LASTING

IMPRESSIONS
2019
Making and Re-Making the Replica

STUDY DAY GUIDE

FRIDAY 28th JUNE 2019, 9.30am - 5pm @lastimpression_
Pitt Rivers Museum #lastingimpressions19
OXFORD, UK lastingimpressions.strikingly.com
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 CONTENTS

WELCOME | p.5

PROGRAMME | p.6

ABSTRACTS | p.6

AFTERNOON ACTIVITIES | p.25

THE TEAM | p.29

THINGS TO DO IN OXFORD | p.30

MAPS | p.31

CREDITS AND CONTACTS | p.32

NOTES | p.33

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4
 WELCOME

I am delighted to welcome each and every one of you to the Lasting Impressions
2019 study day. After the success of Lasting Impressions 2018, hosted at the Laing
Art Gallery and Hatton Gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, we have relocated to the
Museum of the Year-nominated Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.

Last year’s study day focused on the institutional role of the replica within
museums and heritage and today’s programme builds on this. We will be exploring
the ‘object-ness’ of copies through a consideration of their own unique materials
and manufacturing processes. As well as challenging notions of value in relation to
reproductions, especially concepts of ‘(un)originality’ and ‘aura’, we aim to
consider how the making of reproductions constitutes its own form of knowledge
construction. We hope to question how changes in materiality through the
reproduction process impacts upon the form, function and meaning of objects in
museums and beyond.

Following a similar format to last year’s event, the study day will comprise a
morning session of conference-style presentations from PhD researchers, museum
professionals, artists, photogrammetrists and more. Our speaker programme will
be complemented in the afternoon by a pop-up exhibition, giving you the
opportunity to interact one-on-one with practice-based PhD research into
reproductions. The exhibition will also play host to a varied range of poster
presenters. A research-led tour of the nearby Ashmolean Museum’s plaster cast
collection will complete the programme.

Lasting Impressions 2019 is a truly international meeting of minds. We are excited

to welcome contributors from across the UK as well as speakers and poster
presenters from as far afield as Croatia, Belgium, Dublin, and Latvia. In order to
share our exciting programme even more widely, we are encouraging all
participants to follow us on Twitter @lastimpression_ and tweet their thoughts
about the day. If you join in with the online conversation, please use the hashtag
#lastingimpressions19 so that others can follow along.

Now without further ado, let’s put the materiality of replicas under the microscope!

Abbey Ellis
University of Leicester | Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

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 PROGRAMME

9.30-10.00 Optional Early Bird Tour of the Natural History Museum’s Reproductions
by ELAINE CHARWAT, UCL/Oxford University Museum of Natural
History

10.00-10.30 Registration with juice and pastries in the Blackwood room

10.30-10.40 Welcome

PANEL ONE. Embodied Knowledge

10.40 KATE JOHNSON, University of Bradford

Mould Making, Materials and Casting in 'Project code-named Humpty' - a

contemporary art and archaeological science collaboration

11.00 SANTA JANSONE, University of Latvia

Late Iron Age Baltic Costume Replicas – Assumptions, Experiments and Practice

11.20 LAURA DUDLEY, University of Leicester

From Re-Construction to Co-Production

11.40-12.00 Coffee Break in the Blackwood room

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PANEL TWO. Layering Process

12.00 MICHAEL ANN BEVIVINO, University College Dublin

Truly Immaterial? Using Applied Technologies to Investigate the Historic Plaster

Casts of the National Museum of Ireland

12.20 BECKY KNOTT, Victoria and Albert Museum

Life after the Original? The social, material, and cultural value of the copy

12.40 LEE ROBERT MCSTEIN, Monument Men

A Copy of a Copy? The Curious Case of the Deir el Bahari Casts

13.00 Keynote Speaker. Dr SALLY FOSTER, University of Stirling

My life as a replica: the role of materiality and craft in letting a replica 'speak'

13.40-14.30 Lunch served in the Blackwood room

14.30-17.00 Pop-up exhibition, activities and poster session

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 ABSTRACTS
PANEL ONE

EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE

Mould making, materials and casting in ‘Project code-named Humpty’.

A contemporary art and archaeological science collaboration p.10

Kate Johnson (University of Bradford)

Late Iron Age Baltic costume replica – assumptions, experiments and practice p.11

Santa Jansone (University of Latvia)

From Re-Construction to Co-Production p.12

Laura Dudley (University of Leicester, School of Museum Studies)

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 MOULD MAKING, MATERIALS AND CASTING IN

‘PROJECT CODE-NAMED HUMPTY’. A CONTEMPORARY

ART AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE COLLABORATION

This presentation reveals the mould making and casting processes and materials needed to
physically replicate a 2.7m tall figurative sculpture, free sculpted in clay by Johnson, specifically
for the purpose of deliberate fragmentation and subsequent reconstruction. ‘Project code-named
Humpty’ [P c-n H] is an ambitious art/sci piece [commencing in 2014], whose story centres on the
manual creation of a monumental sculpture, its ceremonial fragmentation and subsequent
physical and virtual reconstruction by archaeologists. As an artwork, the piece explores themes of
human object interactions and object histories themselves. As science, it serves as a vehicle to
further archaeological practice in the development of the latest visualisation and digital fragment
refitting technologies. In this presentation, Johnson shows how the unusual narrative intention of
creating specifically for destruction and reconstruction has fuelled unorthodoxy in piece mould
construction, casting material development and casting rig set-up. The presentation showcases
documentary photographs, film and physical artefacts. Additionally, questions emerge about
which form is the ‘original’ when replication is needed for the ‘original’ to be ‘useful’, and further,
and in relation to P c-n H, can indeed the terms ‘original’ and ‘replication’ be used if an artwork is
the very history of a form?

