Part of the job as Collection Manager, Human History is to oversee the day-to-day running of the collection behind the scenes. This includes accessioning new acquisitions that have been brought into the Museum, arranging onsite viewings for public and professional enquiries, and the preventative conservation of objects already held in the Ethnology/Pacific Collection.
Through a running audit, any maintenance the collection may need can be seen. Working with Pacific Curator, Fuli Pereira, we carry out surveys of collections from individual island groups, starting with Vanuatu. This process includes taking high resolution photographs of each object, updating their descriptions in our database, and re-housing at-risk objects.
When we decided to re-house these Vanuatu feather ornaments, we soon realised that we had a very small space to support the top of the feathers to prevent bowing, and that they could no longer be stored flat on their sides as it encouraged the feathers to lose shape. The final issue we had was that it was almost impossible to have the objects sit securely in storage. Weight and gravity were not on our side!
We individually secured the bases of the feathers in foam nests and had the tops loose, resting on a thin hammock suspended between sides of foam support. Lastly, in order to ensure that the feathers could not move in transit or storage, we reinforced the box lid by securing Tyvek pads to it (Tyvek is a highly breathable, sterile and inert fabric). This meant when the box was closed the pads aligned with the bases of the feathers and everything was held in place. The pads add a passive weight to the objects, which in turn reduces the depth of the box by discouraging any unwanted movement by the feathers.
