74 research outputs found
The Intangible Archive
No full textThe Intangible Archive, developed by art and design historian Jeanie Sinclair and sound artist Philip Reeder, combines locative technology with site-specific audio to create a hybrid method for the research and dissemination of the oral history archive. Often difficult to access, this paper hopes to demonstrate creative ways in which oral history can be relocated outside the archive.
This research examines notions of St Ives’ ‘creative community’, rather than ‘art colony’, to describe the links (and disjunctions) between diverse creative practitioners, communities, places, and spaces in which they operate. Using the Memory Bay oral history archive in St Ives (a collaboration between University College Falmouth, Tate St. Ives, St. Ives Archive, Leach Pottery and Porthmeor Studios) has been a catalyst for on-going research exploring how art and cultural practice, past and present, connects individuals and communities, and how memory and identity is intertwined with and performed through space and place
Strengthening Australia's Indigenous languages: the relationship between community and linguists
No full textOf the 250 traditional languages once spoken on the continent of Australia as recently as 100 years ago, there are now today only 20-30 languages considered to be healthy and viable into the foreseeable future as full languages. ‘Prior to British invasion, linguists estimated that there were approximately 230 languages, with between 500 and 600 dialects being spoken throughout the continent. (Fesl:1993, p8) While today many languages are being revived and maintained in different ways for future generations, the current situation with the lessening of fluent speakers and the intergenerational transmission of languages is of increasing concern to the remaining speakers and traditional custodians. of these languages. In this paper I discuss the work being carried out in Australia by Aboriginal women dedicated to the cause of language revival and maintenance in their endeavours as trained linguists, language workers or community researchers. These women are also language activists on behalf of their communities and they regularly work with non-Indigenous linguists who have an interest and concern for the futute of Australian Aboriginal languages. While many of the relationships between University trained linguists and community language workers work well in many situations, at times tensions do arise particularly if the Aboriginal member of the language team believes they have little power to negotiate their role and contribution to the project in a meaningful way. These Issues between the two groups can lead to further discontent if they are not addressed openly and with the pursuit of a satisfactory outcome. As a qualified linguist and an Aboriginal community person, I believe there must be more discussion around pertinent issues such as the control and management of language materials, intellectual proprerty rights and the return of products back to the community. Dialogue needs to happen in a non-threatening way for either group, ultimately fostering more productive relationships. Aboriginal people who participate in linguistic research projects or revival and maintenance language programs may feel powerless due to a lack of training and/or knowledge and understanding of linguistics or simply because they don’t have a high level of speaking competence in their own language which they may have for many decades had little or no access to. In order to strengthen their negotiating position within a language research team or language project there needs to be a more widely accepted and endorsed inclusive collaborative approach from beginning to end. In discussing particular issues of contention related to language work happening in many communities around Australia, I place the discussion within the current framework of Indigenest research methodologies as framed by leading Indigenous researcher Smith (2001), with a specific focus on intellectual and cultural property rights, and the ‘reporting back’ of results to Indigenous communities. As Smith states in her ground-breaking publication ‘Decolonizing Methodologies' (2001:p15) “Some methodologies regard the values and beliefs, practices and customs of communities as 'barriers' to research… Indigenous methodologies tend to approach cultural protocols, values and behaviour as an integral part of methodology. There are diverse ways of disseminating knowledge and of ensuring that research reaches the people who have helped make it. Two important ways not always addressed by scientific research are to do with 'reporting back' to the people and 'sharing knowledge'. Both ways assume a principle of reciprocity and feedback.” In conversation with Australian Aboriginal women involved in language and culture business in their respective communities, similar ideals as those expressed by Smith (2001) are strongly stated. While they work to maintain these ideals through a community focussed approach and practice in the development of their language programs may not be explained by them in the same way as described by Smith (2001) their work nonetheless closely reflects her philosophy. For instance when I spoke to Vicki Couzens, a widely acclaimed Aboriginal visual artist and cultural warrior, at her art gallery in Port Fairy in SW Victoria, adjacent to her own traditional land of the Keeray Wooroong people, she spoke of how she actively promotes the use of her Ancestral language in many different ways through her multi dimensional artwork within and across family and community situations. "But with cultural remembering in the way the old people take you on journeys in your dreams, you are given a certain role and we grow into that there are certain things that happen along the way. That's what motivates me it is so central and language is at the core of that culture and all the information if held in the language.' (pers.comm. with Author:2008) For most non-Indigenous linguists a scientific interest in Australian languages is motivated by a specific semantic, grammatical or typology feature in one or more of these languages, which often requires research