components of a special collection: a collaboration with the University of Auckland Fine Arts Library.

components of a special collection: a collaboration with the University of Auckland Fine Arts Library.

Projectspace B431, University of Auckland | March 31st to April 9^th, 2011

The exhibition components of a special collection was the result of a survey of the entire collection of artists’ books in the University of Auckland Fine Arts Library. The exhibition was formed from a desire 1/ to make the library’s collection of artists’ books available as a public display and 2/ to identify themes in the collection and open them up to theoretical analysis. Rather than define the collection, the methodology of the project sought to unpack its possibilities. What does the artists’ book collection contain? What is its logic and legacies? What knowledge does it offer regarding local traditions? What are the contextual issues attached to it? And what represents best practice?

Through examining the Special Collection (of artists’ books) various approaches, or components, to the practice of book making were identified, which were used as a curatorial tool to select books for display. Subsequently, by working closely with librarians, these books were presented in Projectspace as a pop up reading room and an extension of the library. The assorted themes identified in the collection also underpinned the logic of the contributions requested, and very generously supplied, to an accompanying publication – which is the first edition of an ongoing accumulation. A discussion (followed by high tea) between the curators and special guests, formatted as a ‘book club’, will analyse and encourage thinking about the multiple functions books may occupy and contribute to in creative practice.

Best Wishes Nora Gee

From the 1940s to the 1970s, housewife Mrs. Nora Gee kept the many of the greeting cards, invitations and telegrams that she was sent from family and friends. Mrs Gee’s personal collection of 837 complete cards was discovered in an antique shop by an Auckland City Library employee and was entered into the library’s Special Collection.

Over three months Taarati Taiaroa and Tracey Williams produced a database from Mrs. Gee’s collection, which was recorded in a catalogue to accompany the show, and gifted in electronic and print format back to Auckland City Libraries . The catalogue, along with wall works and ephemera made in response to the collection and the process of recording it, was presented in an exhibition entitled Best Wishes Nora Gee at Elam School of Fine Arts’ Projectspace B341 from April 22-24, 2010.

While Best Wishes Nora Gee was hinged on a specific narrative, it was intended to be a vehicle for dialogue around Print culture in an expanded field. The exhibition presented strategies for the re-employment of 'small' histories in a contemporary context by assessing methodologies applied to concept, materiality, dispersion and collection of print ephemera. As opposed to definitive summary of what print Is, it facilitated conversation around what it Might Be.

Tracey Williams and Taarati Taiaroa in conversation with Dan Arps

Can you tell me a little bit about Nora Gee? How did you come across her collection?

Nora Gee kept all the cards, invitations and telegrams she (and sometimes relatives) received form the 1940s to the 1970s. We came across Nora’s collection in the ephemera collection of Special Collections at Auckland City Library. We were going through the ephemera collection methodically as a first step in our research, which was a logical starting place as we had mutual interests in the converging themes of print culture and ‘small’ narratives.

So what do you know about her?

I was talking to someone at Elam today and they asked me about who Nora was. I answered that she really was a nobody - not in a value judgment sense but in the sense that she wasn't part of a society-forming grand narrative. Nora was a kind of 'every woman' of her generation in that way. When you talk about the cards to people they transgress into stories about their mothers or aunts or friends who keep similar collections. The only unusual thing about Nora's collection is that it is complete and is held as such by the library. From the cards you learn odd things that you wouldn't normally learn about a person. Like that she sometimes kept cards that she gave to other people; and that she sometimes wrote cards to herself. She had a husband that died and she wrote cards to him after he died. She had no children of her own, but fostered children. She immigrated to New Zealand in the 1940s and that's when the card collection started (with Bon Voyage cards).

When sneakily scourging through someone’s rubbish bin in a systematic way, you start to learn a lot about them. Nora's cards are very much a trail of her personal relationships and life events. Initially starting this project I felt like I was dumpster diving where I shouldn't be - almost grave robbing. At the time there seemed to be a responsibility implied to finding out more about Nora. The librarians’ production of a timeline through the cards and the intense engagement we started to take with the cards on a print value, however, soon calmed this need and exposed more truths about Nora as a character than perhaps a traditional life-heritage search would ever expose.

