Tauhere | Connections, Issue 1, May 2016. 1 Hāngaitanga | Relevance Issue 1, May 2016. Tauhere | Connections, Issue 1, May 2016. 2 Committee members: Rebecca Keenan, editor Tamara Patten, editor Shelley Arlidge, sub-editor Jessica Mio, sub-editor Serena Siegenthaler, designer Milly Mitchell-Anyon, web developer MA Board liaisons: Talei Langley Daniel Stirland With much gratitude for the support and advice of: Elspeth Hocking Migoto Eria Ashley Remer Emerging Museum Professionals Group c/o Museums Aotearoa, 104 The Terrace, Wellington, New Zealand. www.tauhere.org | [email protected] ISSN 2463-5693 Tauhere | Connections, Issue 1, May 2016. 3 Content Page 3 Editorial Page 5 The Dowager Empress Cixi’s comb: A provenance treasure hunt Jane Groufsky Page 10 A Māori perspective on the localised relevance of museums and their community relationships Teina Ruri Page 17 Cultural institutions and the social compact Courtney Johnston Page 24 Potential Chloe Searle Page 28 Exclusion in the art gallery Elspeth Hocking Page 32 Curating outside your comfort zone Aimee Burbery Page 38 The Canterbury Cultural Collections Recovery Centre: Reflections of an intern Moya Sherriff Tauhere | Connections, Issue 1: Hāngaitanga | Relevance Editorial Nau mai, haere mai. Each piece approaches the relevance Welcome to the inaugural issue of of museums in a unique way, with Tauhere | Connections. discussions around the following: collection care in the wake of the Tauhere | Connections was Canterbury earthquakes, major conceived by the Emerging Museum developments in a regional museum Professionals group as a way to context, researching an object’s address a gap in New Zealand’s backstory, the challenges of curation museum publications offering – a in an unfamiliar subject area, an professional journal for the museum exploration of tikanga Māori in a sector that is not tied to the work of a museum context, comparing and single institution. It is intended as a contrasting ‘art speak’ at two very forum for early and mid-career GLAM different exhibitions and a look at sector professionals to publish their potential concerns surrounding the research, reviews and opinion pieces, collection of data from museum visitors. and for emergent researchers and writers to build up their publishing As our first issue came together, we credits. learned a lot more about the journey a publication takes from inception to The journal’s name, Tauhere | delivery. This knowledge is invaluable Connections, echoes the bicultural as we work to develop a theme for our nature and practice of the museum second issue. sector in Aotearoa New Zealand. It also reflects an important aspect of We are dedicated to ensuring the developing a career in the museum continued relevance of Tauhere | sector – making connections, forging Connections as an accessible platform relationships, building networks, from which museum professionals can connecting with visitors to our share their insights into our sector. If museums and with each other. We you have any feedback on this issue or hope that Tauhere | Connections will suggestions for future issues, please provide another avenue for such links contact the editors at to be made. [email protected]. The pieces in this inaugural issue Ngā mihi nui, cover a diverse range of subjects relating to our overarching theme, Tamara and Rebecca Hāngaitanga | Relevance, which is also a focus of the Museums Australasia 2016 Conference. Tauhere | Connections, Issue 1, May 2016. 5 Jane Groufsky The Dowager Empress Cixi’s comb: A provenance treasure hunt Jane Groufsky S ome objects join the Museum Associate Curator Applied Arts and Design, collection with rich and interesting Auckland Museum backstories: ideal for interpretation and exhibition storytelling. Other objects are Having held roles at Te Papa, MOTAT and collected as an example of ‘type’, such various libraries, Jane now gets to work as a beautiful 1920s beaded dress that closely with the museum’s sizeable and may be evocative of its era, but lacks inspiring decorative arts collection. Jane the story of the woman who wore it. is interested in textiles and fashion, with a particular focus on print and pattern. In When an object is separated from its addition to her research in this area, she information, it can be difficult to retrace enjoys learning through doing, and has tried the story. But as cultural institutions her hand at a wide range of crafts: textile and organisations digitise and share stencilling, linocut printing, dressmaking, their resources, it becomes possible to quilting, jewellery making and shibori dyeing, piece together the history of an object – to name a few. without even entering the museum. Tauhere | Connections, Issue 1, May 2016. 