ABSTRACT
This chapter, presented in three parts, explores conceptions of ‘wonder’ and ‘curiosity’, and considers how the association of these terms with Wunderkammern and cabinets of curiosities may be reassessed with regard to human remains and the history of collecting. In particular, it is concerned with the development of historical collecting practices in which ‘some human remains were obtained in circumstances that are considered unacceptable … between 100 and 200 years ago from Indigenous peoples in colonial circumstances, where there was a very uneven divide of power’1 – a situation that has led to claims today for the return of ancestral remains from museums to their countries of origin. The rst part examines the interplay between travel, colonial expansion, and collection of human remains for cabinets and museums during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The second part introduces my perspective as a practising artist who takes a performative role as Keeper of Wildgoose Memorial Library, The (WML) – an assemblage of found, and made objects, photographs, documents and books, which focuses on memory and remembrance – linking a subjective understanding of objects with historical research. The third discusses how I have used the WML as a lens through which to view conicts of interest concerning the ‘unique status’,2 and legacy of nineteenth-century human remains collections in museums.