So what do you see as Nora's values and how have you responded to them?

I am not sure that Nora was interested in the actual printing processes. The value of the cards to her was their ritual function. But the fact they were printed objects allowed them to have that function. That Nora held onto every one of these 'rituals' suggested she wanted to keep them alive for herself. Nora had dated the cards and the library had categorised them according to date and occasion, but what stood out for us were several reoccurring themes in the images and text; and the people who'd given the cards to her. We have reorganised the collection according to those themes: kittens; birds; flowers and ships - and selected some of the text themes like 'greetings' and 'wishes'. We have also 'extracted' examples of these themes and hand printed them as one-offs, or reconfigured elements in small editions, attempting to ascribe importance and material value by inverting the notion of mass production.

You say that Nora’s cards present a value for print culture that you haven’t found elsewhere, what do you think that value is? Is there a sense of nostalgia or sentimentality?

The 'value' has two general levels. One is that the collection contains a selection of examples of the different printing processes, inks and papers that were in use during the period she kept her collection - as well as design formats. Then there is the 'value' of the portrayal of someone's life and what mattered to them through such a comprehensive collection.

Perhaps you could describe some interesting examples of design aesthetics, print processes, or types of imagery that you have found in the collection?

It's fascinating what becomes interesting to you when you have thoroughly looked at 837 cards belonging to an individual person. One of the things that was apparent was that earlier cards had much more attention paid to their design and printing methods. For example single cards often had an overall design that connected the inside and outside, and included both foil printing and embossing. Others had silk inlays, or glitter effects, or were die cut, or had pop-out features. Even some of the simple cards – like those that were essentially a sheet of paper quarter folded – had been thoughtfully designed as an overall effect and included some of the embellishments mentioned. Later cards were generic and although the printing was slick, less attention was paid to detail and the 'personalisation' of the cards. This indicated to me that cards a generation or two ago had much more of a meaningful ritual function than they do today. Cards in the early 21st century are highly finished and mass produced and appear to have a throw-away commodity function; a reflection perhaps of societal values in general on both counts.

So what do Nora's cards tell us about print culture, or New Zealand
culture more generally at this time?

New Zealand print has a brief history as an imported tradition of European explorers, missionaries, local private presses and governance structures.
Originally an agent for organisation, record keeping, education, community, documentary, propaganda and the dispersion of information; print became more popular as a means of personal expression after 1900. Printmaking has been considered in recent years as unfashionable, stuffed in tradition and un-critical. Because we have such a short tradition in print there hasn’t been much research done in order to critically respond to it on a local level. It’s important to ask whether the baggage associated with printmaking should be left in the dungeons of Europe, in order to allow the re-assessment of what printmaking is and can be in a New Zealand context.

I’m interested that your discussion of print media encompasses both traditional fine-art printmaking and commercial or mass produced printed matter, greeting cards and the like. Do you think that the renewed interest in print comes from the convergence of these forms made possible through digital printing and the like? Does technology shift your perspective in this way?

The distinction between fine-art printmaking and commercial or mass produced media is a rather recent development. In fact historically these are no such distinctions. 'Traditional fine art printing' was an adaptation by artists of the tradition of printing itself, which is a continuum of the print revolution brought about by the Gutenberg Press around 1439 (although printing technology existed before this, woodblock printing being used for centuries by the Chinese in particular). This was the beginning of mass production of knowledge (through printing) and consequently its democratisation (hence the revolution). Print split along different lines from this point: broadly one associated with text, literature, the book and design; and another with visual arts and design. The lines converge in the fields of design and cultural studies. In many ways the way we are looking at print is in its most traditional form by collapsing the distinctions between fine art and mass production. Digital technology is another step on the printing technology continuum, which paradoxically is heading to non-printed forms. Personally, I find it interesting that artists first became interested in print mediums because of its democracy (that of mass-production) and now artists are turning to traditional methods as a kind of revolt against mass-production - which has kind of eaten itself.

The average card size in Nora’s collection was 15.3 by 10.8 cm, and contrary to presumptions (toward apparently ‘generic’ artifacts), rarely was the same phrase or image repeated.

Looking at the collection for so many months was rather myopic. Sometimes we digressed into card ‘madness’; sometimes we rephrased linked message themes; and with that, we would like to wish you a wish with best wishes for kind thoughts and every good wish.