Funding: AHRC Follow-on funding Highlight Digital Transformations – linked to the Fragmented
Heritage Project.

Kate Johnson (University of Bradford)

Kate is a practising visual artist and lecturer. She read Fine Art at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne
[1981-85], specialising in painting. This was followed by a time at Corpus Christi College, [Oxford] on a
British Academy Scholarship. Here, at the Ashmolean, she furthered her interest in art history studying
Quattrocento Italian Art under the tutelage of Christopher Lloyd. In 1990 she journeyed to the US as a
Fulbright Scholar and at Washington University in St. Louis she returned to art practice undertaking an MFA
combining painting and sculpture. Kate has exhibited her art internationally. Her full-time lecturing post at
the University of Bradford began in 2012. Since then she has been able to further develop her practice led
research which borders art, history, culture, science and technology.

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 LATE IRON AGE BALTIC COSTUME REPLICA.

ASSUMPTIONS, EXPERIMENTS AND PRACTICE

The role of dress is one of the most important as it holds a lot of information about its wearer. In
historic and ethnographic literature dress has long been recognized as an indicator of group
affinity. Within the group, dress is one of the most important ways to indicate the rank or status of
the wearer. There are a lot of information out there on Baltic dress, but not all can be regarded
reliable. The aim of this paper is to compare some of scientific reconstructions with the available
knowledge from graves and analyse how they can be compared and what are biggest flaws during
doing this. Which assumptions and maybe even prejudices can influence such conclusions? What
are main difficulties which are met when making such replicas? Also some of the practical
experience while wearing different reconstructions has been analysed and demonstrated (by
means of photos) as well as some insights in process of making different pieces of costume (from
own experience). Included in paper is also poll results on practical aspects collected from different
people, while wearing different reconstructions- in some case even different reconstructions of
one costume.

Santa Jansone (University of Latvia)

Santa is a PhD student at the University of Latvia. Although her research career started more with social and
processional archaeology (this was also the topic for my Master’s thesis), it has turned towards cultural
connections between Baltic countries and Scandinavia, as well as textile archaeology. Her main interests
focus on pre-Viking period in Scandinavia (especially Vendel period) and Eastern Baltics, especially on
costumes.

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 FROM RE-CONSTRUCTION TO CO-PRODUCTION

Laura’s PhD project, titled: From Re-Construction to Co-Production: the past and present
authorship of participatory art exhibitions, explores the reconstruction of art exhibitions, which in
their original form had a participatory element. A key question is concerned with the role which
public reception and engagement plays in the re-activation of an historical art exhibition, and how
its materiality and outcomes are reconstructed in a contemporary museum landscape.

This paper aims to cast a lens on Robert Morris’s bodyspacemotionthings, an exhibition

reconstruction which drew media and public attention at both its original opening in 1971, and for
its reconstruction at Tate Modern as part of the UBS Openings: Long Weekend in 2009. Tate
curator, Kathy Noble described the exhibition as ‘exploring ideas of spatial awareness, of
becoming aware of yourself, your own body, as a physical object in space’ (2009). The original
1971 exhibition had only lasted for four days before being closed, due to the structures and
materials used to construct the platforms - which the public were invited to climb, balance and
crawl onto - giving way. As time has passed this initial failure has in many ways become the
triumph of this participatory exhibition. Its memorably premature closure is one of the factors
which led to its reconstruction in 2009, this time with new materials which lasted for the full
exhibiting period. In this paper Laura will include findings from Tate Archives concerning the
1971 and 2009 exhibitions, the material referenced will include marketing/publicity material,
installations plans, curatorial notes and original photography. I plan to use these findings to
interrogate key ideas within my paper, specifically focusing on whether changing the materials
alters the authenticity of this exhibition, and how this impacts on conventional attitudes towards
the authorship of past canonical participatory exhibitions.

Laura Dudley (University of Leicester, School of Museum Studies)

Laura is a PhD researcher at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. Her research explores
the reconstruction of art exhibitions, which in their original form had a participatory element. Her
contention is that re-staged exhibitions, realized as part of temporary exhibition programmes and motivated
by art historical interests, do not yet have a lasting impact on the practices of the museums and galleries that
have hosted them. Importantly, neither has re-staging impacted on how the works are art-historically valued,
particularly in relationship to questions of artistic authorship. In the context of an increasing emphasis on
co-production within museum and gallery practice, she is interested in investigating whether the history of
participatory art exhibitions can lend insight into present practices, and conversely, how does the concept of
co-production affect how participatory art exhibitions are historicised?

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PANEL TWO

LAYERING PROCESS

Truly Immaterial?

Using Applied Technologies to Investigate Historic Plaster Casts p.14

Michael Ann Bevivino (UCD School of Art History and Cultural Policy)

Life After the Original?

The social, cultural, and material value of the copy p.15

Becky Knott (Victoria and Albert Museum)

A Copy of a Copy? The curious case of the Deir el Bahari casts p.16

Lee Robert McStein (Monument Men)

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 TRULY IMMATERIAL? USING APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES

TO INVESTIGATE HISTORIC PLASTER CASTS

Ii is now largely accepted that digital replicas such as 3D models are a continuation of a trend of
replication that can trace its roots from the history of physical reproductions in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, when collections of plaster casts and other reproductions were created en
masse across Europe and other parts of the world. After these analogue reproductions fell from
favour in the mid-twentieth century, many are now starting to be viewed with a renewed
enthusiasm. Ireland was no exception to the historical trend of reproducing cultural objects in the
past, and indeed many Irish museums and institutions are now grappling with how to approach
replicas in the digital world. The Breaking the Mould: Replicas of Ireland’s Cultural Objects from
the Historic to the Digital is a PhD based in University College Dublin in partnership with the
Discovery Programme and IAFS Ltd. It seeks to take stock of the current state of historic replica
collections in Ireland (such as the plaster casts held by the National Museum of Ireland) while
also addressing the growth of digital replicas in the heritage sector. This paper will focus on one of
the case studies of the Breaking the Mould project. This case study, taking a selection of objects
from the National Museum of Ireland’s plaster cast collection, is asking what new technologies
like laser scanning and photogrammetry can bring to our understanding of a historic collection. It
will specifically address the materiality of the plaster replicas in opposition to the supposed
immateriality of the digital models, and how this affects our appreciation and use of the new
technologies.

