What’s in our Drawers? Transforming a hidden collection

As many visitors to the Pitt Rivers Museum have discovered, you will certainly not be short of things to see. But did you know that some 270 drawers in the Court and Lower Gallery are currently being reimagined? In this transformational project, generously supported by The Clothworkers’ Foundation, a largely hidden collection will be made accessible to visitors and open up another exciting dimension to the rich ethnographic collections cared for by the Museum.

Many drawers are overcrowded, resulting in poor visibility of the collection and damage to the objects

At present, these drawers have been used as ‘overspill’ to house objects from the collection and have been added to over the years. With a collection as vast as the Pitt Rivers, it is easy to imagine how crowded these drawers have become. Not only has this resulted in some damage to the objects, it has also limited the accessibility of these objects to visitors.

These display drawers are contemporaneous to the Museum and, like the cabinets, form part of the well-known fabric of the museum often containing objects of the same ‘type’. Younger visitors enjoy pulling open the drawers and seeing what’s hidden inside, but the very action of opening the drawers currently risks further damage to the contents. Here lies the challenge: how do you go about updating these displays whilst working with historic display units? The answer comes in the form of a laser cutter and a lot of Plastazote foam!

Curating the Drawers

The first step in their transformation involves retrieving the drawer and selecting a group of objects to keep on display in the drawer, those that do not make the cut are then packed for storage. Like the larger display cabinets in the Museum the drawers contain a wide variety of objects that span the globe and present a unique curatorial challenge. Most of the drawers are far too full and so the project of redisplay gives us the opportunity to rationalise what we display in any one drawer. This can be difficult when some of the topics are as complex as ‘divination and religious objects from Africa’. Often these objects have complicated histories. Sometimes these are explained on old handwritten metal rimmed labels and so where possible we try to make these labels visible. The hand-written labels are not without their problems, often they contain old fashioned or even offensive terminology. Luckily objects in the Pitt Rivers Museum have often been donated in multiples of the same thing, by different donors. Aesthetically it is nice to group objects in odd numbers and sometimes it can be easy to discount objects on the fact that they may be in a bad condition and there is another example of the same thing which can be used. Again selecting objects which are from the same geographic area is a good rationale as is selecting similar objects from different regions to demonstrate the ingenuity of people from all over the world to make objects for the same function from the resources they have available to them. We have allocated a postcard sized space to accommodate a short explanatory label for each drawer, this also provides a challenge to write a short text interesting enough to aid the visitor in understanding what can be seen but brief enough to fit on a postcard and cover the diverse range of geographical areas and different cultures represented by the multiple objects displayed in a single drawer. Each week we look forward to discovering the contents of a drawer and are excited to see what lies in wait for us. 

Conserving the Drawers Contents

Rebeccas re-humidifying a plant fibre sample

The project has also allowed for remedial intervention to be carried out on some objects that have deteriorated or been damaged whilst stored in the drawers. Conservation treatment has ranged from re-bonding broken clay figurines, re-humidifying pineapple fibre textile samples, and carrying out tear repairs on a folding paper scene. The sheer variety of conservation challenges has been a wonderful opportunity to get to know objects that have remained largely unseen for a number of years. Not only does this ensure that objects are stabilised, it also means that they can be discovered anew by both staff and visitors.

The plant fibre sample before (above) and after (below) conservation treatment

Redisplaying the Drawers

Another exciting aspect of this project has allowed for the development of a technique which allows custom-made Plastazote trays to be created. The new object layouts are photographed, and outlines produced in Adobe Illustrator, before being programmed into the museum’s laser cutter. 

Preparing the Plastazote foam for laser cutting

The result? A foam tray that can be neatly slotted into the drawer. With a cushioning barrier now surrounding each object, a much safer and more attractive display has been achieved.

To date, 56 drawers have been totally transformed. And a huge 2061 individual objects have been processed! So, once we are able to return to the museum why not have a look in our drawers? You never know what you might discover . . . 