Best Wishes Nora Gee
projectspace B431
22-24 April 2010

Assessing the boundaries of printmaking as a medium and methodology, through an expanded conversation of New Zealand print histories

On Saturday 24 April at 2pm, Elam School of Fine Arts hosted a discussion on Assessing the boundaries of printmaking as a medium and methodology, through an expanded conversation of New Zealand print histories.

This discussion was held in conclusion to the Best Wishes Nora Gee exhibition held at projectspace B431.
with a fantastic attendance - the discussion proved productive on many levels. A transcript and podcast of this discussion will be posted soon.

Panellists include: Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Ngapuhi/Te Aupouri/Ngati Kuri), Peter Simpson, Jonty Valentine, Steve Lovett, Tracey Williams and Taarati Taiaroa. With Fiona Jack (Chair).

Fiona Jack (Chair) is an artist and Elam lecturer. She graduated with an MFA from CalArts in Los Angeles in 2005 and has since exhibited in England, Chile, Australia, USA and New Zealand. Through her practice she investigates the conceptual, geographical and political definitions of shared space.

Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Ngapuhi/Te Aupouri/Ngati Kuri) is Head of School at Elam School of Fine Arts. He formerly worked as Director of Art and Collection Services at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Mane-Wheoki is an art historian, architectural historian and a cultural historian, who has produced professional work encompassing many disciplines. He is regarded as a pioneer for the development of contemporary Maori and Pacific art and art history.

Peter Simpson is Director of The Holloway Press at The University of Auckland. He is a curator, editor and prolific writer whose articles have appeared in numerous publications. His books include: Ronald Hugh Morrieson (Oxford University Press Australia, 1982) and Colin McCahon: The Titirangi Years 1953-59 (Auckland University Press, 2007).

Taarati Taiaroa is studying towards an MFA at Elam. Her research focuses on using the archive as a drawing methodology.

Steve Lovett is a visual arts practitioner and art educator with considerable and broad print-based knowledge. He has an extensive exhibition record both national and international and in 2006 was awarded the Graphic Arts Award at the XIX Ibiza Biennale, Ibiza, Spain.

Jonty Valentine works as a graphic designer, a lecturer and sometimes a writer and curator. He received an MFA in graphic design from Yale University in 2002, a BFA from the University of Canterbury (NZ) in 1993. He is co-editor of the graphic design journal The National Grid.

Tracey Williams is an artist and a tutor at Elam School of Fine Arts; with research interests in print culture, and local history and narratives. She has a BA from Otago, a Dip. Fine and Applied Arts from London Guildhall University and an MFA(Hons) from Elam.

Cicada Press

http://www.cofa.unsw.edu.au/research/groups/cicada/

Cicada Press is a research group of the University of New South Wales operating at the College of Fine Arts. It was set up by its Director Michael Kempson to: "foster research projects that facilitate a diverse contemporary dialogue and promote the broad methodological potential of printmaking practice". The press is a custom printing model with an educational focus, and an emphasis on open dialogue and relationships with the wider artistic community. The aims of the Cicada Press stated on its website are:
- To support practical research into autographic, photographic and digital printmaking processes. - To mediate in the production of fine art prints created by artists, collaborative teams and indigenous communities invited to work within COFA Custom Printing undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
- To foster relationships through printmaking related projects between COFA UNSW and university art schools internationally.
- To provide educational leadership as a centre of excellence in custom printmaking practice.
- To develop a local, regional and international dialogue through print exchange exhibitions that reflect current research outcomes.

A short history of the Elam Fine Arts Printing Research Unit

In 1986 John B. Turner and Robin Lush made an application the Auckland University Grants Committee for a single colour offset press to supplement and update an old letterpress machine used by Elam School of Fine Arts. This application was successful and in 1988 the Elam Fine Arts Printing Research Unit became operational with Turner as its director and Lush as its printing manager. The unit was overseen by a committee comprised of: B. de Thier, E. Eastmond, J. Fairclough, G. Intra, G. Keefe, R. Lush, H. Macdonald, Prof. R. Riddell (Chairperson), Prof. J.D. Saunders, C. Shepheard, J.B. Turner and R. Wolfe. The unit had backing from top suppliers of paper and consumables, and industry leaders in the field of electronic scanning, page makeup, and platemaking.