Michael Ann Bevivino (UCD School of Art History and Cultural Policy)

Michael Ann was born and raised in the U.S. and has been working as an archaeologist in Ireland for the past
ten years. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and
Archaeology and completed her Masters degree in Classics in University College Dublin in 2010, with a thesis
that investigated reproductions of ancient sculpture in modern Greece and Ireland. From 2012 to 2014 she
was the Research Assistant on the Late Iron Age and ‘Roman’ Ireland (LIARI) Project in the Discovery
Programme. Michael Ann is currently an Irish Research Council-funded Postgraduate Scholar based in the
School of Art History and Cultural Policy, UCD. Her PhD project, ‘Breaking the Mould: Ireland’s Replicas of
Cultural Objects from the Historic to the Digital’, is a partnership between University College Dublin, IAFS
Ltd and the Discovery Programme, and will run until 2021.

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 LIFE AFTER THE ORIGINAL? THE SOCIAL, CULTURAL,

AND MATERIAL VALUE OF THE COPY

The value placed on copies has over time been varied, changing and subject to the whims of
museum directors and collecting policies, yet reproductions in materials such as plaster,
electrotypes, and photography continue to be central to museum and private collections all over
the world. Today the rise of digital technologies and methods of reproduction has re-focused
attention on 19th century copies and has provided a gateway through which 21st century
audiences can better engage with and understand the value of the historic collections. The
materials and methods of digital reproductions may differ from those used traditionally, but the
debates around authenticity, copyright, and aura mirror those prevalent in the mid-nineteenth
century. This paper will reject the notion of reproductions as ‘unoriginal’ and will focus on the
afterlife of the copy within the walls of the museum and beyond to the wider cultural landscape.
Exploring the inherent role of reproductions as sites of material and technological innovation,
tools of education, and commercial ingenuity, this paper will focus on key examples in the V&A’s
copy collection to demonstrate how the value of copies lies far beyond that of its relationship to
the original. The paper will also explore the ongoing relationship between the copied and the copy,
and will investigate how, in contrast to popular opinion, the copy can also provide authenticity.
Finally, drawing on recent 3D imaging experiments at the V&A, this paper will conclude by
looking at the value of copies today and how, despite living in an ever-connected world, it is the
act of copying which continues to democratise, support, and encourage material innovation.

Becky Knott (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Becky is an Assistant Curator in the Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass department, and was a
member of the FuturePlan project team for the Cast Courts galleries which opened to the public on the 1st
December 2018. Previously she has worked as an Assistant Collections Manager in the Britain, Europe and
Prehistory department at the British Museum, and as Curatorial Intern at the Bowes Museum. She studied
for an MA in History of Art at the University of York, and BA in History of Art at the University of Warwick.

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 A COPY OF A COPY?

THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE DEIR EL BAHARI CASTS

In early 2018, Monument Men were invited by Manchester Museum to assess a number of
unidentified archaeological plaster casts in the Egypt and Sudan stores with a view to a
photogrammetry project. They were scanned and researched over a couple of weeks by a team of
volunteers, with a surprising result – they were identified as the complete sanctuary chapel of the
temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahari, Luxor – originally made in the early 20th century by
excavation teams there using still emerging techniques in Egyptian archaeology. While the
collection is in a very fragile state, they do provide a fascinating insight into the condition of the
site in the period they were taken, with the some of the casts offering exciting potential for further
scientific analysis of possible transferred pigments from the original wall decoration.

This presentation will discuss the projects evolution along with the many research questions being
asked as we progress further, with considerations such as the material nature of these casts, the
difference between perceived value and research potential, and how this can change when
comparing archaeological plaster casts to modern digital recording methodologies.

Lee Robert McStein (Monument Men)

Lee Robert McStein is a photogrammetrist and technical director of Monument Men, a non-profit cultural
heritage organisation based in Greater Manchester. Lee has produced photogrammetry scans of objects and
sites in the UK and Egypt and works with museums, archaeologists and Egyptologists worldwide. Highlights
of Lee’s recent work include a digital reconstruction of the Younger Memnon utilising data from the British
Museum and on-site work at the Ramesseum, a 3D printed reproduction of a fragment from the Biahmu
colossi of Amenemhat III and scanning plaster casts at Manchester Museum, now identified as the Chapel of
Amenhotep, son of Hapu at Dier el Bahari. Lee is an academy trainer for Italian photogrammetry developers
3DFlow (University of Verona) and consultant photogrammetrist to the Ancient Egyptian Animal Bio Bank
(University of Manchester), developing photogrammetric recording methodologies and their combination
with biomedical imaging such as CT scanning to give insights into animal and human mummification.

