British Museum Visit - Notes and Reflections on Collecting Things, Collecting People

Theory British Museum – Notes and reflections on the collection and related lecture

Notes I took from the visit to the British Museum

Living and dying

How did cultures and religions deal with death and health in Britain?

Cradle to Grave explores our approach to health in Britain today and addresses some of the ways that people deal with sickness and try to secure their well-being.

Susie Freemain created a piece that is shown in the British museum that’s states just this.  It shows how many different pills and drugs you take in your lifetime.  Contrasting the difference between how many women and men take, the result being that women take that many more than men.

Various cultures celebrate and grieve differently, such as

Burying the dead

Coping with death – mourning

Safe guarding children

Promoting fertility at marriage

Africa

Men’s cloth – recycled metal foil bottle and neck wrappers, copper wire

By El Anatsui, Ghana

Traditional narrow – strip woven silk kente cloth of Ghana is a source of pride and a receptacle of cultural memories, placed in the middle of the room to show its contemporary.

Contemporary textiles mixed with historic African textiles as historic textiles.

Benin

Cast brass plaques

British reacted Benin City in 1897, Royal Palace was being rebuilt with brass sheeting and some 900-brass plaques from the old building were found half buried in a storehouse.

The cast brass plaques date back to the 16^th century.

The wooden pillars of the Oba’s Palace show scenes of the palace life and ritual, showing that they were made in matching pain.

No record to show how the plaques were originally arranged.

Leopards were attached to the horizontal beams and they lie along the branches of the trees. Which suggests a distinction – followed here – between vertical and horizontal plaques.

Why are they here?

We discussed how they got here but not why they should be here or whether they should be here. But these plaques have been all over the world in many museums, where all nations can come to learn about their culture. I think it’s important that people understand other people’s cultures, because it makes you as a person appreciate what you may or may not have and respect other cultures. Also to learn about the world we live in and what goes on.

Tree of Life

Amazing what’s it’s made off – old machinery and weapons

Was sent to England to show what they have been doing. They made a tree out of weapons that have been made to kill – this as a very significant meaning to it.

People from Mozambique found these weapons from the civil war and switch them with contemporary artists for a tractor.

But the questions is should the piece of art ‘The Tree of Life’ be here in the British Museum or in its own country that it was made in and were the weapons were found.

The Tree of Life symbolises the dynamic creativity of America.

Millions of guns were poured in the country during the Civil war, most of which remain hidden or buried in the bush.

The people who live their have been encouraged if they find a weapon to hand it over for an exchange of items, such as ploughs. This is to make sure violence and crime is kept to a minimum, not that there is much.

Weapons are cut up and turned into sculptures by groups of artists in Maputo, grew out of a collaboration between Christian Aid, BM and Christian Council of Mozambique.

Thoughts from the lecture and British Museum visit

The lecture and museum visit got me thinking about different cultures and how it’s important that people respect and understand other people’s cultures.  Cultures can represent a lot about a human being, showing their identity, especially by the collection of objects and things, it can show a persons way of life and symbolise how you think about life.

From talking about various countries in the lecture and the exhibition it made me realise that artifacts from all over the world show how people think about life and understand others, because museums are a way of educating people about different cultures, if they are not able to travel to see for themselves.

Also from learning about different cultures in museums or visiting the country, you get a great understanding that cultures and religions deal with the norm in very different ways, such as life and death, every culture has various traditions.