Articles de revues sur le sujet « Overpaintings »

This paper will present the restoration carried out at the end of 2017 on an oil painting called the “Black flag”, by Ljubo Babić, that stands today as one of the five more important paintings in Croatian modern art history. The focus will be on previous interventions – retouches and overpaintings – that were found on such an important painting, as well as the complex process of inpainting. After a partial removal of the previous interventions, some particles of dirt were still left embedded in the texture. This condition and the artist's paint effects determined the inpainting process. A mimetic inpainting method was chosen, consisting into a two stages process, intermediated with a varnish application: gouache colours to reconstruct the image and pigments mixed with Canada balsam to finish the process. This method resulted in a good reintegration of the retouch and in the overall appearance of the painting.

Chapel 11 is one of the 45 chapels of the Sacro Monte di Varallo. It is decorated with 16th century polychrome terracotta statues and wall paintings representing the Massacre of the Innocents. Since 2015, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) is in charge of its conservation. Up-close examination of the wall paintings allowed to observe the presence of overpainting, which were evaluated to have no aesthetical and/or technical quality. During the study phase and with preliminary tests for treatment development, it became clear that the removal of this overpaint was risky for the underlying original decoration. Moreover, it was not possible to determine if under the overpainting there was the original layer and in what condition it was. Although IR Reflectography showed the presence of underdrawings, this information did not always coincided with the presence of a paint layer. Considering that the overpainting covers about 80% of the surface, SUPSI strongly advised against embarking on its removal. This conclusion was achieved after several removal attempts and through regular communication meeting with the stakeholders aimed at illustrating the situation and the results achieved. SUPSI considered more ethical to focus on the development of a ‚reversible’ stabilization intervention considering that in the future new technologies (to assess the presence of paintings below and to remove overpainting) could make the recovery of what remains of the original decoration easier.This paper describes the project in terms of the ethical challenges faced when conflicting expectations about the project arised.

Samtidskunst, repræsentation og remediering by Erik Exe Christoffersen. Christoffersen emphasizes FIX&FOXY’s way of doing remediation, perceived as a way of ‘overpainting’ a work like a palimpsest.

Rock-art researchers have long acknowledged the importance of discerning superimposition sequences as a means for exploring chronology. Despite their potential for reconstructing painting events and thus informing on a site's production sequences, the social significance of superimpositions and their associated meanings have been little explored. In the Kimberley Region of northwestern Australia, interpretations of superimpositions as an analytical lens have often lingered on the ‘negative’ connotations of this practice (e.g. to destroy supernatural power embedded in previous paintings and/or to show cultural dominance). As a result, it has been proposed that the overpainting of previous images was tantamount to defacing, leading to the proposition that new images constituted a form of vandalism of older art. In this paper, a sample of rock-art sites from the northwestern and northeastern Kimberley is analysed with the aim of grounding the study of superimpositions in more nuanced practices, leading researchers to contemplate the role they played among populations within the same area. It is argued here that superimpositions brought together past and present experiences that served to reinforce the links between contemporary art production and the inherited landscape.

Materials and techniques u sed for two portraits ( Jo-nyeon L ee a nd S ung-in L ee) o f the Lee family from Seongju enshrined in Seongsan temple were scientifically analyzed, and based on the data, an optimal replica restoration method was designed. According to the expression technique investigation, both portraits were expressed mainly in line drawing, but there were differences in shoes, pupils, the color expression of flesh, overpainting, and traces of reinforcement. Pigment analysis revealed that a mixture of cinnabar and minium, organic pigment, azurite, malachite, lead white, and yellow pigment were used in common. In the case of Sung-in Lee’s portrait, seokganju and atacamite were also used. In addition, comparison with the contemporaneous portraits of gentry showed that the portrait style at the time was found in the two portraits, but the singularity was modified differently there. Based on the scientific analysis, it was decided to replicate the old color restoration for Jo-nyeon Lee’s portrait while for Sung-in Lee’s portrait, it was decided to replicate the phenomenon. Detailed coloring techniques were presented by supplementing the expression techniques that are difficult to confirm visually using scientific data. In addition, by measuring the chromaticity of representative positions in the portrait for each color and presenting the color reference value calculated as the average value, the current color of the artifact can be replicated and restored based on the objective data as much as possible.

In the family scrapbook compiled by Gesina ter Borch (1633-1690), there is a remarkable drawing of an Iranian youth. Art-historical and scientific research has revealed that although the drawing has areas of later overpainting, there is an original Safavid miniature from the sixteen-fifties or sixties underneath them. It is likely that Gesina herself was responsible for these overpaints, when she mounted the badly damaged miniature in her album at some time between 1660 and 1680. Interestingly, aside from the blackened background and the colourful feather and sashes she added, she attempted to follow the original Iranian style in her restorations. The original was made in the sixteen-fifties or sixties by a painter of the Isfahan School, who probably took his inspiration from an older composition by the famous court artist, Riza Abbasi. The article goes on to show that Riza Abbasi’s work was known in the Dutch Republic before then. In 1623 the junior merchant Niclaes Hem travelled to Iran. He was a member of a Dutch East India Company delegation seeking to negotiate a trade agreement with the Shah. Hem acquired a series of drawings by or after Riza Abbasi while he was in Isfahan. He was probably helped in this acquisition by his fellow countryman, Jan van Hasselt. A number of the original miniatures that Hem took back to the Republic were published as woodcuts in Johannes de Laet’s Persia (1634).

