Does Putting an Item in a Museum or Gallery Affect the Way it is Perceived?

An Object’s Identity and Physical Context: A Case Study-based Investigation
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An Object’s Identity and Physical Context: A Case Study-based Investigation
Abstract
Studies on the nature and context of an inanimate object have produced an in-depth understanding of the role of external and external factors in shaping an object’s identity. Therefore, scholars generally agree that exchanges and transformations change the biographies and identities of non-living objects just like living things. In this essay, the author aims to investigate the role of external factors, such as the physical context, in shaping the identity of two similar Changsha ceramic bowls belonging to the same era. The first ceramic bowl was in possession of a private collector, and the other is on display with other similar bowls at Asian Ceramic Museum. The analysis of both objects’ surroundings, their biographies, and phases of transformation verify that an object’s identity is changed by its physical context and biography. The ceramic bowl in possession of a private collector has changed its status from a soup bowl or an economically valuable commodity to a precious antique. On the other hand, the same ceramic bowl in the ACM holds a greater significance as it has transformed a soup bowl into a relic and from a relic to a representation of the history and culture of Changsha city. Therefore, this case study verifies the central argument of the essay.
Introduction
An object is not just a piece of artifact kept in a museum; it is a product of the cumulative culture of a society, and it forms an integral and imperative part of it. Based on scholarly views, an object’s identity reflects the personality of the society it belongs or even has a life similar to that of a person (Joy, 2009). Thus, objects should be treated like living things with their history of changes and development. Scholars have generally acknowledged that an object’s reality and perception change with a series of exchanges, and this observation is more prominent in portable objects, such as bowls. Besides changes in an object developed through this process, the place of display of an object, such as a museum, also plays an important part in altering an object’s identity and meaning. It is an acknowledged fact that the movement of an object from a domestic environment to a public display or vice versa alters its identity significantly. For the same reason, an object displayed in a museum appears different and reveals different historical and cultural aspects compared with its life in a private collection (Epp & Price, 2010).
Given these facts, the current discussion aims to answer the question of how the change in the context alters an object’s identity when placed in different museums or other places. This discussion provides scholarly and philosophical arguments and logical and observable facts to substantiate that place of display and historical and social context play a crucial role in altering an object’s identity. For this purpose, this paper selects the case study of two ceramic bowls placed in different places: one is on display at Asia Civilization Museum, and the other is on display at a private collector’s room. This comparison will be used as a methodology to highlight how the display’s place changes the historical, cultural, and social perception related to an object.
Background/Literature Review
The role of physical, social, cultural, and historical contexts in changing an object’s identity has been a hot topic of discussion amongst scholars of antiquarian sciences. For instance, scholarly research on understanding object biography provides sufficient theoretical backing to the argument that objects have identities and biographies, and their biographies can be written just like human biographies. Similarly, this study also reveals how critics argue that objects go through a series of incarnations based on their movement from one place to another (Joy, 2009; Oliva & Torralba, 2007; Fenske et al., 2006). Similarly, one renowned scholar suggests that biographical entanglement is a common phenomenon when discussing the biographies of an object as it moves from one civilization or culture to another. In the case of portable objects such as bowls under discussion, the biographical entanglement is the outcome of a series of repeated exchanges and circulation. These biographies and histories add to the cumulative values of these objects (Joy, 2009); however, understanding the process of creation of an object’s history is a very rarely attempted subject.
Examples abound when archaeologists have utilized objects’ life histories; for instance, in North America, processual archaeologists have used different processes, including procurement, manufacture, use, maintenance, and discard, as well as storage, transport, recycling, and re-use to estimate the archeological context of archeological records (Joy, 2009). Similarly, a scholar Gerritsen used the biographical approach to objects’ identity and successfully demonstrated the dynamic life of prehistorical houses located in the southern Netherlands. Similar views regarding the fluidity of the life of objects are expressed in another scholarly research conducted by Bruno Latour; in his discussion, he explains how objects are not perceived as just material things. Instead, the objects are viewed by modern technologists and philosophers as representations of ideas, theories, inspirations, and cultural behaviors. Therefore, when passed from one hand to another, an object assumes a new life, which he describes as “to pad those whitened bones with new flesh” (Latour, 2012).
