A project kindly funded by Brigstow Institute, University of Bristol, Seedcorn Fund 2024.
Could rocks and samples held in geological collections, their associated histories and related indigenous worldviews help us all begin to understand more fully our relationships with the land and our planet, our past and global future, our cultural and natural heritage?
Black Life Matters and the fall of the Colston Statue in Bristol have rekindled discussions about colonial legacies in museums, collections, educational and scientific institutions and foregrounded questions about cultural ownership and repatriation.
The return of natural history and geological specimens (soil, rock, sand, minerals, and fossils) has so far been overlooked or excluded from repatriation discussions or practices in the UK. The focus is on man-made objects in ethnographic and archaeological collections that hold a perceived cultural, artistic, spiritual or even financial value (e.g. return of the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, human remains to Native North Americans or the Euphronios Krater to Italy).
What will the project involve?
This is a co-created project with partners in Aotearoa (New Zealand), necessitating the use of te reo (Māori words) in the project description. This project’s key research interests are situated in the reconsideration of the cultural, spiritual, and community importance of rocks using a particular example from Aotearoa. To this end, the researchers seek to consider and explore the following:
- How a rock is seen and held within cultural stories (esp Māori).
- How complex and animate relations with land in other cultures and diverse worldviews inform the collecting, storage and potential return of geological samples currently held by institutions in the global north.
- Why natural objects (rock samples) in contrast to cultural objects are often excluded from discussions of repatriation in the UK even though there is historic (and modern) evidence in our European/Western cultures of humans attributing spiritual and cultural meaning to geological samples.
- What best practice might look like in the future with regard to acquiring rock samples and the practicalities of returning rocks from the UK to Aotearoa and how this research can be shared with other institutions (museums, archives, universities)
The project will work creatively and collaboratively across the disciplines of art, humanities and science and will use creative practices (poetry and illustration) to facilitate interdisciplinary discussions about the movement of rocks (including soil, minerals, gems) between cultures and countries. Illustrations remove linguistic barriers. Poems and the poetic imagination invigorate research practice and bring in necessary questions of what languages are being used and the need for translation. Poems are a means of communication in many cultures and particularly relevant to our case study as Māori culture frequently uses karakia (prayer) to increase the spiritual goodwill of a gathering, so as to increase the likelihood of a favourable outcome.
The team are interested in early-stage research related to how geological collections can spark questions, feelings and curiosity about how rocks are viewed in different cultures and how different stories, languages and practices can strengthen relationships with the land. The need to create respectful and meaningful connections with the ground we stand on is imperative in a time of climate crisis.
The team also acknowledge that building trusting and equal relationships with iwi communities, especially from the UK, takes time and has grown over decades. Identifying common interests areas and outputs that are beneficial to an iwi community like the Ngāti Rangitihi will take time. Whilst Tanira (chair of the Ruawahia 2B trust of the Ngāti Rangitihi iwi) has expressed interests in being involved in this collaboration, the researchers recognise that their time is precious and thinly spread across various Māori focused projects. They hence are using this project to identify meaningful and fruitful ways of engaging with Tanira: a) about the repatriation of rocks and b) to find an koha (gift) or output that is helpful to the iwi (something that goes beyond re-numerification eg enhancement of iwi education or a scholarship). As a result of this complexity, Tanira is listed outside of the core team.
What is to come?
The project will develop links across the academic community at UoB (between researchers that don’t usually cross paths as they work in different schools and faculties). The project will also connect researchers with artists to ensure a diverse set of methods and practices is used to design and answer research questions that explore what it means to practice respectful relationships with the land and between human beings who hold different world views.
Events
Migrating Rocks: A Creative Workshop 10:00 – 13:00, Tuesday 23rd April
with Alyson Hallett and Edie Woolf as workshop leads
As part of a Brigstow-funded project looking at returning rocks to Aotearoa / New Zealand, we would like to offer a playful and experimental workshop that explores the theme of migrating rocks and why it might be important to return them to the place from which they were taken. We will be working with poetry and collage in ways that fire and inspire the imagination. This is an opportunity to hang out with rocks and investigate our emotional and intellectual relationships with them. No previous experience of poetry or art is necessary. If possible, can you please bring along a piece of material that you would like to contribute to the project. These pieces will be stitched together at a later stage and used to wrap the stones in before they travel back to Aotearoa / New Zealand.
Migrating Rocks: Collections and Curations 10:00 – 13:00, Friday 12th July
A day long workshop will focus on collections and samples led by collection manager Claudia Hildebrandt and supported by museum curators Deborah Hutchinson. It will offer tours of the City Museum and UoB geological collections to explore ideas of migrating stones, touch on colonial and postcolonial legacies and explore approaches to repatriation in ethnographic collections that may inform similar approaches in geological collections.