The EFAPRU was visionary in its aims, based in culture rather than commerce - positioning itself as a “centre of excellence for innovative printing and publishing” distinct from, but complementing, other university-affiliated printing and publishing bodies. The unit was a laboratory for fine printing, research, teaching, publishing, and the promotion of fine arts. It generated collaborative projects with other university departments; and it also established ties with the printing trade, New Zealand's fourth largest industry. Its overarching purpose, as outlined by Turner in the Management and Business Plan for the EFAPRU, was to advance creative research as a contribution to New Zealand art education. The roles of the unit were stated as:
1. To promote research in the use of high quality offset and letterpress printing as a means of communication and artistic expression.
2. To celebrate and promote exemplary art and design from Elam students and staff, past and present, through a variety of publications, aiming, above all, to honour the integrity of the art works through the production of fine printing and binding.
3. To generally promote the furtherance (sic) of art and design education in Aotearoa/New Zealand by making available the expertise and resources of the School of Fine Arts, the University of Auckland, visiting artists and craftspersons.
4. To encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration with artists generally promote a high level of debate between art practitioners, historians, theorists, students, and the general public, on art matters.

The EFAPRU made high-quality short runs of work (including catalogues, posters and books) mainly by staff and students at Elam School of Fine Arts. In promoting this work on a cost-recovery basis the unit was able to place art in the public domain that would not normally be seen – for example work by emerging artists, experimental work, research-based work and other non-commercial artefacts. This gave a profile to ‘new’ creative projects and at the same time contributed to the development of an expanded, informed audience.

The unit also provided an important educational role within the School of Fine Arts. It offered workshops, seminars and lectures on print production, publishing and marketing to students at various levels.2 Meanwhile, there was an informal teaching and learning quotient in assisting students and staff with specific projects. Through the unit it was also possible to integrate the teaching of offset printing, platemaking, bookbinding, paper manufacture and other related aspects of print production – in relation to typography, design, photography, expressive printmaking, computer graphics and page makeup. Furthermore, artists and teachers were attracted by the unit from overseas to work on special printing and/or publishing projects at the Unit - on the basis of them reciprocating by giving lectures, seminars or workshops.3

Having established a modus-operandi, the EFAPRU set its sights on a future role. This it saw being fulfilled with the continuation of the cross-disciplinary work it was already doing within fine arts at the university along with several other initiatives bound up in different motivations including:

- Supplying secondary and tertiary education institutes with short run reproductions of contemporary and historical New Zealand art works, limited edition artist's books, catalogues, monographs, handbooks, calendars and portfolios about local art and artists;
- collaborating with public art galleries and museums, the private gallery sector, and corporate collectors on special projects;
- the publication of the ‘best of’ research papers and essays generated by staff and students at Elam;
- the production of ‘unusual value-added’ graphic design products such as calendars, greetings cards, wrapping papers, cinderella stamps and other niche stationery items;
- the production of ‘keepsakes’ for commemoration of special university occasions;
- a research and development role to the printing industry;
- hands-on industry experience for emerging artists;
- providing an interface for collaborations with other departments, such as Architecture, Art History, English and Maori Studies.

In the business plan for the EFAPRU, Turner summed up its potential as: …“the work of the Printing Research Unit is synonymous with the promotion of both the Elam School of Fine Arts and art education generally. From a public relations viewpoint, the Unit's work helps our School to better compete for students, staff, and resources, while helping to improve the eventual employment and success of our graduates in society”.

However, the EFAPRU was disestablished in 1994 for ‘financial reasons’, although the annual report for the previous year showed it was not losing money; and included detailed plans for expansion and a profile of its potential market, which incorporated libraries, schools, art-dealers, art galleries and museums, corporates, universities, the printing industry, and the general public.






2 . Examples include the `Offset 1988' project; four Cinderella stamp projects; a business card design project (1991), and a concertina book project (1992).
3 . The first reciprocal collaboration of this kind was with New Zealand artists Mary-Louise Browne and Ruth Watson, on the Vulgate Project in 1992, when Watson gave a "free" lecture at the School.

