredible building, which the Oxford University Museum of Natural History was built as a temple to science. So it's just the most amazing, beautiful building. And the Bitt-Reverse is beautiful in its own way, but it's built very much more in the style of the kind of late 19th century. So if you've ever been to, and I'm sure most people listening have, one of the stations in the centre of London, so Marlabone Station, Paddington Station, those kinds of stations, that's the kind of look of the Bitt-Reverse Museum. It has that kind of like functional Victorian architecture. Nice. And what, so you mentioned, the, I mean, this collection has been donated by this military man, and he presumably travelled all over the world in the service of the British Empire, where are these artifacts and these items, and the collection where it is come from. So he has a very interesting history, and a lot of that history connects to the development of weapons. So there is an enormous proportion of the collection at the Bitt-Reverse that is sort of devoted to different kinds of weapons, but that is because he was instrumental in the development of quite a famous and well-known a weapon called the Enfield Rifle, which lots of people will know, and if they have students that play computer games, they will equally know that that's quite a well-known rifle. And obviously central to so many important narratives of colonial history that are difficult narratives to talk about, to teach, and I suppose one of the most important of those is what we would often now call the first war of Indian independence, or some people might call it the uprising of 1857. It would historically have been called the mutiny of 1857. So that weapon is very central to that conflict because of the fact that it had a cartridge that had to be greased with either pork or beef fat. And so some historians would say that it was a catalyst for the conflict in 1857, and obviously Bitt-Reverse central to designing that. Very fascinating. But so I'm curious to talk more about that legacy of Bitt-Reverse, the man and his collection. But why you're here, I mentioned earlier in the introduction, is because we are organizing this international symposium. It's titled "Labeling Matters", and that's actually just really just nicked from your project, and I was wondering could you tell us more about what labeling matters is and what kind of project that is? So labeling matters is a project that really reflects that colonial history of the museum, that we were talking about, because so many of the objects that came into the museum came through that colonial project. So they were brought to the museum by colonial administrators, who were connected to the first curator of the museum called Henry Balfour. So he was the curator between 1885 and 1839. And quite often in his travels when he would collect objects, he would stay with colonial administrators. So for example, in Nigeria, in Ondo Province, I'm going to talk tomorrow about a carving of one of the colonial administrators that's working there that's carved by an unknown, unfortunately, a Eurobacava. And many objects like that found their way into the collection through these kind of colonial networks. And so because there were so many objects that were being displayed that had these connections, it is natural that in a museum, such as the Pit Rivers, we would also want to look for some of the attitudes that came along with the people that gave these objects. And those attitudes are very much reflected in the interpretation or the labels in the museum. And we'll talk tomorrow a little bit about the difference between the label and interpretation and if there is one. But labelling matters really looks at the language, because along with colonial actions, so bringing objects to the museum, we also have colonial attitudes and those attitudes, as I said, very much reflected in the language, in the labels, in the museum. So not just the labels from the late 19th century and early 20th century, but also some of the labels from the later 20th century reflect those attitudes. And we would call those attitudes something called coloniality. So coloniality is that kind of vestige of colonialism that pervaded the 20th century. And that you can still see it still evident in some approaches to museum interpretation today. So yeah, I hope that sort of explains a little bit about the project, but I will outline a bit more. And just to clarify, is it just about the label, or is it also about the content that is on display in some way? Have you made choices in the museum of these particular items? We shouldn't display or we should return? Or is that also a discussion that is happening? Or not really? Yes, no, it is very much a discussion that is happening. And I think it probably, it's connected to how objects and communities are interpreted intrinsically, but it's also an enormous area to think about and consider. So to describe the Pit Rivers Museum, it's an enormous great big room that is packed full of very kind of Victorian-style wooden cases that are kind of up on legs. And these cases have lots and lots of objects within them. And the museum is organized-- most museums are organized geographically or chronologically. The Pit Rivers is organized by type of object. So objects are grouped together by their function or their purpose. And everything in the collection was collected really because it had a purpose. So the Pit Rivers is not necessarily a museum that collects things because of the way they look. Obviously, there are many beautiful things in the museum. But it's about what they do or what they mean to people. And so the-- It's now a bit like sort of like the-- if I were to imagine a quintessential 19th century museum-- It's very much-- it very much does look like that in some ways. But then also, obviously, with the present interventions overlaid over that, is a real questioning of the validity now of some of these labels. And especially, of course, the labels that have language that is derogatory, language that is racist, language that doesn't reflect care of people. And that's one of the core values of the museum now. So rather than foregrounding and sort of promoting above everything else, the care of the objects themselves, the Pit Rivers is very much about also thinking about the care of those communities. And so working with communities and thinking about how those communities want to be represented is a very important facet of how the museum works now. And obviously, that connects very much to the