Mina’i ceramics dating to the late 12th and early 13th century made in the Kashan region of Iran represent a novel period of overglaze enamelling technology in ceramic history. New colours were used to produce stylistically attractive and dynamic polychrome motifs. Due to their archaeological context, and popularity in the art market since the mid-20th century, these objects often have complex conditions involving reconstruction and overpainting. The aesthetic and technological significance of these pieces warrants further study, but in practice, removing restorations can lead to structural destabilisation, requiring time-consuming and potentially unplanned for conservation treatment. To determine if it is possible to gain useful information from the study of these artworks without disturbing existing restorations, a group of objects were drawn from the Sarikhani and Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology collections. The objective of this project was twofold, first to assess the merits of the imaging techniques for understanding condition, and second to propose a protocol for imaging with the aim of encouraging collaborative projects with international partners. The techniques used in this study include digital photography under visible and ultraviolet light, infrared reflectography, and radiography. The results show that important information invisible to the naked eye can be obtained about the decorative surfaces, using ultraviolet light and infrared reflectography. Digital radiography proved to be equally effective when studying the condition of the ceramic body. The results of this project were used to produce guidance on these techniques as a collaborative documentation package for the study of Mina’i ceramics.

In this article I discuss the history of restoration painting through art history and art conservation with the help of a case study. Restoration painting has a long history as a part of art conservation. The methods and theories of restoration painting have evolved along with the process of art conservation into a discipline of academic study. I discuss an old method of restoration painting called overpainting by means of a case study. Overpainting was quite a common practice, until it became viewed as unethical and unprofessional. The case study is a painting that was modified by overpainting. The modifications were done most likely at the same time as damages to the canvas were repaired, possibly sometime before the middle of the 20th century. The old overpaintings were removed during a complete restoration of the painting in 2018–2019. The removal of the overpaintings uncovered new possibilities for the interpretation of the motif of the painting. I briefly discuss the idea of the Italian tratteggio method of restoration painting, which in my view demonstrates a scientific turn in conservation. I also discuss new ways of using scientific methods of collecting data for decision making in restoration.

AbstractDuring conservation, The Detroit Institute of Arts' late Gothic carved wooden sculpture, Madonna and Child, was found to have extensive, though fragmentary, remains of the original polychromy and at least four subsequent “restoration” overpaints. The materials present in the original and overpaintings were probed by polarizing microscopic and X-ray diffraction analyses of individual paint specimens, and scanning electron microscopic/energydispersive X-ray analyses of cross sections prepared using an ultramicrotome. Several sections were also studied using ultraviolet fluorescence microscopic staining techniques to determine the nature of the media used.The pigments identified include azurite, lead white, calcite, vermilion, red lead, hematite, red lakes and glazes, smalt and Prussian blue. Gold and silver metal leafs were also detected. The deteriorated remains of the late Gothic pressed brocade technique, and the use of “bronze” paint to approximate genuine gold leaf on a later addition to the sculpture, are also discussed.

Das als poetisches Prosanarrativ verfasste Autodrama Bildbeschreibung (1984) von Heiner Müller kann als Respons auf Entwicklungen eines postdramatischen Bilder- und Medientheaters gelesen werden. Im Œuvre des Theaterautors Müller nimmt es einen zentralen intermedialen Stellenwert als performativer Seh-Text ein. Unter bildästhetischen Gesichtspunkten analysiert der Artikel, wie Bildbeschreibung die klassische Tradition der Ekphrasis adaptiert, um sie »überschreibend« zu transformieren. Die literarische Form und konkrete schriftstellerische Aktivität der Bildbeschreibung wird als ein intermedialer Übersetzungsprozess vorgestellt, bei dem das beschriebene Bild – eine Bühnenbildzeichnung – zunehmend mit Schrift bedeckt und somit schichtenweise »übermalt« wird. In einem close reading des geschriebenen (nicht inszenierten) Dramentextes werden die mehrschichtigen Verflechtungen zwischen Beschreibung, Betrachtung und Beobachtung im Detail dargelegt. Besonderes Augenmerk gilt dabei dem poetischen Verfahren der Übermalung als ikonoklastische Kollisionsbewegung zwischen Bildern – literarischen Bildern, Theaterbildern, Filmbildern und Kunstbildern. Am Ende steht die These, dass es sich bei Heiner Müllers Übermalungen in Bildbeschreibung um eine bildkritische Strategie des performativen Ikonoklasmus handelt, durch die einerseits der Surrogat- und Inszenierungscharakter von Bildern durchkreuzt, andererseits die Produktivkraft der imaginatio als ungebundener und unkontrollierter Bilderstrom freigesetzt werden soll. <br><br>The auto-drama Bildbeschreibung (1984), written by Heiner Müller in the form of a poetic prose, can be read as a response to the emergence of a post-dramatic theater of images and media. In the work of the playwright Müller, it plays a key role as a performance-related Sehtext (viewing text). Under the agenda of image aesthetics, the article explores how the theater text Bildbeschreibung adopts the classical tradition of ekphrasis in order to transform it by transcription. It discusses the literary form and activity of image description as a process of intermedial translation through which the described picture – a drawing of a stage setting – is continuously covered with writing and this way “overpainted” in layers. In a close reading of the written (not staged) dramatic text the multilayered entanglements between description, viewing and observation are exposed. A special focus is drawn on the poetic method of over- painting(Übermalung) as an iconoclastic collision between images – literary images, theater images, film images, and artistic images. The article conclusively argues that Heiner Müller’s overpaintings (Übermalungen) can be qualified as an image-critical strategy of performative iconoclasm by means of which the surrogate function and staging character of images can be crossed and suspended, but also the productive power of imaginatio as a free and uncontrolled stream of images can be activated.

AbstractIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, original photographs were sent to publishers so that they could be reproduced in print. The photographs often needed to be reworked with overpainting and masking, and such modifications were especially necessary for low-contrast photographs to be reproduced as a letterpress halftone. As altered objects, many of these marked-up photographs were simply discarded after use. An album at The New York Public Library, however, contains 157 such photographs, all relating to the Jackson–Harmsworth expedition to Franz Josef Land, from 1894 to 1897. Received as gifts from publishers, the photographs are heavily retouched with overpainting and masking, as well as drawn and collaged elements. The intense level of overpainting on many of the photographs, but not on others, raised questions about their production and alteration. Jackson’s accounts attested to his practice of developing and printing photographs on site, testing different materials and techniques—including platino-bromide and silver-gelatin papers—to overcome the harsh environmental conditions. In this context, sixteen photographs from the album were analyzed through a combination of non-invasive and micro-invasive techniques, including X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy, fiber optics reflectance spectroscopy (FORS), Raman and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopies, and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS). This analytical campaign aimed to evaluate the possible residual presence of silver halides in any of the preliminary and improved photographs. The detection of these compounds would be one of several factors supporting a hypothesis that some of the photographs in the album were indeed printed on site, in the Arctic, and, as a result, may have been impacted by the extreme environment. Additional goals of the study included the evaluation of the extent of retouching, providing a full characterization of the pigments and dyes used in overpainted prints, and comparing the results with contemporaneous photographic publications that indicate which coloring materials were available at the time. Further analyses shed light on the organic components present in the binders and photographic emulsions. This research has increased our knowledge of photographic processes undertaken in a hostile environment such as the Arctic, and shed light on the technical aspects of photographically illustrating books during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Image inpainting is the art of manipulating an image so that it is visually unrecognizable way. A considerable amount of research has been done in this area over the last few years. However, the state of art techniques does suffer from computational complexities and plausible results. This paper proposes a multi-level image pyramid-based image inpainting algorithm. The image inpainting algorithm starts with the coarsest level of the image pyramid and overpainting information is transferred to the subsequent levels until the bottom level gets inpainted. The search strategy used in the algorithm is based on hashing the coherent information in an image which makes the search fast and accurate. Also, the search space is constrained based on the propagated information thereby reducing the complexity of the algorithm. Compared to other inpainting methods; the proposed algorithm inpaints the target region with better plausibility and human vision conformation. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves better results as compared to other inpainting techniques.

The central idea of this essay is that nonindigenous vernacular image-making by protest tourists on the Palestinian side of the Israeli separation barrier and elsewhere holds little meaning for the permanent residents beyond a relatively minor revenue stream. Prior to making this argument, I provide a short historical background about the use of vernacular messages in the occupied Palestinian territory known as the West Bank. I then focus on images of martyrs or shaheed and then on separation barrier images by protest tourists mostly in Bethlehem. The final sections are about two artists from the Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp and the images they create within the camp. A coda of sorts discusses a mural within the camp that is venerated by the residents as opposed to the overpainting and defacement that takes place on the separation barrier. Within this final section and elsewhere within this essay, the meaning of sumood is explicated. As a note, protest tourists are defined here not as anti-tourism protesters but rather as tourists whose intent is protest Israeli policies regarding Palestinians.

