National Museums Liverpool Blog - world cultures

This May sees a new exhibition, 'Telling Tales: the art of Indian Storytelling', opening at World Museum, Liverpool. The exhibition will run from 24 May until 8 September 2013 and will feature artwork and scrolls by Indian artists who draw on both traditional Indian tales and contemporary issues in their art. Objects from NML’s own Indian collection will be displayed alongside the scrolls making for an interesting dialogue between old and new. The exhibition will also include a life size series of projections of Elena Catalano performing traditional Indian dancing.

I was lucky enough to go along to Toxteth TV last week to watch Elena being filmed for the projection by our exhibitions team. Elena was filmed on ‘greenscreen’ so she alone can be picked out and projected straight on to the walls of the exhibition.

Watching Elena put the finishing touches to her costume was fascinating. Particular emphasis is placed on the feet, the edges of which were painted red; Elena then wrapped bells around her ankles. This complemented the dance, where each movement and step travelled down to a flat, turned out foot. 

Not only was the skill of the dancing mesmerising but also Elena’s ability to tell a story with her facial expression. This will fit wonderfully with the exhibition’s theme which proves that storytelling isn’t all about the written word!

Jacob Cook, as part of his work experience at NML, visits World Museum and reports on what he saw:

______________________________________________________

Today I revisited the World Museum in Liverpool for the first time in a while. I got there just after opening time expecting an empty museum, however that was not the case, the place was filled with junior school classes who must have been on their end of year trip.

These pupils seemed to enjoy every minute of the experience. They were excited, very curious about the exhibits and left no stone unturned (there are actual prehistoric stones that are available to handle) whilst dragging their teachers from one floor to the other. I thought it was great that their age group (8-11) are still as into the museum as me and my class were at that age.

One exhibit that I enjoyed was the Egyptian gallery, it’s not quite what I remembered but it’s just as (if not more) enjoyable. The well crafted design of the room was filled with everything from descriptions of the mythology of the time to mummified corpses. Once I left this area I was shocked at how long I spent inside. Another highlight was the Bug House. Not only was there giant insect models strategically placed in the design (including a giant spider which had one kid genuinely scared) but an abundance of specimens to get an up close look at (living or dead).
 
When it comes to this particular museum it’s difficult to pick a favourite aspect. It all comes together to create an experience, whether it’s the dinosaurs and the natural world, the ancient world or current world cultures, space and time, no matter how many visits it never bores. I’m sure they will be putting on new exhibits soon but even if you can’t make them or you miss them, I highly recommend the old exhibits; they got them right the first time.
 

Did you know that we have quite a few regal objects at World Museum? We started thinking about our royalty-related artefacts this week in the run up to the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and we thought we'd share a couple of them with you.

Both these carvings are on display in the World Cultures gallery in the World Museum, so why not come along and see them this weekend as an alternative to all that bunting!

Here's our Curator of African Collections, Zachary Kingdon to tell us more about them...

---

Jubilees may be occasions for celebration but they also invite reflection, so I have chosen to reflect on two carved wooden portrait figures of Queen Victoria from Nigeria in the World Museum's African collection. At least twelve other similar figures can be found at other museums in Europe and America. I've been tracking them down over the last few months and I plan to publish something about them soon. 

The figures would probably have been copied from photographs of Victoria distributed at the time of her Golden or Diamond Jubilees, which she celebrated in 1887 and 1897. 

British colonial officers in West Africa during the late nineteenth century spared no effort to promote the idea of a benevolent British monarch. They made sure that images of Queen Victoria were displayed at her birthdays and jubilees, which were celebrated with public holidays, parades and festivals. 

Under certain colonial administrators this led to the invention of a sort of 'cult' in which the British monarch was represented as an almost divine being. Such inventions were necessary in order to try and justify British rule through a shared ideology of Empire.  

The first of these figures (top left) was donated to the museum in 1908 by Mrs W. E. Johnson, a Sierra Leonean Krio trader in Gambia. She had acquired it from the Yoruba town of Abeokuta in Nigeria, where she would have had commercial and family connections. 

