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black boxes containing multitudes), to their families, to the knowledge systems that allow them to do their various jobs, and to their union; the various packages of goods to be shipped, their individual contents, trajectories, patterns of ownership, and levels of insurance; the many ships that enter and leave port; and on and on, ad infinitum . These dockyards too are nodes in other networks that together form, for example, the global shipping industry or its constituent part – the multi-national transport company, itself a complex human-money
and care for the Museum’s collections. But it can also be understood as a father’s concern about his daughter and her opportunities to develop her scholarly mission. In 1929, 15,000 Swedish crowns was a considerable sum of money, equivalent to more than 400,000 SEK today. Whatever the motivation, it seems to have been a win-win situation for all three of them. However, this harmonious picture seems to have cracked. In 1931, a letter dated 10 March was written by Andersson to Professor Bernhard Karlgren regarding Hanna’s second contribution to the Bulletin. Karlgren
oriented towards a bridge, or a river route or a valley pass. A lack of building investment in the tower house faces that overlook rising land or less productive farmland has also been observed during the course of fieldwork. Such decisions decidedly reflect priorities, such as not to spend money on expensive architecture that nobody will appreciate. This also ties into themes of ‘conspicuous consumption’. Assessing the exterior ornamentation of castles can therefore assist us in determining the worldview of their occupants. This interpretation
bring guests, the second category, which included ladies, other family members and gentlemen visitors who resided more then six miles from the city. Finally, honorary membership was bestowed upon nobility and gentlemen ‘residing some distance from Manchester’ with scholarly merit, or else generosity in donating books, specimens or money.33 It was by the judicious employment of honorary membership that the MNHS connected itself to wider intellectual and political networks in Britain and beyond. The American ornithologist and bird artist John James Audubon exhibited his
visited by large numbers of tourists; that they are valued in terms of money, generally in the form of paying visitors and hotel nights; and that they do not remain unchanged, but are actually modernised – all this is part of the narrative of the border-crossing paradoxes inherent in World Heritage. The new concept Heritopia, made by uniting Heritage and Utopia, signifies the land of the future, which is being pursued with the aid of a modernised heritage and World Heritage. Here, remains of the past are used to create the future in a manner completely opposed to
). Excavating urban archaeological sites such as the mithraeum beneath the Santa Prisca obviously costs time and money, as well as demanding a large workforce with expertise in complex stratigraphy and diverse material. Substantial sums were required for personnel and for the complex techniques and tools needed to detach the frescoes and remove the filling of the surrounding areas of the mithraeum. But again, private prestige and networks could be mobilised to cover these costs. Given the swiftness of the Italian authorities in permitting the excavation, the Dutch had to
, even with the best intentions, have structural restrictions.15 In the case of this exhibition, the two most obvious ones were time – only six months of preparation – and money: the Museum Fünf Kontinente had, and still has, a very limited annual budget of €90,000 from which all exhibition installations, lectures, festivals and events have to be funded. Finding a sponsor for additional funds was severely impeded by the time limit. Another structural constraint is that the museum is located far away from the Pacific. In Munich, prior knowledge of the Pacific, let alone
-liberal evaluations in terms of ‘value for money’. This does not mean, however, that these curatorial logics exist outside time. On the contrary, we have perceived a particular constellation that has emerged over time, with various impetuses. Moreover, it also involves a particular historiographic sensibility in which, rather than believing values to be universal and transcendent, the assumption is more relativist; that subsequent generations may want to tell different stories. In addition to a temporal relativism, curators also speak of a relativism of social diversity. Most
. They connect descendants with ancestors, contemporary people with their histories. And in return, the museum becomes relevant to people and part of their lives. I have talked about donating, but what about selling? People sell to the museum for many of the same reasons that they donate. An obvious difference is they would like financial compensation for the items they are parting with. Some people have sold objects to us to raise money for cultural projects like church building, or to meet financial and social obligations within extended families or communities. On
and intricate work curators do to balance competing epistemologies and utilise the past in the present to consider our collective future. It also obscures the personal relationships curators must build with communities to do engagement, which requires notable investment from curators and museums in terms of time, money, energy and emotion. Collaborative relationships can be fragile, and curators doing engagement at its best must dance a thin line between competing agendas, requirements and desires.50 The curator as ‘friend’ In the role of ‘facilitator’, curators