PAST AND FUTURE AGRICULTURES
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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. The session will include the chance for delegates to discuss the successes and failures of our current networks.
11.00 – 11.30 Break
11.30 – 12.30 Session 6: Working With Agricultural Films
Chair: Caroline Gould, Principal Archivist, MERL
11.30 – 11.40 Peter Moser, Director, Archives of Rural History, Bern
Introducing the European Rural History Film Database Association (ERHFDA)
A short introduction to this important project and its various member organisations, explaining why this timely scheme is relevant to the work of agricultural museums and other key partners.
11.40 – 12.30 Yves Segers, Centre for Agrarian History, KU Leuven
Sven Lefevre, Centre for Agrarian History, KU Leuven
Brigitte Semanek, Research Assistant, Institute of Rural History, St. Pölten
Syds Wiersma, Archivist, Friesian Film Archive, The Netherlands
Roundtable: Do Moving Picture Say More Than A Thousand Words?
Our introductory speaker is joined in a roundtable session that will introduce the work and interests of the ERHFDA in more detail, explore the role of rural and agricultural film in charting farming history, and introduce delegates to a range of different approaches to film being adopted in rural and agricultural archive and museum contexts.
AIMA 2020 DRAFT PROGRAMME | Past and Future Agricultures 20-23 July 2020 AFTERNOON
12.30 – 13.30 Lunch (packed lunch provided, to be eaten on coach)
13.30 – 16.30 Visit to Chiltern Open Air Museum (https://www.coam.org.uk/)
16.30 – 17.30 Return on coach
EVENING
17.30 – 18.30 Keynote 2: Agriculture and the Digital Museum
Chair: Guy Baxter, Associate Director, MERL / Head of Archive Services
Speaker: Adam Koszary, Social Media and Content Editor, Royal Academy of Arts
From Farm Museum to Absolute Unit
In April 2018 the Museum of English Rural Life (The MERL) achieved viral internet fame when it tweeted a photograph of an Exmoor Horn Aged Ram, archived as part of holdings related to the journal Farmer and Stockbreeder. In this keynote Adam Koszary, former Programme Manager and Digital Lead at The MERL, explores how the event affected the Museum and the wider sector, the potential for agricultural museums for using social media in advancing their missions, and what is holding them back.
WEDNESDAY 22 JULY Agricultural Sustainability in Global Practice
MORNING
9.00 – 12.30 Tour of the University of Reading including sites linked to the history of The MERL, the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology (https://www.reading.ac.uk/classics/class-the-ure- museum.aspx), the Cole Museum of Zoology (https://www.reading.ac.uk/biologicalsciences/SchoolofBiologicalSciences/Facilities/sbs- facilities-cole-museum.aspx), and the University of Reading Herbarium (https://research.reading.ac.uk/herbarium/) - Please note: Access to the Cole Museum and Herbarium may be restricted due to collection project work that is currently underway
Tour of the University of Reading Centre for Dairy Research located at Shinfield Farm (see https://www.reading.ac.uk/apd/research-and-facilities/cedar.aspx)
Tour of The Mills Archive (https://millsarchive.org/)
Sign-up for these will be at Registration and Orientation. Delegates will be invited to select one trip from those available. Numbers will be capped, and places allocated on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. The tours on offer may be subject to change.
12.30 – 13.30 Lunch
AIMA 2020 DRAFT PROGRAMME | Past and Future Agricultures 20-23 July 2020 AFTERNOON
13.30 – 14.30 Session 7: Sharing of Agricultural Knowledge
Chair: Debra Reid, Curator of Agriculture and the Environment, The Henry Ford
Pete Watson, Director, Howell Living History Farm
Dick Roosenberg, Founder, Tillers International
Bob Powell, Working Horse and Farming Historian, Independent
Paul Starkey, Consultant in Integrated Transport and Transport Services
Roundtable: Using Collections to Inspire ‘Farming Futures’
This session explores how museum collections, ‘living history’ skills, and publications such as Tools and Tillage are helping address today’s food production and security challenges, locally and globally. Tillers International has used collections to inspire animal-powered road-grading equipment in Nicaragua, farm equipment in Mozambique, Madagascar and Burkina Faso, and technology for community-supported agriculture schemes. Howell Farm’s operations and public programming provide internships in sustainable agriculture.