A great many Sierra Leonean Krio were descended from captive Yoruba who had been released at Freetown in the nineteenth century off illegal slave ships intercepted by British naval cruisers after abolition of the slave trade in 1807. After being educated by missionaries in Sierra Leone, some of them chose to return to their homeland, where they kept up their new-found Christian identity, wore European clothes and formed a prominent community in Abeokuta with their churches, schools and other institutions. 

Unlike other West Africans, many Krio did not view the British

Queen as their conqueror. In fact her popular name in Freetown was We Mammy, ‘Our Mother’. Given Mrs. Johnson’s background, I can understand why she might have had a figure of Queen Victoria carved for her in Abeokuta to show her loyalty and ‘civilized’ identity as a Krio. 

But I find it curious that no similar portrait figures of King Edward VII, who succeeded Queen Victoria in 1901, can be found in museum collections? Perhaps that’s because Queen Victoria portrait figures like these were mainly owned by elite women like Mrs Johnson who gave them further, more personal, meanings. 

Did you know that almost eighty Africans are known to have donated more than 500 objects to World Museum. Their donations helped to create one of the most important historical collections of African cultural artefacts in Britain.

A new display at World Museum shows photographic portraits of some of the West Africans who made donations to the museum between 1897 and 1916.

Most of them were taken by West African photographers. All the donors were friends or contacts of Arnold Ridyard, the steamship engineer who transported their gifts to Liverpool.

Ridyard was a prolific collector himself. He brought an astonishing total of 6,450 artefacts and natural history ‘specimens’ to the museum in Liverpool while serving as Chief Engineer with Elder Dempster & Company’s West African shipping service.

Little is known about some of Ridyard’s West African friends and collaborators so Zachary Kingdon, Curator of African Collections at World Museum, is helping to uncover their forgotten stories through his current research.

The picture below is of Nii Kojo Ababio IV, (formerly Amoako Atta) (1873 - 1938). Kojo Ababio IV was Mantse, or ‘king’, of the Alata Quarter of Accra’s James Town in the Gold Coast (now Ghana). He was an important figure in Accra’s politics during the colonial period. He donated ten Ga artefacts to the museum, four of which are on display in the World Cultures gallery in the museum on the third floor.

Photographer: J.K. Bruce-Vanderpuije, Accra c.1935. Permission: Isaac Bruce-Vanderpuije.

Are you an adult on a part-time art course or a member of a community art group? We are inviting you to put your creative talents to the test and create a piece of artwork inspired by the collections at Sudley House, World Museum and the Lady Lever Art Gallery.

Perhaps you could take inspiration from the internationally renowned Pre-Raphaelite collection at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, or the only art collection of a Victorian merchant in its original domestic setting at Sudley House, or maybe from objects in World Museum’s World Cultures gallery.

A panel of curators, educators and artists will judge. Winning artists and groups will see their work hung in an exhibition at World Museum and receive prizes. The closing date is 1 August 2011, and winners will be announced by the end of September.

For further information, to book a session, or to download your entry form, please go to: www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/inspiredby or contact Kenn Taylor on 0151 478 4977.

We've just got some news that a mysterious visitor will soon be arriving at World Museum! Here's our Curator of Oceanic Collections, Lynne Heidi Stumpe, to tell us about him...

---

An interesting new visitor is arriving at World Museum this evening. Moai Hava is just over five feet high, weighs about two and a half tons and is a little bit rough around the edges. He comes originally from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) but has been staying at the British Museum in London for the last 142 years, along with a larger friend called Hoa Hakananai’a.

All Rapa Nui statues have individual names: ‘moai’ means ‘statue’ or ‘image’ in the Rapanui language and ‘hava’ best translates as ‘to be lost’. Moai Hava is quite a mysterious character. Most moai were carved from volcanic tuff, a relatively soft rock, have a distinctive style and were made to commemorate ancestral chiefs. Moai Hava, however, is one of the few moai made from basalt, a much harder rock and is in a slightly different style. We don’t know exactly why he was made.

We’re really excited to see him, as there are only two of these Rapa Nui statues in the UK and Moai Hava isn’t usually on display. Luckily he’ll be here for a while (at least a year and probably three) and you can meet him in the World Museum atrium from Tuesday 17 May 2011.

