"It belongs in a museum". But... why?

"It belongs in a museum." No one has the same authority as iconic movie star archaeologist Indiana Jones, the heritage super hero par préférence, when he confronts the evil villains who want to sell off historic artifacts for profit. The options seem crystal clear. Evil and wrong: to sell off, destroy or utilise for one's own profit the material artifacts from human history. Good and right: to put same artifacts in a museum, thereby guaranteeing them eternal life and availability to all mankind of good will. Happy ending. Or..?

In my thesis, I am studying various theories on heritage and heritagisation, i.e. the process which transforms something in a living, active sphere of use to a historical object attached to a certain narrative and expected to never change. As mentioned in previous posts, death and fragmentising are parts of the process to build a new identity as a museum object; an identity that might contradict or prevent an identity as a living object playing a role in the world outside of the museum. The act of putting something in a museum, or give it a new context and narrative in a heritage context, is an act of power which can be used - deliberately or just as a consequence - to profoundly change things, places and phenomena in terms of use, availability and possible interpretations. 

With this in mind, I get nerdy goosebumps when a public call goes out to put things in museums, and my first question is: Why? Not at all in order to question the museums or the qualified work they perform, but to understand the driving forces and the agendas behind the musealisation - because they are manifold.

After the attack on satire magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015, when twelve people were killed, one focus in the following debates was the role of religion in these events and in global terrorism in general. Social media exploded with opinions, while at the same time alarming news started to come from the war in Syria about strategic destruction of cultural heritage by the Islamic State. I did a random search on Twitter for the combination "religion" and "museum", just to listen in. The result was striking. Many voices called for religion to be put in a museum, but: for different reasons.

Heritage as a concept is in many aspects built on fear of loss and a sense of threat from outside, and therefore generates an urge to protect and save - a mission for which the museum is a seemingly optimal institution. Some voices on Twitter expressed a fear that religion was under threat and needed to be saved - but also a fear that ruining the material heritage would turn the religion itself into an artifact:

"My fear is that the Old Churches in Iraq are not destroyed but left to become ruins. Christianity left as a Museum religion, an artifact." (signature ‏@AYoshia)

Others - the majority of the posts that matched my search - called for religion to be musealised in order to be separated from the living daily life, and instead become no more than a part of history and producer of artistic and other artifacts.

"Religion—no matter its form—needs to go the way of the museum. Another tragic case in point by way of Paris, France." (signature @SilvertongueCK3)

I found this most interesting, since a fundamental hypothesis for my PhD project is the domesticating role of heritagisation and musealisation of religion, and here it was: spot on! During my years working on this project, I have - with the narrow yet sharpened attention of a possessed geek - seen examples of heritagised and re-used religion everywhere: in museums, in cosmetic stores, in the streets, in commercials, in packaging for food, in theme parks, even in churches. If I may, let me share some of these impressions with you, to give some examples of the various fates of religion when entering new contexts.

One way to musealise religious artifacts is to place them in a museum (because they are outmoded, fragile, damaged or very rare and spectacular), but allow them to keep their religious status and narratives. This display can be seen in cathedral museums or, as here, in the diocese museum in Venice:

A musealised Jesus in Museo Diocesano, Venice. Worn and almost no distinguishable face, placed in a museum, but within a religious context and narrative.

Relic hand, Museo Diocesano, Venice

Life size statue of Virgin Mary, once belonging to a church and used for processions. 

Now in Museo Diocesano, Venice

A similar, yet quite different, approach and display could be seen in the temporary exhibition "Himlen är här" ("Heaven is here") in Uppsala Cathedral, Sweden. The exhibition was composed to celebrate the Archdiocese's 850th birthday, and to display the cultural heritage created, used and in some cases musealised through history and denominational changes and fashions. Using the cathedral itself as room for display provides a spectacular setting, but also (as with the headless Jesus) an ambiguity: museum or religion? Cultural or cultual use - or both..?

Medieval crucifix with contemporary neon sign, on temporary display over the main altar in Uppsala Cathedral.

A striking theme in this exhibition - as in many recent exhibitions on religious artifacts and matters in Sweden - is the recurrent exposure of backsides and parts originally not meant to be seen. I see this as  a deconstruction of the sacred, which is also evident in innovative and artistic designs of the exhibitions where original context and function are subordinate to stories and interpretations presumably more fitting for today's visitors.