involving ongoing investigation and analysis. While many wish to give back to the local Aboriginal language community, they may also concerned to document and analyse the dwindling numbers of endangered languages worldwide and linguistic diversity for future generations. However there are concerns about the usefulness of this work to the community if the linguist involved does not understand the needs of the language community. Eira states in a paper she delivered at a FEL Conference in Malaysia in late 2007 the following: "Nonetheless, when linguists particpate in work on endangered languages, we focus on the language itself - collecting language, analysing language, its grammar, its words etc. This has the effect of ignoring the ground of language endangerment. More importantly, it ignores the ways in which our work can actually perpetuate the status quo of unequal relations between groups. Because we still interact from a position of authority in the languages we are working with, we are maintaining the dominance of an outsider instead of acknowledging and supporting the authority of the community in their language." (Eira:2007) In order for this very valuable work to continue to benefit Aboriginal community people who are struggling to keep their traditional languages alive and strong, and for both Aboriginal community members and linguists to receive meaningful reward from this process, it is critical that there be an ongoing dialogue around the critical issues facing all of us involved in this area. 'Rather than attempting to impose our research interests, our project was formed as listening to the community's needs, forming lasting relationships.' (Otsuka and Wong: 2007) Bibliography Eira, C., 'Addressing the ground of language endangerment'. Working together for endangered languages: Research challenges and social impacts. Proceedings of Foundation for Endangered Languages Conference XI. Kaula Lumpur, October, 2007. Fesl, E. M., 'Conned' University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1993. Smith, L.T., 'Decolonizing Methodologies: research and Indigenous people.' University of Otaga, New Zealand. 2001 Otsuka,d Y. and Wong, A., 'Fostering the Growth of Budding Community Initiatives: The Role of Linguists in Tokelauan Maintenance in Hawai'i' in Language Documentation & Conservation;, Vol 1, No 2 (December, 2007) University of Hawii (online Journal)
Sound Recording - Interview with Frank Bach and Jeanie Plamondon on "Talk Back" show, WCBN-FM; (Unit II, no. 20) - [Undated]
No full textContent note: The sound recording(s) associated with this repository item derive from a single audio reel tape. A single tape may yield multiple audio files if there were variations in tape stock, speed, or channels (i.e. stereo or mono). For more information see http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/108126.[Item 1020] : [Part 1] : Interview with Frank Bach and Jeanie Plamondon on "Talk Back" show, WCBN-FMhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120958/2/850-SR-1020-1-am.wavhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120958/3/850-SR-1020-1-pm.wavhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120958/4/850-SR-1020-1.mp3http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120958/5/850-SR-1020-1-002.jpghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120958/6/850-SR-1020-1-001.jpghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120958/7/850-SR-1020-1-003.jpghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120958/8/850-SR-1020-1-notes.txthttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120958/9/850-SR-1020-1.xmlRESTRICTE
The music of Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916): a critical study
No full textApart from a single study of Jeanie Deans, MacCunn's music has, to date, never received a detailed examination. This thesis aims to provide a contextual basis for, and a stylistic analysis of, his major works, and so establish informed criteria by which a truer assessment of MacCunn's significance may be made, challenging the sovereignty of Land of the Mountain and the Flood in the public's reckoning of his compositions and hence revealing it to be not an isolated peak but one summit among many. Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916) grew up in Greenock on the west coast of Scotland before removing to London at the tender age of 15 to further his musical studies at the Royal College of Music. His assimilation of a robust orchestral technique was rapid and before he reached his twentieth birthday he had already tasted the pleasures of public approbation. Thereafter, a sequence of orchestral works, cantatas, songs and two grand operas with a pronounced Scottish character appeared in the late eighties and nineties. It is this period which is the focus of the study, but later works dating from MacCunn's time conducting West End shows are also discussed. Through a generic survey of his output, the thesis locates the composer's works within a historical and biographical framework, isolating characteristic traits both novel and derived from the earlier Nineteenth Century inheritance, and evaluating his position as a composer of his time and afterwards. In particular his strengths and penchants as a composer have been identified with special emphasis on the composer’s bias for dramatic or narrative music, amply demonstrated in his overtures, cantatas and, above all, his two operas Jeanie Deans and Diarmid. To complement the chapters on MacCunn's musical works, an opening biographical chapter, a comprehensive catalogue, a family tree, iconography and bibliography have been provided. Throughout the thesis, reference has been made to primary sources held in Glasgow and other libraries throughout Britain and the United States, in an attempt to arrive at as complete a picture of MacCunn as possible
Gossip and Oral History
No full textHow do multiple narratives of women’s oral histories author the history of place? This paper draws on gossip in oral histories from the St Ives Archive to explore the ways in which the archive writes narratives of place through women’s voices that explode existing patriarchal histories of the postwar creative community in St Ives.
