It is from within this field that the new Australian Journeys Gallery will evolve. Object biography has been employed as part of the exhibition development process to make the exhibition truly object-centred, and begin exploring a material history of transnationalism in Australia.
Curators have developed object biographies that encompass the following.
The physical form of an object and its status as an example of a style, locating the object in relation to its ancestors and exploring how it has inherited and perpetuates certain physical characteristics.
The materials from which an object is made and the techniques used in its manufacture, and an analysis of how these embody ambitions, practices, skills and material and social conditions.
The life history of an object, providing a diachronic account of its history that encompasses its production, circulation, use and destruction.
The social contexts in which it has ‘lived’, perhaps taking the form of a synchronic slice in which an object is located within a complex of objects as a node of social relations.
The values associated with an object and the meanings attached to it by people as they produce, use and engage with it. These might include significances, memories, identities and concepts of personhood, and might range from personal associations to broad cultural frameworks.
The enactment or performance of an object’s meaning, including those moments in an object’s life when the meanings and social relationships it embodies are performed, elaborated, witnessed and reproduced within a community.
Each object biography has revealed a particular form of transnational object agency. Not all of the biographies were about artefacts with detailed provenance or things strongly linked to a particular personal biography. In some cases, however, the object biography has explored a direct relationship between a particular object and an individual.
Two of these biographies follow. Both form part of larger narratives of conflict, occupation, displacement and relocation. Both link objects and autobiography. Each, however, in its particularity, reveals something about the complex ways objects and people shape each other.