Project description
Understanding the provenance of Indigenous Latin American ethnographic collections
Indigenous Latin American art materials have attracted the interest of Europeans since the 1850s. Today, collections of these materials are distributed in museums in several European countries. The ERC-funded BECACO project uses an innovative multidisciplinary framework to investigate the provenance of ethnographic and archaeological collections from the Indigenous Latin American world. The project introduces the concept of Art World Patterns to reconceptualise provenance as the extensive study of the socio-politico-historical conditions that facilitated the translocation of cultural material. BECACO will combine various data-driven methodologies to identify these patterns and apply quantitative analyses, network analysis and data mining to explore the promises and limitations of different data-driven approaches concerning ethnographic/archaeological provenance research.
Objective
The BECACO project applies a novel multidisciplinary framework to studying the provenance of ethnographic and archaeological collections. Moving away from the current focus in provenance research on single objects, collectors, or institutions, the aim of the project is to reconceptualize provenance as the large-scale study of the socio-politico-historical conjunctures that led to the translocation of cultural material. To do so, it introduces the concept of Art World Patterns, an expansion and reframing of the idea of Art Worlds (Becker 2008[1982]).
These patterns will be identified through an innovative combination of various data-driven methodologies. By applying quantitative analyses, network analysis, and data mining on a large corpus of provenance data, the project will explore the promises and limitations of different data-driven approaches in the context of large-scale ethnographic/archaeological provenance research. Through this process, the project will devise new models for provenance research in ethnographic and archaeological museums.
These conceptual and methodological advances will be mobilized through the study of Indigenous Latin American material from 12 museums in 9 countries. The project will create a ground-breaking diachronic, international, and cross-institutional understanding of the collecting of Indigenous Latin American material in Europe. In doing so, the BECACO team will reconstruct how – through the formation of collections – the Indigenous Latin American Art World as it existed in Europe between 1850-2000 constructed a discourse of art, aesthetics, and academic research that shaped how Indigenous Latin America is represented and understood in Europe until today.
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
2311 EZ Leiden
Netherlands