Hi Lori, David, et al--

As usual, you all make good points.  I just thought I'd add a couple of
references to this:

About removing an artifact from it's original context and putting it on
display, and the risk we run:
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett.  essay in Exhibiting Cultures or Ch 1 of her
book Destination Culture.

About who decides what we collect:
Hunting the Gatherers: Ethnographic Collectors, Indigenous Peoples, and
Agency in Melanesia 1880-1940.  I'm not sure about the subtitle.  This book
may seem boring if you're not into that particular period, but the
introduction and certain of the essays raise some great points about the
potential for the community to influence the collector.

Kathy Mancuso

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 14:28:17 -0500, Lori Allen <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>Mr. Haberstich, I salute you.  Well said, indeed:  "To me, that's the
museum
>paradox--that the very act of display, having
>removed an object from its original physical context, entails so much
risk."
>
>I am in the middle of a year-long graduate level study of the very
>foundations of Museology and the debate about this flag sums it up well.
>There are many questions we should all be rethinking.   Who decides what we
>collect?  In the past, collectors/museums had the benefit of time: wait a
>generation to see what becomes important in the public conscience and only
>collect those items.  Now, with the idea of collection of contemporary
>objects, the choices are not so clear.  By our very act of collection, we
>are deciding for ours and future generations what WILL be important.  Can
we
>really be so presumptuous as to believe we can predict the future?  Can we
>afford to be wrong and loose forever something so "valuable"?  IF we
collect
>it, should we display it?  When?  How?  Should we collect something that we
>think can never be displayed?  There are another 2 semesters worth of
>questions I could ask, but I'll leave that up to my Prof.  I am just very
>refreshed to see that someone else saw the dept of the question and its
>profoundness to the museum profession.  Have a nice day!
>Lori Allen,
>Grad Student, UMSL
>
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