Resources

Below are some highly recommended results from my recent internet trawling for print theory:

Cornwell, Graeme's The TECHNO-FETISH in printmaking
A conference paper from Australian Print Symposium: 1992



WORKING STATES

‘What is Working States?

Working States is an online publication program of Philagrafika designed to facilitate an international exchange of ideas and encourage new critical theory on the field of printmaking in what has become a growing cross discipline practice in contemporary art.’

Working States is sectioned into the following:
Part I – Critical Theory:
Theoretical considerations of the field of printmaking, including its effects on visual culture, its place within the artworld, its education, its value, etc.
Part II – Reviews:
Reviews of individual artists, exhibits, galleries, museums, and shows.
Part III – Primary Sources:
Speeches, Interviews, Statements, etc.
Part IV: Exhibit and Museum Catalogues and Notices:
Part V: Historical Scholarly Writings, Biographies, etc.:
Essays resulting from research within the field, retrospectives on the history of prints and printmaking, art histori cal texts, and artist biographies.
Part VI – Additional Resources:
Print Workshops, Studios, Websites, Bibliographies etc.: Other online print-related bibliographies
Part VII – Further Reading:

Hugh Merill on print's possibilities (in a visual arts context)

In a 1991 paper called Educating the Next Generation of Printmakers, Hugh Merrill wrote: "Print is not an object, a technique, or a category, but it is a theoretical language of evolving ideas. The territory printmaking occupies is broad ranging and diverse"..."These possibilities include print functioning as fluxus, new genre, and altered photographic communication. It offers dialogue through offset and copier booklets, posters, pamphlets and underground newspapers. It reaches out to discover a new audience by using mail art devices. It functions on a collaborative level, giving a political voice to artist co-ops. Images produced in the creative collaboration between master printer and the artist have become some of the most effective work in contemporary art. Print is the intense introspection of the individual etcher, lithographer, silkscreen or relief print artist. These efforts have developed into a unique aesthetic approach to the issues which make up contemporary visual thought. Print is the images of popular culture, signage, commercial reproduction, and computer imaging. It is both two and three dimensional. Print includes forms devised as multiples, installations and performance. It is drawing, cartoons and illustration. It is private, spiritual and public representation. It is both unique impression, monotypes, as well as limited editions. Print is text, books, information and documentation. Each method of expression cited functions in a unique and vital way involving a series of evolving ideas as well as lineage which is rooted in history."

Merill concluded his paper with the sentence: "It is never a matter of separating the conceptual from the physical but learning to allow both to have their place in the creative process."

http://www.hughmerrill.com/writing/nextgen.html (accessed 25 February, 2010)

Hugh Merill is an American artist who has devoted his career to printmaking, community arts projects and education. His postgraduate study brought him into contact with John Cage, Alex Katz and Robert Motherwell – among others – who influenced his thinking and work. In the 1970s he worked on etchings he called real-estatescapes, which referred to the dominance of urbanisation over nature. In the 1990s Merill resolved to make work that had a direct social impact, following a period of studying the writings of Lucy Lippard, Suzanne Lacy and Suzi Gablic; and a consequent trip to Krakow and Auschwitz from which he produced a series of photographs and drawings. In 1996 he worked as a visiting artist with the Christian Boltanski exhibition, So Far, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. This resulted in a collaborative tabloid insert for the Sunday Kansas City Star; and an arts and educational archive called Portrait of Self, which he has used as a prototype for community arts projects around the world. In 2005 Merill produced, through invitation, a community action project called Pools of Belief for the Impact conference in Germany and Poland.

Merill has taught at taught at Wheaton College (in Massachusetts) and Kansas City Arts Institute. He has spoken at numerous conferences; been awarded several grants; and his work is held in major art institutions including the Museum of Modern Art.

Elizabeth Eisenstein: from scribal scarcity to the disruptive text

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3799597271637295000#

Print Culture and Elizabeth Eisenstein

American Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein is a leading theorist in the field of print culture and history. She is best known for her seminal text: The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge University Press, 1980). This is a two-volume, 750-page exploration of the social and political effects (focused on Western Europe) that followed the institution of Johannes Gutenberg’s (1398 – 1468) moveable type printing press around 1450. She outlines the printing press's functions of dissemination, standardisation, and preservation and the way these functions aided the progress of the Protestant Reformation, the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution. She names the democratisation of knowledge that occurred after the invention of moveable type as the ‘unacknowledged revolution’.

