The Collection of Jane Ryan & William Saunders

This paper focuses on an ongoing project that began in 2012, entitled The Collection of Jane Ryan & William Saunders. This project is an attempt to reconstitute the Marcos Collection. Sourced from auction catalogues, museum archives, and scant government records, their lavish inventory of commissioned portraits, jewellery, Regency silverware, and old master paintings is reproduced as photographic installations, postcards, and three-dimensional prints. Reconstruction, in this instance, becomes a sustained democratic gesture, allowing an increasingly forgetful public to access a collection that has remained unavailable through a systemic failure by successive post-dictatorial governments to institutionalize collective acts of remembering.

The Politics of Nostalgia: Colorization, Spectatorship and the Archive

Colorization describes the digitization and retrospective addition of color to photographic and film materials (celluloid nitrate, glass negatives) initially made and circulated in a black-and-white format. Revisiting the controversial 1980s colorization of 24 classic Hollywood studio titles, which incited debate over questions of copyright, authorship and artistic expression, this essay examines the use of colorization to interpret museum collections for new audiences. The aesthetics of colorization have been criticized for prioritizing image content over the history of film technologies, practices and exhibition. An examination of They Shall Not Grow Old (Jackson, 2018) finds a use of digital editing and coloring techniques in the colorization of First World War film footage held in the Imperial War Museum archives that is familiar to the director’s fiction films. Jackson’s film is a commemorative project, yet the “holistic unity” of authorial technique operates across fragments of archive film and photographs to imbricate of fiction and nonfiction, signaling vital questions around the ethics and ideologies of “natural color”, historiography, and the authenticity of materials and spectator experience.

Japanese Bronze Bells in Switzerland

Western museums hold numerous Japanese objects, typically gathered by collectors during travels in Japan and then donated to local institutions. This simple scenario is by no means always the case, as can be seen with the numerous Japanese bronze bells in Swiss museum collections. The story of how the bells changed from holding significant functions within Japanese monastic and secular communities to being sold for their materiality and sheer weight as they travel across the globe tells a complex story of how objects change in meaning as they travel. As the bells were eventually relegated to museum archives, their stories help to shed light on global transfers, interculturality, and cultural misunderstandings, as they narrowly escape destruction. Their stories show the futility of claiming global understanding of art when, despite globalization, we are in the end products of our own localized traditions and understandings.

Interpretation and Reconstruction of Traditional Rituals on Semiotic Approach (Shor Rite ‘Shachig’)

The position is substantiated according to which the preservation of the rite as an object of ethnocultural heritage in modern conditions is possible through bringing it into a museum state. It is argued that this process should be based on the fixation of the rite during the period of its existence in the natural socio-cultural environment, the results of which were reflected in the field diaries of ethnographers stored in museum archives. The authors point to the main difference between the “inheri tor of tradition” and the “bearer of tradition”, which is the fragmentation and discreteness of the information available to the latter, which is insufficient to recreate the complex image of the traditional rite. The potential of the proposed methodology for interpreting and reconstructing traditional rituals is revealed on the example of the Shor rite ‘Shachig’. The authors analyze modern national-social variations in the interpretation of ethnographic information about the rite of the first third of the XX century. It is shown that the superficial processing of the information contained in the sources and the incorrect decoding of the codes leads to the transformation of the descriptions of all elements and the material component of the rite. As a scientifically grounded alternative, reconstruction and interpretation of this rite from the standpoint of a semiotic approach is proposed, based on a comprehensive analysis of all its elements (actional, verbal, objective) and considering temporal and local characteristics.