Abstract The small panel of the ‘Crucifixion’ attributed to Giovanni (da Rimini) Baronzio is a perfect example of the artistic achievements of the so-called School of Rimini. Baronzio, active between 1320 and 1350, was one of the most important painters of a group of artists working in Rimini during the first half of the 14th-century whose work was heavily influenced by the work of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337), characterized by Gothic and Byzantine influences. The panel, with an estimated date in the end of the 1320 s, represents a popular iconographic theme during this period and was painted in tempera and gold on wood. Non-invasive analytical approaches have revealed a rich history of interventions, re-touching and restorations, which allows for some interesting observations and considerations in regard to the work’s history. The applied analytical methods and the related art historical observations and interpretations are the focus of the present article. In order to avoid micro-sampling, a non-invasive methodological approach integrating spectroscopic (μ-X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), imaging (UV, X-ray radiography, infrared reflectography) and digital microscopy techniques was applied. This study aimed at the identification of the work’s original materials and techniques, its state of preservation and the complex history of interventions. Results showed that while original materials of the painting conform with those used by artists in fourteenth century Renaissance Italy, there are multiple later interventions both as small-scale inpainting as well as extensive overpainting of various parts of the original Crucifixion composition. Careful consideration of these interventions can shed light to aspects of the panel’s history of preservation as well as on issues of stylistic or compositional ‘corrections’- always an interesting dimension of the changing perceptions of works of art through time.

Hostages of Me by Tue Biering and Hvad har vi egentlig haft gang i? Etiske, sociale og kunst­neriske undersøgelser by Jeppe Kristensen: In two articles, the founders of FIX&FOXY are reflecting on how the production company can develop theater and performances, in order to make the audience reflect on societal dilemmas. InterviewsPretty Woman Walking Down the Street. Interview with Biering and Kristensen by Gade. The interview explores the artistic strategy around the performance Pretty Woman A/S (2008), performed by female prostitutes, which triggered a strong public debate. Møder, relationer, populærkultur og repræsentation. Interview with Bering by Gade. In this conversation, Gade draws a portrait of FIX&FOXY’s practices, and identifies some fundamental themes in contemporary theatre. Udflugt til ungdomsland. Interview with Kristensen by Christoffersen and Krøgholt. Kristensen reflects on the process of Youth (Ungdom) focusing and on how the company created ownership for the young participants, to give agency as co-developers of the performance’s various spaces. My Deer Hunter. Interview af de medvirkende og det kreative team. Interview with participants from My Deer Hunter by Christoffersen, Krøgholt og Winkelhorn. In dialouge with four participating veterans and the artistic team behind My Deer Hunter, the interview explores, how the performance and rehearsal process functioned for a group of PTSD affected veterans, and how their histories and participation in war was challenged. FIX&FOXY’s poetik, metode og organisering. Interview with Biering by Christoffersen, Krøgholt and Winkelhorn. Biering tells about the principles and the theatre view that have been guiding for FIX&FOXY’s creative and theatrical strategies throughout the theatre’s work. Articles Europæerne. En postdramatisk tilgang til klassikerne by Mads Thygesen. How did the staging of The Europeans exploit classics as a tool to intervene and mix in a current historical and political context? The common denominator for the work was European wars as a dramatic focal point. The article discusses how this performance illuminates the seed of FIX&FOXY’s poetics and conceptual thinking from 2005. Mod alle Odds. Tragedie og statistik by Erik Exe Christoffersen. Against All Odds (2019) are based on identity, representation, and statistics, which portrays how today’s young persons’ lives would statistically look in the future. The question raised by Christoffersen is, how the dramaturgy of the performance creates communication. Forvaltningen af publikums ubehag. FIX&FOXY som politisk konfrontationskunst by Laura Luise Schultz. She describes the approach to the audience in various of performances and highlights, that a central feature of FIX&FOXY’s political remediation is their sophisticated engagement with the audience and managing of the audience’s discomfort. Love Theater. Uhåndgribelige konflikter by Jeppe Kristensen. Kristensen went to Bangkok to cast a prostitute who should play the leading character in Love Theater. The performance was based on her own life-experiences as prostitute, and the article is reflecting on intangible conflicts, regarding the prejudices of an audience. Samtidskunst, repræsentation og remediering by Erik Exe Christoffersen. Christoffersen empha­sizes FIX&FOXY’s way of doing remediation, perceived as a way of ‘overpainting’ a work like a palimpsest. Verdensteater og øjebliksteater by Jeppe Kristensen. Kristensen gives an overall artistic discussion of FIX&FOXY and draws a thread from the company’s beginning as a theatrical variant of con­temporary art, to Peter Osborne’s analysis of what contemporary art is today. EssaysFIX&FOXYs distribuering af ledelse by Ida Krøgholt. Krøgholt is unfolding FIX&FOXY’s way of working as distributed facilitation, where the participants facilitate each other, and thus through the theatre process develop an awareness of communication and observation. FIX&FOXY’s representation strategies by Anne Liisberg. Liisberg raises the important questions: Who and how can we represent? And who will never be represented?