The Printing Press as an Agent of Change is still inspiring conversation, debate and research in the area of print culture today.

http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4225

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/maack/Documents/Chronological_20Bio-bibliography_20of_20Elizabeth_20Eisenstein.pdf

In his online journal, Economist J. Bradford DeLong has reviewed Eisenstein’s work The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 1983) which outlines the social impact of the reduction in the cost of books brought about by Gutenberg’s invention.

DeLong summarises Eisenstein’s case for four important consequences of this cost reduction:

1. The fifteenth-century Renaissance did not peter out, as had previous episodes of "classical revival," but acquired a capital letter; never again was European culture to lose contact with the intellectual world of the Roman Empire.

2. The Reformation: without printing, Luther's and Calvin's heresies would have been unable to spread nearly as rapidly or widely, and would have been suppressed as effectively as previous heresies had been.

3. Modern science is unthinkable without the density of information exchange made possible by printing. Is it a coincidence that Copernicus follows Gutenberg by less than a century?

4. The creation--around networks of printers and authors--of a "Cosmopolitan" and tolerant outlook. Liberalism has an elective affinity with printers' workshops.

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Econ_Articles/reviews/reviewtheprintingrevolutio.html

The Ephemera Collection

The very act of conceiving, designing, producing and distributing a printed object ascribes it value and meaning. So the question is: how to unpack what these values and meanings are, and how they interconnect with larger histories, or not? Each artefact must be considered against what is known of its larger cultural context(s) and the history of print culture in general – both globally and locally. For example, ephemera, through the Auckland Central City Library collection, tells us something of the unheralded interests and aspects of daily life; but the collection also retains residue of larger narratives and value systems.

The items of ephemera are not containers of ‘little narratives’ per se, but evidence of them. Accordingly, it is not simply artefacts of themselves that are of interest - so too are personal accounts of how specific items were selected and accumulated; and their production and expedition into the library collection.

Furthermore, the collection is not complete. It contains a slice of all possible material produced at each time frame. Therefore it is not a comprehensive or exclusive representation of Ephemera, assigning a quality of ephemerality to the collection itself. The very notion: collection of ephemera, or, ephemera collection; therefore presents a paradox.

Having noted the above, and being aware of pre-existing hierarchies of cultural information and artefacts, there are observations that can be made regarding particular aspects of the collection that may offer clues to unknown and/or alternative New Zealand histories; as well as a consideration of the function and development of print culture (and design) in relationship to those histories and society in general.

The renewing system

Looking through the postal services folder was most interesting when i came across a series
of postal charges booklets (price lists). They were interesting in considering how the
constant updating of price lead to new editions and design. These objects reinforce
ideas of type in New Zealand Print History as an agent for order, categorization and
administration. Typefaces live forever if they are continued to be used - their system
(the alphabet) will never be outdated. However, the postal pricing list as a document
will change - its is ephemeral. Like the typeface, the postal pricing list is an agent for
order, categorization and administration, but it needs to be ephemeral to maintain
function, system and relevance. Ideas of time, scale and consumption are brought into play. They function as an unprecious
utilitarian object. This system of renewal highlights a nature of ephemera. And raises
questions as to the possible scales of time for objects, hourly, daily, weekly, yearly that could be employed in re-assessing ephemera in a contemporary context.

Grave Robbing Histories

There are two main lines of interest for the content of ephemeral objects; their print values and personal narrative. When looking through the Ephemera collection it became unsettling to consider the personal nature of the histories being uncovered while contemplating the use of them in our research; much like sneakily scourging through someone’s rubbish bin. Although the majority is massed produced and many are collective documents such as concert or circus programmes, there are very personal items such as letters, bills, cards, invitations, certificates that have been collected in preference to an endless amount of other printed culture because of value placed upon by there original owner and then subsequently institutions.

The collected ephemeral is an object of many ideas. It is an entangled object, where by its complex story involves a dense weave of characters, ghosts, and events that is almost impossible to unravel.