Middle Miocene gastropods from the southwestern margin of the Central Paratethys, Croatia: Museum collection's insight

<p>The most numerous and diversified Middle Miocene gastropod collection from Northern Croatia, housed at the Croatian Natural History Museum (CNHM), comes from the Zaprešić Brijeg locality near Zagreb. The gastropod-bearing horizon of the Middle Miocene (Langhian, Badenian) age is today no longer visible on the surface, not only in this area but also in other parts of Northern Croatia. The description of the Zaprešić Brijeg locality and fossil collecting methods can be found in the museum archives and published papers. According to these data, gastropods were collected from "sandstones" during the first half of the 20th century (Gorjanović-Kramberger 1894; Šuklje 1929). Among more than 11000 stored gastropod shells from this locality 45 belong to marine, 2 to marine/brackish and 2 to brackish gastropod families. Some families comprise only one or a few representatives, while other are much more common, such as Potamididae (4459 shells), Nassariidae (2428 shells), Clavatulidae (1813 shells), Turritellidae (1253 shells), and Cerithiidae (508 shells). In previously published papers on the Zaprešić Brijeg gastropod fauna (e.g., Gorjanović-Kramberger 1894; Šuklje 1929; Pavlovsky 1957, 1960) the focus was mostly on the taxonomical aspect. While examining the collection, we observed numerous drilling predation marks in a shape of drill holes on marine gastropod shells and provided numerical analysis of predation marks on some common families (Bošnjak et al., submitted). The aim of this study is to continue the division of gastropod families by their palaeoecology (infauna, epifauna) and feeding type (carnivores, suspension feeders, detritivores and grazers), in order to better understand the palaeoenvironmental conditions during the Middle Miocene (Badenian, Langhian) in this area. Non-marine gastropod taxa indicate the freshwater influx and the vicinity of hinterland. Such a rich museum collection can provide further insight into the palaeoecology of the southwestern margin of the Central Paratethys, even though the original fossiliferous horizon is no more available in the field.</p><p>References:</p><p>Bošnjak, M., Sremac, J., Karaica, B., Mađerić, I. & Jarić, A. (submitted): Mollusk mortal kombat: drilled Middle Miocene gastropods from the south-western margin of the Central Paratethys, Croatia.</p><p>Gorjanović-Kramberger, D. (1894): Geology of Samoborsko gorje Mt. and Žumberak Mt. Rad Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, 120, 1–82. (in Croatian)</p><p>Šuklje, F. (1929): Die Mediterranfauna des Zaprešić Brijeg in der Samoborska gora in Kroatien. Bulletin de l'institut geologique de Zagreb, III, 1–52. (in Croatian with German summary)</p><p>Pavlovsky, M. (1957): Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis Miozäner Gastropoden von Zaprešić-Brijeg bei Samobor. Geološki vjesnik, 10 (1956), 51–56. (in Croatian with German summary)</p><p>Pavlovsky, M. (1960): Neue Elemente der Fauna von Zaprešić-Brijeg bei Samobor. Geološki vjesnik, XIII (1959), 213–216. (in Croatian with German summary)</p>

Legacies to the collection of coins and medals of the Belgrade City Museum

Two of the twenty-eight legacies to the Belgrade City Museum are found in the "Collection of Money and Medals": the bequests of Đorđe Novaković and Svetozar St. Dušanić. These collections were donated to the Museum in the 1970s. After a brief review of the concept and the legal status of legacies in view of the Serbian cultural milieu and policies, the paper demonstrates a study of two bequests - the paper banknotes and the Roman coins from the "Collection for Money and Medals". In addition to the short history of each legacy, the manner in which they were formed, including their contents, an attempt was made to search available documentation in the museum archives to demonstrate how the collections were donated to the Museum and "established" as legacies. The work also considers to what extent and with what success the Museum activities have been carried out in practice, namely: preservation, conservation, restoration and documentation filing, as well as communication activities which include exhibitions and education

"...From lapp tent ("vezha") to the palace of science": sources on the history of organization and construction of "Tietta" (Khibiny mountain station —Kola research base of theUSSR Academy of sciences) from the facilities of the Museum-Archive of the BCH KSC RAS.

The article presents an archaeographical publication of two narratives of academician A. E. Fersman and poet L.I. Oshanin, presented to the readers of the newspaper "Khibinogorsky Rabochiy" on September 29, 1934, and working drawings-plans of the building of "Tietta" —the Khibiny mountain station (1930–1934), since 1934 —the Kola base of the USSR Academy of Sciences —the first peripheral stationary institution of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The primary sources are kept in the funds of the Museum-Archives of the Central State Archive of the KSC RAS.

