mostly artefacts and artifice

between settling into a life of sorts, i've been trying to make sure i get to see some art every day. and i somehow have gotten lazy about it. preferring to do dumb shit like watch scary movies with my friend age or sit and read thick novels about young women trying to escape the inevitibility of married life.

but i have, in fact, managed to see quite a bit of artefacty-type things and i'm totally loving the historical weight of london at the moment.

the money gallery
last week i went to the british museum because i had half an hour to spare and i hung out in the money section. it is a gallery that, actually, i would love to see properly expanded. the historical coinage/artefacts of trade are really interesting, including the chinese coins that didn't change in 2000 years (!) (that's good design for you). i think the modern era hasn't really been explored that well and could really help unpack the crux of currency and value and monetary history.

even the history of accounting was briefly covered (like a monument to pretty much the first auditor), but could have expanded right out. like - how did accounting evolve? how did we, as a society, come to agree on ways of managing money, and establishing methods of checks and balances? given that money and trade and currency underpin massive chunks of house societies function, i think it would give us a real insight into how we operate.

or maybe it's just me that finds that history fascinating.


on the road
i've also spent a bit of time in the british library lately (a great place to work), and checked out the original scroll manuscript of jack kerouac's on the road - it's actually a beautiful object that just oozes that manic style of the book. i couldn't really read the words on it - low lux protecting the manuscripts integrity made it a little difficult, but there were chunks of break-out text that reminded me of how great the book is. i might have to read it again.*



the jewellery gallery
as a compliment to the history of trade and artefacts at the british museum, i love going to the jewellery gallery at the victoria and albert museum. it's about craftsmanship and social identity through the history of personal ornamentation - of course it could be waaaaay bigger, but for a mostly-private collection, it's pretty amazing. it's also a reminder of the immense wealth and power that is conveyed through bespoke jewellery. i still maintain that even 'peasant' jewellery in the past is much more impressive than the peasant jewellery we have going now.

on the street
and even when i'm not dipping into museums, i still get to experience a sense of history about london through the blue plaques scheme.**

like, i walk past places where REAL SHIT HAPPENED. yesterday we were talking a walk in our local 'hood and came across the old residence of emmeline pankhurst. until now, emmeline pankhurst has just be a name in the history books, or a link on wikipedia. not a real person who did amazing things! yesterday I had a moment where the history of her life and the reality of mine suddenly connected. lineage.



in australia, i'm pretty removed from that. which is exactly why colonisation works - I'm completely divorced from the immense history of the land I was raised on because my ancestors killed pretty much everyone who could have possibly passed down that history. and, because i'm from english stock and so far from the sites of my family history, the concept of being connected to history is a little foreign to me. which is why i'm loving the cold, dark and grey city i'm in.



* i won't be seeing the film, even if the amazing sam riley is in it - he's too white to be sal paradiso and they're all not loose enough.

**  brilliant idea, by the way, whoever came up with that.