by Sally Foster (s.m.foster@stir.ac.uk)
The website and blog www.replicas.stir.ac.uk, with its associated Principles and Guidance, was launched on 27 July 2020. It's the place for joined-up thinking and working with replicas, particularly analogue replicas, informed by current ideas about authenticity, value and significance. It puts into practice ideas that have their origin in the European Journal of Archaeology article Foster & Curtis 2016 The thing about replicas, subsequently developed in other research with Professor Sian Jones and the 2020 book My Life as a Replica: St John's Cross, Iona (quote discount code REPLICA20 for a 20% discount).
New Futures for Replicas: Principles and Guidance for Museums and Heritage was co-produced by a wide-ranging group of researchers, heritage and museum practitioners from north-west Europe. Our downloadable leaflet (https://replicas.stir.ac.uk/principles-and-guidance/) is an independent statement intended for international application, adapted for local, culturally specific circumstances. We're specifically seeking to transcend sectoral boundaries and generate dialogue, particularly between treatment of replicas in museum and landscape contexts.
The headline principles, which are elaborated upon, are:
- new understandings of authenticity recognise replicas as original objects in their own right with stories worth telling
- replicas are distinctive as 'extended objects' with 'composite biographies' that link the lives of the copies and original
- replicas merit the same care as other objects and places
- replicas invoke specific local and global ethical issues
On the website you will also find reading lists and a Replica Futures blog. Yours contributions to the blog – news, views and case studies – are warmly welcomed!
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