musuem observations

The Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, I believe the museum's oldest hall, feels as if it is separate from the rest of the halls. Apart from the scale of the totems, this hall seems very organic. There is a sense of peace that I have not noticed in other halls. The sage green walls, and the wood-carved totems and masks give a sense of what it must be like to stand next to such colossal trees in their natural environment. During the time I was there, not many museum-goers lingered in this hall. Most people walked on through, glancing at the objects as they continued on. This may be due in part to the lack of information about the objects in this hall. The lighting is also very poor and since there is little to no explanation or order of which totem belongs to which tribe, what the masks were used for, ect. it is hard to understand what you are looking at. I especially noticed the lack of description of the potlatch ceremony, it seemed as though it was added as an afterthought.
In comparison with the Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific People, the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians appears dated. The Hall of Pacific People is very organized, informative, and the map in the beginning of the exhibit was helpful in order to visualize where these objects came from. The lighting was better, the colors brighter, the exhibit seemed very new. I was particularly drawn to the Balinese shadow puppets. There was adequate information about everything on display, however, there were so many corners to turn, each side full of objects and information, it was a bit overwhelming. I liked the openness of the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, I felt that it did justice to the objects, you could stand back and see the exhibit as a whole. Whereas with the Hall of Pacific People, it felt overwhelming, even cluttered. I think the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians would be much more effective if more information were added, but other than that, it was more effective than the Hall of Pacific People because of its utilization of space.

Both articles I found very interesting in their criticisms of the museum and not only how it represents objects, but what they place significance on and who they are even trying represent. For instance, in the article about Margaret Mead’s exhibit was very informative in that her exhibit, for the time, was aiming at modern forms of display reminiscent of the way we view art at the Museum of Modern Art. This way of displaying sits in great contrast to the dioramas that try and provide many things to look at by placing it in a context, while this type of display does not allow any distractions from the object itself.
Also interesting, the North Coast Kwakuitl tribe described in the next article, does not even realty exist, even though there is a huge exhibition originally created by Boas for the purpose of displaying their relationship to the potlatch. The Kawatuitl tribe only exists because the white men who colonized their areas group all the tribes in the area together, thus calling them Kawatuitl, close to the name of the language all these tribes speak. It’s interesting how much language plays a role in the distinguishing of groups. For those in the western world, language is the most important thing; it’s what makes us human and the rest non-human. Through this lens, it is understandable that anthropologists went to these regions and assumed that everyone was part of the same group due to their common language; this assumption extending all the way to the museum where this made-up group is put on display.

response "feature"

In response to the “feature” Reading by Gerald Sider , I believe he is right in many aspects but may be a little narrowed in some others . Yes its true that in many cases military forces from powerful countries have decided that they need to know more about the people it seeks to dominate and control, and for this reason use ethnographers research . But on the other hand it could be seen as a way to educate them about the culture and what it would mean to destroy certain valuable objects, monuments or idols ect. Ignorance has been one of the big causes of the destruction and loss of many cultures. He is obviously right when he states that we need to be aware of the issues brought by the state or capital plans of domination and exploitation of the people they study. But they could use their knowledge to manipulate information so that it is used in the right way. As anthropologist one should know how to read everyone’s silence, and so discover its intentions. its all a matter of strategy towards a better end.

Readings 3/30

I'm continually surprised by how non-cohesive the AMNH is. By this I mean that an exhibit is completely dependent on who's funding and directing it, making a cohesive philosophy throughout the museum hard to find. I think this is really apparent in the readings seeing as you have an exhibit like Chiefly Feasts, which is trying to appease and negotiate a lot of different motives and groups, versus Margaret Mead who from her perspective really wanted to create an immersion hall.

