Sharing Heritage: The Roots2Share Project with Greenland

Transcription

1 Sharing Heritage: The Roots2Share Project with Greenland Cunera Buijs National Museum of Ethnology, The Netherlands volkenkunde.nl Diederik Veerman Museon, The Netherlands museon.nl Introduction Contemporary ICT tools present formerly unknown opportunities to share museum collections digitally even in remote communities in the world. Such is the case of our Roots2Share project with Greenland, which is centered around a collection of photographs taken in Greenland over the past 50 years that are kept at the Museon and predominantly at the National Museum of Ethnology in The Netherlands. Arctic collections in Dutch museums are rather small in number of objects, summing up to objects in three museums, but are of immense significance to contemporary Arctic peoples (BUIJS & JAKOBSEN 2011: 4); the same holds true for the collections of about Tunumiit photographs in The Netherlands. The Roots2Share project aims precisely at making such valuable collections available to stakeholder communities. Four museums - two in Greenland and two in the Netherlands - are joining hands in sharing these so called Nooter collections with the source communities in Greenland. Various exhibitions and related public activities are launched in the Netherlands and in Greenland, including an experimental digital heritage forum dedicated to visual repatriation, digital storytelling and debate.

2 124 Sharing Heritage: The Roots2Share Project with Greenland PROA revista de antropologia e arte Figure 1: Mikkel Larsen was in the 1960`s and 70`s a famous storyteller in the small settlement of Diilerilaaq. Before his death he told his son Otto: Tell my stories after I`m gone, so these stories will be preserved. This inspirational quote touches the heart of the Roots2Share project. The full story of Otto Larsen can be found on It was recorded and edited by the photographer Jeroen Toirkens in 2009, in cooperation with Petra Sjouwerman and Julius Nielsen. (Photo by Gerti Nooter, 1967, Museon.) Cultural relevance The first steps in this direction were taken In that year, Dr. Cunera Buijs, curator of Arctic collections at the National Museum of Ethnology, visited two villages in East Greenland as part of her PhD fieldwork. During these visits, she showed pictures from the Dutch photographic collections to the Tunumiit in order to collect information on changes in dress and clothing. As an unexpected result, the Tunumiit were very interested in the photographs, for they could recognize themselves or their ancestors in the pictures (BUIJS & JAKOBSEN 2011: 9). So they requested copies of the photos to be sent to them. In that same year, an exhibit was put together which showed 20 printed photographs taken during the 1930s in East Greenland by Dutch scientist Jacob van Zuylen. This rather small exhibit generated considerable attention: the initial plan was to exhibit it in four museums in Denmark and Greenland for one year the Greenlandic House in Copenhagen and Odense, the National Museum in Nuuk, and the Tasiilaq museum in East Greenland. However, once it reached Greenland, several villages started to request it as well. As a result, the exhibit has been on the road for the last 10 years and visited several places in Greenland. By popular demand it will be travelling for another couple of years to come, also to the local villages in East Greenland.

3 Cunera Buijs e Diederik Veerman tradução vol. 01 nº Figure 2: A recently shot hooded seal lays on the kitchen floor, while Dina Jonathansen grinds coffee with a at that time brand new European coffee mill. (Photo by Gerti Nooter, 1967, Museon.) The interest this exhibit generated, as well as the Tunumiits reaction to and requests for the photographs, inspired us to look for means to share more of our collections with a bigger audience in Greenland: that s how the idea to set up the virtual repatriation project Roots2Share came about. Central to this project are the thousands of photos taken between 1960 and 1990 by Dutch anthropologists Gerti and Noortje Nooter during their fieldwork at the hunting village of Diiderilaaq, East Greenland. The project includes a travelling exhibit but revolves around the establishment of a website with social tagging options and possibilities of connecting and printing. By accessing the website the Greenlanders, and the general public, can see and print old photographs, read old texts, and add their own information and comments. The website is accessible in East Greenlandic, West Greenlandic, English, and Danish (BUIJS & JAKOBSEN 2011: 10; VEERMAN & BUIJS 2012). The website was built with a grant from the Dutch Mondriaan Foundation, who provides 40% of the overall budget of the project, exhibitions included. The other 60% is donated by the National Museum of Ethnology and Museon. The Greenlandic partners also provide some of the funding. However, the local Ammassalik Museum has almost no budget so support is provided in natura like helping with contacts, translations, museum meetings, advice, etc.

