Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition

I exhibited work from the George Brown Series as part of Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition, an interdisciplinary conference held at the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, 18-20 June 2015. My display in the Alison Richards Building will continue until September.

The George Brown Series is a group of ceramic vessels made in response to the George Brown Collection which I researched as part of an AHRC international placement at the National Museum of Ethnology (NME) in Osaka,  Japan. George Brown accumulated over 3000 ethnographic specimens while serving as a missionary in Oceania between 1860 and 1907. Described as ‘one of the most mobile collections in the world’, it has had a number of homes over the years, exercising the endeavours of a variety of people.

The George Brown Series was inspired by my research at the NME which focused on ‘transitional’ artefacts, in which influences from both the originating community and the European colonisers were manifest. A series of bamboo tubes from the Solomon Islands scrimshawed with scenes of European and indigenous encounters were of particular interest as they reminded me of some of the maritime imagery I was familiar with from my work on nineteenth century Sunderland pottery. These items spoke of the ‘creolization and hybridity’ characteristic of the colonial experience.

My porcelain vessels collage a range of visual and contextual information in order to communicate something of the collection’s complex history. Dutch traders took Sunderland pottery to Japan and it is not inconceivable that some pieces might have made it to Oceania. The George Brown Series exploits this conceit, imagining what a fusion of Solomon Island lime containers and Sunderland pottery might look like filtered through twenty-first century Japan.

Read more about the George Brown Collection here.

A selection of porcelain vessels from the George Brown Collection (2013-15).

A detail of my display at the Alison Richards Building, University of Cambridge.

Instagram image of my installation at the Alison Richards Building, University of Cambridge.

AHRC International Placement at Minpaku

Between January and April 2013, I was the recipient of an AHRC International Placement at the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku), Osaka, where I researched the George Brown Collection of ethnographic artefacts from the South Pacific. 

Barnard Castle-born missionary George Brown was an active collector of ethnographic and natural history specimens between 1860 and 1907. Most of his personal collection, comprising over 3000 items, is held at Minpaku. 

I used Instagram to document my 3 month residency through regular photo updates which can be seen on my Flickr page. 

An Instagram photograph I took on the platform at Osaka JR station in April 2013.

An Instagram photograph I took in Utsubo Park, Osaka, in February 2013. 

An Instagram photograph I took near JR Sannomiya station, Kob, in April 2013.

These digital traces of my encounter with Japan were later made material when I used them to develop surface decoration for the George Brown Series of porcelain vessels.

One of the vessels from the George Brown Series which features imagery derived from my Instagram photographs above. Photo: Jo Howell, 2014.