Medieval crucifix on display in the central nave: backside clearly visible. 

Medieval saint, seemingly in a discussion with other saints standing around him, but also trapped in musealisation: glass case, iron band, and with his back and ownership label clearly displayed. Disenchantment, or a way to new understandings of sacred matter?

All at once! Altarpieces with panels for different times of the year and different feasts are often, as here, displayed with all the panels side by side. This is an efficient way to show the artwork to the visitor, but from a content point of view the experience for a visitor - originally taking place in weak light, during a religious service, in a time where pictures were rare - is quite different from the intended one, now that all days of the year occur at the same time.

Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, which I have touched upon in a previous post, is yet another form of heritagised sacredness. Starting out as a byzantine church in 6th century, then turned into a mosque during the Ottoman rule, then converted into a museum in 1930's, and now subject to discussions of re-conversion to a mosque - something which has caused objections from Orthodox Christians claiming the building as originally theirs. Here, religion is - temporarily, at least - domesticated in the shape of a museum: a status which can, however, obviously be re-negotiated at any time.

Hagia Sofia museum, Istanbul

A recent visit to open air zoo Kolmårdens Djurpark in Sweden also brought some unexpected insights in the usefulness of religious images and artifacts. In the tiger park the theme was Buddhas in decay, seemingly to provide the frozen tigers and their northern viewers with an exotic framework among the Swedish pine trees. The decaying buddhas are an interesting topic in itself, as I have mentioned in a previous post, but I generally think that the decay as such gives an extra dimension of mysticism, heritage and even some kind of spirituality to many visitors.

A concrete Buddha head in fake decay among the tigers in a zoo in a Swedish forest. Kolmårdens Djurpark

Buddha figure and masks greeting the visitors who exit the funicular railway safari, Kolmårdens Djurpark.

Buddha head and constructed decay, Kolmårdens Djurpark

The Swedes' love for heritage and decay, in part perhaps explained by the luxury of living in peace and material wealth for a long period of time, is expressed also in the appreciation for ruined sacred matter. The worn and broken statues of saints, visible as art objects in museums in many parts of the world, are in Sweden equally used in churches for devotion - regardless of condition or lack of colors or limbs. Ruined churches are cherished as romantic, but even spiritual, places since the 18th century, and many couples who declare themselves to be non-religious still choose to get married, with or without a priest, in a church ruin. This brings up, again, the strong connection between heritage and religion - or, maybe, even heritage as religion, for a (post)secular time..?

St Catherine's church ruin, former Franciscan convent church. Visby, Gotland, Sweden.

While examining religion's (after)life as heritage, I can't resist to once again turn back to the Swedish Christmas gingerbreads (yes: gingerbread IS a big issue for Swedes. Just visit the IKEA store next to you from December 1st if you don't believe me!). The gingerbread men that mysteriously accompany St Lucy in the Lucia procession up here have no religious connection that I know of, but many of the cookie forms actually have either Christian or pagan origin. Here, the gingerbread version of St Stephen's horses (yes, I made them myself, along with space shuttles, dinosaurs, pagan sun symbols and giraffes. Life as a Swede.):

At the end of the recycling of religion food chain we find not only jewelry, t-shirts and toast stamps to make Virgin Mary miraculously appear on a toast (called: Holy Toast. What else?), but also Jesus as action hero, as band aids, and the magnetic set What Would Jesus Wear? (the latter in Uppsala Cathedral shop). Apart from expressing a sense of humor, whether shared by all or not, this also shows that the religious images have been fragmentised from their original context to such an extent that they have become aesthetic symbols - but charged and slightly forbidden to play with, and therefore useful for light provocations and humour.

Jesus' magnetic wardrobe, Uppsala Cathedral, Sweden.

Jesus heals - through bandaids. Uppsala Cathedral.

Loading all these images on my cerebral hard drive, I am left reflecting on many angles of my topic: Material sacredness, authenticity, and the Western understanding of material preservation (on which an interesting article was published in Financial Times recently); Musealisation of religion as blessing or hibernation; Is it easier to experience sacredness in decayed heritage than in sparkling new holy objects?