4 126 Sharing Heritage: The Roots2Share Project with Greenland PROA revista de antropologia e arte Figure 3: Screenshot of the digital heritage forum of Roots 2 Share, available in four different languages. This multilingual project is interesting as a pilot research, but raises quite some technical and social challenges in practice. The website is constructed in close cooperation with the Crossmedia Business Lectorate of the Hogeschool Utrecht. The Mondriaan Foundation provided in a financial grand. Heritage repatriation In recent decades, the repatriation of cultural heritage has become a disputed issue. Non- Western countries, indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities have made increasing efforts to obtain the repatriation of their cultural heritage (see EDWARDS 2001; PEERS & BROWN 2003; KRUPNIK 2006). Thanks to international conventions and the growing capacity of their own institutions, source communities have been increasingly successful in this respect. For source communities, the repatriation of heritage items is an emotional issue. They demand that the artifacts and knowledge their ancestors shared with researchers, are made accessible to them. Objects, stories or photographs may be part of the very fabric of their cultural identity (see BROWN & PEERS 2006; BROEKHOVEN & BUIJS 2010). Currently, the Inuit have almost no photographic material of their own depicting the period between 1960 and 1980, although researchers in the past did return some of the photographs they made. The Roots 2 Share project will give them access to part of their cultural heritage.

5 Cunera Buijs e Diederik Veerman tradução vol. 01 nº Figure 4: Boas Jonathansen (86) shares a story from the past. The old photographs on the wall are a starting point. The oldest inhabitant of Diilerilaaq was still active as organ player in the local church. (Photo by Diederik Veerman, May 2011.) Museum consultations Apart from that, the project also digs deeper and involves community consultations meetings. In 2010, five Tunumiit visited the National Museum of Ethnology as well as the Museon and studied the collections held by both museums, which date from the early 20 th century up to present-day. It showed a strong connection between the Tunumiit representatives and the collections from their region. The reactions on seeing the photographs were even more emotional and many copies have been sent to the people later on request. Their visit gave us the opportunity to discuss the Roots2Share project. The representatives were partners in decision making on the languages to be used, on the first selections of photographs to put on the website and on the Leiden exhibition (opened in December 2011). The selection of images has been made by Greenlanders themselves, since the aim is to return to the source community. The Tunumiit discussed the problems of ownership, storage, preservation, and exhibitions. As was the case with the Suriname community consultation (held at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden and in the local Surinam communities ( ), the knowledge created and shared during these meetings was properly recorded.

6 128 Sharing Heritage: The Roots2Share Project with Greenland PROA revista de antropologia e arte Figure 5: Native consultations in practice: Åge Kristiansen and Cunera Buijs talk (in East-Greenlandic language) about the small tin boat he made for his younger brother in (Photo by Diederik Veerman, November Community consultation meetings 2010.) In May 2011, we introduced the website in the source communities of East Greenland. The director of the Ammassalik Museum, Carl-Erik Holm, arranged an introduction in the museum with coffee, tea and lots of biscuits and sweets (based on national tradition of kaffemik). There were community consultations meetings in the kaatersortapik, the community house, in the local village of Diilerilaaq. With a laptop and beamer we instructed a stand-alone version of the website and we showed 900 photographs. We registered on film the reactions of the audience for research. Afterwards we visited some of the families at home and gathered additional information and stories about the photographs, with local assistance of Kaaleeraq Larsen, a young hunter of 22 with a Facebook-account; tradition and modernization united! The stories can be read (in East Greenlandic language) on the website. The reactions from the local community were very positive and during one of the meetings, Paulus Larsen, a local coordinator and previously our guest in The Netherlands, took the lead. The result was that many of the older visitors came to the fore to tell their story to their own people, gradually taking ownership in the project. One of the project s laptops remained in the local village. This with the complication of a unreliable and expensive internet connection as a challenge that hopefully improves in the future.

