The Me behind the mask, or The Otherness Gaze

Who would you like to be today? New identities for sale in Venice. 

Back to blogging after long absence; an absence containing two quite wonderful séjours in Venice and its archives, going back and forth to my frozen native grounds up North a couple of times, and a lot of mostly very enjoyable hanging out with books and laptop. Having just started my fourth semester as a PhD student, I think I am starting to get some clue of how this job and the amazing (and frustrating) environment of Academia works. One of the things that are most different from my previous job in public culture administration is that I now am not only allowed, but actually expected, to use my own observations, experiences and conclusions as a starting point and a tool in my work - the Me is, despite the obvious demands on objectivity and contextualization, crucial to my work. No wonder, then, that reflections on the identity as a stranger, una forestiera, here in Italy have been occupying my mind recently. Being constantly reminded of one's otherness, of how one in fact misunderstands, misjudges and messes things up not because of bad intent but due to the fact that there are always new unwritten rules to learn (and break), and when being almost on a daily basis associated with the most famous Swedish contributions to global culture: blondes, IKEA and ABBA (no offense, Björn Borg, but I think your hay days are over...), there is little risk of forgetting the foreign perspective. (And still, nota bene, I am completely in awe over the overwhelming generosity, good will and infinite patience flowing from Italian friends, colleagues and even complete strangers here. It makes the Otherness so much more beareable.)

The merciless Eye of the Beholder

Exploring premodern Swedish travelers in Italy and their perception of Catholicism and Catholic objects, rituals and customs, I have come to reflect a lot about what John Urry calls "the tourist gaze" in his book bearing the same title. It is the gaze, in this case the gaze of a stranger or a tourist passing by, that creates and defines the traveler's image of a place and its life and inhabitants - the gaze is the instrument shaping reality. This presumption also goes for the heritagisation process at the very heart of my project: heritage production is, as defined by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and others, the result of an active decision and agenda, and is (since most often not visible to the eye) performed and perceived by the eye and the gaze - and, eventually, by legal decisions and formalities, of course.

From a theological point of view this concept of "truth lies in the eye of the beholder" gets problematic; a relic bought as an ironic souvenir still contents sacredness, and a musealised Virgin Mary can still function as a valid object of devotion for the believer. But still: The gaze, the eye, the perception.

Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching. Travelling, with all senses wide open...

I think most of us who have traveled to other places or cultures outside of our familiar habitat have experienced how the senses widen, and how even the smallest details are registered with curiosity and care. In the manuscript diaries of the Swedish premodern travelers, lengthy descriptions of price rates, distances, transport systems etc are common. Paying this much attention to practicalities, infrastructures, costs and practical how-to advice is nothing remarkable in this context, nor is it surprising that the notions of reactions and feelings are rare in the material: a travel journal was not primarily the place for sentiments and subjective remarks. However, I ask myself if this "tourist gaze" or Otherness perspective doesn't work a little like the very bad ear phones I bought on the street the other day - suddenly just a few of the instruments and very much treble, but no bass, came through in my favourite music. While sharpening some senses, while (perhaps involuntarily) seeing what we expected to see and confirming our prejudices, a wide range of sensual impressions, events and realities pass by unnoticed. As strangers, tourists, forestieri, we submit the places we visit to our "otherness gaze" as we ourselves are submitted to it by the residents of the visited place. An "othernessification" that, obviously and most importantly, goes both ways.

Venice in cold December dawn

Following the footprints of my 17th century travelers, a visit to St. Mark's or San Marco basilica in Venice is an obvious must. Here, where an abundance of highly prestigious relics are on display since centuries, it comes naturally to reflect upon the heritagisation of sacredness and its contexts. When studying the Swedish 17th century accounts of the basilica and its treasury, before re-visiting and seeing what these travelers saw (if this is ever possible), I was struck by the massive materiality in the descriptions: gold, jewels, colours, gems, holy bones - all of unmeasurable sacred or financial value, which is often noted specially. The value and the aesthetic aspects dominated the 17th century descriptions, and I (mis)took it for a lack of interest in or an intentional neglect of the sacred values depending on the Lutheran Tourist gaze. However, when faced with this rather non-sacred, musealising and highly materialized display in real life, and also learning that this material-aesthetic narrative was applied - at least - since the end of 16th century in Francesco Sansovino's guide to Venice and its monuments, Venetia, Citta nobilissima et Singolare (1581), I must take a new position. I must consider that the relics of Venice, and the display in St. Mark's basilica, have a history of musealisation and instrumentalisation that dates back to long before the Reformation - though being simultaneously used in sacred practice.

St. Mark's basilica in Venice

If musealising and heritagising, and thus creating fragments separated from their original context, can be performed in the eyes of the beholder, it can obviously also be done quite hands-on, as in the case of this icon:

Sacred matter deconstructed in the treasury of St. Mark's basilica

No matter whose gaze or what gaze, the sight of a mummified hand on display is probably more spectacular and exotic than immediately inviting to pious contemplations to today's visitors. But in 17th century, when relics had a more established position and function for Catholic viewers, and a more negative and, perhaps, political charge to Lutheran viewers - what was the gaze then, and what context was created?

The mummified and saintly hand relic of St. Mark, St. Mark's basilica

On my daily walk from my apartment in Trastevere to the Vatican or Istituto Svedese, I cruise through huge numbers of salesmen offering me umbrellas, rosaries, guided tours of the Vatican, photos of Pope Francis, and loads of items and souvenirs more or less loosely connected to the sacredness associated with the nearby sanctuary and the Eternal City as a whole. Everyone spots in an instant that I am a foreigner, and as such a potential customer. I wonder what goods and services were offered to my 17th century travelers, and what of this they actually brought home with them..? 

