Keeping up with the SCHG - BRAND NEW EDITION 2024

SCHG is pleased to announce our novel newsletter format - a chance to share our upcoming events, courses, and much more!

Editorial note

This new format gives us the opportunity to invite our readers to submit and publish articles that align with our goals and what we are striving to achieve as a community-driven cultural heritage group.

Upcoming submissions would be centered around themes relating to cultural heritage and archaeology such as pedagogical advances in heritage theory, archaeological field work, discoveries in modern technology, the ongoing effects of the current climate situation, and what environmental heritage means to the broader community and society at large.

Our first topic will be Museums and AI - an exploration of the new museum and contemporary practices.

We invite collaborative partners, affiliated alumni, and our general audience to submit short essays or spoken videos on this theme, with more information to be announced soon on LinkedIn.

Have a look at the short discussion on the theory of meaning-making in the museum space below. We hope you enjoy it, please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments!

Who are we, and what are our goals?

The Save Cultural Heritage Group, established in 2016, is a team of volunteering professionals dedicated to exploring, interpreting, preserving, and promoting cultural heritage. #SCHG

Our aims are to:

a) promote a better anticipation of future skills needed in the sector of professional archaeology,?

b) develop a finer matching between skills and labor market needs in this sector, and????

c) bridge the gap between the worlds of education and work in this sector.

Since going fully online in 2020, we have created the Free Online Course (FOC) project as well as the entertainment Weekend Talk (WT) format. We have also participated in numerous events such as Museum Week, International Museum Day or International Archaeology Day, and have even launched our very own event ArchTalk (Season 01 in 2022, Season 02 in 2023).

CURRENT PROJECTS

• Free Online Courses (FOC): Celebrating its 3rd anniversary in April 2023, SCHG’s Free Online Courses (FOC) project has transformed our community socially and academically. With over 7,000 enrollments, 300+ video lectures, and 35+ mentors, our free, self-paced, interactive courses cater to anyone interested in Ancient and Cultural Heritage Studies. Despite numerous challenges, the success of FOC, driven by a dedicated academic team and a global community of learners, underscores SCHG’s commitment to cultural heritage. Visit our website to take a look at our courses here and reach out to us if you want to contribute with a topic of your own!
• Weekend Talk: In 2021, SCHG introduced the Weekend Talk, a unique platform for sharing professional insights and personal interests in a relaxed setting. Diverging from traditional interviews, it delves into guests’ hobbies and includes engaging games. Explore our episodes here, featuring a diverse array of guests. Their engaging discussions span a wide range of topics, from museology, Egyptology, and paleontology, to English heritage, indigenous archaeology, and American Indian archaeology. Delve into intriguing subjects like ancient aliens and the story of gods. These conversations, where anthropology meets media, offer profound insights into humanity’s past, present, and future. This project is currently on hold. Stay tuned for updates and until then, do take a look at Weekend Talk, Season 1, available on Youtube!
• ArchTalk 3.0: To celebrate International Archaeology Day, the Save Cultural Heritage Group is once again hosting ArchTalk Season 03 to bring together people from various fields and disciplines related to archaeology and cultural heritage, and to have them share insights in their research as well as their work experience. Details coming soon! Catch up on ArchTalk Seasons 1 & Season 2 on YouTube until then!
• Other events: Save Cultural Heritage Group has joined as a digital partner for the upcoming "2024 International Conference and Art Festival: HERITAGE FOR PEACE AND PROGRESS: CONSERVATION, EDUCATION AND TRAINING TO PROMOTE THE BUDDHIST HERITAGE OF PAKISTAN" conference, held on March 2-3, 2024. This international event aims to promote Pakistan's rich Buddhist heritage and foster peace and prosperity. The conference features research sessions, training workshops, an arts and crafts festival, and guided tours to key Buddhist sites in Gandhara. It welcomes scholars, faith leaders, conservation specialists, tour operators, youth, and communities to participate in knowledge sharing, discussions on conservation, and community engagement activities. Join this event to delve into Pakistan's significant Buddhist legacy, dating back to the 3rd century BC. For more information and registration details, please visit the event or contact us.

Digging In! - This Month's Showcase

The museum experience - why objects have meaning

By Blanche Kennedy

Many theorists have analyzed the human experience of place-hood, and how people derive meaning from the museum experience. In particular, the process of placing meaning on inanimate objects that sit within museum walls, which otherwise would not hold any emotional or interpretative value has been examined. For example, it is common knowledge that individuals ascribe meaning through their own personalized narratives and experiences onto objects in order to derive a connection to them. This thesis has been developed over time through theoretical frameworks helping to explain the phenomenological occurrence of humans ascribing objects with meaning, recognising how the visitor connotes semiotic symbolic significance to objects.?

The theorist Tony Bennett’s analysis (2013) has utilized the idea of the ‘traditional museum’ as a theoretical framework to interpret how institutional power determines the curatorial and directional choices of museum curators. Material culture, the theory of where objects that are representative of intangible and tangible heritage, become things of meaning and of living and breathing culture, with the potential to move the visitor to a deeper state of a personalized connection to them has been developed by Paul Basu (2013: 370-90). Basu’s research (2013) of the museum visitor and the public's interpretation of material culture stated that ‘an object’s traditional role is to cement fact, symbolism and or history in a non-human form’. Additionally the idea of placehood illustrates these ideas further. The sociologist Thomas F. Grieyn (2000) suggests that, ‘a sense of place is not only the ability to locate things on a cognitive map, but also the attribution of meaning to a built-form or natural spot’. From this it may be understood that the museum visitor inhabits the place-hood of an object through their visit to an exhibit, in conjunction to hearing, seeing, and tangibly relating object narratives within their larger personal and social context.?

