Cultural Heritage – Culture of Collecting

Do you collect something?  I have a grandmother who collects “Owls”, a mother who collects “Mice”, and an “adopted” mother who collects “Frogs”.  Now none of those dear women would like to have live versions of those beasts running around their house, but they do like figurines, pictures, and other nick-nacks that are in the shape of the creatures they love or find dear.  Why is it that we, as humans, feel the need to “collect”?  Is this urge natural or is it inherited?

One of the problems that Cultural Heritage seeks to address is the culture of collecting.  We stuff museums and homes with items that we fancy, we visit sites and bring home souvenirs, we save relics from our past and the past of our children, we take photos of everything we see and every place we go, and the question is, why?  It used to be that “a man of education” showed “he” was “educated” by having a library and a cabinet for his curios.  It was felt that man was led to civilization through the sciences.  Fredrick Nietche said that interpretation is a function of whatever power of truth prevails at a given time.  Now whether or not he was right, the fact is that there is a growing movement (a new “power of truth” if you will) to rethink how heritage sites, museums, and archaeology are presented.

Those charged with preserving heritage have often felt that the people who visit monuments generally have very little memory of what the site is all about.  They suspect that this is because we, as a people, believe that the monuments do the remembering for us.  Because of this belief there is a concerted effort to re-educate the public with the new approaches of site management and archaeological education.

That aside, is there anything wrong with collecting itself?  Is it dangerous?  Is it therapeutic?  Could it really be about identity and memory-work?  There are three modes of collecting that were presented in class (see which one your collecting fits into). 

Souvenir collecting is when people feel the need to reproduce a larger event through the acquisition of a small object or photo/video.  Psychologically this is tied the idea of “relic” where the object is the “prize”.  By obtaining this souvenir, the collector now has the power to carry the past into the future.  When recalling the event, the collector can present the souvenir to authenticate the story.

Systematic collecting is what museums do.  It is when one particular item is collected because it is of a certain “type”.  These are usually presented in a way for the “public” (whatever that might mean in any given circumstance) to view these items and thus requires a display and audience.  Often these are presented as a visual narrative and to represent an ideology.

Fetishistic collecting is often done without reason.  It reflects the personality of the collector and is possessive and worshipful.  This type of collecting was described in class as an intellectual engagement with “silent” objects.  Sigmund Freud had on his desk various “gods” of ancient civilizations that he called his “colleagues of choice”.  This is a more emotional type of collecting than the others and I would not recommend typing “fetishistic collecting” into an internet search engine!

So is collecting dangerous or therapeutic?  I guess it all depends on why you collect what you collect and what you expect to get from it.  Whatever you decide, history has shown that you should NOT throw out your baseball card collection (or let your Mum do it for you)!