[ONLINE] The Display Strategies of Hans Sloane's Collection As 'Bifocal Data'

'The Collection And Accurate Arrangement Of These Curiosities': The Display Strategies of Hans Sloane's Collection As 'Bifocal Data'

If Hans Sloane’s manuscript catalogues are ‘paper tools’ through which ‘Enlightenment knowledge was produced and circulated’ (Ortolja-Baird et al, 2019), then the cabinets within which this vast collection were first stored, and later displayed are similar ‘tools’ which assisted his efforts to classify, cross-reference and understand his collections.  

Phillip Rhys Olney’s project with the Sloane Lab sought to gain an understanding of the way in which the objects of Sloane’s collection were stored in his residences in Bloomsbury and Chelsea. The project then asked to what degree the physicality of the collection in cabinets designed by William Hallett affected their curation, and organisation. By physically and digitally modelling these cabinets, the project understands to what extent these cabinets enabled processes of subtle curation. 

The project understands Hallett’s cabinets to be ‘bifocal data’– a framing technique which requires the observer to look both ‘at’ and ‘through’ them (Sperberg-McQueen, 2018). The completed project posits theories as to how storage of Sloane’s collection created organisational principles, and influenced the curation of the collection at the British Museum at Montagu House, in 1753, and later at the British Library and Natural History Museum.  

Register for the Zoom event and view the full seminar series programme: https://critical-creative.eventbrite.co.uk

The Sloane Lab Seminar Series is convened by Marco Humbel (Sloane Lab & UCLDH), Nadezhda Povroznik (TU Darmstadt), Julianne Nyhan (TU Darmstadt & UCL) and Andrew Flinn (UCL). Administrative support is provided by Lucy Stagg (UCLDH & UCL IAS).

This joint virtual seminar is co-hosted by University College London, TU Darmstadt, the British Museum and the Natural History Museum.

The symposium is funded by the Towards a National Collection programme (Arts and Humanities Research Council) as an activity of the Sloane Lab Discovery Project.