The transformed drawer layouts

Interested in following this project? The conservation department post regular updates about the ‘What’s in our Drawers?’ project and many other intriguing finds through their Instagram account. Just search for @pittriversmuseumconservation

Rebecca Plumbe (conservation intern) and Faye Belsey (Deputy Head of Collections)

Conservation of Two Fine Mats from Samoa and Tonga

As a third year student studying for a BA in Conservation and Restoration at the University of Lincoln I am spending six weeks within the Conservation Department at the Pitt Rivers Museum. I have been working on two finely woven mats from Samoa and Tonga. Since coming into the Museum collections in 1948 they have been housed in cramped glass frames, making it difficult to tell the condition and even their full size. Upon their release from these frames I discovered a number of interesting aspects - including the fact the Tongan mat was over two metres squared, more than twice the size of the Samoan one.

Left: Samoan Mat PRM 1948.12.1 B with the frame backing removed
Right: Tongan Mat PRM 1948.12.2 B in the old glass frame © Pitt Rivers Museum

Arthur Mahaffy, a British colonial officer, collected both mats. In a letter written in 1914 to a Mrs Harcourt - from whom the Museum received the mats in 1948 - he declared the larger Tongan mat to be over 50 years old. While specifying no age for the Samoan mat, though he noted it was cleaner and overall in better condition. Mahaffy spent most of his career in the Pacific; by 1908 he was Deputy Commissioner of the West Pacific and often visited Samoa and Tonga, where he would have been familiar with the respective political families. These included the revered figure of Fatafehi, the last in a succession of Sacred Tongan Kings, who gave the larger mat to Mahaffy.

Left: Mahaffy's letter 1914; right: detail of the red and white feathers on the Samoan mat © Pitt Rivers Museum

Despite slight differences in the cultural associations of fine mats in Tonga and Samoa - or kie hingoa and 'ie toga respectively - there are central aspects that are true for both. For instance, fine mats make up most of the material wealth of important Tongan and Samoan families and are often reserved for wearing only at weddings or funerals, or other significant events. The cultural exchange back and forth between the two islands and their shared history can be followed in the exchange of these mats down through the years. The red feathers typical of these mats are probably the highly valued rare parakeet feathers from Fiji (possibly the Fiji parrotfinch), which were traded back and forth between Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.

Both mats are likely to be pandanus leaves (a relative of palm) the finest of these reserved for fine mats. Ideal characteristics of these leaves include suppleness, colour, and the thinness of fibre. The leaf is laboriously processed with many cycles of soaking in salt and fresh water, drying and splitting repeatedly until the desired qualities are achieved. These fibres are then woven together by hand often taking six months to over a year to complete.

Having possibly spent close to a 100 years tightly packed into frames both mats had deeply impressed creases. Plus the fibres at the folds and creases were comparatively brittle compared to the supple texture of the main body. To relax the fibres I used an ultrasonic humidifier to mist water vapour across the creases, whilst gently and carefully manipulating these areas with my fingers. The creases were then weighted and left for a time.

Left: Tongan mat crease before humidification; Middle: after humidification
Right: Samoan mat weighting of creases and pandanus ribbons © Pitt Rivers Museum

After this process both mats could be fully unfolded, making visible a number of aspects previously hidden from view. These included an interwoven zigzag design in a red-brown yarn, with a stepped edge at the top; original repairs; plus a number of holes in the larger mat. I could also see where strings of feathers had become separated from the body of the mats, which I secured with a couching stitch to prevent any losses. The original repairs were interesting to note, as they imply how important the preservation of these mats were to their original owners.

Left: Untangling the pandanus fringe on the Samoan mat
Right: Detail of the zigzag design on the Tongan mat © Pitt Rivers Museum 

In Samoa and Tonga particularly important fine mats are named. A mat belonging to the Tu'ifa family named Kie Monumonuka or mat that is wounded is described in Adrienne Kaepler's study "Kie Hingoa: Mats of Power, Rank, Prestige and Security". As a trainee conservator this is an appealing concept, where the prestige of the mat derives from the history that is visible in its current condition. As Kaepler, the Pacific scholar suggests, they are 'old because they are important and not important because they are old'.

The Samoan mat after treatment © Pitt Rivers Museum

Bethany Skuce
Conservation and Restoration Student