7 Cunera Buijs e Diederik Veerman tradução vol. 01 nº Figure 6: Susani Umerineq helps her grandma Thomasine to type a story for the Roots 2 Share website. Photo by School projects Diederik Veerman, May We have paid inspiring visits to the top class (kids aged 15-16) of the school at the districts capital Tasiilaq the largest village in East Greenland, (with a population of 1850 people), and at the local villages school of Diilerilaaq (150 inhabitants; Greenland in total has inhabitants, being the largest island in the world). Some of the pupils were amazed by the pictures ( Did they really butcher seals right there in the kitchen? ); for others, the sight of the photos produces unexpected emotional experiences. Figure 7: One girl told us how her mother had pointed to a classroom photo and said, Look, that boy sitting there on the left, that s your biological father. It was the first time the girl had ever seen a childhood photo of her father. He died when she was only five, and this photo revived the memory of him. (Photo by Gerti Nooter, 1967.)

8 130 Sharing Heritage: The Roots2Share Project with Greenland PROA revista de antropologia e arte These photographs not only connect to their past, they also fit into the present day in the way we deal with them now (on Internet). Together with enthusiastic local teachers we organized drawing sessions inspired by the old museum photographs. The drawings were exhibited in the local community house. The pupils were instructed to interview and tape the narratives on simple sound recorders. Afterwards they were taught to transcribe the spoken word on paper, translate the texts into English and to put it on the website. Anna Kuitse Kuko, a teacher and vice-director at the regional school in Tasiilaq, visited the elderly home together with her pupils. There they interviewed the elders, some of them were their grandparents, thus connecting generations. Figure 8: Workshop with the schoolchildren of Diilerilaaq. (Photo by Cunera Buijs, May 2011.) In 2012, a group of seven Tunumiit schoolchildren, aged 14-15, visited Leiden for two weeks. They were accompanied by their Danish teacher Anne Mette Holm, who took the initiative, and their Greenlandic teacher Lars Mikaelsen. The school kids had made art pieces inspired by the Dutch collections from their region in East Greenland. The school granted a small collection of their work to the National Museum of Ethnology, which was added to the state owned national collection and the children s objects were exhibited. During the school visit to Leiden the children did a museum workshop, had an exchange program with two Dutch school classes, they attended a concert of a children s choir and philharmonic orchestra. And last but not least they visited a cattle farm and a zoo (in Greenland there are neither cows nor zoos). To put it short, a project like this provides ample opportunity to connect to the education system. The younger generation at school is motivated and eager to learn and use social media. Other skills can be trained such as interviewing techniques, translation from the local language into English, the use of Internet, drawing and design, filming and photograph workshops, narrative or novel writing connected to photographs and material culture collections.

9 Cunera Buijs e Diederik Veerman tradução vol. 01 nº Ethic issues and ownership Ethic issues are at the core of this initiative. Although according to Dutch law these photographs are the intellectual property of the photographers for 50 years and now, of the museums which hold the collections, these images could not have been produced without the consent and collaboration of the Tunumiit peoples. In fact, they were part of Nooter s anthropological fieldwork and as such they contain knowledge about and from the Tunumiit. There may come a time when the Greenlanders ask for the physical return of their objects; however, at the present moment virtual repatriation through the Roots2Share project is a successful way of re-connecting with the source communities and of actually generating new knowledge about the collections and objects. Connecting a small local (source) community of hunters and fishermen to an advanced website, which houses part of their cultural heritage, is not an easy task. Especially since there are only very limited internet possibilities in the small towns in Greenland. Yet, the digital landscape will evolve. Because there are so many photographs in Dutch institutions, a website is the most appropriate way of delivering them to the public. Although the entire process was prepared carefully and will be guided for a considerable time, some Tunumiit are critical about putting portraits of their ancestors (or of themselves at a young age) on the Internet. Due to the amount of photographs it is impossible to reach all involved people individually and ask their permission. In radio programs in Greenland Roots2Share was announced as a tool to share general information on the project. People can get in contact with us or the Greenlandic museums to request for the removal of specific photographs. However, this is not an easy step taking the unequal power balance between rich and powerful museum institutions and relatively poor and powerless local communities into account - and if there is no internet connection how can they reach us? Sharing knowledge and cultural heritage The National Museum of Ethnology and the Museon also have photograph collections from many other parts of the world; from Surinam to Eastern Siberia and from Indonesia to South Africa. Like the pictures from Greenland, many of them focus on local people and their culture. We, the Museon, the Museum of Ethnology and other museums will consider which additional photo collections can be shared with related source communities. Like the Tunumiit, these people will be invited to share their personal histories with each other and with us. At the heart of the overall Roots2Share project is the concept of multi-vocality or multivoicedness. Inspired by and based on the museum policy of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the National Museum of Ethnology incorporated this museum practice into its own policy (see BROEKHOVEN & BUIJS 2010: 8). The heritage is no longer tied exclusively to just one voice and one truth, usually that of the curator or anthropologist. It will be available for countless people to experience and enrich from all different points of view. Roots2Share aims to act as a worldwide platform for interaction about cultural heritage. By sharing knowledge, stories and personal experiences, we can work together to create an inspiring platform for mutual learning. We will organize expert meetings and an international conference to discuss the lessons learned both with other parties involved in the project and with other museums and universities.

