National Museum of the Royal Navy Statement – Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
At the beginning of my exploration of superstitions at sea, I started looking at several avenues of research simultaneously to open as many potential opportunities for investigation as possible.
After many unsuccessful calls trying to get through to the curator at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, I gave up and resorted to email, only to receive this automated response.
My thoughts of utilising the Portsmouth Historic dockyard may well amount to nothing; they were the victim of a cyber attack on 9th December and have suspended any collections enquiries. I had found the curator’s name and hoped to talk to him and get an expert account of artefacts with superstitions attached to them. This cyber attack was well over a month ago. Still, I am not hopeful that security will resolve it in time for me to use as research or to influence my studio practice- I will remain optimistic and look at other avenues to research. I decided to write an old-fashioned letter to the curator; I am in Portsmouth on Friday and will drop it in when I am there. It may not help, but it’s worth a try.
This letter writing has now been put on hold; after a meeting with my mentor, Rachel O’Reilly of Morph from the creative management skills boot camp, she suggested that rather than ask for stories about superstitions at sea from the (probably busy) curator, I visit the museum do some digging and then go to him with what I have found. This approach comes from someone with 17 years of marketing experience, and I have taken the advice.
Shipwrecks and Superstitions
The shipwreck museum on the Isle of Wight is closed until April, but they have kindly replied to my email, and we will arrange a time when I can go and research out of hours- A win! They have several artefacts I can view and talk about related to superstitions at sea
Home – The Shipwreck Centre & Maritime Museum
Online Research
Ancient origins of modern superstition | British Museum
I found this interesting lecture online, which gives a brief synopsis of the history of superstitions and has some great leads for further investigation. I discovered that superstition goes back to the classical Greek period and, throughout history, has been viewed in a negative light. Theophrastus’s book of characters describes the superstitious man.
The superstitious man, having washed his hands in the sacred fount and being well sprinkled with holy water from the temple, takes a leaf of laurel in his mouth and walks about with it all the day. If a weasel crosses his path, he will not proceed until someone has gone before him; or until he has thrown three stones across the way.
Studio Practice
I have also been thinking about studio practice, as Dan suggested, and looking at immersive experiences to get an idea of other designers who work in this field. I found the exhibition ‘Soil’ at Somerset House and will visit in the next few weeks. This exhibition is educational and immersive, which is the direction I would like to go in. I also spoke to Richard Little from Academic Skills, who suggested my final studio practice design could help people and have a purpose rather than just a visual delight, which I like the idea of.