Annette Mays works with museums- specifically the museum experience. In talking to her, I’m really considering perhaps, how we can retell cultural stories or make educational packs to let young children talk about the difficult topic of cross culture in a natural manner. Our dialogue was shaped by the Frankenplates.

TRANSCRIPT- ANNETTE MAYS & KATE CHAN IN DISCUSSION

Annette: My name is Annette Mays and I'm a theatre director originally, and I still do things like that. But when I work with museums, I work around experience design. How does it feel to visit? How do you tell the stories that the museum wants to tell. That's my expertise.

Kate: That's great! I'm really concerned about the experience of the museum, what it's like. I think museums are often viewed as very conservative places with things shut off, and dialogue is really hard to experience in this sort of environment.

Annette: Yeah, well that's that's one experience. So I think- I mean in my experience but that's obviously incredibly biased because I work with people who want to think about how to make museum are more and more interesting; to become places of dialogue and exploration. People think a lot more about the social history around objects, I think. In the past- and I won't date this past - some people still live in this past. The concept of conservation was so opaque- I feel conservation is less opaque, for all the right reasons. Really interesting and objective object based, I think. And I think that the greater narrative of those objects is again social history but also how the objects relate to each other within the space and how an audience might relate, or not relate to the information you're giving about a thing. I think more and more people think about it and I think it's a lot to do with digital possibilities coming out. But also just think you know. The rise of digital age has led to a different culture. People are much more keen to interact and be part and think about the place themselves with themselves. Much less of having a thing on a pedestal, with that exceptional amount of reverence, and then move on to the next thing to revere. I think people are really interested in context.

Kate: Since you have so much knowledge about museums, and you talk about opening a dialogue in museums... How would you use these [plates]? Like, in a museum. How would you construct accessibility or dialogue in a museum?

Annette: I first start by learning a lot more about them but I think what little bit I know about what you've said. I think what's really interesting is that they- I don't know how you describe them? Intercultural or sit across different cultures. And I think a use is different stylistic and different iconography to explore what happens when both [cultures] come together and the new narratives emerge from that. So I think there is something really interesting about decoding and I think the other dimension that's really interesting, I think to an audience, is you because you're a clash of your cultures. I think, this is obvious in my opinion- but sometimes I think art as biography is not super relevant to the experience of the piece. Sometimes it's hyper relevant- I think because it is your particular cultural mix I think that narrative is really interesting. I think there is something about the decoding of the images because I think as soon as I know that there are different cultures in there which I may or may not immediately recognize especially because I've never been to Australia, I've never been to Hong Kong, so there's a lot in there that I don't recognize and could well be in the same place for me. I think that's really exciting.

Kate: There's a lot of visual activity. The whole concept of decoding.

Annette: Yeah, absolutely and where that is. And then I think you were talking- I didn't quite catch it earlier, you were talking about is there based on an existing narrative, is that right?

Kate: Yes! They're based off a love story attached to that. It's the most famous amongst the various narratives in the plate. It's about two lovers who meet, are separated, meet again, run away, somehow die a very sudden death- and the gods, they reincarnate them.

Annette: I mean that's amazing. As an audience immediately, I'm interested know if there's a chronology to the place. Did it follow that dramatic arc? Because again I think. I think they're beautiful as objects I love them as objects, but if I understand the narrative construct of the objects in the collection of the objects- I think it will stay with me so much more, because you know it gives me a way to place them in my memory, and in my cultural experience that goes beyond the appreciation of the objects and even the sort of the decoding. And I think what's really exciting, is that the sort of dramatic narrative is both really recognisable and it also has a cultural specificity so I recognize something and I find something new. We [museum curators] like that. Also, once I have that framework to look at these plates, it becomes much more of a social experience so if me and Charlie see your plates- I can start sharing what I'm seeing in what you've created, and how I relate that back to the narrative. And I can be moved by it, make jokes about it-anything in between. And I think that, especially in public displays- I think thinking about what the social interaction is between visitors that come together. And your objective, it was really interesting.

Kate: Well, these objects, they're tools for discussion. We discuss these objects one-on-one. But my experience with these objects is different, because I was the author of your experience with these objects.

Annette: I think I think that's really interesting because also for a museum that gives you quite a lot of dimensions, because I can imagine making an education pack around it- because cross culture, because. of the story. So you can think immediately about doing it at different ages. I think you can do so many things with it, once you've got that narrative and you've got the images you can do so much with it.

Kate: It's very simple.

Annette: Yeah. But also I think what's really nice is that it's really specific again, which I really like and it has this sort of it's very specific to you because there's a cultural mix and is very, very specific imagery that comes from very specific places; but mixed up, so it has its own identity. But there's something super universal about it. Because of the story. And I think those layers and thinking about how you are the access point, is for audiences and how you can connect with the specificity. I think it's quite exciting; so you know you start with the story, because that's the easy part, and then delve deeper. But it is a mix of cultures,and the indvidiual elements that represent those clashes, those juxtapositions, or those complementary elements- or however you want; to whatever is in there.

