Material Matters

Materiality is a huge part of our culture; the Material Matters exhibition in the Special Collections allows you to experience objects stripped of their 'story'. We are so accustomed to viewing objects in a museum alongside descriptions and explanations of their history...so being able to view artefacts and interpret them purely from your observations and personal knowledge is an unusual privilege. Seeing the array of different qualities one material type has, depending on where, when or how it has been created is fascinating.

We talked about material facilities and the practicality of using certain materials, why use mahogany rather than MDF? Why does one material have a higher value than another? Of course there is the physical qualities of materials...strength, appearance, ease of manipulation or availability. Makers have a close connection with different materials, and create their own opinions and decisions about which materials they prefer to work with. Being a jeweller, I have experienced working with many different metals and I certainly have my favourites. You create an understanding of which metal will work the best for different jobs, for example, working in brass is certainly a lot more labour intensive than working in silver or gold. Advertising and media encourage us to treasure some materials more than others; diamonds are a marketing success, we are told they are valuable so we pay a lot for them.

Despite Stephanie (the curator of the exhibition) being very keen to state that the objects in the exhibition were displayed with no context, I don't think this is possible. Nothing comes without context, the mere fact that the objects are in an exhibition is context in itself. How does an object qualify to be collected and put into a museum? We cherish the history of these objects but who decides that it has enough history? Why has that particular object been taken out of the real working world and been made into an artefact? The preservation of these objects is curious to me, we don't seem to trust or value the changes the last 30 years have on things. To me, it seems a shame to stop an object from developing further history by placing it in a glass cabinet or even worse (in my eyes) a plastic bag or box in storage!