The collection of women’s interviews in the oral history archive form a discrete community, in and of itself, as well as being a representation of a community. The interviews in the archive within this ‘archived community’ interact to create multiplicitous and multivalent narratives of place to amplify women’s voices and articulate their experiences.
Oral histories are already an intimate way of sharing life stories, but also one in which the participants are aware not only that what they say will be a matter of public record, but will create a legacy. Often, community oral history projects often have another dimension of intimacy. When the interviewer and the interviewee have known each other and lived in the same town for decades, they both bring that shared knowledge of community and place to the the performance. As part of that conversation, they may also discuss a third party, which can be defined as gossip. Listening to gossip in oral histories reveals hidden narratives, and disrupts and destabilises existing patriarchal historiographies of St Ives. As Rogoff (1996) suggests, gossip is a powerful tool that can unearth hidden and alternative narratives of queer and feminine modernisms and modernities. This paper explores how gossip works as a collaborative tool to write the history of community, revealing feminist and queer narratives that would otherwise remain hidden
Lean into the mess: A review of Your Fat Friend (2023) and conversation with director and producer Jeanie Finlay
No full textAllegra Morgado’s review of the film Your Fat Friend brings together her perspective as a fat woman and the power of seeing one’s experiences mirrored on screen. Featuring a conversation with director and producer Jeanie Finlay, Morgado explores the nuanced depiction of author and podcaster Aubrey Gordon’s life in the documentary film, the meaning of it, and the impact the film has for fat folks and non-fat folks alike. Morgado includes excerpts from her conversation with Finlay to invite the reader into a behind-the-scenes look of the making of the film and the joyous messiness of the creative process. 
Gossip and Ghosts: Spectres of Lost Feminist Utopias
No full textThis presentation considers the lost feminist utopian social imaginary of 1960s St Ives, and asks, how can using oral history with hauntology as a critical-creative heritage practice reveal hidden, gendered narratives in the history of St Ives’ creative community?
By looking at gossip in the oral history archive as a seance that conjures the spirit of 1960s St Ives, this discussion explores how this community created a sense of both individual and collective identity as a form of resistance to patriarchal capitalism, and how this was expressed and shared through parties and political activism. Mid-20th century St Ives was a place where women were able to have creative careers, explore alternative political views, transgress heteronormative gender roles and explore ideas of utopian collectivism. To listen to the gossip in the archive is to “invite back the ghosts that sanitized history has banished” (McNeill, 2001). The complex and messy stories of women’s lives have been represssed by dominant patriarchal modernist narratives, however, these women’s ghostly voices cannot fully be suppressed. The archive’s spectral community creates a rupture that interrupts the tourist present and historiographies of St Ives to reveal a complex, gendered narrative of the history of the town’s creative community.
Drawing on oral histories from the St Ives Archive, gossip is a powerful tool that can unearth hidden and alternative queer and feminine narratives of modernities. (Rogoff, 1996) Using gossip as a methodology reveals the importance of the ghosts of feminine sociability as political resistance, the party as an alternative, feminine creative practice, and the complex relationships and vital support networks that developed between women in St Ives' postwar art community
Women, Politics and Parties in 1960s St Ives
No full textWomen came to St Ives in the years after the Second World War to to be artists and to pursue independent creative careers. Much like the women in the historic art colonies of the late 19th and early 20th century, described by Nina Lübbren in her book Rural Artists' Colonies in Europe 1870-1910 (2001), women came to St Ives in the 1950s and 1960s because of the towns’ reputation for utopian bohemianism, and the freedoms this promised.