In this discussion, the author explains how dusty and fossilized objects assume new life as soon as they come into the hands of a new person. For the same reason, the author insists on using new ways of interpreting the relationship of objects with physical context and people. (Latour, 2012). The author recommends using a new critical theory to provide an understanding of the ties between facts, social and cultural values, and the nature and social context of objects. In this regard, the author recommends using actor-network technology as this technology facilitates effective and elaborate mapping of the relationship existing between institutions, objects, and people (Latour, 2012). Thus, the perspective of viewing an object is applicable to the current discussion as, like this discussion, it explores the relationship of physical context with the meaning of an object.
Based on another scholar’s argument, a commodity or object holds social significance as it is completely a social object. Therefore, a commodity is a product to be used for economic exchange, and for the same reason, it forms the institutional, psychological, and economic foundation of capitalism (Appadurai, 1986). This scholar also argues on focusing commodities on being exchanged rather than the form or function of exchanges revealing that the commodities hold political and social significance as they create a link between exchange and value (Appadurai, 1986). Furthermore, this paper provides a new perspective to object identification by including the anthropology of globalization, involving understanding the role of cultural, social, and economic processes in shaping society and values.
In the same way, a scholar Janet Hoskins uses material cultural studies to explore the relationship between agency and object. She describes the agency as a “socially culturally mediated capacity to act”; furthermore, she includes material things or objects in her definition of agency as they are also capable of acting based on social and cultural contexts (Hoskins, 2006). Additionally, the scholar considers “agency” as a relative term since the conception of social action and agent varies from one society to another. By elaborating on the significance of context in identifying an object, she argues that an intrinsic link between an object and a person can lead to a mutual exchange of attributes as both become synonymous with each other. She uncovers the most significant aspect of an object’s identity when she explains how an object changes its biography when it is transformed from an object to a gift or commodity and from a commodity to inalienable possession (Hoskins, 2006).
The opposite relationship between objects as commodities and people and the economists’ view of commodities as static entities is a subject of debate among scholars. In this regard, one scholar gives the example of slavery to explain how commodities have biographies; the researcher explains that a slave assumes the status of a commodity only when he is in the transition phase between the capturer and the buyer. Afterward, the salve assumes a new identity and develops a new biographical change in a new social context (Kopytoff, 1986). By developing an analogy, the author explains how a person has social, cultural, and professional biographies, and in the same way, an object can have different biographies, such as technical, economic, and physical biographies. In doing so, the scholar denies considering objects as static entities and spurns traditional ways of evaluating material objects (Kopytoff, 1986). Thus, this discussion also substantiates the argument that an object’s identity depends on various contexts.
This view is corroborated by the findings of Elsner and Cardinal in their book “Culture of Collecting” as they substantiate the notion that an object should not be treated like an animate object; instead, an object is a representation of several cultural constructs and physical contexts that have shaped its history and biography (1997). A person can commonly observe that when people buy or get an object, they add different and highly personalized meanings to them, and this process heralds a new identity for this object. Furthermore, this transformation of meaning and identity of an object may occur multiple times, significantly shaping the identity and biography of this seemingly inanimate object (Price & Epp, 2010). Thus, this view also corroborates Kopytoff’s argument that when an object is placed in a home and when it leaves home, it undergoes a significant transformation in terms of its meaning, identity, and biography.
Using examples of various historical and social objects, another scholar provides substantial historical and social evidence that objects should not be considered inanimate things or commodities. To prove his argument, the scholar provides examples of objects with broader social, historical, and cultural significance than one can perceive from their appearance. To explain this observation...