My final week of research has brought me to Gangtok, the state capital of Sikkim. Its a marked contrast to Kalimpong, here you are closer to the mountains, despite being in almost tropical jungle. The town is perched on a wooded valley hillside and looks out over rice paddies, that are just being harvested, and two important monasteries, Rumtek and Lingdum. Sikkim is wealthy in comparison to other hill states in India and the place has the feel of an English spa town. My work here will centre on the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology and the State Archive and already the work is going well. Everything stopped for a couple of days as Diwali was celebrated across India.  The Festival of Lights is a time of pujas to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and also a good excuse for families to get together and set off fireworks. These could be seen and heard across the town and for those wanting an early night’s sleep, a very decent pair of earplugs was essential.

Following the mad panic that always ensues at the end of a bout of archive fever, I managed to complete a good chunk of my research in the Delhi archives and have now moved up to the Northeast of India and to the mountains of West Bengal and Sikkim.

The work here is a little different in that I’m now trying to find the descendants of some of the men I have been reading about in the archives and also get a feel for the area Charles Bell worked in. My first stop was Darjeeling, where I spent a couple of days visiting places where Bell and the 13th Dalai Lama had stayed and visiting a photography studio that had a number of interesting historical photograph taken at the time Bell was there. The area is surrounded and dominated by the Khangchendzonga range, this is the third highest mountain in the world and as the temperatures have dipped for winter, there is a good covering of snow on the mountain tops. This is the perfect time of year to visit as the day are warm, and the views, as you can see, are very clear out to the mountains. 

I then moved on to Kalimpong, a rough and ready, trading town on the frontiers between India and Tibet, it was here that long caravans of mules (and their muleteers) carrying loads of Tibetan wool came to after weeks spent crossing the dangerous passes over the Himalayas.  I’ve had great success in Kalimpong, where descendants of some of the town’s old families have put me in touch with the families of the men I hoped to trace. Kalimpong has been so productive and welcoming that I intend to make a detour back to the town to follow up some new leads.

Working through the vast archives of the National Archives of India is a lonely business. Very few people in the world get as excited as you do about the details and stories you find and so when elation strikes having found information on a Tibetan man you knew very little about, it’s not possible to run round the archives telling everyone you meet about your exciting discovery. 

The disease only found amongst archival researchers is commonly known as ‘archival fever’ and there is no known cure. I’ve had several of those experiences during the past three weeks of intensive scanning of catalogues and documents from the Foreign and Political records of British India in the early 20th century. It is here that I have gained a much clearer picture of Sir Charles Bell, his networks and his personal commitment to Tibet.

I have finally dragged myself away from the archives and now travel to the Northeast of India to meet some of the families still found in the area whose relatives once worked for the British India Government.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am currently in India undertaking research on the Tibet collections held at National Museums Liverpool. Upper Dharamsala or Mcleod Ganj is home to the 14th Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile and it is here that many cultural and governmental institutions were rebuilt after 1959 when many Tibetans including the Dalai Lama came to this small hill station to seek refuge.

Here you will find government offices, libraries and museums and a focus for many Buddhist pilgrims from around the world; the Tsuklagkhang.  In exile the Tsuklagkhang has become a focus for Tibetan Buddhist practice and in many ways acts as a replacement for the Jokhang, the seventh century temple which sits at the very heart of Lhasa in Tibet and is considered the most important Buddhist site for Tibetans. 

The Tsuklagkhang complex is home not only to the Dalai Lama’s official residence, but also the Tibet Museum, which tells through personal stories, photographs and video installations the events that changed individual Tibetans lives and choices and sacrifices those people made to reach India. I was impressed with the way those individual stories acted as symbols for the stories of many Tibetans who had made those journeys and unlike most museums I visit I read every word! 

Surrounding the complex is a peaceful track cut into the hillside that is strewn with prayer flags, piles of mani stones and rows of brightly painted prayer wheels. This is where pilgrims come to take kora, (a circuit of the complex), it has become a good place for me to walk and clear my head a little after a full day in front of the archives.