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Situating Pacific barkcloth production in time and place

太平洋树皮布生产的时间和地点

基本信息

批准号：
AH/M00886X/1
负责人：
Frances Lennard
金额：
$ 101.79万
依托单位：
University of Glasgow
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2015
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2015 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FM00886X%2F1
关键词：
Situating Pacific barkcloth production time

项目摘要

Until the twentieth century barkcloth was a vital material in the social, cultural and ritual lives of Pacific islanders. Barkcloth, or tapa, was widely used in tropical areas instead of weaving cloth on a loom and was used to create clothing, furnishings, carpeted pathways for royal weddings and funerals, and masks and garments for ritual and religious ceremonies. Sheets of the inner bark of trees and flowering plants were stripped and soaked to soften them, then beaten with wooden mallets to stretch the cloth and make it softer and stronger, before decorating it with painted designs. The production and use of barkcloth were disrupted by increasing western impact on the Pacific islands in the nineteenth century and in some areas missionaries completely suppressed its use. There is a continuous tradition of making barkcloth in some areas of the Pacific, but the skill has been lost in other islands, such as Hawai'i. Today the re-introduction or re-interpretation of barkcloth is an important aspect of cultural identity in these islands. Barkcloth was of great interest to travellers from the west, and Pacific barkcloth objects in western museums are a significant legacy from eighteenth and nineteenth century explorers, scientists and colonists. There are many good collections in museums in the UK and around the world but there are still major gaps in our understanding of it as a material. This project will examine the development of barkcloth production in the Pacific in the nineteenth century. We want to investigate whether materials, techniques and designs originated from particular islands, how they were transmitted around the region and the effect of globalisation on this tradition. This is important both for our understanding of objects in museum collections and for contemporary barkcloth makers in the Pacific. The project will focus on three internationally important collections at The Hunterian, University of Glasgow and The Economic Botany Collection at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, in the UK, and The National Museum of Natural History, part of the USA's Smithsonian Institution. We will research the provenance and history of objects in the collections and analyse their materials and manufacture. We will also carry out fieldwork in the Pacific islands, talking to barkcloth makers, growers and designers and experimenting with making barkcloth using different plants and beating techniques.We know that a variety of plants, including breadfruit, banyan and mamaki, were used to make barkcloth but it is often assumed that objects in western collections are made from the paper mulberry tree though in fact paper mulberry is not indigenous to the Pacific. However it is currently extremely difficult to identify barkcloth species because the fibres were badly damaged during production. The research will explore different identification techniques including the staining of sections, scanning-electron microscopy, protein analysis and DNA analysis. We aim to use some of these methods to identify the plant species in museum objects so that we have a better understanding of the plants used in different islands and how globalisation affected their use. An investigation of preservation and conservation techniques is an integral part of the project. Many barkcloth objects in museum collections are in poor condition; many pieces are very large and have been folded for storage but the cloth becomes brittle and inflexible with age and the folds become fixed. A programme of conservation treatment and improved storage will make the Hunterian and Kew artefacts accessible for current and future research. This will also improve our understanding of the physical properties of barkcloth; we will be looking for links between the objects' physical characteristics and degradation patterns and the plant species. This could result in different conservation treatments for objects depending on their fibre type or condition.

直到20世纪，树皮布一直是太平洋岛民社会、文化和仪式生活中的一种重要材料。树皮布在热带地区被广泛使用，而不是在织布机上织布，被用来制作服装、家具、皇室婚礼和葬礼的地毯道路，以及仪式和宗教仪式的面具和服装。树木和开花植物的内层树皮被剥离并浸泡以软化它们，然后用木槌敲打，以拉伸布料，使其更柔软、更坚固，然后用彩绘图案装饰它。十九世纪，西方对太平洋岛屿的影响越来越大，导致树皮布的生产和使用中断，在一些地区，传教士完全禁止了树皮布的使用。在太平洋的一些地区有制作树皮布的持续传统，但在其他岛屿，如Hawai‘i，这种技术已经消失。今天，重新引入或重新解释树皮布是这些岛屿文化认同的一个重要方面。西方游客对树皮布非常感兴趣，西部博物馆中的太平洋树皮布文物是18世纪和19世纪探险家、科学家和殖民者留下的重要遗产。英国和世界各地的博物馆里有很多很好的藏品，但我们对它作为一种材料的理解仍然存在很大差距。这个项目将考察十九世纪太平洋地区树皮布生产的发展。我们希望调查材料、技术和设计是否源自特定的岛屿，它们是如何在该地区传播的，以及全球化对这一传统的影响。这对我们理解博物馆收藏的物品和太平洋地区的当代树皮布匠来说都很重要。该项目将重点关注英国皇家植物园Kew的Hunterian，Glasgow大学和经济植物学收藏，以及美国史密森学会下属的国家自然历史博物馆的三个国际重要藏品。我们将研究藏品的来源和历史，并分析它们的材料和制造。我们还将在太平洋岛屿进行田野调查，与树皮布制造商、种植者和设计师交谈，并试验使用不同的植物和打浆技术制作树皮布。我们知道包括面包果、榕树和Mamaki在内的各种植物被用来制作树皮布，但人们经常认为西方收藏的物品是由纸桑树制成的，尽管事实上纸桑并不是太平洋原产的。然而，目前很难确定树皮布的种类，因为这些纤维在生产过程中受到了严重破坏。这项研究将探索不同的鉴定技术，包括切片染色、扫描电子显微镜、蛋白质分析和DNA分析。我们的目标是使用其中的一些方法来识别博物馆物品中的植物物种，以便我们更好地了解不同岛屿上使用的植物，以及全球化如何影响它们的使用。对保存和保护技术的调查是该项目不可或缺的一部分。博物馆收藏的许多树皮布物品状况不佳；许多物品很大，已经折叠起来储存，但随着时间的推移，布料变得易碎和僵硬，折叠变得固定。一项保护处理和改进储存的计划将使亨特里亚和邱氏文物可供当前和未来的研究使用。这也将提高我们对树皮布物理特性的理解；我们将寻找物体的物理特性和降解模式与植物物种之间的联系。这可能会导致对物体进行不同的保护处理，具体取决于它们的纤维类型或状况。