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KEYNOTE SPEAKER

MY LIFE AS A REPLICA: THE ROLE OF MATERIALITY AND

CRAFT IN LETTING A REPLICA ‘SPEAK’

Replicas are things in their own right, they have their own lives, their own authenticity. If our
replicas can have a metaphorical life, they can surely speak to us, but how? Post-humanist
thinking gives objects and non-human things greater agency, so how do we listen to them? Ruskin
spoke of aura as ‘voicefulness’. To Pearson and Shanks (2001, 95), building on the work of
Benjamin, ‘To perceive the aura of an object is to invest it with the ability to look at us in return’.
How, therefore, can we harness and apply our understandings of sensory or emotional responses
to replicas? Where do materiality and replica craft fit into this picture? Having highlighted the
general principles and issues, I will introduce you to my own research on Iona’s 1970 concrete St
Johns’ Cross replica, which stands outside at a heritage site. My analysis builds on primary
archival research, ethnographic fieldwork to establish contemporary authenticity and values, and
interviews with witnesses / those involved in its manufacturing and erection. This reveals the
importance of the visibility of makers’ passion, creativity and craft, and materiality, as part of the
‘felt’ relationships generated between people, places and the replica.

Dr Sally Foster (University of Stirling)

Dr Sally Foster is Lecturer in Heritage, University of Stirling. Her fascination with replicas began when she
‘discovered’ early Victorian plaster casts of the Pictish St Andrews Sarcophagus, in the 1990s. Her recent
interdisciplinary research on authenticity, value and significance still tends to have a carved stones focus.
This is because their ability to shift between being monuments and artefacts, from heritage to museum
domains and discourses, elaborates the contexts in which replicas have been, and continue to be, employed
and perceived; different trajectories and implications invite critical but joined-up thinking. Author with Neil
Curtis of ‘The thing about replicas’ (European Journal of Archaeology), she is working with Siân Jones on My
Life as a Replica: St John’s Cross Iona. This ‘composite’ cultural biography links the lives of the original and
original reproductions, building on their ethnographic research (International Journal of Heritage Studies;
Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites).

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18
POSTERS

Perugino and the Art of Self Replication p.20

Lois Hanes (The Warburg Institute/National Gallery, London)

The Materiality of Epigraphic Squeezes: An Interdisciplinary

Approach to Documenting Squeezes in Museum Collections p.21

Dr Annelies Van de Ven (UCLouvain/Musée L)

Object Colours: a Polychromatic View of Natural History Models and Casts p.22

Elaine Charwat (UCL/Oxford University Museum of Natural History)

‘Lasting Impressions’

teaching materials related to an episode in the history of geology p.23

Susan Newell (University of Leeds/Oxford University Museum of Natural History)

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PERUGINO AND THE ART OF SELF REPLICATION

Giorgio Vasari recounts how, in 1507, the painter Perugino was ridiculed at the unveiling of his
new work. Reviled for its ‘repetitiveness’, Perugino’s monumental, double-sided altarpiece at
Santissima Annunziata, Florence, made liberal re-use of figures that had already been seen in his
previous works. For Vasari, this was evidence of Perugino’s ‘greed’ and ‘laziness’. Since Vasari, it
has been widely recognised that Perugino made frequent replications of figures and motifs across
different projects, populating his works with a chorus of ‘stock’ designs that reappear from image
to image. Recent scholarship has sought to demonstrate where these instances of replication
constitute the reuse of a common cartoon, transposed mechanically from one work to another.

Lois considers one of the most striking examples of design replication in Perugino’s oeuvre: the
Sansepolcro Ascension altarpiece (Florence, c.1505-1510), as a near-perfect copy of the central
panel of the San Pietro polyptych, made a decade earlier for the Benedictines in Perugia. This
particular case presents a number of questions. Firstly, how could such a close copy have been
made after this significant time-lapse? And how was the copy achieved in Tuscany, when the
prototype was produced in Umbria? Furthermore, why might artist and patron have agreed upon
the replication, given these distances in time and geography? Through examination of infrared
images and material analysis, and engaging with evidence about Perugino’s workshop practice
found in the extant autograph and workshop drawings, I will seek to demonstrate that far from a
‘lazy’ process, the design transposition from the prototype to the replica instead involved a high
level of artistry. Then, looking at the circumstances of the Sansepolcro commission, I will ask what
might have been the special significance of making a replica of the prototype, for both Perugino
and his patrons.?

Lois Hanes (The Warburg Institute/National Gallery, London)

Lois’ PhD research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the management and operation of
painting workshops in Renaissance Italy. Working with a corpus including works from the National Gallery’s
own collection and elsewhere, her project draws on the case study of Perugino to challenge our
understanding of the vast amount of serial and derivative paintings produced within the workshops of
Florentine master painters in the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries. Her research includes
investigation of regional approaches to painting, production procedures and technical skills used in painters
workshops, and the visual value of workshop production. Lois holds a BA in French and Italian from the
University of Leeds, and an MA in History of Art from The Courtauld Institute.

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 THE MATERIALITY OF EPIGRAPHIC SQUEEZES: AN

INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO DOCUMENTING

SQUEEZES IN MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

During a lifetime interest in local history, the leather manufacturer Matthew Mackey put together
almost every known example of printed works related to the North East of England. As a result of
the purchase from his executors in 1919 and from the public sale of the rest of his library in 1920,
the Laing Art Gallery obtained this amazingly exhaustive collection containing 3,200 engraved
local portraits, 1,053 general portraits, 1,546 views of Newcastle, 1,106 views and 252 plans of
Northumberland and Durham, as well as 900 drawings by J.W. Carmichael, 399 caricatures, and
500 letters and documents. Mackey’s passion for printed works had led him to get even examples
holding just a small variation, posing particular challenges to the curator C.B. Stevenson, who
noted that the Laing would need to hold eight exhibitions, each one filling the four galleries and
placing the engravings in three levels, in order to be able to show the whole of this collection.