AbstractIn Enkhuizen, the fifth major town in the region of Holland at the time, dozens of portraits were painted in the last years of the sixteenth and first decades of the seventeenth century. ln 1934 A. B. de Vries acknowledged a few paintings of 1594 and 1595 (cat. nos. 3, 4 and 5) as the work of an artist who was active in Enkhuizen and a follower of the Amsterdam painters Pieter and Aert Pietersz. It transpires that a large number of other portraits can be attributed to that same painter. Thanks to the fact that a print by Willem Delff after one of the works in this group, a portrait of Henricus Antonii Nerdenus of 1604 (fig. 5) bears the inscription Ioan.Nicol.Enchus.pinx., the anonymous Enkhuizen artist can be identified as one Jan Claesz. Archive research has yielded only a series of entries in notarial deeds of 1613 - 1616, but the painter's works facilitate the construction of a brief biography. Jan Claesz. was probably born around 1570 or a little earlier in or near Enkhuizen, and trained with Pieter or Aert Pietersz. in Amsterdam. The young artist painted a few portraits in that city in 1593. Shortly afterwards he moved to Enkhuizen, where, j udging by his paintings, he was certainly active until 1618. He probably died that year or a little later. As far as can be established he confined himself to portraiture. The earliest known attributable works are his portraits of Bartholomeus van der Wicrc and his wife, painted in 1593 (figs. 7 and 8) and clearly showing the influence of Pieter and Aert Pietersz. The compositions and poses are characteristic of Jan Claesz.'s work; the background perspective does not quite come off. His portraits of two sisters of 1594 (figs. 9 and 10) are less ambitious, and are among the most attractive Netherlandish children's portraits of the late sixteenth century. Very similar is a portrait of Reynu Semeyns, painted a year later (fig. II), which displays the same painstaking method. This picture once had a companion piece, a portrait of the famous explorer Jan Huygen van Linschoten which is only known from a copper engraving with a partial copy in mirror image (fig. 12). This print suggests a close relationship between the portrait of Van Linschoten and a painting of 1598 in which Adriaen Teding van Berkhout is depicted (fig. 13). In 1598 Jan Claesz. also painted a full-length portrait of a child standing on a tiled floor, with two pilasters and an arch in the background (fig. 14), an arrangement he used on a number of subsequent occasions (figs. 23, 24, 26 and 27). A separate group in Jan Claesz.'s œuvre consists of three double portraits of 1601 and 1602, featuring an adult wih a child (figs. 15, 16 and 17); the companion pieces of 1602 demonstrate that the painter not only worked for Enkhuizen patrons but also for the regents in the neighbouring town of Hoorn. A few portraits of older people painted between 1603 and 1608 (figs. 2, 3, 18, 19 and 20) clearly show the minute detail in the painting, sometimes resulting in a certain hardness in the rendering. A portrait of a boy of 1608 (fig. 21) suggests that the artist was familiar with the interest evinced in other towns for giving portraits trompe-l'œil frames. Another portrait of a boy painted a year later (fig. 22) is the earliest known example of a type of children's portrait that was especially popular in West Frisia in the seventeenth century; the subject is a boy with a miniature horse. A child's portrait previously attributed to Adriaen van der Linde, a painter active in Frisia, but consistent in every aspect with other paintings by Jan Claesz., dates from the same period (fig. 24). A similar portrait, probably depicting Claes Gerritsz. Slijper and painted in 1614, has suffered considerably from overpainting of the head (fig. 28). A few portraits of adults dating from 1616-1618 (figs. 33, 34 and 36) are the last known works of the painter and among the best he ever did. Like other paintings by Jan Claesz. (figs. 1 5 and 35), they also give us an idea of the rich traditional costume of Enkhuizen. Jan Claesz. may be regarded as a representative of the generation of portraitists who in the waning sixteenth and dawning seventeenth century laid the foundations for the heyday of portraiture in the ensuing years of the seventeenth century. He is also a representative of the widespread influence of the painters Pieter and Aert Pietersz., an influence particularly noticeable in the northern region of the Netherlands. He added his own elements to their example. His fairly numerous portraits of children, with their somewhat naive charm, form an important contribution to our knowledge of the North Netherlandish children's portrait of around 1600.

