Reconnecting with Collections

To mark Mental Health Awareness Week this guest post from Campbell Price, Curator of Egypt and Sudan, offers some personal reflections of getting the collections ready for the ‘To Have and To Heal’ project. To Have and To Heal is a unique arts and wellbeing programme, supporting Covid recovery and resilience using Manchester Museum’s world class Egyptology collection, and the popular fascination with ancient Egypt.

Among my highlights of 2021 were the spring days spent in the Museum photographing and filming content for our ‘To Have and To Heal’ project, when we were able to be onsite again after months of Lockdown.

Campbell (Curator of Egypt & Sudan), Jake (Filmographer) and Julia (Photographer) excited to be back in the Museum after Lockdown 2, in the Egyptology store, ready to select artefacts for To Have and To Heal.

Over the space of several weeks, photographer Julia Thorne visited the Museum (often giving me a lift in from our mutually-adopted city of Liverpool!) to undertake detailed photos of over 30 objects, many of them never professionally recorded before. Setting up shots took some time, but this was a very welcome excuse to be back in the storerooms and interacting with objects again.

I had a bit of an experiment yesterday recording a time-lapse video of me setting my equipment up at Manchester. It's a little wonky because … hey … first ever go. But I reckon it's quite fun and something I might do a bit more of … pic.twitter.com/UTEScBIfFx

— Tetisheri 📷😷🌻🥄 (@Tetisheri13) May 5, 2021

Photography is a wonderful opportunity to really examine objects (literally!) under a different light. Unnoticed details emerge, even with artefacts that you may think you know well and have had the privilege of getting close to in the past. And this is one of the big take-aways we hope for the project: to encourage mindfulness, and taking the time to stop and notice the small things – be they in our normal surroundings, or on a 3400-year-old work of an ancient Egyptian craftsman.

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  Photographing the collection: here, Julia is about to capture the beautiful detail of a wedjat eye, or ‘eye of Horus’ – see below. ©Julia Thorne

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  Photograph showing close-up of a faience eye of Horus (Wedjet) amulet with black details. The wedjat eye – or ‘eye of Horus’ – was perhaps the most powerful symbol of protection used by the ancient Egyptians. It was believed that the god Horus lost his eye in battle and had his sight restored by his mother, the goddess Isis, who was a skilled magician. Possession of the eye was a key to healing: literally, to have and to heal. The Eye of Horus Amulet is associated with rejuvenation and healing. ©Julia Thorne.

Often these details would simply escape notice behind glass in a museum display, or even in a store room, when you can get relatively close. A scarred wooden mallet used, perhaps, to build a pyramid; a polished wand of hippopotamus ivory, etched with magically protective images; a bright blue faience amulet, whose intricacies only really appear when magnified through a camera lens. And so the joy of sharing details and joining in the speculative sport of asking ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ really got to the heart of the project for me.

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  A scarred wooden mallet used, perhaps, to build a pyramid. ©Julia Thorne

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  A polished wand of hippopotamus ivory, etched with magically protective images. ©Julia Thorne

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  Statuettes of Isis and Nephthys. ©Julia Thorne

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  Corner of a faience inlay, possibly a square tile. ©Julia Thorne

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  Statuette of Harpocrates. ©Julia Thorne

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  Fragment of quartzite relief, with the cartouche of the divine sun disc, the Aten. ©Julia Thorne

In addition to photography, we have also produced a series of short films in which I discuss the eight themes into which we have divided the material being presented in the project, ranging from bereavement to contemplating eternity, magical healing to the sense of touch.

8 films, with BSL signed versions and transcripts also available: https://www.mmfromhome.com/to-have-and-to-heal

Working with Jake and Alex from Blue Shoes productions, this was another wonderful chance to reconnect with collections and get up close and personal with them – under different lighting conditions and with the possibility to cut in details from Julia’s beautiful photographs. Artefacts can look different under the camera lens, and the chance to see someone handle objects on film also provides an important sense of scale for viewers, especially those who may not have seen items in person or only through photographs.

Dr Campbell Price behind the scenes in the Museum’s Egyptology stores for the compilation of the ‘To Have and To Heal’ films.

As a bit of a show-off, I really enjoyed speaking on camera and talking about themes which connect ancient artefacts with our experiences and realities today. Big thanks to Julia, Jake and Alex for all their hard work. You can access the 8 thematic films that form part of the To Have and To Heal project on our website: www.mmfromhome.com/to-have-and-to-heal. I hope you will enjoy the results!

We are extremely grateful to The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund – delivered by the Museums Association, for its generous support in making this project possible.