How did feminist politics shape the creative community of women in 1960s St Ives? How did socialism and the politics of the New Left shape women’s collectivism? This paper uses gossip as a framework to explore the gendered experience of politics in the art community in St Ives in Cornwall in the 1960s. By looking at how women performed countercultural political identities in 1960s St Ives, I will show how this community created a sense of both individual and collective identity as a form of resistance to patriarchal capitalism, and how this identity was expressed and shared through parties.
As somewhere that was both remote from, but connected to, urban centres, St Ives was a place where women were able to explore alternative political views, transgress heteronormative gender roles and explore ideas of utopian collectivism. It offered women support networks, pedagogical frameworks and social spaces that made enabled women to live independently and be part of the creative economy. The party was the locus for women’s social and cultural exchange; a social space in which women came together to create and define their community. The party was a social sculpture that developed, defined and maintained these social and cultural identities, and brought people together to gossip, and in doing so, defined and strengthened a sense of community and place. This paper explores the party as a form of cultural and countercultural practice where women formed cohesive communities as a form of socialist and pacifist resistance.
Drawing on oral histories from the St Ives Archive, gossip is a powerful tool that can unearth hidden and alternative queer and feminine narratives of modernities. (Rogoff, 1996) Using gossip as a methodology reveals the importance of feminine sociability as political resistance, the party as an alternative, feminine creative practice, and the complex relationships and vital support networks that developed between women in St Ives' postwar art community
"The Most Wonderful Wonderful Parties": Gossip and anecdote as feminist epistemology in women’s oral histories of the creative community in postwar St Ives
No full textThis thesis explores the history of St Ives' creative community using oral history
interviews with women from the St Ives Archive. Focusing on gossip and anecdote, I take
and develop eavesdropping as a methodology. In doing so, this reveals the importance
of feminine sociability and the locus of the party as an alternative, feminine creative
practice, and the complex relationships and support networks that developed between
women in St Ives' creative community. By listening to the voices of women in the oral
history collection of St Ives Archive, gossip and anecdote also provide a way to explore
women's experiences and memories of the town's bohemian creative community, and
reveal hidden feminine modernities and modernisms. The history of the post-war art
colony in St Ives has largely been considered through a masculine, modernist lens that
focuses on a small number of artists and a mostly formalist reading of St Ives through
their work. Little consideration has been given to the wider creative community of St
Ives, and to women’s experiences in particular. I argue that women were attracted to
move to St Ives in the years after the Second World War because of the towns'
reputation for utopian bohemianism, and the freedoms this promised. Women moved
to St Ives in order to make new and independent lives for themselves in an alternative
community that enabled them to pursue their creative practice, and participate in and
shape the community in which they lived
‘I try to present an appearance in London (without marble dust)’: Barbara Hepworth’s Style as Self-staging 1953-1975
No full textBarbara Hepworth’s concern for self-presentation is evident throughout her body of creative work. Continually misinterpreted or misrepresented by the patriarchal press and paternalistic art critics, Hepworth attempted to correct these frequently misogynistic framings of her as an artist, and as a woman, by carefully presenting and representing her image through her art and writing. This paper explores how Hepworth constructed her identity and controlled her self-representation through her style and dress in the latter part of her life.
Part of ‘setting the record straight’ (Curtis, 1994:197) extended to Hepworth’s careful performance of her identity through her choice of what she wore. Always a fashionable woman, she was no less carefully controlled in how she presented herself as she got older. As arguably Britain’s most famous modernist artist, she collaborated with, and was photographed by, some of the best-known portrait photographers of the 20th century. By examining some of these carefully staged photographic portraits, such as those by Snowdon, Ida Kar, and Ander Gunn, as well as the films she co-created to share her work and ideas, I hope to show how Hepworth’s style and self-fashioning reflects and emphasises her identity as an artist and working woman.
Contrary to an image of Hepworth that has persisted as ‘cold’ and ‘aloof’ (Buckberrough, 1998:48), her letters reveal both her sense of humour and her continued enthusiasm for clothes in her later years. This paper also draws on oral histories, and intimate personal letters to her friend and jewellery designer Janet Slack, to reveal Hepworth’s anxieties around what to wear, and discusses her particular love of comissioning and co-designing jewellery
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