Accompanying our programme of events is an exhibition. This exhibition contains posters that describe some of the ways in which our researchers are engaging with Cultural Heritage. At the same time, objects and projections interpolate and interrogate the museum at Cecilia’s Hall . What are these objects? Scientific instruments? Art? Critical Tools? How do they interrupt and question the ways in which make the past present in the present?
Fabricating tales from a Glass Room
EDward HOLLIS
How can you preserve something which is beyond preserving? Why would you? In this project, Edward Hollis has experimented with not just researching and documenting, but narrating drawing, animating and fabricating experimental ‘images’ of a disappearing glass room in India so that, as its mirrors crack and splinters it does not just disappear, but starts to tell new stories about its past, in the present.
Reimagining Waste Landscapes [2020-24]
Jonathan Gardner
This display presents a visual summary of the ECA and Leverhulme Trust-funded research project, ‘Reimagining British Waste Landscapes’ (developed by Jonathan Gardner). It includes details on the case study sites, a ‘mini museum’ of artefacts associated with each place studied, and reflects on the overall findings of the 4-year project.
Museum in a Box
Miles Glendinning
Since its start in 2014, ‘Tower Block UK’ — an HLF-funded University of Edinburgh open-source image-archive project— has converted a historic archive of over 4,000 original Kodachrome slides of post-war housing, taken 1987-9, into a digitised, fully-searchable public database. Augmented with copious historical information and integrated with community-engagement events, this presents multi-storey social housing as a positive, accessible nation-wide heritage. The easily transportable and unorthodox exhibition space of the museum box renders this an approachable rather than intimidating exhibition.
https://www.towerblock.eca.ed.ac.uk
Beothuk Harpoon
John Harries
Replica of a Beothuk harpoon, crafted by Tim Rast, St. John’s, Newfoundland, autumn, 2022, accompanied by a display of 3d printed harpoon heads based upon a original object taken from a Beothuk encampment in the interior of Newfoundland on the 5th of March, 1819, and presently in the collections of the British Museum
Re-Making Histories
Jennifer Gray
Designer, Maker and ECA Lecturer Jennifer Gray will display 3D samples from her research in progress into developing speculative methods to enable the re-creation of historical objects from scant descriptions. The display will include excavated items from an imagined archaeological dig of an 18th century closet.
Reconstruction of the Caisteal Grugaig broch, Glenelg
Dimitris Theodossopoulos
This reconstruction explores a challenge – a first floor deck would block the internal stone staircase door due to the pronounced slope of the ground. This makes the traditionally accepted division of the interior in platforms impossible and prompts for alternatives, fragmented possibly in smaller decks.
Digging deeper: exploring archaeology’s place in heritage
Emily Johnston & Kirsty Lilley
This display asks everyone attending the Festival – researchers, sector professionals, the public – to think about how archaeology contributes to heritage. How, and why, do you engage with archaeological heritage? What are the most important aspects? This information will stimulate a roundtable discussion with researchers and professionals on Friday.