Affect and Sensation

“Affect and Sensation” brings together cyanotypes and text from the practice-based project “The Afterlives of Clothes” to explore the sensory and emotional effects of archival fashion research. Addressing the ways that imperfect garments make the absent bodies of those who used, made, and repaired them present for us, the works are a call to engage with the intricacies of wear, gesture, and trace. Initially developed during a fellowship at The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and later a residency at Bard Graduate Centre, the broader project asks how, in a field where absent bodies and narratives are already understood as problematic, presenting the traces of use might re-contextualize objects which would otherwise be excluded from view. Focusing on accessories, objects which Jones and Stallybrass term “detachable parts” of the self (2001b: 116), the images and writing draw upon a methodology that combines archival research with auto-ethnographic writing, image, and filmmaking to explore the embodied and bodily experience of researching imperfect garments in museum archives. Presenting archives as repositories of affect, labour, emotion, and bodily trace, they ask how ideas of affect and containment might shed light on the encounter with archival garments. This project presents garments in archives as both containers and producers of affect — an affect that, in part, stems from the bodies that wore and made them, but also from the multiple meanings that they acquire through accession, storage, conservation, and display.

Historical anecdotes and breakthroughs of histamine: from discovery to date

Aim: Investigating about the history of allergies and discovery of the histamine’s role in the immune response through historical references, starting with ancient anecdotes, analysing the first immunization attempts on animals to understand its importance as the anaphylaxis mediator. Moreover, we shortly resume the most recent discoveries on mast cell role in allergic diseases throughout the latest updates on its antibody-independent receptors. Methods: Publications, including reviews, treatment guidelines, historical and medical books, on the topic of interest were found on Medline, PubMed, Web of Knowledge, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Elsevier’s (EMBASE.comvarious internet museum archives. Texts from the National Library of Greece (Stavros Niarchos Foundation), from the School of Health Sciences of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece). We selected key articles which could provide an historical and scientific insight into histamine molecule and its mechanism of action’s discovery starting with Egyptian, Greek and Chinese antiquity to end with the more recent pharmacological and molecular discoveries. Results: Allergic diseases were described by medicine since ancient times, without exactly understanding physio-pathologic mechanisms of immuno-mediated reactions and of their most important biochemical mediator, histamine. Researches on histamine and allergic mechanisms started at the beginning of the 20th century with the first experimental observations on animals of anaphylactic reactions. Histamine was then identified as their major mediator of many allergic diseases and anaphylaxis, but also of several physiologic body’s functions, and its four receptors were characterized. Modern researches focus their attention on the fundamental role of the antibody-independent receptors of mast cells in allergic mechanisms, such as MRGPRX2, ADGRE2 and IL-33 receptor. Conclusion: New research should investigate how to modulate immunity cells activity in order to better investigate possible multi-target therapies for host’s benefits in preclinical and clinical studies on allergic diseases in which mast cells play a major role.

Approaching Archaeological Museum Collections through the Concept of Assemblage: The Case Study of the Jesuit Mission San Ignacio Miní (1610–1631)

In Brazil, as in most countries, history and natural history museums are the repositories of rich collections of excavated archaeological material. One of the major challenges in working with these collections is the paucity of information available regarding the original excavations, which raises important questions that archaeologists and museum studies professionals have been grappling with for several decades: what interpretive value do these collections have without any contextual information, and are they worth maintaining in museum archives that are facing continuing crises in space and resources? This article uses the concepts of entanglement and assemblage to discuss a collection of ceramics excavated from one of the first Spanish Jesuit missions in colonial Paraguay, San Ignacio Miní (1610–1631), and housed at the Museu Paranaense in Curitiba, Brazil. Despite the lack of contextual information from the 1963 excavation, we can begin to explore the entangled pasts, present, and future of these objects by tracing the trajectory of the collection from the initial formation through excavation and contemporary analysis. Innovative approaches are needed to address methodological and theoretical concerns in analyzing archaeological museum collections to ensure that the knowledge and potential insights entangled in these collections are not lost.