Object authenticity and subjective authenticity

I arrive at Big Pit early one cloudy day in June of 2012. Apart from the occasional chatter from tourists the site is tremendously quiet. Fog hangs over the green hills to the south west and the view of Blaenavon to the north is reduced. The Welsh flag is placed on a pole on top of the steel headgear from 1921. It was in use until 1976. The site comprise buildings like a compressor house, two engine houses, offices, stables, a workshop, a workshop, a fan house and a sawmill where pit props which supported the roof in the underground workings were prepared. The site has all the recognizable markers of a modern tourist destination with a sizeable parking lot, information boards, a restaurant, and signs which direct visitors to the exhibitions. On the top of the hill, to the southwest, a bath house from 1939 serves as exhibition space. A medical center was established at the colliery in 1947 when health and safety regulations improved as consequence of the nationalization of the industry. In the pithead baths ranges of grey cabinets are today reused for exhibition purposes.

Figure 5.2 - View of Big Pit with the town of Blaenavon in the background

Figure 5.3 - Original lockers in the pithead baths at Big Pit National Coal Museum

In the metal lockers the museum has installed cases with tableaus of typical objects used by miners in the pit baths. The museum uses individual biographies to present the history of

mining. Next to mundane, everyday objects – a bar of soap, a towel, a jar of pomade, a hard hat helmet and a boiler suit – selected biographies are presented in more detail.

Figure 5.4 - Kenvin Thomas, 'ordinary bloke, extraordinary job'

The individual biography makes mining history legible through the close-up view which allows us to single out the story of one particular miner. From one of these bilingual biographies written in both Welsh and English, we learn more about the life of Kenvin Thomas who was born in 1927 started working as a blacksmith’s striker at the age of 14 before moving on to becoming a shaftman (responsible for mine shaft inspections) at Big Pit in 1963. After transferring to Blaenserchan colliery in 1980 he quits six years later due to a

work accident. He loved his work, we learn, but hated the waterfalls in the shaft when it rained. Thomas worked in four different collieries during his career. The biography concludes with the phrase “ordinary bloke, extraordinary job”. Other selected biographies cover the lives of more famous men such as the Welsh poet Idris Davies (1905-1953) and the union official and Labour politician Isaac James Hayward (1882-1976). The biography of Kenvin Thomas, however, stands out. It is the story of the common man, the ordinary bloke with the

extraordinary job. He may serve as the focal point of the history from below tradition which has become quite common in industrial heritage exhibitions. At sites like Big Pit history tends to be presented from the point of view of individual workers rather than the boss or the manager (Dicks 2008). What does this imply in terms of the presentation of an ‘ordinary’

man? The orange uniform is anonymous; it could have belonged to anyone. The same applies to the bar of soap and the towel – the unique object is replaced with the typical object. In fact, the objects on display are props put there to illustrate the typical content of a locker. The bar of soap and the towel in a locker would mean that this person was working. Work clothes drying would mean that this person was at home.

In fact there is no indexical connection between the objects displayed and the persons

featured. The objects in the cabinets never belonged to the individuals featured in the adjacent biography. Intuitively we make this connection and we assume that there is some kind of physical trace, a human imprint left by the individuals on each of the objects. But the jar of pomade never belonged to Isaac James Hayward. The orange overalls were never worn by Kenvin Thomas and the towels were never used by Idris Davies. The museum manager at Big Pit explained to me that accessioned objects from the museum’s collection could have been installed in the lockers, but it would require proper display cases to prevent fluctuations in temperature and humidity. Besides the lockers were also original objects left at Big Pit when it closed in 1980 and they too needed to be treated with care and without introducing “too much artifice” (Walker 2013). The unnecessary artifice is here understood as being at odds with the approach of the museum and even though the option of installing collection objects into the lockers was discussed Peter Walker claimed it “just wouldn’t look right” (ibid). This conscious attempt to avoid artifice contrived is an important part of the curatorial approach to authenticity at Big Pit. The premise here is that the presentation of the history of ordinary miners requires a form which seems natural. We do not question the naturalness of the content in the locker; in fact it seems reasonable that the display could reflect a typical, everyday situation in the changing rooms. Routinized work space is rarely set for musealization

according to Tim Edensor: “This was debris which was enfolded into the mundaneity of a shared everyday, and not regarded as sufficiently archetypal or symbolic and therefore not preserved or curated as memorable” (Edensor 2005a: 844). These everyday objects are what you would expect to find in an ordinary locker room: “Stickers, postcards, posters of footballers and pop stars, newspaper cuttings, photographs of work parties, cigarette cards, betting slips, and pictures of nudes […]” (Edensor 2005a: 842-843). What belongs to the everyday and the quotidian, is both the “most obvious and the best hidden” (Lefebvre and Levich 1987: 9).

