Books
Archaeologies of Art: Papers from the Sixth World Archaeological Congress
In the summer of 2008, Ian Russell curated a series of contemporary art projects entitled Ábhar agus Meon as part of Ireland’s hosting of the Sixth World Archaeological Congress at University College Dublin. The projects were placed in the shared spaces between the contemporary arts, archaeology and heritage in Ireland. The papers in this audio journal feature highlights from the many presentations in the Archaeologies of Art theme of the Sixth World Archaeological Congress. Prof. Douglass Bailey from San Francisco State University will reflect on the current relationships between contemporary art and contemporary archaeology and suggest some radical new directions that this disciplinary collaboration can take. Dr Blaze O’Connor of the UCD Humanities Institute of Ireland will discuss the unique synergy that was the archaeological excavation and reconstruction of the studio of modern painter Francis Bacon, meditating on archaeology’s relationship to detritus, dust and debitage. There will be a special presentation from the Sixth World Archaeological Congress artist-in-residence Kevin O’Dwyer, who will speak about his own artistic practice in relationship to archaeology and his curation and direction of Sculpture in the Parklands, a unique project engaging art, archaeology, ecology and the industrial heritages of Lough Boora, Co. Offaly. Finally, a manifesto will be issued by Dr Andrew Cochrane of Cardiff University and Ian Russell, challenging the theoretical foundations of archaeological thought and practice through an engagement with artistic and anthropological theory.
These talks are a selection of the presentations from the Archaeologies of Art theme of the Sixth World Archaeological Congress, illustrating the rich collaboration that is continually developing between archaeology and art. It is the hope of teh contributors that they will inspire you to imagine new futures for the practice of archaeology as a discipline not confined by the past but radically practiced in the present.
Like (2)Images, representations and heritage: Moving beyond modern approaches to archaeology
'This collection of essays takes our understanding of the public role of archaeology forward, by placing themes of representation, tourism and the heritage industry into the contexts of contemporary debates on the character of modern society. Where public archaeology is often blandly portrayed as a matter of the management of a cultural resource, Russell's volume presents the traces of the past as active in the present, recruited in the formation of multiple identities, circulated in media and the arts, and formative of dreams and fantasies. This is a book that will be of interest to anyone concerned with the place of the past in today's world, not simply archaeologists and heritage professionals.'
Professor Julian Thomas, School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester
Unquiet Pasts: Theoretical perspectives on archaeology and cultural heritage
In today’s world, all forms of communities are becoming global networks of shared interests. Indigenous peoples, public sector organisations, private companies, corporations and intellectual communities are all taking advantage of the new opportunities for communication and coordination presented by televised news media, the internet and affordable inter-continental travel. As a scientific and humanistic exercise undertaken in this contemporary world, archaeology is presented with a number of paradoxes and problems relating to the construction and communication of knowledge about the past. Simply put, archaeological science would wish to assume that the past is a quiet and passive object of study. Rather, it is evident that the past is unquiet and dynamic and central to many of the conflicts over the march towards a globalised world. It has been this role in the violent negotiations over an unquiet past in the construction of globalised, cosmopolitan cultural heritage which has put archaeology at risk in today’s world. Engaging these themes brings to the fore issues regarding the predominant paradigms for archaeological research and archaeological teaching, and more importantly, it highlights the tensions over desires for a ‘unity’ of approaches (evident in mass-cultural heritage institutions such as museums, tourism boards, etc.) and evidence of a growing case of ‘disunity’ approaches which can not reduce the problems of our contemporary world simply to scientific methodological issues.
This volume is the result of a series of sessions organised by Stephanie Koerner in collaboration with a number of prominent international archaeological scholars held at annual meetings of the European Archaeological Association since 1998. It brings together international practitioners and theorists to discuss critical themes in the development of archaeology as a reflexive, self-critical discipline in the modern world. At present there is a fierce debate over the theory and practice of archaeology in the modern world. The sessions which inspire this book have made significant steps in understanding and articulating both these issues and strategies for engaging and transcending them. It is an optimum time to document and publish the work of these prominent international archaeological thinkers and practitioners for the benefit of the discipline.
The volume will explore the theoretical developments made at the European Archaeological Association over the last eight years and focus on themes of (1) the circumstances of how the discipline formulates and articulates knowledge within the social and human sciences and humanities, (2) the tensions between methods of engaging risks and responsibilities within networks of global ecologies, global communities and global ontologies, (3) authoritarian traditions in archaeological rhetoric which exacerbate the divide between expert and public knowledge claims and (4) the proposition of how localised acts of archaeology relate to globalised conceptions of heritage, culture, identity, conflict, etc. These issues are evidence of the contribution that archaeological discourse can make towards engaging and understanding current dilemmas facing the study of the sciences in our common world and how archaeology as a responsibly exercised, reflexive and localised practice can play a part in building ‘with tooth and nail’ our commonly shared and experienced world.
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