Unpacking the Dryad 'Handicrafts' collection: toward a global network of relationships for Leicester

我以实践为基础的博士学位探索了莱斯特博物馆和美术馆的Dryad手工艺品收藏的物品和档案，目的是阐明这种新的物质文化史可以揭示出与全球和帝国背景的哪些联系，以及它与当今博物馆研究和实践的关系。这些藏品在制造和全球范围内极其多样化，从篮子到纺织品、木雕制品和原材料，来自非洲、亚洲和太平洋的前英国殖民地以及东欧。1918年至1936年间，莱斯特的哈里·佩奇在传教士展览、帝国博览会、国际展览以及他庞大的田野收藏家关系网中购买了这幅画。这些收藏的基本原理是教育意义：为当地的艺术学校提供来自世界各地的手工艺品的好例子，并通过在英国各地的课堂上分发这些物品和相关的教学传单来发展以实践为基础的教育。为此，这个想法是为了改善该国的教育系统，鼓励新一代设计师的形成，他们能够考虑原材料中的外国文化物品，以更好地开展国家贸易。出于这些原因，这些藏品代表着一个案例研究，以考察20世纪初的全球和殖民收藏品，以及当代展览是如何培育欧洲帝国文化和民族主义概念的。“拆解德里亚的‘手工艺品’收藏品”旨在产生大量的新研究，探索德里亚的收藏品揭示了莱斯特和帝国之间的联系，以及20世纪人们对帝国的理解发生了什么变化。用网络的方法，我的范围是调查收集仙女木‘手工艺品’收藏品的策略和做法：收藏者为什么以及如何收集特定的物品？它们的来源和制造是什么？他们过去的策展和展出说明了后殖民时代环境和关系的变化？该项目将对历史研究的三个关键领域做出贡献。首先，它将通过分析鲜为人知但数量庞大的重要全球和殖民地文物收藏(约2000件)，提供大英帝国新的物质文化史。其次，它将通过突出帝国历史的发展和解释，提供一种改变当前对仙女座物体的含义和解释的手段。第三，它将在全球物质文化史和帝国收藏史和陈列史的动态领域建立并做出贡献，通过其迄今未使用的档案集追踪各种和未被充分研究的藏品。作为我研究的一部分，我与莱斯特博物馆和美术馆的收藏品部门合作。新的见解将为今天对仙女座文物的使用和解释带来不同的视角，鼓励基于藏品历史的良好做法，并考虑机构内的使命和文化价值问题。其目的是为保存在仓库中的物品赋予新的光线和生命。最终结果将不仅是论文，还将是一场关于--以及与--仙女座篮子收藏一起的展览，强调与当地收藏中的全球和帝国背景相关的方面。

My practice-based PhD explores the objects and archives of Leicester Museum and Art Gallery's Dryad 'Handicrafts' collection, with the aim to illuminate what linkages with the global and imperial context this new material culture history can reveal, and how it relates to museum studies and practice today. The collection is extremely diverse in manufacture and global in scope, ranging from basketry to textiles, carved wooden objects, and raw materials, and comes from ex British colonies in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, as well as from Eastern Europe. It was purchased by Harry Peach of Leicester between 1918 and 1936 in missionary exhibitions, Empire expositions, international shows, and from his substantial network of relationships of field collectors. The rationale of the collection was educational: to provide good examples of 'handicrafts' from the world for the local School of Art, and to develop practice-based education by circulating the objects and related instructional leaflets in classes around Britain. With this end, the idea was to improve the educational system in the country, encouraging the formation of a new generation of designers capable to consider objects of foreign cultures in raw materials for a better national trade. For these reasons, the collection represents a case study to examine global and colonial collecting at the beginning of the twentieth century, and how contemporary exhibitions fostered European imperial culture and concepts of nationalism."Unpacking the Dryad 'Handicrafts' collection" seeks to generate substantial new research to explore what the Dryad collection reveals about the linkages between Leicester and Empire, and about changing understandings of Empire over the twentieth century. With a networking approach, my scope is to investigate collecting strategies and practices for the Dryad 'Handicrafts' collection: why and how the collector gathered specific objects? What is their provenance and manufacture? What do their past curation and display say about changing post-colonial environments and relationships?The project will contribute to three key areas of historical enquiry. First, it will offer a new material culture history of the British Empire, through analysis of a little-known but voluminous and important global and colonial collection of objects (ca2,000 items). Second, it will offer a means of changing current meanings and interpretations of the Dryad objects, by foregrounding the history of Empire in their development and interpretation. Third, it will build on and contribute to the dynamic field of global material culture history and histories of imperial collecting and display, by tracking a diverse and understudied collection through its hitherto unused set of archives.As part of my research, I work with the collections department at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery. New insights will bring a different perspective on the use and interpretation of the Dryad objects today, encouraging good practice based on the history of the collection, and considering matters of mission and cultural value within the institution. The aim is to give new light and life to the objects, which are kept in storage. The final outcome will be not only the thesis, but also an exhibition on - and with - the Dryad collection of basketry, emphasising aspects related to the global and imperial context in local collecting.