This talk will analyse a selection of the key works, while highlight the importance of local
reproductions to the Laing’s aim of raising regional self-awareness and creating a distinct cultural
identity for the North East. The impressive volume of imagery in this unusual purchase and
Mackey's exceptional meticulousness raise many specific questions which will also be addressed:
who precisely was Mackey and why did he collect so many reproductions? What were the
circumstances of the gallery purchases, and how could it afford to pay nearly £650 just one year
after the end of the First World War, while still facing significant budget cuts? This will provide a
valuable chance to hear about the work Mackey and Stevenson did in preserving a meaningful
antiquarian vision of Newcastle and the wider region for its people.

Dr Annelies Van de Ven (UCLouvain/Musée L)

Annelies Van de Ven is a post-doctoral researcher at the Université Catholique de Louvain and its associated
museum, Musée L. Her research is on the museology of complex archaeological collections considering the
relationships between materiality and text and how they impact research, display and outreach. She is
especially interested in lesser known collections including casts, squeezes and archives, and she is passionate
about bringing their stories to a wider public. Alongside her research she is an area convener for the Group
for Education in Museums and she works as an editor for the Ancient Near Eastern Studies Journal. Annelies
previously obtained her PhD at the University of Melbourne in Australia where she also worked as a
curatorial assistant in the Classics and Archaeology collection.

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 OBJECT COLOURS: A POLYCHROMATIC VIEW OF

NATURAL HISTORY MODELS AND CASTS

In 1810, the German poet and naturalist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe developed a theory of
colour, which was influential in both the arts and the sciences. As a result, colour wheels, colour
charts, “colour taxonomies”, were developed in order to standardise colours and colour mixes.

How we see and communicate colours in a natural history context has long been scrutinised
whenever nature is being “reproduced”. Past attempts to standardise colours and the use of colour
for natural history illustrations have been examined in various studies for specific periods and
illustrators.

I would like to complement and compare this evidence with an examination of how colour/ing
and standardising systems were applied to natural history models and casts, mainly in the second
half of the 19th to early 20th century. The meanings and mechanisms of how these objects were
coloured - as opposed to how they were shaped or “modelled” - have so far received little attention
in a history of science and collections studies context.

The discovery of how to produce colours and dyes synthetically in the second half of the 19th
century coincides with a peak time in model and cast making and distribution, and this
relationship deserves closer study. This visual introduction to an interdisciplinary investigation
will start with the assumption that object colours can reveal changing politics, fashions, and new
approaches with regard to communicating nature and the natural sciences.

Elaine Charwat (UCL/Oxford University Museum of Natural History)

Elaine’s background is in Special Collections She was awarded an AHRC scholarship to undertake her MSc in
Information Studies at (now) Leeds Beckett University. Her thesis focused on cataloguing the visual aspects
of medieval manuscripts. She has worked as Special Collections Librarian at University College Cork
(Ireland) and at the Linnean Society of London, where she was Deputy Librarian and Collections Manager -
working with some of the most important natural history collections in the history of science. She was elected
a Fellow of the Linnean Society (FLS) in 2016. In collaboration with UCL and the Oxford University Museum
of Natural History, Elaine’s AHRC-funded doctoral project examines how models and casts in natural history
can be re-evaluated as highly contextual “knowledge objects” - carriers and catalysts of knowledge, but also
of identities, relationships and status. Being often perceived as purely utilitarian, they pose important
questions about authenticity, objectivity and the objectification of nature.

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 ‘LASTING IMPRESSIONS’ - TEACHING MATERIALS

RELATED TO AN EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF GEOLOGY

Casts played a crucial role in the construction of geological theories in the early nineteenth
century. Learned men were part of an international community, mutually dependent on each
other for the supply of specimens. Because of their scarcity and value, the specimens themselves
were usually disseminated in the form of casts. This knowledge network was permeable, in the
sense that many people at a local level, ‘fossilists’ such as Mary Anning, collectors, landowners,
members of local philosophical societies and dealers, often acquired significant expertise. They
either found or acquired specimens to sell, loan, give or pass on in the form of casts.

My narrative in this poster relates to a unique collection of geological casts surviving at Oxford
University Museum of Natural History which formerly belonged to William Buckland (1784-
1856), first Professor of Mineralogy and Geology at Oxford. I will focus on the casts of trace fossils
made by reptiles of the Triassic period. Working with these and a variety of live animals, Buckland
used a methodology based on the comparative anatomy developed by Georges Cuvier at the
Museum d’histoire naturelle in Paris to link the extinct species responsible for the ‘lasting
impressions’ to existing related animals. This field of study would later be developed by others
into an important sub-field of palaeontology, ichnology.

Susan Newell (Oxford University Museum of Natural History/University of

Leeds)

Susan worked as a curator and decorative arts specialist before returning to academia in 2014 to study for my
MA in History of Design at the Royal College of Art/Victoria and Albert Museum. She became interested in
the history of geology as background to my dissertation on the ceramics collection formed by the Museum of
Practical Geology in the mid nineteenth century, now in the V&A. Her present research is focused on
material culture related to the teaching of geology at the British university, and my main resource is the
historical collection of the first Reader of Geology and Mineralogy at Oxford, William Buckland (1784-1856)
held by Oxford University Museum of Natural History. This includes teaching diagrams, prints,
watercolours, casts and specimens, often with original hand-written labels. It is an inter-disciplinary project
that straddles the history of science, art, collecting, museums and teaching, as well as the history of geology.