Overall, the relationship between the museum and its visitors can be understood in simple terms as a meaning making process achieved through the visitors own habitus (personality, preconceived values and morals, and psychology) interjecting with the curators display, which encapsulates the curators own subjectivity and habitus and the artists intended narrative. It is important to recognise that this meaning-making process experienced by the visitor, and created by the museums’ pedagogical and curatorial direction, is in conjunction and at times juxtaposed with their own personal narratives and subjectivity. The museum visitors’ habitus contributes to their meaning-making process, as their pre-existing set of understandings is confronted by the museum’s contents and narrative, which will, in turn, create a subjective interpretation of the museum’s curatorial narrative.?

This interjection of habitus is illustrated in the image below, depicting a person photographing a self portrait of the artist Vincent Van Gogh. The process of this person photographing an artwork in particular a self portrait depicts the relationship between the artist's work, visitor’s habitus and curator’s vision. The photograph is a tangible representation of the visitors own subjective interpretation of the artwork, viewed through their personal lens (camera) whilst this process is further affected by the inextricably connected and inevitable entanglement enforced onto the visitor through the artists portrait which illustrates how the artist envisions themselves and how the public perceives them. This intended meaning by the artist is further altered by the curators intention when displaying the artwork. For example, how the artwork is hung, what room it is hung within, what lighting is highlighting the artwork, is it dimly lit, or bright, what collection of artworks are hung within this room, what thematic collection is the artwork apart of. All these factors affect the visitors' meaning making process.

This interplay helps determine what Christopher Whitehead (2013) describes as the museum’s dissemination of knowledge, interjecting the visitor’s pre-existing knowledge, and affecting as well as juxtaposing their own moral, emotional and theoretical frameworks.?

All this helps to explain how visiting museums and engaging with heritage-related objects is not a simple act, but in fact a process of multiple facets of knowledge, bias, and personalized psychology, which, in effect, create the museum experience.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources:

• Basu, Paul. "Material culture: ancestries and trajectories in material culture studies." Handbook of Sociocultural Anthropology (2013): 370-90.
• Bennett, Tony. The birth of the museum: History, theory, politics. Routledge, 2013.
• Gieryn, Thomas F. "A Space for Place in Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology." Annual Reviews 26 (2000).
• Whitehead, Christopher. Museums and the construction of disciplines: Art and archaeology in nineteenth-century Britain. A&C Black, 2013.

Secondary Sources:

• Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Vol. 16. Cambridge university press, 1977.
• Buchli, Victor, ed. Material culture: critical concepts in the social sciences. Vol. 2. Taylor & Francis, 2004.
• De Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in general linguistics. Columbia University Press, 2011.
• Giddens, Anthony. The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press, 1984.
• Harrison, Rodney. Heritage: critical approaches. Routledge, 2013.
• Harrison, Rodney. "What is heritage." Understanding the politics of heritage (2010): 5-42.
• Pred, Allan. "Place as historically contingent process: Structuration and the time‐geography of becoming places." Annals of the association of american geographers 74, no. 2 (1984): 279.
• Prown, Jules David. "Mind in matter: An introduction to material culture theory and method." Winterthur portfolio 17, no. 1 (1982): 1-19.

WRITER'S BIO

Blanche Kennedy is a heritage consultant who has a master’s in Museum and Heritage Studies from the University of Sydney. During her studies, she volunteered at the Sydney Jewish Museum as an assistant to Holocaust survivors during their public lectures and educational talks and interned at Campbelltown Art Centre. In her master’s dissertation she explored the idea of institutional empathy as a tool to lessen the hegemonic effects of the institution on its audience, paying particular attention to researching the portrayal and production of community narratives, and contemporary visions of society through art. She also has a joint BA in Sociology and Philosophy from the University of Sydney.

Blanche currently co-directs an architectural practice, focused on providing built heritage design centered around sensitive heritage and environmentally sustainable development outcomes. Her experiences as a heritage consultant as well as a social and cultural officer has helped shape her focus and further refine her thinking, writing, and problem solving skills, which she applies to the sensitivities involved in cultural and social engagement as well as sympathetic heritage solutions and outcomes.

Don't Miss Out! - This Month's Updates

ArchTalk 3.0 in 2024 - Call for Partnerships and Volunteers!

Get ready for another brilliant season in 2024!

If you or your organization share our passion and would like to partner with us, please get in touch with us via email or social media. Also, if you are interested in joining our team as a volunteer and contributing to the success of next year’s event, we would be delighted to welcome you. Thank you once again for your continued support and engagement!

Shape the Future of the Past: Join Our Team!

Are you passionate about preserving the past and ensuring cultural heritage thrives for future generations? We're looking for dedicated volunteers to join our team! If you have a keen interest in history, culture, and conservation, we encourage you to message us on our page. We offer a variety of rewarding opportunities, allowing you to contribute your skills and make a real difference in safeguarding our shared heritage.

What’s up next?

Thank you for Keeping Up With The SCHG! We hope to have inspired you with our topics revolving all around cultural heritage. If you have an idea or want to contribute, we would love to hear from you.

You can also follow us on our social media to receive up-to-date information on upcoming courses and events. And don't forget to stay tuned for announcements regarding ArchTalk 3.0!

The SCHG Editorial Team