And, inevitably: what is the future for the Western European self-image and narratives, so essentially based on a Christian history? What role will be given to the religious heritage on display for a growing number of global tourists, and how will it serve and be relevant to a population becoming more and more religiously and culturally heterogenous? To me in my on-going PhD project, these are questions tightly linked to the future of museums in general and religion on display in particular. Preserving, saving or domesticating religion in museums, we still have to take into account that we are dealing with values of the past for some, but alive for others. A revised self-image, not least for Europe, is taking shape. Or, as Eddie Izzard brilliantly puts it:

Domesticating the Medusa

 

When working on a long-term creative project such as a PhD, it is fascinating (and also a little scary) to follow the winding trail of one's own thoughts: circling around shifting themes, digging deep in details that might prove useful (or not), drifting away, then drawn in towards the core of the problem again. It is a privilege, and an art to learn and - hopefully - master one day.

Recently, those untamable thoughts of mine have dwelled a lot on Domination and Domestication, and on Control and Power. And, as almost always, an image started it all... This time, it was a blessed moment in the Yerebatan Sarayi, the 6th century "underground palace" in Istanbul, perhaps better known as Justinian's water cistern. 

336 columns, water, fish and coolness: Subterranean Istanbul magic

In the early morning hours of the last day in Istanbul and the ISCH conference, I managed to see this underground kingdom of sweet water, fat fish, stone columns and historical stories and layers literally placed on top of each other. I was amazed by the beauty and the vastness, and by the ingenious idea of a subterranean lake and food supply, accessible through holes in the courtyards of the Byzantine and, later, Ottoman inhabitants in the city.

For those of you who have been there, you know that the typical signs for tourists about Things Of Importance That Must Not Be Missed were there, too - the kind of signs that, I must confess, always make me more curious about what strange and exciting things might dwell in the other direction. This time, however, the notion of Medusa and her petrifying gaze made me actually follow the signs to see the two Antique Medusa stone heads placed as column bases at the far end of the hall. This is what I saw:

Medusa's head, de-charged by not only being used as a column base but also - deliberately - turned upside down. Domination and domestication, hands-on style.

The information signs told me that the two Medusa heads dated from an earlier Classical period, that the reason for why they were used as column bases is a matter of discussion among researchers, but that everyone seem to agree that they were deliberately placed here and in this way, and probably as a way to control and domesticate them. This goes along very well with the ideas in my dissertation project, on heritagisation (in my case, of religion) as an act of control and domestication of the disturbing and dangerous. However, down there, in the cool silence below the busy city and facing the upside down faced domesticated Medusa, yet another dimension of this struggle for power and domination in historiography struck me. Medusa, being the most terrible of three mythological Gorgon sisters, and the one whose mere gaze had the power to petrify any human meeting it, could in fact be a metaphor for the heritagisation process as I perceive it: the beholder (i.e., the museum curator, the heritage bureaucrat, the historian, the tourist guide, etc) has the power - knowing it or not - to petrify living things, environments, immaterial customs etc, and turn them into well preserved heritage with a designed narrative attached to them. 

In Medusa's case, the hero Perseus outsmarted her and cut her head off, and then used it - with its' petrifying powers intact - as a weapon against his enemies before finally giving it to goddess Athena to wear it on her shield (quite a shield..!). In this way, one could say that Medusa's terrible petrification qualities not only worked as harmful, but also in a protective way, to save the hero from harm. Turning to the heritagisation parable, the most frequent arguments and debates in the heritage field are about exactly this: protection, saving, taking aside from the course of time and destruction, and for the sake of memory, humankind and eternity (a little generally put, perhaps, but still). So, using this image to think with, we are dealing with a most powerful process that functions both as a petrifying or even a lethal tool, but simultaneously as a life saver and a protection from time, aging and decay.

This for the Medusa and the petrifying gaze. But what about next layer, the urge to dominate and domesticate this strong power?

The taming of the Beast - recurrent motive in human narratives

The main field of my PhD project, the domestication of religion through heritagisation, is overflowing with motives and drastic actions to dominate and make harmless narratives and beliefs that have come (our were forced) out of fashion. In my Northern territories, the Medieval images are frequent of St. George (Sankt Göran) piercing the dragon - in various contexts representing the Danes or other enemies at the time - or the Norwegian king St. Olav (Sankt Olof), stepping firmly on his enemy's head (which in fact is the head of his heathen brother, in the shape of a half-monster).