6 In June 2015, Auckland Museum Empresses in Chinese history end up launched our Collections Online in a museum in New Zealand? website, allowing visitors to access more than one million catalogue We know that Lady MacDonald, records from our collections. The wife of British diplomat Sir Claude following month, the MacDonald, met Applied Arts and with the Dowager Design department How did a comb Empress in Beijing was contacted from“ one of the most with five other by Linus Fan, foreign women in an independent notable Empresses December 1898. researcher based in In a full report the United States. in Chinese history of the meeting end up in a museum in the Sydney Mr Fan is a Morning Herald dedicated sleuth in New Zealand? (8 July 1901), of objects relating ” Lady MacDonald to the formidable described the Dowager Empress Cixi, who effectively Dowager Empress as “a young-looking ruled China for nearly five decades woman with jet black hair and kindly of the late Qing Dynasty. He had dark eyes; in repose her expression is discovered an entry in our online stern, but when she smiles it lights up catalogue for “Z133: comb, hair. and all traces of severity disappear.”1 Gifted to Lady MacDonald in 1900 at Peking by the Dowager Empress, Tzu Lady MacDonald goes on to detail the Hsi” and was intrigued – could this official reception and activities with story be verified? And if so, how did the ladies of the palace. She notes a comb from one of the most notable that a gift of “boxes containing combs Hair comb, circa 1898, China. Gift of Violet Dickinson, 1943. Auckland War Memorial Museum – Tāmaki Paenga Hira. Z133. Tauhere | Connections, Issue 1, May 2016. 7 made of ivory and of different sizes and A further clue came from Fourteen shapes” were presented to each of the Years of Diplomatic Life in Japan, visitors. Despite the slight discrepancy extracts from the diary written by in date, the description suggests that Baroness Albert d’Anethan, wife of a the comb in our collection could have Belgian Minister. In the entry dated 23 been given at this very event. September 1905, the author describes a dinner at the British Legion in Tokyo The Museum’s own records regarding which included a “Miss Dickinson, a the comb were slim, but we were able friend of Lady Robert Cecil’s. She to confirm to Mr Fan that it was gifted stands 6 feet 3 inches in her shoes, and to Auckland Museum by Miss Violet when a little Japanese tailor measured Dickinson of Burnham Wood, England, her for a gown, she quaintly suggested in 1944. Initial research showed that the use of a ladder.”2 Besides letting us Miss Dickinson was a close friend of know her height, this entry reveals that Virginia Woolf, and a relative of George Mis Dickinson visited Tokyo. Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland – for whom the city was named. Two of the letters in the Captain Humphrey-Davies correspondence file. Auckland War Memorial Museum – Tāmaki Paenga Hira. MUS-95-43 Correspondence H. Tauhere | Connections, Issue 1, May 2016. 8 Shipping logs from the Japan Weekly the story that Mr Fan had pieced Mail confirm the arrival of a Lady together through his research. In Miss Dickinson into Tokyo in 19053 – Dickinson’s own handwritten words was coinciding with Sir Claude MacDonald’s the story of the comb: post as British Ambassador to Japan. This suggests that the comb was gifted “I’ll send the Chinese little things. In to Miss Dickinson by Lady 1905, I went with Lord and Lady Cecil MacDonald at this time. (of Chelwood) to Japan; we stayed with Sir Claude Just one question Years of and Lady MacDonald remained: how did the chasing“ the there. Lady MacDonald comb make its way into gave me this present the Auckland Museum empress’s given to her in 1900 after collection? Was Miss relics, such the siege of Peking by Dickinson’s family the old Dowager Empress connection to Lord a rewarding Tzu Hsi. The MacDonalds Auckland the reason she outcome were at Peking then and gifted the comb to Auckland then later went to Tokyo; Museum? Early copies is akin to they had lovely Chinese of the Auckland Institute finding the treasures.”4 Miss Dickinson and Museum Annual also confirmed the Lord Report listed significant needle in a Auckland link, including in acquisitions, and in the haystack her letter a list of family 1943-1944 report, scanned ” members. and published on the Museum website, Mr Fan found specific reference to Although the elements of the comb’s Chinese objects brought back from provenance already existed in the England by Captain Humphreys- Museum’s records, it took some Davies to Auckland as gifts from Violet investigation and time to connect the Dickinson. dots. In Mr Fan’s own words: “Years of chasing the empress’s relics, such George Humphreys-Davies, the a rewarding outcome is akin to finding Museum’s honorary Asian curator at the needle in a haystack.”5 Through the the time, donated 354 objects to the use of digitised resources and with the Museum, sourced through his wide help of museum staff, our researcher network of collectors and curators.