PAST AND FUTURE AGRICULTURES Join the conversation @MuseumsAIMA #AIMA2020 #PastFutureAg AIMA 2020 DRAFT PROGRAMME | Past and Future Agricultures 20-23 July 2020 MONDAY 20 JULY Creativity and Interpretation in Agricultural Museums MORNING 09.00 – 10.00 Registration and Orientation 10.00 – 10.15 Kate Arnold-Forster, Director, MERL Welcoming Remarks 10.15 – 11.00 Ollie Douglas, President of the AIMA / Curator of Collections, MERL Presidential Address: Agricultural Museums Past, Present, and Future 11.00 – 11.30 Break 11.30 – 12.30 Session 1: Agricultural and Environmental Histories Chair: Surajit Sarkar, Coordinator, Centre For Community Knowledge, Ambedkar University 11.30 – 11.50 Debra Reid, Curator of Agriculture and the Environment, The Henry Ford Come-Along: The Many Uses of Agricultural History Current President of the Agricultural History Society and author of the recent handbook on Interpreting Agriculture at Museums and Historic Sites offers a shortened version of her Presidential Address from the 2020 meeting of the Agricultural History Society. 11.50 – 12.30 Cameron Archer, Chair, Belgenny Farm Agricultural Heritage Centre Trust Kerry-Leigh Burchill, Director General, Canada Agriculture and Food Museum Debra Reid, Curator of Agriculture and the Environment, The Henry Ford David M. Simmons, Executive Director, Billings Farm and Museum Pete Watson, Director, Howell Living History Farm Roundtable: Climate, Environment, and Sustainability in Agricultural Museums The first speaker in this session, Debra Reid, is joined by other expert members of the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums and together they explore and share insights and ideas relating to the role and place of environmental history in museums of farming. 12.30 – 13.30 Lunch AFTERNOON 13.30 – 14.30 Session 2: New Approaches to Museums of Farming Chair: Pete Watson, Director, Howell Living History Farm 13.30 – 13.50 Winani Thebele, Chief Curator and Head of Ethnology, Botswana National Museum The Bonnington Colonial Legacy: Conserving and Restoring Farming Heritage This project depicts the history of early colonial farming in Botswana’s capital, Gaborone. Key exhibits include the farmhouse, grain silos, ox wagons, feeding troughs, and farm implements. Artists were invited to paint murals of farm activities on the silo walls. Botswana was a British Protectorate until 1966 when it gained independence. Exploring the traces of this colonial history, this paper offers critical analysis of colonial farming in Botswana, of its impact on local AIMA 2020 DRAFT PROGRAMME | Past and Future Agricultures 20-23 July 2020 communities, of how it might have informed the current agricultural practices of the local populace, and of how sustainable this colonial legacy has been. 13.50 – 14.10 Elsa Hietala, Curator, Sarka Finnish Museum of Agriculture Creating New Approaches at the Finnish Museum of Agriculture Sarka’s latest displays present the salvaged eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Helsinki University Agriculture Museum. These are designed to be accessible to all. The Museum is currently developing the national Food Museum, using events, exhibitions, tours, workshops, and online content to explore food from many perspectives. Current global challenges in climate, food production, and consumption increase the need for us to present the impact of the food choices we make. Sarka wants to bring historical perspective to this conversation. 14.10 – 14.30 Benjamin Sin Chiu Hang, Social Work Supervisor, Caritas A Community-Driven Movement on Revitalising the Old Hong Kong Dairy Farm Heritage Site The Hong Kong Dairy Farm Company, now a multinational corporation, was founded in 1886 to bring hygienic, nutritious and affordable milk to the community. The dairy farm closed in 1985 but was rediscovered by neighbouring villagers. Supported by a local charity and the Dairy Farm Company this work led to public tours and workshops, the listing of historic buildings, and formation of the largest built-heritage cluster in the City. The team also turned the Old Farm Manager’s House into a museum of sustainable rural development. 14.30 – 15.00 Break 15.00 – 16.00 Session 3: Working with Animals and Living Heritage Chair: Pierre Del Porto, President, Fédération des Musées d’Agriculture et du Patrimoine Rural 15.00 – 15.20 Claus Kropp, Director, Lauresham Open-Air Laboratory Medieval Agriculture In Experiment The drought of 2018 caused massive problems in agriculture. This paper asks how medieval farmers might have coped with situations like this. Did medieval subsistence strategies result in advantages which could be of use for modern agriculture? The Lauresham Open Air Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Lorsch Abbey delivers valuable insights into the value of medieval subsistence strategies for 21st century agriculture. 