Turan tries to understand how diasporic objects operate within the Middle Eastern diaspora communities in New York City. Turan uses the snowball technique and interviews different Palestinians about dislocation, the meaning of diasporic objects and the collective identity it embraces. Turan argues that initially the objects were used as transitional objects; however objects do not always function this way because transitions involve a start and an end. Turan provides insight into how diasporic objects present a sense of continuity. Objects sustain and strengthen the attachment to a group or homeland, and provide a collective memory. Younger generations surround themselves with these objects to remember. This sustains a memory and an identity.
Schamberger, Sear, Wehner and Wilson argue explore the formation of object biographies in museums. They spark a conversation about material culture and objects embodiment of personal experience. They examine object biographies in the Australian Journeys Gallery by exploring the agency of objects and observe how objects form and represent an individual. They bring up an interesting notion that object biographies can examine the social and cultural relationships between individuals and objects. Biographies of objects are influenced by the experiences of the person that experiences it. An individual includes their own autobiography in the biography of the object.
Both articles discuss the connection between material culture and memory. People often try to remember a homeland, and are able to spark a memory or replicate one through objects. The objects are “sites to escape, modes to connect with lost family, and memories of other places” (Schamberger, Sear, Wehner and Wilson). The objects have a sense of continuity. They can connect people “across time and space” (Schamberger, Sear, Wehner and Wilson). Objects are used to sustain a sense of the homeland. The attachment to the homeland is necessary because it allows one “to remember the past and to retell stories” (Turan). Objects act as material proof of the existence of a culture and a people. It is part of a collective identity and a collective memory because objects also carry memory and identity with them.
Do you think objects can create a person? Do you think an object can form, perform or represent a person? Are people passive and objects active?
Do you think that active remembrance is a guarantee of cultural survival? Can it be used to create public history?
Hey Simone,
ReplyDeleteIn regard to one of your questions, I think Schamberger et al's paper is trying to illustrate how both the people AND the objects are active. In my interpretation, that objects have agency and can form and inform a person doesn't cancel out the fact that people simultaneously have agency and form and inform the objects. Both Minh Tam Nguyen and Guna Kinne while being sustained and formed by their objects, continued to alter and add onto those objects through the course of their lives.
Hi Simone,
ReplyDeleteI do believe that active remembrance is needed to guarantee cultural survival. By telling our stories to younger generations we remember our pass. If these stories and memories are not passed down they will be forgotten, where will younger generations know about their family history? Not all are able to search the library for their families past, those stories are all we have.
Hey Simone,
ReplyDeleteI think that there is a balance in the way that object and people interact. The idea of an active object does not "deactivate" the role of the people. I think that objects have the ability to represent people, but perhaps it is only in the passage of time... like a memory. I think this is what the dress and musical instrument will come to do. That in the absence of their owners, they will maintain and sustain their lives.