Special Care NoticeThis article discusses trauma and violence inflicted upon the Indigenous peoples of Tasmania through the processes of colonisation. Content within this article may be distressing to some readers. IntroductionThis article looks briefly at the collection, consultation, and digital sharing of stories essential to the histories of the First Nations peoples of Australia. Focusing on materials held in Sydney, New South Wales two case studies—the object known as the Proclamation Board and the George Augustus Robinson Papers—explore how materials can be shared with Aboriginal peoples of the region now known as Tasmania. Specifically, the authors of this article (a Palawa man and an Australian woman of European descent) ask how can the idea of the privileging of Indigenous voices, within Eurocentric cultural collections, be transformed from rhetoric to reality? Moreover, how can we navigate this complex work, that is made even more problematic by distance, through the utilisation of knowledge networks which are geographically isolated from the collections holding stories crucial to Indigenous communities? In seeking to answer these important questions, this article looks at how cultural, emotional, and intellectual ownership can be divested from the physical ownership of a collection in a way that repatriates—appropriately and sensitively—stories of Aboriginal Australia and of colonisation. Holding Stories, Not Always Our OwnCultural institutions, including libraries, have, in recent years, been drawn into discussions centred on the notion of digital disruption and “that transformative shift which has seen the ongoing realignment of business resources, relationships, knowledge, and value both facilitating the entry of previously impossible ideas and accelerating the competitive impact of those same impossible ideas” (Franks and Ensor n.p.). As Molly Brown has noted, librarians “are faced, on a daily basis, with rapidly changing technology and the ways in which our patrons access and use information. Thus, we need to look at disruptive technologies as opportunities” (n.p.). Some innovations, including the transition from card catalogues to online catalogues and the provision of a wide range of electronic resources, are now considered to be business as usual for most institutions. So, too, the digitisation of great swathes of materials to facilitate access to collections onsite and online, with digitising primary sources seen as an intermediary between the pillars of preserving these materials and facilitating access for those who cannot, for a variety of logistical and personal reasons, travel to a particular repository where a collection is held.The result has been the development of hybrid collections: that is, collections that can be accessed in both physical and digital formats. Yet, the digitisation processes conducted by memory institutions is often selective. Limited resources, even for large-scale digitisation projects usually only realise outcomes that focus on making visually rich, key, or canonical documents, or those documents that are considered high use and at risk, available online. Such materials are extracted from the larger full body of records while other lesser-known components are often omitted. Digitisation projects therefore tend to be devised for a broader audience where contextual questions are less central to the methodology in favour of presenting notable or famous documents online only. Documents can be profiled as an exhibition separate from their complete collection and, critically, their wider context. Libraries of course are not neutral spaces and this practice of (re)enforcing the canon through digitisation is a challenge that cultural institutions, in partnerships, need to address (Franks and Ensor n.p.). Indeed, our digital collections are as affected by power relationships and the ongoing impacts of colonisation as our physical collections. These power relationships can be seen through an organisation’s “processes that support acquisitions, as purchases and as the acceptance of artefacts offered as donations. Throughout such processes decisions are continually made (consciously and unconsciously) that affect what is presented and actively promoted as the official history” (Thorpe et al. 8). While it is important to acknowledge what we do collect, it is equally important to look, too, at what we do not collect and to consider how we continually privilege and exclude stories. Especially when these stories are not always our own, but are held, often as accidents of collecting. For example, an item comes in as part of a larger suite of materials while older, city-based institutions often pre-date regional repositories. An essential point here is that cultural institutions can often become comfortable in what they collect, building on existing holdings. This, in turn, can lead to comfortable digitisation. If we are to be truly disruptive, we need to embrace feeling uncomfortable in what we do, and we need to view digitisation as an intervention opportunity; a chance to challenge what we ‘know’ about our collections. This is especially relevant in any attempts to decolonise collections.Case Study One: The Proclamation BoardThe first case study looks at an example of re-digitisation. One of the seven Proclamation Boards known to survive in a public collection is held by the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, having been purchased from Tasmanian collector and photographer John Watt Beattie (1859–1930) in May 1919 for £30 (Morris 86). Why, with so much material to digitise—working in a program of limited funds and time—would the Library return to an object that has already been privileged? Unanswered questions and advances in digitisation technologies, created a unique opportunity. For the First Peoples of Van Diemen’s Land (now known as Tasmania), colonisation by the British in 1803 was “an emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually confronting series of encounters” (Franks n.p.). Violent incidents became routine and were followed by a full-scale conflict, often referred to as the Black War (Clements 1), or more recently as the Tasmanian War, fought from the 1820s until 1832. Image 1: Governor Arthur’s Proclamation to the Aborigines, ca. 1828–1830. Image Credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Call No.: SAFE / R 247.Behind the British combatants were various support staff, including administrators and propagandists. One of the efforts by the belligerents, behind the front line, to win the war and bring about peace was the production of approximately 100 Proclamation Boards. These four-strip pictograms were the result of a scheme introduced by Lieutenant Governor George Arthur (1784–1854), on the advice of Surveyor General George Frankland (1800–38), to communicate that all are equal under the rule of law (Arthur 1). Frankland wrote to Arthur in early 1829 to suggest these Proclamation Boards could be produced and nailed to trees (Morris 84), as a Eurocentric adaptation of a traditional method of communication used by Indigenous