Curating Discomfort at the Hunterian Museum
Ellie Lyons - February 1, 2023
The Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow (Glasgow, UK).
Photo credit: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Main_Hall%2C_the_Hunterian_Museum%2C_Glasgow..JPG
As an art history student, I frequented the University of Glasgow’s campus museums during my time studying abroad this past fall. Located on the Gilmorehill Campus at the University of Glasgow, the Hunterian Museum plays an important role in research and education, both within the university and the public at large. Its vast collection, largely donated by William Hunter, features objects from all around the world. This article focuses on its so-called objects of exploration, largely gathered through the expedition of British naval captain James Cook in the late eighteenth century. Through its curation and presentation of these artifacts, the Hunterian Museum maintains these objects’ reputations as curiosities not worthy of study on their own accord. Instead, the museum presents them through a European lens, studiable only through their history as relics of exploration. As an institution of education and social change, the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow has an obligation to change this view of these so-called objects of exploration from simple curiosities to objects of culture and history, worthy of study in their original context.
To understand the Hunterian in a modern context, it is first important to learn the history of its conception. The Hunterian Museum began with the collections of William Hunter, born just outside Glasgow in 1718.1 Hunter studied at the University of Glasgow, but left without graduating to train as a doctor in Edinburgh and later study midwifery in London.2 By the 1760s, Hunter had amassed a considerable amount of wealth, allowing him to build his personal collection that would become the basis of the Hunterian.3 Though Hunter – with a background as a physician – had a particular interest in anatomical objects and specimens, he also embraced objects from the voyages of Byron, Wallis, and Cook.4 In particular, Hunter had personal connections that brought him artifacts from all three of James Cook’s voyages.5
Hunter conceived of his collection as an educational tool spanning both the history of mankind as well as embracing the entire animal and vegetable kingdom. Following this goal of education, Hunter left his collection and library to the University of Glasgow with the intention of the “improvement of the Students of the said University of Glasgow”.6 Thirty years after his death, the Hunterian Museum opened on the grounds of the Old College at the University of Glasgow.7 This museum, the first institution of its kind in Scotland, was truly built for the students, faculty, and researchers of the university—its priority was and is the promotion of research and education.8
The newly established Hunterian Museum had a large impact on both members of the University and members of the general public. In 1813, John Laskey, a captain in the local militia, published a detailed description of the display cases within the museum.9 In the introduction to this catalog, Laskey praises “the quantity of rare and valuable articles that make up the collection, lauding the intellectual power of the institution.10
Lakey’s detailed description of the Hunterian’s galleries provide some insight into the original collections and layout of the museum. Though the museum’s collections are vast, one section stands out in particular: glass case number two in the apartment to the left of the saloon, which holds the “admirable and curious articles collected during the voyages of Captain Cook in the South Seas.”11 The objects in this display include samples of cloth, various bodily ornaments, and several collections of feathers.12 In his writing, Laskey describes these objects as simple curiosities; interesting to look at but not worth much else. The description of the entire case—including over sixteen different objects—takes up no more than two pages of the catalog; descriptions of eight different specimens of birds take up five. Clearly, Laskey exhibits an interest in the natural world that does not apply to the more anthropological objects in William Hunter’s collection.
While Laskey very well could just have limited knowledge regarding objects of the Pacific, such an attitude towards the ‘curiosities’ of the South Seas exists in other scholarship. Though the clothing, ornaments, tools, and weapons bartered from the people of the Pacific represent in many cases the last genuinely indigenous products of Stone Age technologies uninfluenced by European presence, these artifacts often were merely regarded as “Artificial Curiosities.”13 The collection of such artifacts was often regarded as a waste of time, particularly when compared with that of natural history specimens—letters sent from the Discovery even express irritation when the crew secures only human artifacts.14 Such prejudice against ethnographic objects in the face of natural history exists in more modern scholarship, as even in the 20th century the old Department of Ethnography in the British Museum was known to other staff as the ‘rag and bone’ department.15
The modern Hunterian Museum does not evade this attitude. Drawing upon Nicola Pickering’s Museum Curator’s Guide, one of the most important ways that museums create meaning is through the design of their displays. Factors such as the interior design of a gallery, or the amount of light falling upon an object, have an immense effect on visitor behavior and experience.16 The ways in which visitors engage with and interpret objects and information is filtered through how the museum chooses to present their collections.