14.30 – 15.00 Break (after break Congress divides into parallel sessions)
15.00 – 16.00 Session 7: farming Session 8: Material Session 9: Insect Session 10: Archived Session 11: Farm Interpretation Histories Stories Techniques Histories
Chair: Isabel Chair: Ollie Douglas, Chair: Fiona Chair: Cozette Chair: TBC Hughes, Vice- Curator of Melhuish, UMASCS Griffin-Kremer, President of AIMA / Collections, MERL Librarian, University Associate Researcher, Associate Director, of Reading CRBC Brest MERL
15.00 – 15.20 Pierre Del Porto, René Bourrigaud, Barbara Sosic, Abel Vergneaux, Anna Barłóg- President, Fédération Independent Curator of Rural Deputy General Mitmańska, Curator, des Musées Researcher Economy and Secretary, Museum of National Museum of d’Agriculture et du Transport, Slovene Agricultural Agriculture in The Horse Hoe: An Patrimoine Rural Ethnographic Machinery and Szreniawa Instrument of Museum Rurality Journees de Yesterday, A Memories of Polish Patrimoines de Pays Technique for The Significance of Conserving and Agricultural et des Moulins: An Tomorrow Beekeeping in Restoring Heritage Workers From 1900 AFMA Partnership Slovenia and Agricultural to 1945: A Topic Project on Mills and Machinery From Rural Social Rural Heritage History
15.20 – 15.40 Mingqian Liu, Hugh Cheape, Anne Jorunn Marie-Christine Joao P. R. Joaquim, Doctoral Candidate, Professor, National Froyen, Curator of Aubin, Independent Charles University, Department of Centre for Gaelic History, Jærmuseet Researcher Czech Republic, and Architecture, Texas Language and Eötvös Lórand Insects and The Advertising A&M University Culture University, Hungary Pesticides: A Arsenal of the Preservation Lifting Material Norwegian Case Chilean "Salitre" The Association Education and Culture into Study (Saltpeter) Internationale de Heritage Interdisciplinary Musees Interpretation at Research: The MSc d’Agriculture: A Texas Cotton Gin in Gàidhealtachd Transnational Museum History History of Agriculture and
Museums in C20th Europe
AIMA 2020 DRAFT PROGRAMME | Past and Future Agricultures 20-23 July 2020 15.40 – 16.00 Anna Grześkowiak- TBC Karolina Echaust, Dimitris TBC Przywecka, Senior Museum Assistant, Panagiotopoulos, Curator, and Julia National Museum of Director, Hanulewicz, Curator, Agriculture in Documentation National Museum of Szreniawa Center for the History Agriculture in of Greek Agriculture, Importance of Szreniawa AUA Beekeeping in the Workshops on Context of The Emmanouli Traditional Food at Agricultural Vathi Collection at the National Development the Museum of the Museum of Agricultural Agriculture in University of Szreniawa Athens: A Repository of Knowledge About Greece’s Autochtonous Plants
16.00 – 16.30 Break (after break Congress reconvenes in main venue)
16.30 – 17.30 Session 11: Traditional Food and the Commons
Chair: TBC
16.30 – 17.30 Amanda Couch, Artist and Researcher, University for the Creative Arts
Sigrid Holmwood, Artist
Carl Gent, Artist
Catherine Morland, Artist
Roundtable: Encounters with the Commons
This double session stems from an ongoing intervention at The MERL involving artistic responses to the idea of Commons. Research will be enacted performatively, using image, text, film, and discussion. Delegates will be encouraged to contemplate their companioning with wheat. Sourdough bread will be made using Josefin Vargo’s Levande Arkivet, a starter formed from 80 people’s bread starters. Please note: This session links directly to the artist-led meal in the evening.
EVENING
17.30 – 18.30 Keynote 3: Agriculture Museums and the Intangible
Chair: Ollie Douglas, President of the AIMA / Curator of MERL Collections
Speaker: Nerupama Y. Modwel, Director of Intangible Cultural Heritage Division, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage
Title and abstract TBC
19.00 – 10.00 ‘Farming Worlds’: A MERL ‘Late’
To include an artist-designed banquet, live music, cash bar, hands-on activities, short talks and tours, table-top activities, and artist-led performances and interventions. The MERL’s public audiences will also be able to participate.
AIMA 2020 DRAFT PROGRAMME | Past and Future Agricultures 20-23 July 2020 THURSDAY 23 JULY Agricultural Futures and the Role of the AIMA
MORNING
9.30 – 11.00 General Assembly of the AIMA (attendance open to AIMA members only)
11.00 – 11.30 Break
11.30 – 12.30 Session 12: Plenary Discussion on The Future of Agricultural Museums
Led by Surajit Sarkar, Coordinator, Centre for Community Knowledge, Ambedkar University
These conversations will take as their starting point the challenges of establishing collections and new museums in contexts such as India where the mainstream view of agriculture invokes hi- tech solutions and sees tradition is seen as discredited, old-fashioned, ineffectual and alternate. Surajit (and others TBC) will reflect on these challenges and how they are set to impact on the work of AIMA members and partners.
AFTERNOON
12.30 – 13.30 Lunch (packed lunch provided, to be eaten on coach)
13.30 – 17.30 Visit to University of Oxford Museums including:
Pitt Rivers Museum (www.prm.ox.ac.uk)
University of Oxford Botanic Garden (www.obga.ox.ac.uk)
Ashmolean Museum (www.ashmolean.org)
Delegates to be divided into groups and group orientation and navigation between sites to be led by:
Maddie Ding, MERL Collections Officer
Ollie Douglas, President of the AIMA / Curator of MERL Collections
Isabel Hughes, Vice-President of AIMA / Associate Director, MERL
EVENING
17.30 – 18.30 Return to Reading by coach
END
AIMA 2020 DRAFT PROGRAMME | Past and Future Agricultures 20-23 July 2020