peoples who left images on the trunks of trees. The overtly stated purpose of the Boards was, like the printed proclamations exhorting peace, to assert, all people—black and white—were equal. That “British Justice would protect” everyone (Morris 84). The first strip on each of these pictogram Boards presents Indigenous peoples and colonists living peacefully together. The second strip shows “a conciliatory handshake between the British governor and an Aboriginal ‘chief’, highly reminiscent of images found in North America on treaty medals and anti-slavery tokens” (Darian-Smith and Edmonds 4). The third and fourth strips depict the repercussions for committing murder (or, indeed, any significant crime), with an Indigenous man hanged for spearing a colonist and a European man hanged for shooting an Aboriginal man. Both men executed in the presence of the Lieutenant Governor. The Boards, oil on Huon pine, were painted by “convict artists incarcerated in the island penal colony” (Carroll 73).The Board at the State Library of New South Wales was digitised quite early on in the Library’s digitisation program, it has been routinely exhibited (including for the Library’s centenary in 2010) and is written about regularly. Yet, many questions about this small piece of timber remain unanswered. For example, some Boards were outlined with sketches and some were outlined with pouncing, “a technique [of the Italian Renaissance] of pricking the contours of a drawing with a pin. Charcoal was then dusted on to the drawing” (Carroll 75–76). Could such a sketch or example of pouncing be seen beneath the surface layers of paint on this particular Board? What might be revealed by examining the Board more closely and looking at this object in different ways?An important, but unexpected, discovery was that while most of the pigments in the painting correlate with those commonly available to artists in the early nineteenth century there is one outstanding anomaly. X-ray analysis revealed cadmium yellow present in several places across the painting, including the dresses of the little girls in strip one, uniform details in strip two, and the trousers worn by the settler men in strips three and four (Kahabka 2). This is an extraordinary discovery, as cadmium yellows were available “commercially as an artist pigment in England by 1846” and were shown by “Winsor & Newton at the 1851 Exhibition held at the Crystal Palace, London” (Fiedler and Bayard 68). The availability of this particular type of yellow in the early 1850s could set a new marker for the earliest possible date for the manufacture of this Board, long-assumed to be 1828–30. Further, the early manufacture of cadmium yellow saw the pigment in short supply and a very expensive option when compared with other pigments such as chrome yellow (the darker yellow, seen in the grid lines that separate the scenes in the painting). This presents a clearly uncomfortable truth in relation to an object so heavily researched and so significant to a well-regarded collection that aims to document much of Australia’s colonial history. Is it possible, for example, the Board has been subjected to overpainting at a later date? Or, was this premium paint used to produce a display Board that was sent, by the Tasmanian Government, to the 1866 Intercolonial Exhibition in Melbourne? In seeking to see the finer details of the painting through re-digitisation, the results were much richer than anticipated. The sketch outlines are clearly visible in the new high-resolution files. There are, too, details unable to be seen clearly with the naked eye, including this warrior’s headdress and ceremonial scarring on his stomach, scars that tell stories “of pain, endurance, identity, status, beauty, courage, sorrow or grief” (Australian Museum n.p.). The image of this man has been duplicated and distributed since the 1830s, an anonymous figure deployed to tell a settler-centric story of the Black, or Tasmanian, War. This man can now be seen, for the first time nine decades later, to wear his own story. We do not know his name, but he is no longer completely anonymous. This image is now, in some ways, a portrait. The State Library of New South Wales acknowledges this object is part of an important chapter in the Tasmanian story and, though two Boards are in collections in Tasmania (the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston), each Board is different. The Library holds an important piece of a large and complex puzzle and has a moral obligation to make this information available beyond its metropolitan location. Digitisation, in this case re-digitisation, is allowing for the disruption of this story in sparking new questions around provenance and for the relocating of a Palawa warrior to a more prominent, perhaps even equal role, within a colonial narrative. Image 2: Detail, Governor Arthur’s Proclamation to the Aborigines, ca. 1828–1830. Image Credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Call No.: SAFE / R 247.Case Study Two: The George Augustus Robinson PapersThe second case study focuses on the work being led by the Indigenous Engagement Branch at the State Library of New South Wales on the George Augustus Robinson (1791–1866) Papers. In 1829, Robinson was granted a government post in Van Diemen’s Land to ‘conciliate’ with the Palawa peoples. More accurately, Robinson’s core task was dispossession and the systematic disconnection of the Palawa peoples from their Country, community, and culture. Robinson was a habitual diarist and notetaker documenting much of his own life as well as the lives of those around him, including First Nations peoples. His extensive suite of papers represents a familiar and peculiar kind of discomfort for Aboriginal Australians, one in which they are forced to learn about themselves through the eyes and words of their oppressors. For many First Nations peoples of Tasmania, Robinson remains a violent and terrible figure, but his observations of Palawa culture and language are as vital as they are problematic. Importantly, his papers include vibrant and utterly unique descriptions of people, place, flora and fauna, and language, as well as illustrations revealing insights into the routines of daily life (even as those routines were being systematically dismantled by colonial authorities). “Robinson’s records have informed much of the revitalisation of Tasmanian Aboriginal culture in the twentieth century and continue to provide the basis for investigations of identity and deep relationships to land by Aboriginal scholars” (Lehman n.p.). These observations and snippets of lived culture are of immense value to Palawa peoples today but the act of reading between Robinson’s assumptions and beyond his entrenched colonial views is difficult work.Image 3: George Augustus Robinson Papers, 1829–34. Image Credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, A 7023–A 7031.The canonical reference for Robinson’s archive is Friendly Mission: The Tasmanian Journals and Papers of George Augustus Robinson, 1829–1834, edited by N.J.B. Plomley. The volume of over 1,000 pages was first