The day started with everyone politely reassuring me that it was okay that I was 20 minutes late before we delved into Laura's helpful PowerPoint packet about research questions and observation. Though we already have research questions in mind, it was really helpful to think about how I might better formulate my own research questions in the future, and how we might narrow our questions down to make them a bit more answerable. I'm not sure what the difference between "wanting to know" and "needing to know" would be for this project, but it was good to consider ways we might figure that out. I'm excited to get started observing visitors, because I think this is the kind of thing you can only really learn by doing it. It's basically like really focused people-watching, and what's not to love about that? I'm really curious as to whether people are paying attention to the prompts, though it was frustrating to realize that we really won't be able to tell that through observation alone. Because media is one of my own interests, I'm very curious as to whether visitors are engaging with the videos and interactive parts of the exhibit more than the objects and what that might mean in terms of their understandings of Africa and the artifacts. I still think that the parameters for what counts as a "stop" are a bit confusing, but I'm pretty sure that once I get more familiar with the observation process in general, it will make more sense. While I understand the laws about interacting with minors, I think that observing school groups is going to be crucial to our project. If teachers are bringing students to Creative Africa, they almost definitely have certain goals in mind, and those goals are important to understanding how people are making meaning from the exhibit. Do the kids have worksheets? What do they ask? I suppose these questions are going to be more relevant if we actually see any school groups in here--if we don't, that will just raise more questions (though I suspect the end of the school year/transition to summer camps might affect the number of field trip groups).
After our discussion, we moved to the "Look Again" gallery to continue defining our goals and methodology for observing in the exhibit. I'd like to become more familiar with the prompts before really getting into the critique, but I also dislike them so much already that it's going to be difficult to keep reminding myself to stay neutral and focused. I still don't understand so many of the choices that went into making that exhibit--from the kind of random interactive table, to the use of the phrase "power figures" (or bundles or whatever else), and from the blue walls, to the entire section with the hanging figures, it's just difficult to feel comfortable supporting it in any way. At lunch, we talked a bit more about our problems with the exhibit and the conflicting goals of our project and the museum staff. I'm quite curious to see where this will go, and how we'll end up presenting our research.
At 1 PM, we went to hear the talks about the collections and history of the PMA for the interns. The first talk mainly described how the departments are broken down and what kind of art the PMA collects. It was interesting to learn about the "gentlemen's agreement" the PMA made with the Penn about collecting: the Penn basically has dibs on Greek antiquities, Egyptian antiquities, and of course, African art and artifacts. We immediately wondered why the PMA has not attempted to collect any modern or contemporary African art, as that seems like it should fall under their jurisdiction. I was also reminded of my question from our Penn trip: why does the Penn museum have contemporary Native American art pieces, and does the PMA have any Native artworks? The answer turned out to be basically "not really," and the speaker didn't seem to consider the possibility of contemporary Native American or African art. She emphasized that putting contemporary art in dialogue with historical art is an important part of the museum's mission, but I couldn't help wondering if they have any collections of contemporary art from places besides America and Europe (or even nonwhite artists from those places). Is putting art from different locales in dialogue with each other not also a crucial part of what the PMA does? It remains to be seen. They at least seem to be embarrassed by the lack of diversity represented in their collections, and she acknowledged that it's especially a problem in such a diverse city as Philadelphia. An intern named Taylor was really excited to hear us asking about African art, as that is apparently his specialty (his email is hunkist@dickinson.edu, in case we want to invite him to lunch someday).
The second talk started at 2 PM, and involved a lot of throwing of candy. The history of the PMA turned out to be a lot of history of Philadelphia, which was interesting to know, though I'm not sure it's all that useful. I thought that one of the most important things brought up by the speaker was the admission that the placement of the museum was designed specifically to draw visitors from the wealthy suburbs of the city--basically, the museum wasn't really meant to be accessible for city-dwellers or people without cars. We also learned a lot about architecture (I guess that makes sense, given an audience of art history interns), the name Fido comes from fidelity, and how to spell Schuylkill. She mentioned World's Fairs, as the Centennial basically created the PMA, and the design of the museum was supposed to reflect "all ages and countries bringing art to America." Nobody seemed bothered by the idea that the entire world could be summed up by "Eastern" and "Western" civilizations. I thought it was interesting how much of the history of the museum was focused on a history of donors and architects. The PMA presents itself as a receiver of objects, whereas the Penn presentation was focused on expeditions, painting the museum as an active participant in determining what would be part of their exhibits. They also seem to have a pretty serious obsession with Paris.
At 3, we narrowly escaped a lecture about safety and security (and more boring intern questions about financial matters and bureaucracy) and Dani and I went upstairs to get more familiar with the Vlisco exhibit. After reading every single label in that room, I think I'm more prepared for our conversation on Saturday. I might still do a bit more research into the company's history and the history of the markets/fashions/designs they built their business on. One of the main takeaways I had from the exhibit was the question of what makes something African. This Dutch company's origins are in colonial appropriation of Indonesian batiks, but they appeared to have a genuine appreciation for the businesswomen of the marketplaces who popularized their fabrics. If a Dutch company produces fabrics with designs inspired by West African patterns in techniques adapted from Indonesian traditions for East African markets and "European and American customers for resort fashion and sportswear," am I looking at something African or global? I also wondered how they came up with the meanings for their fabrics--some might "testify to the value Africans place on education" or be crucial parts of Igbo wedding ceremonies, but how did the company decide on those values or find out that that specific pattern would work for weddings? Though the pattern used in weddings was first printed in 1980, the wording of the label implied that the tradition was much older--so what were they using before, and what was the effect of this new European design? Many designs were "inspired by" or "paying homage to" traditional African patterns, embroidery, and textiles, but many others were inspired by Western symbols of wealth/success or the fashion choices of missionaries. I liked that the exhibit had such a strong focus on the businesswomen (especially since the company seems to have sponsored the show), but wondered if anyone would walk away knowing about the immense role of African women if they hadn't read the labels. One label in particular provided the most insight into the company's intentions with the exhibit: by noting that "Vlisco will launch similar collections by top African designers four times a year as the company refocuses its fashion initiatives away from styles created by its in-house design team," it became clear that the company is trying to lose its neocolonial associations and rebrand as more African. I really look forward to our conversation on Saturday, as I'm sure there will be a lot to discuss around the ideas of appropriation, appreciation, and exchange.
We finished the day by finally getting our badges--hooray! We are now super official. I look forward to waving my badge around and getting access to vending machines. After such an interesting few days of talking and preparing, I'm really excited to get started observing and moving forward with the project. I've also totally figured out the commute now, which is great.
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