A Nation of Makers:
This project aims to create digital records for locally made objects held by or loaned to the National Museum of Montserrat and legacy images and footage shot by Randall Greenaway. Montserrat is a Caribbean island in the Lesser Antilles. Our remote location, weak economy, and absence of manufacturing have always inspired Montserratians to find clever ways to make rather than buy material objects.
The museum’s collection of locally-made objects includes Indigenous Peoples’ tools and pottery, agricultural tools, equipment used to process cassava and limes, musical instruments, masquerade and carnival costumes, and quotidian objects, from paper hair curlers and palm leaf hats to fly catchers and wooden chairs.
Following Hurricane Hugo (1989) and the ongoing volcanic crisis (from 1995) mass emigration decimated Montserrat’s population, displacing people and dispersing their functional and cultural memories of making and using these objects.
To ensure a record of Montserrat’s once-rich “maker’s culture” remains accessible for future generations, we will digitally photograph locally handmade objects in the museum’s permanent and loaned collection. We will work with the public to elicit provenances and develop descriptions for each object. We will also digitize complementary selections from local historian, musician, and documentary filmmaker Randall Greenaway’s image and footage collection. This data (images, footage and descriptions) will be conserved and made publicly available on the EMKP/Arcadia/British Museum database.
Principal Investigator:
Samantha Koster Lauren
Research Assistant:
Randall Greenaway
Location of Research:
Montserrat
Host Institution:
Montserrat National Trust
Top Banner Image: Wide shot of the museum foyer with Miss Goosie, a Masquerader, a John Bull mask, masquerade hats and masks, and locally made and imported instruments. Photo credit: Samantha Lauren.