PROJECTS
& ACTIVITIES
COLLECTION INVENTORY PROJECT 2004-2010
The CKS Collection Inventory Project of the National Museum 2004-2010
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 Now
in its final phase, the CKS National Museum Collection Inventory
Project has brought a revitalized sense of order to the Museum’s
collection andpersonal confidence to trained Museum staff, who now
oversee this important ongoing project. It has greatly assisted
the Museum’s international exhibition and publications programs,
identification and repatriation of missing works of art, links with
re-established provincial collections and the fostering of both
established and newly formed conservation workshops in stone, metal
and ceramics. It has won international acclaim.
Most importantly, the location and condition of
thousands of works of art in storage have been digitally catalogued,
with works arranged in a logical and systematic way. Ongoing agendas
include digital photography of every work, scanning of extant French
inventory cards and cross-referencing the past and present catalogue
systems.
Greatly improved trilingual labeling now offers
visitors clear and accurate identification of some 2,000 works on
display and provides a great resource for researchers wishing to
access the collection. It wasn’t always so. In the wake of
the Khmer Rouge regime, the National Museum, repository of the extraordinary
treasures of Cambodia’s past, had suffered from years of neglect,
was run by a staff lacking formal training, and occupied a building
ill-equipped for the second millennium.
The conditions of Museum storage were particularly
worrisome. Locating a work of art in its basement was challenging.
Documentation was incomplete and inaccessible.
A fortuitous visitor and
a collaboration with CKS
In early 2004, art historian and CKS Trustee Emma
Bunker visited the National Museum with a group of friends, including
the distinguished collector Douglas Latchford and American arts
patron and philanthropist Shelby White. They met with director Khun
Samen and his then deputy, Hab Touch at the Museum. Moved by the
poor conditions of the Museum, Shelby White generously offered to
fund a long-term project through the Leon Levy Foundation, in collaboration
with the Center for Khmer Studies. They agreed on the all important
goal of an inventory project - a bold undertaking to catalogue the
Museum’s entire collection.
In the grant proposal, the current situation and the project’s
ambitions were starkly set forth:
‘’When the Museum officially opened
on 13 April 1920, there were over 1,000 objects on display. Today
the museum has approximately 14,000 objects and the collection is
growing at a rate of over 300 objects per year. The majority of
the collection is stored in a basement storage area. The project
will bring together, and draw on, all existing registration methods
used by the Museum at different times in the past, including several
French card catalogue systems, Khmer handwritten inventory lists
and a pre-existing database. As part of the inventory and cataloguing
project, all previous documents relevant to a particular object
will be scanned and attached to that object’s record in a
newly developed database’’.
The project began in August 2004. Darryl Collins
was chosen as the project coordinator, to train the staff and set
up the cataloguing procedure. During the course of the project,
Shelby White and CKS President Dr. Lois de Menil made several visits
to the National Museum in Phnom Penh. Shelby White, accompanied
by Emma Bunker, returned in 2006. Dr. de Menil and Emma Bunker visited
regularly. From the outset, the Center for Khmer Studies assured
regular financial and administrative oversight of the project. As
the growth and success of the project proceeded, the initial 3-year
grant was extended to a period of 6 years that have seen to completion
the documentation of the entire Museum collection.
Press acclaim and new international visibility
Once underway, this major project was widely acclaimed
by the national and international press, drawing new attention to
the National Museum and the importance of its collections. The Cambodia
Daily noted aptly, in 2005: “In the National Museum’s
basement, order emerges from the chaos. ’A full-page article,
entitled, ‘National Museum Inventory Project: Phnom Penh’
appeared in the London-based art newspaper Asian Art in October
2005, with Deputy Director Hab Touch commenting that he believed
the project represented a major step forward for the institution,
which until then had an incomplete knowledge of what was contained
in its collection, and of what was missing. The International Herald
Tribune titled its story, ‘A Belated Rescue of Cambodia’s
Past.’
Impact on international scholarship and mission
of the national museum
International researchers began immediately to
hail the project and to make use of the increased access to museum
data for exhibitions and publications. The conservation workshops
within the Museum now have orderly ease of access to the collection,
as do curators when works of art are required for either national
or international exhibitions. Objects can now be quickly identified
and located, with digital photos and detailed documentation. ICOM
and ICOM-EFEO pamphlets and booklets have aided identification of
missing works of art and alerted the world to trafficking in Khmer
artifacts. An integral part of recovery is identification - establishing
a provenance, or history of ownership. Using the new Inventory Project
resources, The Museum is now in a strong position to present appropriate
responses in such cases.
The project staff 2004-2010
The inventory project has benefited from the guidance
and support of three Museum directors, Mr. Khun Samen, Mr. Hab Touch
and most recently, Mrs. Oun Phalline. Registrars, photographic personnel
and cataloguers drawn from the museum staff have now been trained.
Those attached to the project number eight. The initial staff trained
for the first year numbered four, three of whom are still with the
project. Results speak volumes for the dedication of museum staff,
for their willingness to work on the collection in a methodical
and committed manner - to record, photograph, measure and locate
works under less than perfect conditions.
Current cataloguing of the collection as of 2010
stands at: Metal objects 7,309 numbered (of a total of 8,454); Stone
3,211 numbered (of a total of 3,341 - still cataloguing); Ceramics
4,222 numbered (of a total of 4,740 - still cataloguing); and Wood
489 numbered (of a total of 558 - still cataloguing). The Museum
collection now stands at a total of 17,468 works of art. In 2004,
at the commencement of the project, an estimate of the Museum’s
collection numbered around 14,000 objects.
Into the future
Discussion is underway to complement the cataloguing
project with a Collection Database Project that would create digital
links to give increased access to the collection. Also under discussion
is a project to provide computers, equipment and training to provincial
museums, using National Museum staff as trainers, with the object
of ensuring that these collections become part of a greater Cambodian
museum network. It is the Museum’s deep hope that ongoing
discussions will reach a successful outcome and a new collaboration.
This important project would never have taken place without the
vision and generosity of American philanthropist and CKS patron
Shelby White.
Article reference:
http://www.khmerstudies.org/download-files/publications/In%20focus%202010-2011.pdf
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