The orange overalls are mass-produced, mundane objects, but does this mean that we accept a violation against the contract of authenticity - in this context that we expect that are actual belongings of the individuals portrayed? The stable, regulated environment of a display case could have allowed for the exhibition of original objects from the museum’s collection.

Instead objects have been installed to illustrate the content of an ordinary locker and the work life of the miners. Two aspects of authenticity can highlight the conflict between staged and natural at stake here. One concerns the relation between things and their context and the next concerns the relation between truthfulness and appearance. Firstly, the traditional museal concern with acquisition, preservation and exhibition of objects removed from their natural context is here at odds with the preservation and presentation of an original in situ

environment (the bath house and its interior in the form of the metal lockers). Secondly, the dimension of authenticity as being natural rather than contrived is at odds with the

sophisticated techniques of simulation in contemporary heritage. The dimension is based on the threat that representation becomes so conspicuous that the effect of spectacle destroys the naturalness intended by the slice of life tableau. The artifice may overwhelm the object and the curatorial intention (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1991).

The first aspect concerns the fact that museum exhibits are material fragments removed from the original situation and cultural context which allegedly cripples a full understanding because display practices dissociates the object from the organic whole in which the object originally appeared. This form of critique has accompanied and influenced the museum institution at least since the 18^th century (Adorno 1996; Hetherington 2012; Lending 2009;

Maleuvre 1999). In our context it might explain the ascendency of heritage sites and with them a distinctive appeal to wholeness, context, landscape and holistic representations of community life. The atmosphere of an original, listed building where miners showered, stored

their clothes and donned the orange overalls, in this particular context outweighs the concern with putting only original objects on display. Museum exhibitions are informed by a poetics of detachment, but this effect is often sought minimized through minimalist style of

exhibitions where curatorial intervention is made less apparent (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1991).

Heritage with its stress on sense of place and in situ preservation of a site with its original inventory, it might be suggested, trumps object authenticity. The tension between heritages’

stress on in situ preservation, holistic representation of a way of life on the one hand and the museal aesthetic of fragments, detached objects on the other hand are played out in the case of the metal lockers. While the lockers act as a frame for the display of everyday objects, the frame is more valuable than the highlighted objects. At the National Coal Museum the collection comprises tools, equipment machinery from both England and Wales. The grade II listed buildings on site in Blaenavon are still in place where they were originally and in this way they appeal to the sense of wholeness often favored at the cost of museal detachment.

The stress on the context at the cost of the excised object should be seen in relation to the vernacular turn in forms of cultural representation. The “vernacular aesthetic” in much contemporary heritage calls for a display of everyday life that hinges on situated and

grounded accounts of lives lived in particular localities (Dicks 2000a). This is, at least partly, a reaction to object fetishism which characterized earlier forms of industrial heritage

preservation in South Wales. Displays of innovative technology were granted so much floor space that gear and equipment effectively obstructed the view of people’s history (Berger 2008; Davies 1996; Dicks 2000a). According to Davies, this was a syndrome more common in the early years of industrial heritage preservation in Wales resulting in a curious display of work without workers and a history without people. Today the consensus is that energy should be invested in “peopling the past” to recuperate from the “shiny machines syndrome”

(Bennett 1995; Davies 1996). The effort of placing more emphasis on the social and cultural situation of coal mining requires a form of representation which stands in direct opposition to the museal objectophilia and which would nevertheless be able to conjure up images of a whole culture even if only a part of it can be seen. This is why in situ representations often include live persons “preferably actual representatives of the cultures on display”

(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1991: 389).

These may legitimately claim origin in the culture on display and offer a self-presentation that is perceived as natural rather than contrived. So while subject and object authenticity is seen

as separate concepts, there is arguably some overlap between the two in the concern with an inner essence, something beyond mere appearance and more profound than a surface matter.

The subjective conception of authenticity pertains to the ability of a person to be true to that which makes up the core of selfhood and individuality. The second relates to the material question of genuine origins of an object whereas the other subjective and existential quality of being true to the self in the sense of uncontrived, not false and natural pertains to subjective or existential authenticity. As for the material authenticity, the art specialist investigates a particular artwork to determine whether it bears the physical trace of the artist whose personal touch makes it exceptional and irreplaceable. It would have to originate from the stated source and be what it claims to be (Jones 2010).