10 132 Sharing Heritage: The Roots2Share Project with Greenland PROA revista de antropologia e arte The experimental nature of the digital heritage forum will make it a starting point for debate on practical, philosophical and ethical issues: How can we achieve the repatriation of cultural heritage in this increasingly globalised world? Is the worldwide sharing of cultural heritage via the internet the right way? What is the difference between material and non-material heritagerepatriation? How do different generations within the source community respond to such initiatives (and to each other)? How can the repatriation of cultural heritage help to bridge the gaps between different generations and different cultures? Notes 1 The UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970), the UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (1995) en de UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (CSICH) (2005). \

11 Cunera Buijs e Diederik Veerman tradução vol. 01 nº References BROWN, Alison K. and Laura PEERS 2006 Pictures Bring Us Messages, Photographs and Histories from the Kainai Nation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. BROEKHOVEN, Laura and Cunera BUIJS Introduction. In: Laura van BROEKHOVEN, Cunera BUIJS, Pieter HOVENS (eds), Sharing Knowledge and Cultural Heritage Heritage: First Nations of the Americas. Studies in Collaboration with Indigenous Peoples from Greenland, North and South America. Mededelingen van Het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde 39, Leiden: Sidestone Press in cooperation with the National Museum of Ethnology. BUIJS, Cunera and Aviâja Rosing JAKOBSEN, 2011 (in press). The Roots2Share project, the Nooter photo collection from East Greenland. Etudes/Inuit/Studies vol 35. EDWARDS, Elisabeth Raw Histories, Photographs, Anthropology and Museums. Oxford: Berg. FIENUP-RIORDAN, Ann Yup ik Elders at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin: Fieldwork Turned on Its Head. Seattle: University of Washington Press. GABRIEL, Mille and Jens DAHL (eds) Utimut, Past Heritage Future Partnerships. Copenhagen: IWGIA and NKA. JOHNSON, Leise Speaking Images, Digital Repatriation of the Jette Bang Photo Collection to Greenland.In: Laura van BROEKHOVEN, Cunera BUIJS, Pieter HOVENS (eds). Sharing Knowledge and Cultural Heritage: First Nations of the Americas. Studies in Collaboration with Indigenous Peoples from Greenland, North and South America. Mededelingen van Het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde 39, Leiden: Sidestone Press in cooperation with the National Museum of Ethnology. KRUPNIK, Igor and Elena MIKHAILOVA Landscapes, Faces, and Memories: Eskimo Photography of Aleksandr Forshtein, Alaska Journal of Anthropology, 4(1-2): PEERS, Laura and Alison K. BROWN Museums and Source Communities. London, New York: Routledge. SMITH, David A From Nunavut to Micronesia: Feedback and Description, Visual Repatriation and Online Photographs of Indigenous Peoples. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 3(1): SRINIVASAN, Ramesh Indigenous, Ethnic and Cultural Articulations of New Media. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 9(4): VEERMAN, Diederik and Cunera BUIJS 201. Roots 2 Share, From Archive photographs to Digital Heritage Forum, Digital Journal of the European Museum Academy (EMA),

12 134 Sharing Heritage: The Roots2Share Project with Greenland PROA revista de antropologia e arte WILFER, Laena.2009 Documentary photography in the field. In: Mary STRONG and Laena WILDER (eds), Viewpoints. Visual anthropologists at work. Austin: University of Texas Press.