Kate: Those are things that your culture experiences as well?

Annette: Yeah, yeah absolutely. And I think, you know everyone's so troubled at the moment that even if you're not- I moved country. I'm from the Netherlands, so literally, my country's quite close- but Dutch culture is a million miles away from English culture. But these are nice sort of experience, these weird differences continuously, in those weird sort of different aesthetic, and it's almost like philosophy. But I think, so for me that immediately speaks to me. But I think all of us are so well travelled right now that I think everyone understands that on some level. So that's I think that's something to play with. And something to explore, because I think for me, that's where the love story for me is the entry point again- universally easy to hang on to. And then the culture mix was where a lot of the meaning then comes out, and the specificity of you as an artist comes out. What do you want? If you think about these, and say that you can't be there- so you're not allowed to talk to the audience. But you know, you can do with them- don't think about what you're going to do with them but without you present, once they've seen the collection; what would you like your ideal group- like three or four people to talk about, once they've seen it?

Kate: Oh, this is really hard to answer. I think I'd like them to be able to touch on the universal topic of culture, and maybe how there are different cultures to what you've experienced, so like- these- franken-cultures I've been talking about. I'm still unsure how I'd be able to include people of more than one age group within the same discussion.

Annette: I think, if you reframe it for different groups. So I think- like if you put this in a ceramic museum, it will get a different audience that will want to know different things about it. And then if you put it in a museum that looks at multicultural experiences; the audience that you will get will be different. You need a different method of framing your work. So I think that works both ways. I think for you to think about where you want this work to sit because the context world imbue it with meaning and will give it a meaning. And simultaneously once you walk onto what you have that context, either your idea or the one you can get it into. So, what is the context that you both want but maybe also need to give to the audience, to access the work and to create a connection with it. Because I think it will just be very differently received if you put this in a- you know in an art fair, or a design fayre- or a museum of international perspectives that's full of different international perspectives; and you are the modern version of a long line of looking back at intercultural practice.

Kate: This is really interesting; you're making me think a lot outside of that very fixed one sided view I had of museums themselves.

Annette: Yeah, yeah- I think for me, I think as an as a maker thinking about where- you know I really strongly feel for me that the context the work is in is part of the work. Just being aware of that- I think there is also just you know, pragmatism if you can find an interesting context- then put it in there you don't have fight purely for your ideal, but knowing that if you make work that is how and where it is presented by you and next to what will influence heavily how it's received and have a connection is made between your audience and the object. So thinking about what you want to say and in which context you might want to say something else. How is that how the framing and by framing- I mean everything from label, to how it's displayed to the amount of space it needs. What's first, second and third- and a context or if there is a whole installation around it, you if you want to. It's thinking about how that connects how different that is and different locations. So I think it's really interesting. I think what's exciting about your collection is that it could sit in very different contexts. So we'll change identity- as when it shifts and especially because you're probably actually going to display probably initially at- is it the Goldsmiths Show?

Kate: Yeah.

Annette: So think about that because from there, that's the first real place and most likely exposure to public. So, what does that mean about how it's positioned? And do you want to work against that- or do you want to work with that? And what does that mean for you when you think about how you are within that exhibition?

Kate: It's really interesting to me because you talk about being more accessible to more people in the world- but most of them they go through the institutions. Actually that's not a good thing because these institutions are so opaque, and usually refuse to contribute to this dialog in a sense, like they might have evry fixed view points of the same item?

Annette: Yeah I think it would be really interesting to just- you know go through a ceramic gallery; what's of interest to them [in your artefact]. Because I think for me- but for me it's like you are- a next generation that is taking ceramics and making it your own. That might be really interesting to them. Well if you go to I don't know.

Kate: International cultural museums?

Annette: Yeah. Then it becomes very different. Yeah. There's a discovery museum which is all about stories like could it be- like the ceramic equivalent of a mixed culture picture book because they'll get it like that. You know; a higher version of what picture books do. You know; and I mean like you start talking about it in a very different way. Because then you're starting to expose people to two different imagery and different ways of experiencing narrative which is also in there but probably your ceramic galleries. I mean, I might enjoy that. But he is probably a lot more interested in how- this sits on the legacy of ceramics, and ceramic aesthetic and how you're innovating there. Where the story moves them or they'll have no interest in that bit.

Kate: They're just not interested in the circumstances?

Annette: Yeah, exactly- and they sort of go, 'Oh it's amazing, so you know those is really beautiful object that tells a story. How amazing is that!' That's what they will vote for, and it will be seen different and it will be and it will need a different explanation and a different sort of- you know, in essence frame around it.

Kate: It's really interesting to see the whole multifaceted dialogue that is culture. I didn't even realize it was so multi-faceted. I'm really excited thinking about all these things.

Annette: Yeah, and I think that's for me; what's most exciting about them personally, is that they are super multilayered and you have so many entry points to it- which I think makes them for me, really viable cultural objects because it's not just one thing.

Kate: You really shook up my perception of the museum experience! That's it from me, for now- thank you!