The Competitive Displays article was really interesting in it's acknowledgement of the strides the museum is trying to take in remaining politically correct, while simultaneously disregarding or confusing highly political aspects to the exhibit. I have to admit I was initially skeptical of the article because it was so bent on being critical of the exhibit, that I feel like certain positive aspects were overlooked. However, I thought Masco made an excellent point of showing the internal negotiations that the museum made in its presentation. I thought this was especially interesting in conjunction with the museums allegiance to Boas versus the Native People they were representing. I felt Masco wasn't partial enough in discussing why the museum chose to support Boas's research despite its inconsistencies, nor did he discuss the stakes for the museum if they didn't support Boas. This lack of discussion, versus just outright criticism, is also in Masco's reading of the lack of colonial discussions in the exhibit. I think this is a really easy point to argue, and I agree that in most all of the cultural exhibits we've seen so far, they're missing a lot of political discussion. However, I think the step following that criticism is asking why the museum made that choice. It can't solely be that the museum is owned by a bunch of intellectualist racists, or that the museum specifically chose to hide it's histories, but rather who's funding the exhibit, what was going on in the mid-90's, and where was anthropology philosophically swayed during that time.

In terms of the Mead piece I feel like I want to experience it before I can comment on it. However, I found the debate of immersion versus detached observation to be really interesting especially in terms of how disjointed an exhibit can become in conjunction with one another. It seems as though modernism (in terms of architecture and design) and what was trying to be possessed just couldn't work.

Mario Cedeno Response 3/30

After visiting the AMNH’s culture halls, I often thought that viewers would get a better sense of a culture if they were to be immersed in it rather than simply looking at its material artifacts behind glass. Margaret Mead attempted to do this in the Hall of Pacific People in the AMNH. Her goal was to create a space that immersed the viewer through the senses of the environment from which the artifact came. She did this by using space, light, and sound to create an ambience in the hall that was intended to mimic the ambiance of the Pacific. In “The fate of the Senses in Ethnographic Modernity: The Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific People at the American Museum of Natural History” the author, Diane Losche, identifies reasons why Margaret Mead’s ideas, when brought into fruition, ultimately left viewers with a sense of failure for the exhibit. She argues that Mead failed to notice the differences that separated different realms such as writing and architecture, and the actual Pacific environment from the museum gallery in New York. Losche argues that the ultimate failure of the Hall of Pacific Peoples was “ that the very immersion in the environment fragmented knowledge, and viewers were frustrated in attempts to gain panopticonic view over the Pacific” (Losche, 241). She goes onto argues that the want to see over a whole area and therefore get a panopticonic view of a culture stems from our modernist desires and can only be achieved when “a viewer is placed in a particular and distanced vantage point from that which is able to be seen” (Losche, 241). Margaret Mead’s Hall of Pacific Peoples left viewers with a feeling of knowing only fragments of a culture and not the culture as a whole.

Response 3/30/10

"Ethnographic museums have played an important role in producing definitions of civilization, self, and nation in North America now for over a century." (Masco, Pg.838) In Competitive Displays, Masco uses the exhibition Chiefly Feasts to show the ways in which something is able to be interpreted through a museum, sometimes resulting in an unclear definition of what is being interpreted. Although much of the reading describes the redefining of a practice, the potlatch, through colonialism, I was interested in the museum's ability to provide contrasting interpretations for a culture and a ceremony. The Chiefly Feasts exhibition, unlike other exhibitions, provided two interpretations on the objects and the people; the AMNH provided one interpretation, and Gloria Cranmer Webster provided the other. Having two interpretations, each attempting to achieve its own goals, gave the exhibition visitors opposing definitions, and created misunderstanding or confusion about the exhibit, despite the goal of both interpretations being to inform and educate. These interpretations serve to define what is being exhibited, and provide a sense of concreteness to something whose meaning has evolved and changed. The AMNH has attempted to define objects, cultures, and ceremonies that, through the process of being interpreted and displayed, have been redefined or misinterpreted. This is problematic because of the museum's role, or perceived role, of being an institution of knowledge and of providing what is known or true. But, given two contrasting interpretations, which do we believe?