Scientific techniques such as chemical analyses, x-rays and CT-scanning are employed to establish and origin of objects and decide the internal structure and material composition which is not possible through surface inspection (Jones 2010). The parallel to the

understanding of subjective and existential authenticity seems clear. The idea that the true inner being can be analyzed only by reaching beyond surface layers and look behind the social façade is widespread not least owing to the influence of psychoanalysis and repressed memories. The compelling idea of gaining access to some deeper and more profound truth about the lives of others is ingrained in ways of thinking about of authenticity, but more often than not a layer of reservations and reflexive critiques are wrapped around it. Authenticity is consequently approached with several reservations. We can speak of “the expectation of authenticity” (Harrison 2012) and “quest for authenticity” (MacCannell 1999), but the real thing is safely contained inside inverted commas (e.g. Dicks 2000a; Huyssen 2006; Minca 2007).

The curatorial approach to authenticity at Big Pit as keeping clear of unnecessary artifice has a long-running history in ethnographic valorization of folk art. In contrast to the elevation of the unique authorship of the ingenious artist-individual, folklorists would locate the source of authenticity within the anonymity of large social entities like a folk. These scholars would pay particular attention to how knowledge was carried across generations through a nameless tradition (Bendix 1997: 15). Here vernacular traditions could constitute authenticity and it was the intergenerational maintenance of skilled crafts rather than the extraordinary singular oeuvre that received attention. Bendix writes that a folkloristic canon involved cultural expressions that were perceived as raw, natural and devoid of artifice and “aristocratic

excesses” (Bendix 1997: 35). She describes a form of authenticity that ethnographers located in the anonymous and in the collective. Within this form of authenticity we notice a close resemblance with the frame of authentic cultural values in mining heritage where stress is placed on the rough and natural quality of the work. In one display at Big Pit we are introduced to the collier and we read how this occupation is understood as a craft passed down through generations. The caption reads: “Think of them as craftsmen, these ‘coal hewers’ who carved coal from the seam by the power of muscle and mandrel. In Wales the collier and his assistant, often his son, did all of the coal face tasks.”

The presentation of the collier takes it cues from a repertoire of naturalness which is carried on to the guided tours underground. The stress on the experiences of the ‘ordinary bloke’

represents two interrelated currents in recent cultural heritage. Firstly, the ex-miner represents a turn away from the formal and factual history and to a history that is remembered and reenacted. His contribution is a result of the realization that there can be no absolute separation between official history and personal memory. Secondly, the stress on bottom-up perspectives and memories rather than factual knowledge transforms the former miner into a historical witness of a ‘there and then’ and he gains importance as a non-renewable heritage resource. The personal connection to the story of coal mining means that he may gain authenticity because historical accuracy is deferred. The lack of factual historical accuracy can in itself be treated as an authenticating characteristic (Krankenhagen 2001: 183).

The personal anecdotes cannot always be corroborated or verified by the historian and this partly explains the thrust of the bottom-up perspective. Aleida Assmann (2006) has suggested that history and memory form a kind of symmetrical and reciprocal relationship where memory allows for the ethical stance which the historian can then scrutinize and verify without assuming the role of a custodian of memory. This dialogic model seems to me to be too preoccupied with the verification of historical sources as the outcome of mutual attention between memory and history. In enacting history from below, the almost ritualistic form of the underground tour in and of itself seems to outweigh the concern with the production of always better and more reliable facts. The form of the underground tour both spatially, politically and symbolically mirrors the vernacular aesthetic (Dicks 2000a). Stress is firmly placed on depth rather than surface, miner rather than mine-owner and man rather than machine.

A whole range of metaphorical connections between depth and authenticity are mobilized during the underground tour as we will soon see. In coal mining heritage the promotional texts often refer to the life in mining communities as somewhat hidden and mysterious, an insular and organic whole nourished by community feeling, class solidarity and geographical isolation results in a distinct mining identity “forged by the nature of the industry” (Wray 2011: 107, my emphasis). The contrast to Kokerei Hansa and its acknowledgement and revalorization of artificial landscapes is interesting. If we recall how the walkable conveyor bridges at Kokerei Hansa brought visitors to a visual plane elevated above the structures of heavy industry to yield the aesthetic and detached gaze, the tone of Big Pit is, on the whole, very different. Here the key to interpretation is to offer visitors a profound engagement with the core of mining cultures deep beneath the surface. Owing to the conclusion that artificiality and aestheticization add to heritage’s renewability, Kokerei Hansa was allowed to enter into new frames of understanding formed by a concern with the ‘here and now’. Stressing how mining heritage is an immutable resource whose cultural substance resides in an unassailable, mythical past, Big Pit belongs to a different category of industrial heritage.