St. Olav the Holy stepping on his heathen brother Harald. Tricky thing even for a saint, the Love thine brother...

Here in Rome the cultural layers are, as you know, many and complex - almost like one of my favorite Italian desserts, the Torta Millefoglie: 

Torta Millefoglie, 'Thousand layers' cake'. Divine.

Layer upon layer of history, materiality, narratives - but also of controlling, domesticating, silencing, triumphing, showing who is now in charge. The basilica of San Clemente, one of my favorite churches to visit in Rome, is an example of this multi-layered material history: A Mithras temple, then a Roman house where Christians met secretly, then a 4th century church, then the present Medieval basilica - all excavated and possible to visit. In this case, the perspective of domestication but also of religious and historical continuity is strongly connected to the place: the place itself is a bearer of values and permeated with spiritual charges.

The Mithraic temple below San Clemente's basilica

Returning to Istanbul, and to Hagia Sophia 6th century Cathedral-turned Mosque-turned museum (and now suggested to be turned Mosque again), the need to demonstrate new ideologies and domesticate - though not eradicate or erase - previous ones is more evident. Here, the crosses on the doors and in the mosaics have not been physically removed, but altered to become a non-religious element of decoration.

 

Altered cross on one of the entrance doors, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Altered mosaic cross, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Given the many and turbulent changes in the history of the city, mirrored in the changing regimes in Hagia Sophia (where the musealisation/heritagisation in 1934 forms an important chapter), it is interesting that so much of the previous layers are still there, and visible. The gigantic signs with Islamic verses is a dominant visual element in the interior of the building, but some Christian mosaics showing Mary and Jesus are also there and well preserved. And beneath the signs, the previous decorations can still be seen:

Cultural and religious layers, and a heritage preserving scaffolding, in Hagia Sophia

So, how to collect these meandering thoughts on domestication, death and preservation? Elaborating just a little more on the Medusa head in Istanbul, could it be that even the petrifying heritagisation process can be overruled - by something living, by a new power and regime? Continuing that line of thought, what will happen to the rapidly and globally increasing number of appointed heritage items and places and immaterial goods: are they really petrified forever, and saved from the ban of time and change, or can they be awakened again..? I have no answers to this, yet, and I hope you forgive me for letting you into this inner chamber of unfinished contemplations and unresolved problems. But please: feel free to contribute in the comment field below if you like!

For now, let's just remain another instant on this mind boggling topic, in the lucid company of Joni Mitchell and Taming the Tiger...

Becoming a digital historian

Embarking on yet another new journey - for, yes, there have been a few during my one year as a PhD student and the decision some time before that to re-enter Academia after many years in what is commonly known as Reality. In order to learn more about Digital Humanities, I have been given the assignment to start a research blog. The idea is not strange to me; on the contrary I have been pondering reasons for and against blogging since I started working on my PhD. However, being advised against blogging by some of my colleagues (and for seemingly good reasons: it takes time from my main work, I risk getting my results stolen if I publish them in a blog, etc), and with both good and bad previous experiences of professional blogging, I wanted to be very careful about 'how' and 'why' before committing to regular on-line publishing.

But... Here I am, having started a most thrilling PhD course in Digital History, and being sent out in the world (the physical as well as the digital) with the words: "Go forth and start a blog!". So here we go: "Fiat blog - et blog erat"! After last week's inspiring first days of the Digital History course, and after giving a lecture in Museology about the history of nationalism (a topic that seems to stick to everything connected with heritage, and sometimes also with religion), I now prepare my paper for the ISCH conference in Istanbul starting Wednesday this week. I look very much forward to going, since Istanbul itself is in a way an illustration of my research topic with layers upon layers of re-charged religious identities ending up as heritage and narratives. I will give a report on this when I get back - until then, you are welcome to join me on twitter @helena_w_strom for immediate impressions from the conference.

Apart from this, I am also preparing for a research period of six months in Rome, where I will enjoy the company of my 17th century travelers and follow in their footsteps (and, according to plan, doing some digital visualization of some kind of their meeting with the Eternal City. I'll get back to that). Very much to get in order before leaving, and therefore an even wilder dance of joy at the letterbox when a good old CD arrived today packed with photos of a 17th century diary in manuscript. Each job has its moments of bliss, I suppose, but I feel particularly grateful to be dancing for joy over a digitized manuscript on office hours!