15.20 – 15.40 Cozette Griffin-Kremer, Associate Researcher, CRBC Brest Engaging with Living Heritage: Local Breeds at Work in the Museum This paper explores museum presentation of small-scale alternative approaches to agricultural production. Taking the local breeds work of the Alsace Open Air Museum (Écomusée d’Alsace) as its case study, the talk will examine how such scales are an essential component of food production in today’s world. They capture both the upstream and downstream aspects of our food sources and reveal field to plate processes in a comprehensible sweep easily utilized by any museum with adequate land and facilities. 15.40 – 16.00 Chantal Bisschop, Centre for Agrarian History, KU Leuven Draft Horse Techniques In The Picture: Audio-Visual Documentation of Intangible Cultural Heritage in a Participatory Way Belgian draft horse equipment is exhibited in agricultural museums but preserving the tangible heritage does not keep skills alive. In 2018 and 2019 two draft horse organizations worked together on a project that sought new uses in order to safeguard living heritage in the long term. Several future-oriented techniques were defined, documented, and communicated to new users AIMA 2020 DRAFT PROGRAMME | Past and Future Agricultures 20-23 July 2020 and documentary videos were created. This presentation will focus on use of participatory video as a means of creating audio-visual documentation of draft horse techniques. 16.00 – 17.30 Tours of The MERL Object Stores, Library, and Archives Maddie Ding, MERL Collections Officer (Open-Access Stores) Claire Clough, UMASCS Librarian ( MERL Library) Adam Lines, Collections Academic Liaison Officer (Archives and Reading Room) Sign-up for these will be at Registration and Orientation. Each group will have the chance to see all three elements. Please note: An AIMA Executive Committee Meeting is also timetabled to run during this period EVENING 17.30 – 18.30 Keynote 1: Art and Agriculture Chair: Isabel Hughes, Vice-President of AIMA / Associate Director, MERL Speaker: Adam Sutherland, Director, Grizedale Arts Connecting Resources - Cultivating Communities Adam Sutherland will discuss the reinvention and evolution of Lawson Park, a long derelict Cumbrian hill farm that is now the hub of a complex programme of collaborations between farming communities from Yamaguchi to Southside Chicago. 18.30 – 19.30 Drinks Reception Sponsored by the Rural Museums Network TUESDAY 21 JULY Agricultural Museum Skills and Practice MORNING 09.00 – 10.00 Session 4: Agricultural Tools and Technologies Chair: Lisa Harris, Collections and Interpretation Manager, Museum of East Anglian Life 09.00 – 09.20 Chris Green, Independent Researcher An Historical Dictionary of Agricultural Handtools To introduce this session, we hear from a former museum curator and director turned independent researcher who held the research position of MERL Fellow from 2013 to 2014. During this period, he looked at the Museum’s entire agricultural hand tool collection. He is currently using this dataset as the basis for a comprehensive reference volume of hand tools. AIMA 2020 DRAFT PROGRAMME | Past and Future Agricultures 20-23 July 2020 09.20 – 10.00 Kerry-Leigh Burchill, Director General, Canada Agriculture and Food Museum Hugh Cheape, Professor, National Centre for Gaelic Language and Culture Debra Reid, Curator of Agriculture and the Environment, The Henry Ford Pete Watson, Director, Howell Living History Farm Roundtable: Working With Agricultural Tools Our first speaker will be joined by a series of other experts who will share insights and ideas relating to agricultural tools in the museum setting. With agreement from the existing panel we may seek to involve other colleagues from the wider pool of delegates on the day. 10.00 – 11.00 Session 5: National Networks and Sharing Practice Chair: TBC 10.00 – 10.20 Bob Clark, Director, Auchindrain Township / Chair, Rural Museums Network Best Practice in the Thorny Field: Recent Approaches at Auchindrain Director of a regional museum with a site-specific agricultural history and current Chair of the UK’s Rural Museums Network (RMN), Bob Clark, introduces us to the approaches his institution favours and why they make sense there but perhaps not everywhere. 10.20 – 11.00 Chris Copp, Senior Museums Officer, Staffs. County Council / Secretary, RMN Other discussants to be confirmed Roundtable: Understanding Rural Collections This hour-long session will be led by members of the RMN. It will describe different approaches to rural life in museums across the UK and offer an appraisal of a recent project to consolidate network membership and participation.