published in 1966. This large-scale project is recognised “as a monumental work of Tasmanian history” (Crane ix). Yet, this standard text (relied upon by Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers) has clearly not reproduced a significant percentage of Robinson’s Tasmanian manuscripts. Through his presumptuous truncations Plomley has not simply edited Robinson’s work but has, quite literally, written many Palawa stories out of this colonial narrative. It is this lack of agency in determining what should be left out that is most troubling, and reflects an all-too-familiar approach which libraries, including the State Library of New South Wales, are now urgently trying to rectify. Plomley’s preface and introduction does not indicate large tranches of information are missing. Indeed, Plomley specifies “that in extenso [in full] reproduction was necessary” (4) and omissions “have been kept to a minimum” (8). A 32-page supplement was published in 1971. A new edition, including the supplement, some corrections made by Plomley, and some extra material was released in 2008. But much continues to be unknown outside of academic circles, and far too few Palawa Elders and language revival workers have had access to Robinson’s original unfiltered observations. Indeed, Plomley’s text is linear and neat when compared to the often-chaotic writings of Robinson. Digitisation cannot address matters of the materiality of the archive, but such projects do offer opportunities for access to information in its original form, unedited, and unmediated.Extensive consultation with communities in Tasmania is underpinning the digitisation and re-description of a collection which has long been assumed—through partial digitisation, microfilming, and Plomley’s text—to be readily available and wholly understood. Central to this project is not just challenging the canonical status of Plomley’s work but directly challenging the idea non-Aboriginal experts can truly understand the cultural or linguistic context of the information recorded in Robinson’s journals. One of the more exciting outcomes, so far, has been working with Palawa peoples to explore the possibility of Palawa-led transcriptions and translation, and not breaking up the tasks of this work and distributing them to consultants or to non-Indigenous student groups. In this way, people are being meaningfully reunited with their own histories and, crucially, given first right to contextualise and understand these histories. Again, digitisation and disruption can be seen here as allies with the facilitation of accessibility to an archive in ways that re-distribute the traditional power relations around interpreting and telling stories held within colonial-rich collections.Image 4: Detail, George Augustus Robinson Papers, 1829–34. Image Credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, A 7023–A 7031.As has been so brilliantly illustrated by Bruce Pascoe’s recent work Dark Emu (2014), when Aboriginal peoples are given the opportunity to interpret their own culture from the colonial records without interference, they are able to see strength and sophistication rather than victimhood. For, to “understand how the Europeans’ assumptions selectively filtered the information brought to them by the early explorers is to see how we came to have the history of the country we accept today” (4). Far from decrying these early colonial records Aboriginal peoples understand their vital importance in connecting to a culture which was dismantled and destroyed, but importantly it is known that far too much is lost in translation when Aboriginal Australians are not the ones undertaking the translating. ConclusionFor Aboriginal Australians, culture and knowledge is no longer always anchored to Country. These histories, once so firmly connected to communities through their ancestral lands and languages, have been dispersed across the continent and around the world. Many important stories—of family history, language, and ways of life—are held in cultural institutions and understanding the role of responsibly disseminating these collections through digitisation is paramount. In transitioning from physical collections to hybrid collections of the physical and digital, the digitisation processes conducted by memory institutions can be—and due to the size of some collections is inevitably—selective. Limited resources, even for large-scale and well-resourced digitisation projects usually realise outcomes that focus on making visually rich, key, or canonical documents, or those documents considered high use or at risk, available online. Such materials are extracted from a full body of records. Digitisation projects, as noted, tend to be devised for a broader audience where contextual questions are less central to the methodology in favour of presenting notable documents online, separate from their complete collection and, critically, their context. Our institutions carry the weight of past collecting strategies and, today, the pressure of digitisation strategies as well. Contemporary librarians should not be gatekeepers, but rather key holders. In collaborating across sectors and with communities we open doors for education, research, and the repatriation of culture and knowledge. We must, always, remember to open these doors wide: the call of Aboriginal Australians of ‘nothing about us without us’ is not an invitation to collaboration but an imperative. Libraries—as well as galleries, archives, and museums—cannot tell these stories alone. Also, these two case studies highlight what we believe to be one of the biggest mistakes that not just libraries but all cultural institutions are vulnerable to making, the assumption that just because a collection is open access it is also accessible. Digitisation projects are more valuable when communicated, contextualised and—essentially—the result of community consultation. Such work can, for some, be uncomfortable while for others it offers opportunities to embrace disruption and, by extension, opportunities to decolonise collections. For First Nations peoples this work can be more powerful than any simple measurement tool can record. Through examining our past collecting, deliberate efforts to consult, and through digital sharing projects across metropolitan and regional Australia, we can make meaningful differences to the ways in which Aboriginal Australians can, again, own their histories.Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the Palawa peoples: the traditional custodians of the lands known today as Tasmania. The authors acknowledge, too, the Gadigal people upon whose lands this article was researched and written. We are indebted to Dana Kahabka (Conservator), Joy Lai (Imaging Specialist), Richard Neville (Mitchell Librarian), and Marika Duczynski (Project Officer) at the State Library of New South Wales. Sincere thanks are also given to Jason Ensor of Western Sydney University.ReferencesArthur, George. “Proclamation.” The Hobart Town Courier 19 Apr. 1828: 1.———. Proclamation to the Aborigines. 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