The mysteries of souvenir aesthetics: De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum

Dwelling on this Otherness, and the possibility of assuming another identity when in foreign land (though the 17th century young men were warned by their fathers not to dress too extravagantly and assume strange habits when abroad - this could prove dangerous when returning to Sweden and the Lutheran Orthodox standards), I have come to understand that the initial starting point for my PhD project was partly wrong, since it presumed only the Swedes looking at the Italians and their Catholicism. I have, very much thanks to generous help from Italian colleagues and friends, learned that one thing I must take into account in my work, except for the importance of The Gaze itself, is the reciprocity of this gaze: The foreigner is not only observing, s/he is also being observed, and is - wanting it or not - affecting the daily life in the visited community. Traveling gives an opportunity to, at least temporarily, becoming another - and becoming the Other - but it also subjects the visited community to Otherness. Foreignness goes both ways. 

Or, to summarise in Aretha Franklin's wise words in her 80's tune: Who's zoomin' Who?

Byproducts of death: Thoughts on the fate of bones

Head of Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) 

In my department, Culture and Media Studies, a group of likeminded colleagues has started to discuss and write on various topics connected to the research field called Death Studies. It all started somewhere early this year with an e-mail popping down in my mailbox, where a Professor just wanted to check if anyone was interested in meeting and talk about death. This is one of the many great things with this job: I suspect such an approach doesn't appear in every office, but it did in mine.

Already up to my knees in the death field (since museums and heritage are tightly related to death, and also to rebirth), and after having received a blessing from one of my supervisors, I happily joined what is now commonly referred to as "the Death Group" (one simply has to like that, right?). It soon was obvious that the concept of "death" triggered a vast range of topics and aspects in our interdisciplinary circle; from the semi-death in cryonics, via zombies and dumpster diving, to Medieval Pietà - and much more in between. In June a special issue of Kulturella Perspektiv ("Cultural Perspectives") was published in Swedish, where my contribution bore the title (translated) "Death in the Souvenir shop: Mortal Remains as Cult and Curiosities" and touched upon the many layers of charging and re-charging in Christian relics.

In brief, I wanted to describe how the many similarities between the concepts 'heritage' and 'sacredness', similarities that are one of my starting points for my PhD project, partially derive from the collecting and veneration of relics. These relic collections eventually developed into art cabinets or proto-museums, and then into Western European museums as we are used to see them.
Relics could and still can be found in the shape of actual human remains, or as second and third degree relics, meaning something that has touched the remains or something that has touched something that was once touched by the saint - a contagious sacredness that is physically transmitted. Relics also strongly emphasizes the material aspect and the sensual relationship to sacred objects, an aspect that has been highlighted by Caroline Walker Bynum in Christian Materiality (2011) and Charles Freeman in Holy Dust, Holy Bones (2011).

Saint Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373): Here, there, and everywhere

From a museological point of view, what I find particularly fascinating is the constant re-charging and creation of new and very different narratives connected to relics. Saint Bridget of Sweden, for example, was not only a well documented spiritual person in 14th century Europe, she was also of royal ancestry and did not hesitate to intervene in high politics. When she died in Rome her body was 'ossificated', which meant the soft parts of the body were removed, and her bones (except for some of them that remained in her house in Rome) were carried in a shrine to Vadstena, Sweden, where she had founded her first convent. Like many bone relics from the Middle Ages and even from the times of the first Christians, Saint Bridget's bones can now be found in a number of countries, settings, contexts and narratives; a small flake of her bones was given to Uppsala Cathedral by Bridgettin sisters in the 1980's, an act that caused an animated debate since the cathedral is Lutheran and the veneration of saints and relics is not commonly accepted there. However, a special silver shrine was made and the relic was given an honorable place in a choir.

Just a few miles away, in 17th century Skokloster Castle with a collection of around 50,000 objects preserved through families and centuries, another flake of Saint Bridget is kept. Here, though, no silver shrine has been made and no veneration takes place, because this part of the Saint's bones is cathegorized as a museum object. It is properly listed in the museum inventory, and dated "19th century" probably due to the papal certificate from that time stating the authenticity of the bone fragment. What is Bridget doing there, in a Baroque collection containing numerous other things but not of a specifically pious character? The answer lies in one of the previous owners, the noble Brahe family, who (wrongly, as it later turned out) proudly announced themselves to be related to this famous saint and thus also of royal blood. This assumed relationship resulted in the collecting of Bridget memorabilia of various sorts and qualities, where the relic is just one of many items.

In my short article I ended up in the souvenir shop, where third degree relics are sold amongst the postcards and amulets with no specific demands on belief or intention with the buyer. I asked how we should understand this multi-layered existence that is a relic: as layer upon layer of death, or as a rebirth upon rebirth as new and different existences? This topic is fascinating, even without having touched upon the excitements of other aspects such as secular relics (pieces of hair etc from famous persons, Jimi Hendrix' guitar - or what's left of it - and so on), and I was glad to hear this morning when meeting my fellow Death Group members that our exploration of death and its connotations will go on and probably result in a publication, and perhaps also in a workshop or conference.

This, dear readers, is one of the many geeky sides of Academia: How contemplating Death can make you feel so vibrantly alive.