The Hunterian’s current presentations of ethnographic artifacts collected on the Cook voyages present a clear interpretation of the objects: they are not worthy of study except in a European context. To begin, these artifacts are difficult to find. They exist largely within two cases, one titled “First Contact” and the other “Exploration.” The “Exploration” case is particularly obscured, hidden along a kind of hallway delineated by various object cases. It sits in the dark with lights activated by visitor movement—a wonderful idea for conservation, but quite intimidating for visitors. The text describing the theme of the case centers around the Europeans who gathered the objects within: James Cook, William Turner, and David Livingstone. In the “First Contact'' case, the text describing the theme of the case is small and close to the ground, making it difficult to read. Both cases are easy to overlook, especially considering their placement against the more exciting skeletons of ancient creatures in the center of the room.
The combination of these factors presents the Hunterian’s ethnographic objects as both uninteresting and unimportant. Their placement in a dark hallway of sorts encourages visitors to move past them in favor of more visually appealing displays, almost ensuring their obscurity. The motion-activated lights send a message that visitors should avoid that area, as darkness is often associated with a lack of accessibility and visitors tend to avoid such sections in museum displays. 17 The text describing European explorers is large and easily visible, while the text describing native people of the Pacific is almost obscured, establishing a clear hierarchy between the two. Through the effects of this display, the Hunterian dismisses their ethnographic objects as many others have done before them. The effect of European presence in the Pacific is granted precedence over the history and culture of the people already there, further evidenced by the inclusion of a European Bible among the native objects.
Museums are important in their role as storytellers and potential instigators of social change. Museums do not exist within a vacuum; they influence visitors and are in turn influenced by the cultures in which they exist. Though some museum professionals believe that the museum’s involvement in social change is unnecessary and can distract from its “core business” of collections care and research, the museum is an inherently political institution.18 As institutions in a position of privilege, museums must engage in social justice work—an idea that has entered mainstream thought over the past few decades.19 Through their displays, museums have the ability to reconfigure moral codes in support of progressive values, create transformative spaces in which visitors can engage in intercultural dialogue, and promote the voices of those who have historically been silenced. The public is not a passive recipient of museum messaging, but active participants with whom museum displays can have real effects – the museum must critically confront accepted histories.20
The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow is currently failing that mission. Though the museum is taking steps in the right direction – instating a “curator of discomfort” for example – it must fundamentally change its exhibition spaces in order to highlight the stories of native Pacific people through its collection of ethnographic objects. The Hunterian must confront its history and actively choose to raise the voices of the historically unheard, unshackling itself from the colonial lens in which it currently exists. While it is important to acknowledge a European presence in the Pacific and the various effects it both had and continues to have, such stories should not be the basis upon which visitors are expected to interpret ethnographic objects. Instead, such objects should be presented in their original contexts, emphasizing the culture and history they were created in without a suffocating European presence. As an institution of education with serious cultural influence, both in the city of Glasgow and the world at large, the Hunterian must change its display of these so-called objects of exploration to imbue them with a sense of importance in their own right.
1 David Gaimster, "The Hunterian, Glasgow: Enlightenment Foundations and Continuing Mission," The Antioch Review 74, no. 2 (2016): 362
2 Ibid.
3 David Gaimster, "The Hunterian, Glasgow: Enlightenment Foundations and Continuing Mission," 363.
4 Nicholas Thomas, “‘A great collection of curiosities from the South Sea islands’: William Hunter’s Ethnography.” William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2018), 146.
