Mary Rose Museum's Queer Lense

[1stWorldProblems]

I bloody love this musuem & it's one of the few to use tech to enhance its exhibits with the "ghosts" it projects on the hull (as opposed to unnecessary "interactive" displays that 50-somethings are cool and break after a few months but which kids have seen better done on their tablets but that's another thread). This came up on my timeline today - viewing a number of their objects through a queer lens - or going on about 21st century concerns that can only be linked to the said object by tying yourself in knots.

https://maryrose.org/blog/collections/the-collections-team/queering-the-mary-rose-s-collection/

SO tedious - the wreck and the objects found are fascinating without layering on 21st century superfluous info. It's not even interesting or original thoughts - just the usual guff.

I wonder how much this driven by the publisher's. I know someone who has written a history book for "trade" as opposed to academia and there was an expectation that they include "colour" to paint a pictfor their audience. If there isn't an eyewitness account of your exact event or location, then you are going to have to draw reasonable assumptions based on what you know of the period and over places/events. I do agree it should be clear from the writing though ie: there is no account for xx but based on other events it was likely like yyy. But maybe the publishers want something more definitely phrased.

Out of curiosity, which funeral did she describe? (I haven't read the book) they are sort of my mastermind subject so I might know if there is an actual account.

@Boiledbeetle oh you are.naughty but I ❤️ you!

I have my moments!

Hmmmm. If a daisy decides is identifies as a strelizia, is it moved into the tropical house ?

I find it's very similar with tv documentaries. They are almost unrecognizable from when I was a child, it's all actors supposedly reconstructing events, or animated reconstructions. Even going to museums and such there is a real emphasis on actors in costumes you can talk to, and supposedly get "insight" into the feelings the real people had.

I particularly enjoyed the Petrie Museum (Egyptian & Sudanese Archeology, part of UCL and near Euston) precisely because of its old-school traditional museum vibe. Just rows of wooden cabinets stuffed full of artefacts, many still with neatly hand-written labels. The mineral gallery in the Natural History Museum is like this too. There are still people left who are capable of looking, reading and learning without the need for pantomime excitement.

I went to the Acropolis Museum recently and was very impressed - it is possible to curate a modern museum without actors in costume and with written labels that provides a really good insight into a site. I especially liked the practical reconstructive work on paint colours which was clearly explained and demonstrated with simple examples alongside the statuary.

And cats.

Not a museum per se but St Alban's cathedral were recently using "interactive" technology to project colour on to a reredos - simple but very effective in transforming the space to show how different itlooked in the past.

Personally I like the places that strike a balance, detailed information boards for those that want them and some interactivity (I do like a good interactive game part way round a museum). And I do think, used correctly, technology can bring a wreck/ruins/modernised place to life. But some places seem to have gone to far towards "theme park". I am always put off Warwick castle because its marketing looks so Disneyfied.

Warwick Castle is just a big theme park (it’s part of the Merlin Group).

Arundel Castle is much better - and you can get the touristy fix on their special History events (can recommend The History Man).

my bug bear, which seems to be fashionable curating at the moment, is pale green labels with white writing. Placed very low down in the cabinet.

This is why I had to stop watching Lucy Worsley documentaries. I started off really enjoying her enthusiasm and freshness but when it was just one long “dress up and act out the plot” I gave up.

Which is a shame because I really liked her as a presenter, she is very engaging.

But as a historian she is utterly crap and gets her facts wrong all over the place.SHe managed to write a whole novel descriing Katherine Howard as the granddaughter of the Duchess of Newcastle rather than Norfolk - given it was pretty fundamental to her importance that she was a Howard that is really basic

I believe that it was the success of Northumberland not Newcastle. Not that it makes the blindest but of difference! I couldn't make it past the blurb to try reading the book. Her heroine also went to "school" with Katherine Howard at Trumpton Hall. Just why... You could have written about the girls being educated in the dowager duchess of Norfolk s house with the same effect.