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24
 AFTERNOON ACTIVITIES

15.00-15.45 Ashmolean Museum’s Cast Gallery Tour with CHIARA MARABELLI

(University of Leicester, School of Museum Studies)

Meet outside the Balfour Room at 14.45

The Cast Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum hosts one of the oldest and best-preserved collections
in the UK. Its inception began at the end of the 19th century, when casts started to be acquired in
order to support the study of Classical art and archaeology at Oxford University. The educational
purpose is its raison d’être still today, being casts widely employed in lectures, drawing classes and
museum activities, during which sculptures are deliberately treated as if they were the ancient
originals. However, the distinctive features of plaster casts are not straightforward to a general
audience visiting the gallery. Acknowledging that the same objects may mean different things to
different people, casts do not constitute an exception. Examples drawn from interviews with visitors
and museum staff at the Cast Gallery will provide insight on the complex and controversial
interrelations between originality, reproducibility and trust in art and museums.

CHIARA MARABELLI is a second-year doctoral student at the School of Museum Studies, University of
Leicester. Her project, funded by the AHRC Midlands4Cities DTP, investigates the concept of authenticity in
art and museums. Based at the Cast Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, she focuses on
the significance of plaster casts from the Antique, traditionally labelled as copies of famous masterpieces, but
also objects in their own right. More specifically, she is interested in viewers’ perceptions about such
ambiguous materials. With a background in Classical archaeology, cultural heritage studies and museum
studies, in the last few years she has collaborated with universities, museums and cultural organizations in
Italy, Malta, Great Britain and Chile.

Artworks by TOM RAILTON (Independent Artist)

Balfour Room

‘The works I’m presenting each imitate an original artefact, only to subvert expectation, in an
attempt to redefine the experience of the viewer whilst relying on their knowledge of the original,
'host' form. In this way, broken iphones become knapped obsidian tools and handheld divinational
mirrors. In foundry, the ‘lost wax’ process reproduces an object in metal from a solid wax pattern,
itself crafted by hand or by earlier replication in casting. Once invested and heated, it flows out a
liquid, the void awaiting the molten bronze to fill it and crystallise. Here, Neanderthal handaxes are
reworked in metal, appearing both bronze and ‘stone age’ at once. Eons before, organisms became
silica sediments, oozing into bubbles in chalk, filling their contours and hardening into unique
nodules of rock: casting as performed by geologic time. In another work, a shrunken fragment of a
monument used for drawing study is reimagined as an oddly-shaped gambling stone, cut to reveal
the precious stone within. There is a perception of an unending, seductive truth in the processes of
impression-taking; an ultimate realisation for which the meticulous iterations of copying have

25
served; all states and forms having been sacrificial up to this point. We can now augment our reality
and manufacturing, using digital scans of surface and space to create impossible objects of mixed
graphic origin. No less physical, a perfumed oil used as a vehicle to validate power can be upturned
for endless distribution, as a transformative, sensory substance for mass anointing, amongst the
singular taxonomies of the Pitt Rivers museum.’

TOM RAILTON is an artist working with hybrid forms in sculpture that explore the agency and
appropriation of substance. His works offer conflicting narratives and intersecting timelines, establishing
apophenic links between material, manufacture and site through a transdisciplinary approach to
technologies of making and unmaking. In 2015 Tom completed the Artquest Research Residency at the
Foundling Museum. Formerly, his work won the Workweek Prize (2013), and the GAM Prize (2012), and
featured in the inaugural Saint Vincent European Art Prize (2012) after completing his MA study at Chelsea
College of Arts in the same year. Recent projects include exhibitions with Gossamer Fog (2017),
PLAZAPLAZA (2016), and Supernormal Festival (2016), and Committee Membership for DIY Space for
London from 2015-2016. He holds a specialist technical position at the Royal College of Art and
appointments as a Visiting Lecturer to programmes in London, Leeds, Liverpool and Vilnius. Tom was born
in Coventry, UK, and now lives and works in London.

“Rear Elevation” and Other Stories: Re-excavating Presence in O.G.S. Crawford’s:

Photographs of the 1939 Sutton Hoo Excavation with BETH HODGETT (Birkbeck,
University of London/Pitt Rivers Museum.)

Balfour Room

Over the course of five days in July 1939, O.G.S. Crawford took 124 photographs of the excavation
of Sutton Hoo. After returning from the excavation he made two identical sets of prints. Through
an object handling session, I explore the very different biographies of these two sets of prints in
their respective institutional contexts. In doing so I begin to unpick some of the connections
between the materiality of the photographic archives and the narratives of the excavation, and
Crawford’s involvement in it, that have subsequently emerged. Several commentators have
highlighted the invisibility of archaeologists in excavation records (McFadyen 1997; McFadyen et
al. 1997; Lucas 2001; Shepherd 2003; Baird 2017; Riggs 2017) and so I experiment with creative
reproductions of Crawford’s photographs as a means of re-centring Crawford’s presence at Sutton
Hoo.

BETH HODGETT is an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award student based at Birkbeck, University of
London and the Pitt Rivers Museum. Beth has a BA in Theology, and an MSc in Visual, Material and
Museum Anthropology from the University of Oxford. She has also dabbled in fine art, photography and art
history. Beth’s current research investigates the photographic archive of the early twentieth century
archaeologist O.G.S. Crawford. Responding to the wide-ranging nature of Crawford’s subject matter; an
eclectic mix of the prehistoric and the contemporary, Beth’s research takes an interdisciplinary approach,
drawing on photographic and material culture theory, as well as insights from archaeology and anthropology.
Beth is especially interested in using an analysis of the material form of the archive in the present day to
critically examine Crawford’s legacy.

