This workshop brought together a community of artists, academics and practitioners to explore questions about the return of rocks from an individuals perspective and how our research questions resonate with a wider audience.
The workshop started with a traditional introduction of the panel members followed by Alyson Hallett’s poem ‘Introductions’. We reflected on the norms of introduction in the Global North and how they may differ from introductions in the Global South, amongst indigenous peoples and in other cultures. The audience was invited to think about their personal hill and river (based on a traditional Māori introduction) and ideas were shared in pairs. Panel members then re-introduced themselves in the same manner.
After Alyson Hallett had read a karakia, attendees were introduced to the overall timeline of the project going back to the eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886. A paper collage of the timeline including photos and quotes from workshops and key dates was displayed in the room.
The audience was invited by Alice Clough to work in groups to reflect on how the research resonates with them and what questions it may generate. Feedback was collated using origami shapes and pencils to archive thoughts and discussions.
The panel (Alice Clough, Alyson Hallett, Claudia Hildebrandt and Lucy Donkin) then spent time themselves reflecting on a part of the project that really challenged or surprised them and how it affected and expanded their own field of research.
Lucy’s contribution to panel reflection 12/09/2024
I’m a historian & art historian, working on the visual and material culture of pre-modern Europe and the Mediterranean. My current research focuses on the materiality and portability of place. I’m interested in practices of moving stones and soil from one location to another to express a relationship between them, and in the potential of these materials to embody or stand in for the place they come from.
I spend a lot of time, therefore, thinking about mobile matter, but this is the first occasion I’ve been actively involved in such movement, in more than a personal capacity. This is a privilege, but it is also quite a change of mindset to move from analysis to action, from interpretation to recommendation.
My experience of the project has been to be reminded at every turn of other migrating rocks from within my premodern frame of reference. In what remains of my 4 minutes, I want to introduce you to two examples that resonated particularly with aspects of the project. I’m not suggesting that they are in anyway equivalent to the rocks from Aotearoa New Zealand – not a precedent or a model – but they might perhaps have something to say to each other.
My first example comes from Mont-St-Michel in Normandy. In a medieval miracle story, a man from Italy took a stone from this holy site, without asking permission. As a result, he became ill for several years until he met two monks from the monastic community that owned the site. On their advice, he returned the stone to Mont-St-Michel, placing it on the altar of the church there. He then received it back, with the blessing of the monks this time, and all was well.
I’m not advocating divine retribution, but the lesson of asking permission seems more widely applicable. Moreover, of the all the mobile rocks and soil I’ve come across, this is the only one that involves a return. All the others are one-directional, from sites that generate meaningful matter, to sites that receive or accumulate it. So one of the most significant aspects of the project for me is its focus on return, as well as on asking permission and forging human relationships.
My second example comes Mount Sinai in Egypt, another holy mountain. Here the dendritic rocks bear mineral formations that look uncannily like vegetation. As a result, in the Middle Ages, they were associated with Moses and the Burning, and pilgrims took them home as relics, just like the man in Normandy. In the early modern period, the rocks entered natural history collections, like that of the Danish physician Ole Worm, who subjected them to experiments and interpreted their leaf-like form as natural rather than miraculous.
In thinking about these rocks previously, I’ve tended to take leave of them as they enter the history of science – a kind of unconscious acceptance of a teleological progression in which I find the former, miraculous reading more interesting but trust that the latter scientific one is correct. So another reason this project has been so thought-provoking to me is because it brings together scientific investigation and other knowledge systems, not as a progression or a retreat, or even necessarily a new hierarchy, but as a collaboration.
I originally had one more examples, of a box of holy soil from Rome and Jerusalem, which was put in the post in the early sixteenth century, but I’ll leave that for later!
The event drew to a close with an extensive Q&A session and broader discussions amongst attendees and the project team.