labeling matters project. But I know that you sort of were talking about, like, are we choosing what goes in and what doesn't go in? Well, at the moment, everything is in. So the exception to that for the labeling matters project, in 2020, when some of this interpretation was installed in the museum, actually at the same time, about 200 human remains were removed from display. And that's a really important part of labeling matters, because by taking human remains off display, and particularly what was taken off display was Ecuadorian sancers, or some people would know them as shrunken heads, some naga heads. And also, we took a child's mummy as well off display, and then closed the sarcophagus of the other mummy that's still there, but is on display so that you couldn't see her-- it's a female mummy, her physical body. And there was a real motive of care that connects to the museum's core values in that decision-making process that connects very much to what you just have mentioned about restitution and return. And we can talk a little bit about restitution and return later, but that's returning human remains is something that is incredibly important to the Pit Rivers staff, and something that we are proactive about now. So just to still help our listeners imagine the museum more, when it comes to the labeling, perhaps you could explain or give us an example of an object where you changed how it is now. If you can give us a concrete example, what used to be the label? And how is it now portrayed in the museum? Well, I think that's one of the questions that the project actually asks is, like, how do we change labels? And you can remove a label completely and replace it with something that you feel is better. But then what you're removing is the context. You are removing everything that happened before, as if it never happened. And the labeling matters project also really is more of a critical project to look critically at those labels and to analyse and annotate labels. So for example, we have a label that connects two objects that are used in the use of opium. And that label is critiqued through-- so you have the existing museum label on an interpretation board. And then around the outside of that, you actually have questions about the language that was used in that original museum label and some of the hidden histories that aren't mentioned in that museum label and some of the terminology and phraseology and what that is implying about the history of opium production. So there's nothing written on this label at all from, I think it's the 1990s, about the East India company and the fact that the East India company instead of mass produced and exported opium for the benefit of the UK economy. So that's a label that's purporting to be neutral and inverted commas that actually isn't neutral. And I think that's what the labeling matters project does is it really sort of holds a light up to some of the language and coloniality in the existing museum labels to think about how we can move forward. So it doesn't have all the answers. What it has as a project is all the questions. So in a sense the old labeling becomes part of the new exhibition. Yeah, absolutely, definitely. And for the case studies that I'll outline tomorrow, we'll look at the example I've just mentioned on another example where we take that apart a bit. So you mentioned already a couple of sort of ethnic groups or places in the world. You mentioned Nigeria, your Rubha people. You mentioned Naga and Naga heads and they were recituted. They haven't been recituted. They have been taken off display. So the process to return remains, to connect with communities, to think about the future of those remains is enormously complicated. In this process on thinking on what to do with these items, how do you-- or thoughts did you make around basically involving these communities that are affected by that? So the people whose items are displayed in the museum. So I can talk a little bit about the three case studies. We have the case study of the opium, which I've just mentioned. So the interpretation of the opium case was supported by an artist who works within the area of exploring the history of opium called Roycem. And he is looking at that history and particularly considering the colonial context. Along with the label that I just mentioned, there's also an artwork, a video, or film that Royce has made that is also on display in the museum to kind of overlay that existing interpretation and question it in terms of other communities that were consulted. We have a community connections with objects are in depth and they take a lot of time. They also, if we want to work with communities, require finance, we have to pay communities equitably for their expertise. And so one of the communities that we have worked with and spent a lot of time creating a connection with is a community called the Mass Eye Community. and that community has visited the museum. So, o frad yn cyfan'r сталиgu роfffaęd diwr o mi wnti dda yw'r ôlol eu monos. Buringa yn casu iawn am eraill i wnaethu gyda'r dymeficaeth ratchetio a quitwyntna iawn, cavalrywn diellau ac yn łens leursddoch siwr felly clasad newiderbayt. Elon M. St испondy christ Zhang hit, amw' i ll庵ryllau hynny ddysgolau o hyd yn yw'n cofru cento i hyd yn Leo Ard. Mae'r cyflwynt yn y fwyntna iawn yn cyflwyntna iawn yn cyflwyntna iawn. Mae'r dyrector i'r cyflwyntna iawn i'r cyflwyntna iawn. Mae'r cyflwyntna iawn yn ymlaethau hynny, ac mae'r cyflwyntna iawn yn ymlaethau hynny, ac mae'r cyflwyntna iawn yn ymlaethau hynny, ac mae'r cyflwyntna iawn yn ymlaethau hynny, yn hystryd gyda'r gweithio i'w i'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio. Dwi'n gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio amdyn. Dwi'n gweithio amdyn nhw'n gweithio amdyn nhw'n gweithio i'r gweithio mewn, o'r gweithio amdyn nhw'n gweithio, o'r gweithio amdyn nhw'n gweithio amdyn nhw'n gweithio amdyn nhw'n gweithio amdyn nhw'n gweithio amdyn nhw'n gweithio. Na salute da a mith yn sigEverythinga byddigiofa fowr. Yn ywっwysio'r Jenny Pvyll plasticis, diabwyr undyn fi byddw i ni'n rhwis indi fod o gallu Gwyn echonewd. Hun yn fwyordregu siŵ fullnessolegu werdino hid enw dragged hyn am. Ginga, oh####. It is a singdean. Writhig â y gall yn un,淚 yn ymhefng, айm, o sabdi'n ieddwn ei g Bob Egg錊o 60 neu linh nhw Capt Crofrydd canyss neu odgen. Mae'n ei gwasynu ymwyr ar ymwyr, a gyd ymwyr o'r llyfr sy'n gael fel yna o'r llyfrill. Mae'n gael yna o'r llyfrill. Mae'n ei gael yna o'r llyfrill. Nog gael yna o'r llyfrill. [Mu'n gael]