Manchester University Press
10 Community consultation and the shaping of the National Army Museum’s Insight gallery
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Alastair Massie
Abstract
This chapter examines how the National Army Museum, in the course of a major redevelopment, set about creating the new ‘Insight’ gallery to reflect the British Army’s historical presence around the world. Artefacts collected by British soldiers while serving in West Africa, the Panjab, Egypt and the Sudan were chosen for the first redisplay. The ‘Insight’ gallery highlights how artefacts were taken, for instance as battlefield loot or deliberately to deprive conquered peoples of the symbols of political power. In advancing new interpretations, the museum wished to demonstrate the relevance of the past to the present, and to that end organised workshops with community groups within the UK – Sikh, Ghanaian and Sudanese – in order to discuss their responses to the museum’s collections. This led to the reinterpretation of collections with the museum, in particular through reading inscriptions, which reveal entirely new provenance information, or alternative identifying materials and techniques. These collaborative discussions elicited various, and sometimes conflicting interpretations, of the collections and recommendations as to how they should be displayed. The results of this work can be found in the current display through audio-visual interpretation.
Abstract
This chapter examines how the National Army Museum, in the course of a major redevelopment, set about creating the new ‘Insight’ gallery to reflect the British Army’s historical presence around the world. Artefacts collected by British soldiers while serving in West Africa, the Panjab, Egypt and the Sudan were chosen for the first redisplay. The ‘Insight’ gallery highlights how artefacts were taken, for instance as battlefield loot or deliberately to deprive conquered peoples of the symbols of political power. In advancing new interpretations, the museum wished to demonstrate the relevance of the past to the present, and to that end organised workshops with community groups within the UK – Sikh, Ghanaian and Sudanese – in order to discuss their responses to the museum’s collections. This led to the reinterpretation of collections with the museum, in particular through reading inscriptions, which reveal entirely new provenance information, or alternative identifying materials and techniques. These collaborative discussions elicited various, and sometimes conflicting interpretations, of the collections and recommendations as to how they should be displayed. The results of this work can be found in the current display through audio-visual interpretation.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors xi
- Preface xv
- Acknowledgements xviii
- List of abbreviations xix
- Introduction 1
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Part I: Ideologies of empire and governance
- 1 Spoils of war 19
- 2 The agency of objects 39
- 3 Collecting and the trophy 60
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Part II: Military collecting cultures
- 4 Soldiering archaeology 85
- 5 The officers’ mess 106
- 6 Seeing Tibet through soldiers’ eyes 128
- 7 A regimental culture of collecting 162
- 8 Military histories of ‘Summer Palace’ objects from China in military museums in the United Kingdom 187
- 9 Indigenising folk art 205
- 10 Community consultation and the shaping of the National Army Museum’s Insight gallery 229
- 11 Mementoes of power and conquest 247
- Afterword 269
- Archival sources 284
- Bibliography 287
- Index 314
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors xi
- Preface xv
- Acknowledgements xviii
- List of abbreviations xix
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: Ideologies of empire and governance
- 1 Spoils of war 19
- 2 The agency of objects 39
- 3 Collecting and the trophy 60
-
Part II: Military collecting cultures
- 4 Soldiering archaeology 85
- 5 The officers’ mess 106
- 6 Seeing Tibet through soldiers’ eyes 128
- 7 A regimental culture of collecting 162
- 8 Military histories of ‘Summer Palace’ objects from China in military museums in the United Kingdom 187
- 9 Indigenising folk art 205
- 10 Community consultation and the shaping of the National Army Museum’s Insight gallery 229
- 11 Mementoes of power and conquest 247
- Afterword 269
- Archival sources 284
- Bibliography 287
- Index 314