5 Ibid.
6 Copy of the Last Will and Testament with Codicil of William Hunter, 1718-1783, Anatomist and Obstetrician.
7 David Gaimster, "The Hunterian, Glasgow: Enlightenment Foundations and Continuing Mission," 366.
8 Mungo Campbell, “William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum.” William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2018), 25.
9 E. W. MacKie, "William Hunter and Captain Cook: The 18th Century Ethnographical Collection in the Hunterian Museum," Glasgow Archaeological Journal 12, no. 1 (1985), 5.
10 J. C. Laskey, A General Account of the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow: Including Historical and Scientific Notices of the various Objects of Art, Literature, Natural History, Anatomical Preparations, Antiquities, &c., in that Celebrated Collection (Glasgow: J. Smith, 1813), 3.
11 J. C. Laskey, A General Account, 20.
12 J. C. Laskey, A General Account, 21.
13 E. W. MacKie, "William Hunter and Captain Cook,” 2.
14 Ibid
15 H. J. Braunholtz, “History of Ethnography in the Museum after 1753 (Pt. I),” The British Museum Quarterly 18, no. 3 (1953), 119.
16 Nicola Pickering, The Museum Curator's Guide: Understanding, Managing and Presenting Objects. (London, UK: Lund Humphries, 2020), 90.
17 Nicola Pickering, The Museum Curator's Guide, 91.
18 Ethan Lasser, "An Unlikely Match: On the Curator's Role in the Social Work of the Museum," Museum Management and Curatorship (1990) 27, no. 3 (2012), 206.
19 Arianna Huhn and Annika Anderson, "Promoting Social Justice through Storytelling in Museums," Museum and Society 19, no. 3 (2021): 351.
20 Markéta Křížová, "Curators, Objects and the Indigenous Agency," Reviews in Anthropology 50, no. 1-2 (2021), 38.
Bibliography
Braunholtz, H. J. “History of Ethnography in the Museum after 1753 (Pt. I).” The British Museum Quarterly 18, no. 3 (1953): 90–93. https://doi.org/10.2307/4422442.
Campbell, Mungo. “William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum.” William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2018.
Dickens, Charles and Royal College of Surgeons of England. “The Hunterian Museum.” Household Words. London: Bradley & Evans, 1851.
Gaimster, David. "The Hunterian, Glasgow: Enlightenment Foundations and Continuing Mission." The Antioch Review 74, no. 2 (2016): 360-378. doi:10.7723/antiochreview.74.2.0360.
Huhn, Arianna and Annika Anderson. "Promoting Social Justice through Storytelling in Museums." Museum and Society 19, no. 3 (2021): 351-368.
Křížová, Markéta. "Curators, Objects and the Indigenous Agency." Reviews in Anthropology 50, no. 1-2 (2021): 22-40.
Laskey, J. C., Hunterian Museum, and Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. A General Account of the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow: Including Historical and Scientific Notices of the various Objects of Art, Literature, Natural History, Anatomical Preparations, Antiquities, &c., in that Celebrated Collection. Glasgow: J. Smith, 1813.
Lasser, Ethan W. "An Unlikely Match: On the Curator's Role in the Social Work of the Museum." Museum Management and Curatorship (1990) 27, no. 3 (2012): 205-212.
MacKie, E. W. "William Hunter and Captain Cook: The 18th Century Ethnographical Collection in the Hunterian Museum." Glasgow Archaeological Journal 12, no. 1 (1985): 1-18.
Pickering, Nicola and ProQuest (Firm). The Museum Curator's Guide: Understanding, Managing and Presenting Objects. London, UK: Lund Humphries, 2020.
Thomas, Nicholas. “‘A great collection of curiosities from the South Sea islands’: William Hunter’s Ethnography.” William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2018.
“University of Glasgow - the Hunterian - about Us - a Changing Museum - Curating Discomfort.” n.d. https://www.gla.ac.uk/hunterian/about/achangingmuseum/curatingdiscomfort/