26
Object handling session with CAROLYN ALEXANDER (Glasgow School of
Art/Scottish Cultural Heritage Consortium)

Balfour Room

'Why are we seduced by the idea of the ‘original’ and drawn to the old, worn or ruined? Is the aura
of a ‘thing’ bound to its materiality, or is it a social construction able to migrate to other objects,
replicas or reproductions? Carolyn Alexander’s interactive installations explore our attraction to
materials and the lure of the original. Based on lost or damaged material from the Glasgow School
of Art’s Mackintosh Building, Alexander’s replications invite you to reassemble lost artefacts and
re-examine how we use objects to tell stories.'

Since studying Visual Communication at Glasgow School of Art, CAROLYN ALEXANDER’s creative
practice has focused on our social relationships with things, and visitor interaction with objects in a gallery
setting. Going on to study an MSC Museum Studies, specialising in Artefact and Material Culture, presented
the opportunity to pursue these interests in an academic setting: investigating themes of authenticity,
agency, conservation and materiality. Carolyn’s current practice-based PhD at GSA, aims to develop a
methodology which facilitates a dialogue with visitors concerning aura, authenticity and replication through
interpretive sculpture and installations that question our attachments to things.

Nose of Amenemhat III (reproduction), LEE ROBERT MCSTEIN (Monument Men)

Balfour Room

The nose is one of 47 fragments from a pair of colossal statues excavated by Sir William Matthew
Flinders Petrie at the ancient site of Biahmu in the Faiyum. The nose belonged to the Western statue
and is one of the most complete pieces. The original colossal statues were formed of quartz
sandstone and would have stood between 12-16m high. This reproduction was created as a tactile
display in the ‘Adventures in Egypt: Mrs Goodison and other Travellers’ exhibition at the Atkinson
Museum, Southport. It was produced by photogrammetry scanning the original piece on display in
the Ashmolean Museum, then creating a 3D printed composite which was painted to emulate
polished sandstone. The nose featured alongside a number of other fragments of the colossi,
reunited for the first time since their excavation.

LEE ROBERT MCSTEIN is a photogrammetrist and technical director of Monument Men, a non-profit
cultural heritage organisation based in Greater Manchester. Lee has produced photogrammetry scans of
objects and sites in the UK and Egypt and works with museums, archaeologists and Egyptologists worldwide.
Highlights of Lee’s recent work include a digital reconstruction of the Younger Memnon utilising data from
the British Museum and on-site work at the Ramesseum, a 3D printed reproduction of a fragment from the
Biahmu colossi of Amenemhat III and scanning plaster casts at Manchester Museum, now identified as the
Chapel of Amenhotep, son of Hapu at Dier el Bahari. Lee is an academy trainer for Italian photogrammetry
developers 3DFlow (University of Verona) and consultant photogrammetrist to the Ancient Egyptian Animal
Bio Bank (University of Manchester), developing photogrammetric recording methodologies and their
combination with biomedical imaging such as CT scanning to give insights into animal and human
mummification.

27
UNESCO monuments in the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Glyptotheque,
MAGDALENA GETALDIĆ (Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts – Glypthoteque)

Balfour Room

This virtual exhibition brings together those UNESCO monuments from the World Cultural
Heritage List the plaster casts of which are exhibited in the permanent display of the Croatian
Academy of Sciences and Arts Glyptotheque. On show are exhibits, monuments or parts of them,
from historical units and sites of the UNESCO-listed cultural heritage, pieces from the plaster cast
collections of the Glyptotheque (the Collection of Plaster Casts of Fragments of the Croatian
Cultural Heritage from the 9th to the 15th century, the Collection of Plaster Casts of Stechaks and
the George the Dalmatian Collection). These individual monuments are used to present five out of
the total of eight units of the cultural heritage from the UNESCO List. That are the Historical
Complex of Split and Diocletian's Palace; the Old City of Dubrovnik; the Historic City of Trogir;
Šibenik Cathedral; Stechaks and one site (Radimlja) of Bosnia and Herzegovina. By means of this
exhibition, we would like to popularise the permanent display of the Glyptotheque through the
theme of the UNESCO heritage. We would like to stress the value of the collection of plaster casts,
which in a one-of-a-kind way bring together the most important monuments of the sculptural
heritage placed in the UNESCO List. The exhibition has been put on to mark International Museum
Day 2019, and has been produced jointly by the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Glyptotheque, the Croatian Studies Centre and the Graphic Arts Faculty of Zagreb University.

MAGDALENA GETALDIĆ was born in 1982 in Zagreb, Croatia. Graduated with Master's Degree in
History and History of Art at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb in 2008, at the same
Faculty on Department of Information and Communication Sciences graduated Museology in 2013.Works as
museum senior documantalist and curator of plaster cast collections in Croatian Academy of Sciences and
Arts – Glypthoteque since 2009. From 2017 attending postgraduate doctoral study programme Humanities
on Department of History of Art at University of Zadar, Croatia.

