Melanesia project
Melanesian art: objects, narratives and indigenous owners
Project leader: Lissant
Bolton
Department: Africa, Oceania and
the Americas
Project start: 2005
End date: 2010
Other British Museum staff: Julie Adams, Dr Liz
Bonshek, Postdoctoral Fellow, Melanesia Project, the British Museum
and Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths College, University of
London.
External partners:
Goldsmiths College, University of London
Dr Chris Wright, Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University
of London, www.goldsmiths.ac.uk
Professor
Nicholas Thomas, Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge, http://museum.archanth.cam.ac.uk/
Dr. Rebecca Jewell. Artist in Residence for the Melanesia
Project
Project funded by:
Arts
and Humanities Research Council, London
Additional funding:
Leverhulme Trust
Commonwealth Foundation
Commonwealth Broadcasting Association
Description:
The Melanesia Project explores the
relationships between a wide range of indigenous art and artefact
forms, 
socially-significant
narratives, and the indigenous communities from which historic
collections of Melanesian art derive. Focusing on the important but
largely unstudied Melanesian collections in the British Museum,
this project aims to bring new perspectives to both the study of
indigenous art, and the understanding of ownership, heritage, and
relations between museums and communities.
The project will assess approaches to art in
anthropology, aiming to move beyond the current stand-off between
meaning-oriented perspectives, and those building on Gell’s theory
of ‘art as agency’, while acknowledging the continuing usefulness
of both these paradigms. It will explore the scope for considering
art objects as visualizations of social relations and processes,
and as enactments of personal, social or historical narratives.
Through extensive consultation with
traditional owners, the project will also document and interpret
the range and variety of contemporary investments in historic
collections.
Indigenous individuals’ and communities’
perspectives will not only be acknowledged and foregrounded in our
publications and other outputs, but will be a major focus for
inquiry and reflection; the project’s findings will be disseminated
in part through radio programmes and other media designed to reach
those source communities in the Pacific.
The Melanesia Project is a joint initiative of
Goldsmiths College, University of London and The British Museum
funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council,
2005-2010
Objectives:
Contributing to a significant new
understanding of Melanesian collections, primarily but not
exclusively those in the British Museum, research will focus on
three interrelated themes:
Objects: to study the British
Museum's Melanesian collections, providing new provenances, new
contextual information drawn from archival work as well as recent
ethnography, insights into technical and stylistic aspects, and
collection histories.
Narratives: to contextualize
the collections by analysing the relatio
nship between objects
and personal, historical and political narratives, illuminating
their varied and changing significance and meanings for indigenous
individuals and communities, past and present.
Indigenous owners: to
explore the dialogues between museums and indigenous individuals
and communities around the past and present significances of
historic Melanesian collections, to generate more sophisticated
understandings of what such dialogues and collaborations involve,
establishing bases for future work, specifically around upcoming
exhibitions.
Practically, the work will
proceed through three main phases:
Technical and stylistic
analyses of the collections in the British Museum, and
documentation of collection histories. Compilation of pictorial
resources and archive extracts. Identification of field sites and
indigenous partners for consultation.
Fieldwork in Melanesia
followed by the visit of indigenous individuals to the British
Museum's collections. Synthesis and analysis of data.
Dissemination of research
findings through scholarly publications, and major exhibitions in
London. Preparation of public radio programmes and short
educational films.
More information:
Images (from top):
- Painted wooden shield
with shell inlay from the Central Solomon Islands, collected before
1860 (BM Oc 8016)
- Kenneth Roga, from the
Western Solomons, and Ben Burt recording information about
ornaments in the British Museum collection
- Salome Samou from Santa Cruz Islands
inspects a piece of fabric worked on a hand loom from her home
island. The fabric is unfinished, and the piece demonstrates the
working of the loom
Supported by
