[NHCOLL-L:3482] RE: Research collections being used for artistic purposes?

[Simmons, John E]

We allow artists to use our collection to draw fairly often.  However, I have also had experience with research collections as art on a much grander scale.  Several years ago, I was contacted by an artist from Dallas, Texas (named Tracy Hicks) concerning a question he had about fluid preservatives.  This contact led to Tracy proposing to make art out of our collection of preserved frogs, by making molds using a cold-casting technique.  Tracy demonstrated that the technique would not harm the specimens, and worked in our lab long enough to gain our confidence that his techniques would not harm the specimens and that he treated our scientific collections with respect.  A colleage (Prof. Marjorie Swann) and I eventually got a Museum Loan Network grant that brought Tracy up to Kansas and loan of Asian frogs down from the Field Museum in Chicago and resulted in a large installation exhibit at KU.  
 
Tracy has been scrupulous about crediting our institutions and stressing in his art that he is using scientific collections in a new way.  What Tracy does, in essence, is analagous to finding a new research technique to derive information from a specimen--only he derives beauty.  Check out his collection-based art at www.tracyhicks.com.  It is marvelous.
 
I encourage you to pursue the contact with the artist.  It can bring a whole new audience to your collection (as it did to ours).  If you have seen the work of Rosamund Purcell or Terry Evans (both of whom make art by taking photos of museum collections), then you know what a fresh and unique viewpoint this can bring.  The only caveats I have are to lay down the necessary ground rules to give you a margin of comfort (for example, how the photos are to be credited, how the minerals are to be handled, etc.).
 
The experience can be very rewarding for the collection staff, the artist, and the public who benefits from seeing the art.
 
--John
 
John E. Simmons
Collections Manager, Natural History Museum & Biodiversity Research Center
and
Director, Museum Studies Program
University of Kansas
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, Kansas 66045-7561
Telephone (785) 864-4508; FAX (785) 864-5335
jsimmons at ku.edu
www.nhm.ku.edu/herpetology
www.ku.edu/~museumst
 

________________________________

From: owner-nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu on behalf of jstolark at gmail.com
Sent: Mon 7/2/2007 3:23 PM
To: nHCOLL-L at lists.yale.edu
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:3481] Research collections being used for artistic purposes?


Hello everyone, 
 
I just received a call from an artist who is interesting in using some pieces in our collection for some of his work.  Specifically, he is interested in taking photographs of some of our fluorescent minerals.   Since we are not a museum but just a research collection attached to a University, I don't normally get such inquiries.  Does anyone have any guidelines for allowing individuals access to research collections for non-research purposes?  
 
Best, 
 
Jessie