28

ABBEY
ELLIS
University of Leicester
Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford
Abbey graduated from Merton College,
Oxford in 2016 with a first class BA in
Classical Archaeology and Ancient
History. In 2017, Abbey achieved a
distinction in her Masters degree in
Classical Archaeology, also at Merton.
Abbey’s current PhD project is split
between the University of Leicester,
where she is supervised by Sandra
Dudley, and the Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford, where she is supervised by Bert
Smith and Milena Melfi.
VALENTINA
RISDONNE
Northumbria University
Victoria and Albert
Museum
Valentina Risdonne studied her B.Sc. at
the University of Perugia and M.Sc. at the
University of Parma in Science
Conservation. She collaborated with the
Victoria and Albert Museum Science
Section since 2015. Her research interests
included until now lacquer objects,
pigments and plaster casts. She is an
objects analyst and a plaster conservator.
Her current PhD project concerns plaster
casts as historic objects. She is also
working as Heritage Science Research
Assistant at Historic Royal palaces on the
Rubens’ ceilings conservation project.
THE TEAM
CAROLYN
ALEXANDER
Glasgow School of Art
Scottish Cultural
Heritage Consortium
Since studying Visual Communication at
the Glasgow School of Art, Carolyn
Alexander's creative practice has been
focused on our social relationships with
things, particularly in a museum and
gallery context. She is currently
undertaking a practice-based PhD,
investigating if the use of contemporary
art and design practice can facilitate
deeper engagement with restored, or
reconstructed, material culture.
KATHERINE
CLOUGH
University of Newcastle
Victoria and Albert
Museum
Katherine Clough is an AHRC funded
CDP candidate at Newcastle University
and the Victoria and Albert Museum
(V&A). She is researching the impact of
digital practices on the curation and
interpretation of historic museum
collections. Her academic background is
in visual anthropology, material culture
studies, and art history, and she spent a
few years working with photograph
collections and archives at the Pitt Rivers
and Ashmolean Museum in Oxford before
commencing doctoral study.
29
 THINGS TO DO IN OXFORD
Our study day will provide the opportunity to attend tours of two of Oxford's incredible museums:
the Museum of Natural History (https://www.oumnh.ox.ac.uk/) and the Ashmolean Museum
of Art and Archaeology (https://www.ashmolean.org/). But the delights of Oxford extend far
beyond this. Here some ideas to make the very most of your visit.

1.TOUR OF THE 2.OPEN-TOP BUS TOUR 3.EAGLE AND CHILD

BODLEIAN LIBRARY PUB

A regular programme of You can also hop on an open-

guided tours of the Old
Bodleian Library, one of the
oldest libraries in Europe,
allows visitors to see inside
its historic rooms including
the 15th-century Divinity
School, medieval Duke
Humfrey's Library, and the
impressive Radcliffe Camera.
https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.
uk/whatson/visit/tours
top bus tour to take in some
of the city's architectural
wonders. The city tour lasts
approximately 1 hour and
departs every 10 – 15
minutes in the summer.
https://www.citysightseeingo
xford.com/
Have a drink like an
academic. A classic Oxford
pub owned by St John’s
College, that used to be the
preferred boozer (and
literary hang-out) of Tolkien,
CS Lewis and others.
https://www.nicholsonspubs
.co.uk/restaurants/southeast
/theeagleandchildoxford/boo
kings

4.VISIT OF THE 5.TWO-HOUR OXFORD 6.BOTANIC GARDENS &

HISTORIC COLLEGES WALKING TOUR ARBORETUM

Christchurch College Of all the companies Visit to the UK’s oldest

(https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/
plan-your-visit/opening-
times) and Merton College
(https://www.merton.ox.ac.u
k/visitor-information) are
two of the most impressive
historic colleges in Oxford.
providing walking tours in
Oxford, we suggest
https://footprints-
tours.com/2-hour-free-
oxford-walking-tour/
It is free, but tips are
welcome if you enjoyed the
tour!
botanic garden and a
stunning 130 acres of
woodland for you to escape
the busy city and recharge in.
https://www.obga.ox.ac.uk/h
ome

7.THINKING 3D: 8.SIGHTSEEING RIVER 9.JERICHO TAVERN

Leonardo to the present CRUISE

Inkeeping with the theme of
our study day, you may also
like to visit the Thinking 3D:
Leonardo to the Present
exhibition at the Weston
Library, which explores the
development of three-
dimensional communication
over the last 500 years.
https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.
uk/whatson/whats-
on/upcoming-
events/2019/march/thinking
-3d-leonardo-to-present
Explore Oxford University’s
famous regatta course on this
50-minute Thames River
sightseeing cruise in Oxford.
Hop aboard your sightseeing
vessel in the heart of Oxford
and cruise out onto the
famous waterway. Prices
from £12.
https://www.oxfordrivercrui
ses.com/
The Jericho Tavern is one of
the most famous pub in
Oxford thanks largely to its
connection to various bands
who took their baby steps in
the late 80s/early 90s.
Radiohead performed here
under the (not-so-good)
name of ‘On a Friday’.
https://www.thejerichooxfor
d.co.uk/

30
MAPS

31
 CREDITS AND CONTACTS
Art and Humanities Research Council fund this study day. The Collaborative Doctorate Partnership
Consortium awarded the Study Day Proposal. The Lasting Impressions Team wish to thank Sarah McEvoy
(CDP admin), Emma Webster (Oxford University Museums) and Barbara Jackson (Administrator, Centre for
Nineteenth-Century Studies).

University of Oxford University of Durham Arts & Humanities

Gardens, Libraries and Centre for Nineteenth- Research Council
Museums (GLAM) Century Studies CDP Student Led Activity
Fund

The University of Oxford's
GLAM group has kindly
provided our venue at the Pitt
Rivers Museum and a great deal
of practical and administrative
support in making Lasting
Impressions 2019 happen.
We are very grateful to the
CNCS for offering financial
support to Lasting Impressions
2019. Their valuable
contribution helps us to
subsidise catering costs and
offer travel bursaries to CNCS
members.
We extend our sincere thanks
to the Arts & Humanities
Research Council for enabling
us to provide travel bursaries,
catering, printed materials,
exhibition supplies, and much
more.

Abbey Ellis alre1@leicester.ac.uk

abbey.ellis@ashmus.ox.ac.uk

Carolyn Alexander c.alexander1@student.gsa.ac.uk

Katherine Clough k.clough2@newcastle.ac.uk

Valentina Risdonne valentina.risdonne@northumbria.ac.uk

v.risdonne@vam.ac.uk

32
NOTES

33
NOTES

34
NOTES

35
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