Second Trip to Bristol Museum (March)
On the train up I read some of Lewis Hyde’s book ‘ The Gift; The Artist and Creativity in the Modern world’. It is the perfect book for my current ideas, and me and I know what gift and exchange will be a core force in the participatory aspect of this project.
He was talking about collective self-knowledge through the Gift I think, and I read the part about the historical circular nature of gift giving in ancient societies:
‘When the gift moves in a circle, its motion is beyond the control of the personal ego and so each bearer must be a part of the group and each donation is an act of sound faith’
I have been thinking a lot about legacy and Gift donations .
Since it is within a museum context, I took a look at the admin and processes that already exist for the gift donation of objects to the museum.
We looked at the Register books – these detail the narrative of the objects donated to the museum as follows:
Number : date : name : how acquired :description : annotation.
Each object has an accession number – they are on index cards detailing each objects. It is slowly being transferred to database but it was great to see it on old paper and bond books, I think I will use this as a reference.
Julia also showed me the Solander boxes which look like large fake books , to keep specimens insulated. Solander designed them on Joseph Banks’ South Sea Voyage. I quite like the feel of them. There is also the possibility of using cases, though I am aware that for the main work I want it to be physically as accessible as possible. So these may be good for some selected archive pieces that relate to the concept and maybe a couple of my own individual wrapped works.
What am I asking people to give me to become part of the work?
Ideas so far:
An object they –no longer need or want.
An object that represents an area of their life that is over.
An object they would like to send into an imaginary after life (too esoteric?)
An object that represents their legacy to the world in this life (too overwhelming?)
I am very aware that this piece may be acquired by the museum after the show and so scale and storage are an issue. The object given must fit into the palm of the hand.
Transaction
What is the transaction between myself and the public?
A bill of money (poetic currency) or a gift certificate to acknowledge receipt of the object.? Or simply a copy of the Register book entry?