The Collection of ephemera from within the lifetime of the collector is a mnemonic interest. It represents a struggle to maintain memories charging the object with the responsibility of their safekeeping. The memories held with in or locked out by the object are connected directly to identity on multiple scales.

‘

Objects as mnemonics are a complex business intertwined with past experiences, current
constructions and orientations towards future aspirations.’[1]

The collection of ephemera from a history that is not your own is an exercise of “Possessive
individualism”. [The individual surrounded by accumulated property and goods resulting in the
making of the cultural self.[2]] Collections have hierarchy of value to make the “good”
collection. Whincup describes the ‘object as a symbol’ as ‘an agent of cultural
construction…exemplifies past and present.’ he continues to discuss how symbols are
inherent parts of a structure that people exist in and read. ‘The inability to recognize the value
of these constructions place people in other social spaces.’[3]

Arbitrary systems form value and meaning, change historically and socially. The Value of an
object before it enters an institution is personal, and often only rational to the individual. Once
with in the system the object transforms to a specimen of linear history for those visitors that
‘don’t know any better’. Conflicting notions of “ownership” occur when the history of the object
is blurred between personal and collective.

C.M. Hann in, Property relations: Renewing the anthropological tradition describes:

Property, [as] not a thing, but a network of social relations that govern the
conduct of people with respect to the use and disposition of things.[4]

The inability for parties to recognize the values of others results in a lack of judgment to the correct use, nature and respect of the other’s right to ‘property’, and leads to cross-cultural plundering on both sides. This can result in a fear of engagement that produces a psychological sense of taboo through time lost discussion.

I don’t want to enforce a subject of Taboo, but I think it is wise to note the difficulty of representing the concerns of both the individual and collective. These concerns of an inability to critically engage with and honor collective print and personal histories of these objects reminded me of Luke Wood’s essay Trespassers Will be Prosecuted: A B-Grade Horror in
Four Parts, where he discusses the life of his display face McCahon. He describes how wrongful employment of McCahon display face in the McCahon Retrospective at Wellington City Art Gallery by Saatchi and Saatchi produced a freak show [5]– dishonoring the original content of McCahon’s paintings and the histories of the artist’s script that his display face was
based upon.

Wood notes that a corpse can never be re animated ‘whole’ or perfectly as-it was. Reanimation is “an approximation” and should be carefully re-introduced back into culture. McCahon’s use of use of ‘lofty, poetic, and often biblical texts’ and; his formal points of reference… from comic books, advertising, and signage,’[6]allowed Wood to make a decision to allow the use of the display face by Charlies Orange Juice. The decision was keeping in honor of the aesthetic origin of McCahon’s script in roadside hand written fruit stall signage.

The book Joseph Churchward by David Bennewith is a example of honoring histories in a critical manner. A published collection of the life work of a some what disparate figure in New Zealand history at the time, Bennewith started his project with the goal of answering personal curiosities such as; Was Churchward still working? Was he in New Zealand – and if so,
where? What would provoke this man to join a boffin-like fraternity of type designers?

The following pages are an unraveling of a history as it comes to light of Churchward’s, personal and commercial life through the representation of ephemeral documents. Content is honored in attention to display, reproduction and materiality. Bennewith exposes his own research process in admitting letters, interviews, and a fluent personal writing style that avoids a cold historical analysis of Churchward. In considering these two texts it seems grave robbing only occurs when the grave is a shrine of the fanatic mass that have no regard for personal histories. The dishonoring of content and history of the display face McCahon is a practice found often in ethnographic surveys of artifacts in museums. The relatively unknown (like Churchward) is honored in recognition before giving the possibility of being robbed.

References:
[1] Whincup Tony. Imagining the Intangible in Picturing the Social Landscape: Visual
methods and the Sociological Imagination, (2004) pp.81
[2]Clifford James, On Collecting Art and Culture, in The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Litrature, and Art, (1988) pp.217
[3]ibid.
[4]Hann C.M. Ed. Property relations: Renewing the anthropological tradition, (1998) pp.4
[5]Wood Luke, Trespassers Will be Prosecuted: A B-Grade Horror in Four Parts in Printing Types: New Zealand Type Design Since 1870, edited by Jonty Valentine, (2009) pp.51
[6]ibid pp.50