She also wrote the historical article on Henry VIII's wives that appeared in the programme for the version of SIX I went to see (one of the touring shows), and repeated duchess of Northumberland in that too. Which is just laughable/depressing. Katherine was a Howard not a Percy. And there wasn't even a duchy of Northumberland at the time. There were only 3 dukes during her childhood, and only 2 by the time she married Henry VIII. It's been over a year since I went to the show and I am still not over ranting about this....

Yes, I gained a visually impaired partner a few months ago, and it's made me much more aware of how legible some signs are - and I already had some idea of poor colour combinations having studied it at uni.

I'm currently reading a biography of Witold Pilecki, written by a journalist rather than a historian, and the author keeps writing things such as Pilecki 'likely thought' this or 'must have felt' that or 'likely did' this or 'probably did' that. It's really irritating. Either give me direct evidence or at least show the reasoning behind making such assertions.

Even going to museums and such there is a real emphasis on actors in costumes you can talk to, and supposedly get "insight" into the feelings the real people had

I loathe those things with a passion. 'Hello, I'm Molly and today I'm here to tell you what it was like to be a maid at Blenheim Palace in the 1880s.' No you aren't, you're cosplaying. It's treating people from the past as if they were us but in fancy costumes when they were utterly different from us in so many ways that we can't even begin to understand.

Discovered that recently. Love the old typewritten labels and the stuff shoved in cases and no patronising labels asking you 'and how do you think it would have felt being mummified?' and the like.

Snap with the visually impaired partner.

I have not forgiven the Wallace Collection for having a video on, OK the room needed to be a bit dark for the sake of the video but did they really need to hide it behind blackout curtains?

DH walked in, found he was completely blind and had to grope his way out.

White text on grey backgrounds is another issue. Don't mind exhibitions that have to be dark for conservation reasons but when it's just because the curator thought it was a cool look it's not on.

Museums seem to think that if they have provided a large text booklet and an artifact handling session, they have done visual impairment, no thought at all to the very significant number of people who have significant impairments but not enough to be registered blind/partially sighted.

I've taken to complaining to the Visitor Engagement/Accessibility person now after crap visits, they need to think about the whole of protected characteristics, not just the fun ones.

Some of these are rubbish because they’re employed to be there on a daily basis, playing a role. But some can be really good - often these are the keen hobby re-enactors that have done a lot of research into that particular time period and stick to the known facts.

But some can be really good - often these are the keen hobby re-enactors that have done a lot of research into that particular time period and stick to the known facts

Re-enactments I have no issue with when people have really researched it and try to be as authentic as they can. Sticking a black dress and a mob cap on someone isn't that.

Well, yes. That’s the difference between employing actors following a script and bringing in people that have a passion (I work with the latter - their attention to detail is quite something).

I thought I'd put this here because the Mary Rose gets a mention.

https://thecritic.co.uk/corrosive-curation/

I sometimes think all this handwringing about 'colonialism' is conflating two or more issues. We have to acknowledge history, warts and all, because otherwise it's not telling the full story. But the past is a foreign country. Aren't we now doing to our past what the British Empire did to the countries it colonised?

Tell people what happened, don't tell them how they should feel about it.

And don't shoehorn it into every single little thing.

Whether reparations should or can be made and if repatriation of artifacts should happen is another discussion entirely.

And it happened here too. Indentured, exploited, drafted, overworked, starved, evicted, etc., etc.

I had some free time in Berlin earlier this year and blundered into the Ethnological Museum. They might as well have renamed it the Museum of White Guilt. It was just awful.

I have slight problems with "tell people what happened" because we only know what people tell us happened and that is not always reliable (just like if you asked people to give a witness statement about a car crash, few people would be "accurate" and the accounts would vary). But I would agree that there is a difference between telling us the different ways people in the past experienced events v. Interpreting events as if the people experience them had grown up in the 21st century.

And for all the past is a different place and we can never fully recapture what it was to be a person in X century, I am a fan of showing that there are similarities. If we view our ancestors as wholly different it is easy to get nostalgic about myths, and to think that we wouldn't behave in particular ways. In reality people in the past missed their spouses when they were away, grieved for lost family members, looted and scammed in times of crisis, complained that kids these days have no respect and not want to work, and wrote about how things were "better in the past".