• Canada
• 2012 close

This project brings together UK-based researchers with Blackfoot people in Alberta, Canada, and Montana, USA, to explore the cultural history and contemporary meanings of 5 Blackfoot men's shirts held in the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Collected in 1841, the hide shirts are decorated with porcupine quillwork and beadwork; three, with human- and horse-hair fringes along the sleeves, are ritual garments. There are just two shirts of this age in Canadian museums, and Blackfoot people have had little access to them. However, some cultural knowledge relating to them has been retained, and elders wish to revive traditional practices associated with them. Blackfoot leaders have spoken of the shirts as important for youth and hope that learning about them will strengthen cultural identity: in the words of Frank Weasel Head, Kainai ceremonial leader, 'These shirts are our curriculum. That's how we learn who we are.'\n\nThe project will make the shirts available to Blackfoot people and the wider public for the first time, and explore how historic artefacts can be used by indigenous communities to revive, share and transmit cultural knowledge, and how they serve to anchor social memory and in the construction of identity. It will consider how the transmission of cultural knowledge can benefit different generations, and explore the implications of such knowledge for museum practice.\n\nThrough the exhibition of these shirts at Glenbow and Galt Museums in Alberta, and through handling workshops for Blackfoot people (including elders, artists, and youth), we hope to show how close examination of the shirts can allow for the retrieval, consolidation, and transmission of cultural knowledge embodied in such artefacts. Elders hope that access to the shirts will be a catalyst for reviving the knowledge of the making and uses of them: 'the Elders left us messages, it's up to us to understand them' (Narcisse Blood, Kainai).The exhibitions, an integral part of the research process, will provide an opportunity for discussions amongst Blackfoot community members, helping to raise fragments of memories which will then surface more readily in workshops. Information surfacing within each workshop, eg. relating to the manufacture/use of the shirts, will be recorded and shared with subsequent workshop participants in order to facilitate the exchange and transmission of knowledge. Workshops will be developed by the project team in collaboration with ceremonial leaders and educators from the four Blackfoot nations. An innovation in international museum access, they will be facilitated by a conservator (PRM staff member Heather Richardson, a specialist on First Nations material) and a Project Facilitator (Beth Carter, a Glenbow curator with extensive experience working with Blackfoot people), and will involve Blackfoot seamstresses, elders, ceremonial leaders, and youth. Curators Peers (Pitt Rivers Museum), Conaty and Carter (Glenbow), Aitkens (Galt Museum) together with Brown (Aberdeen), will observe and assist the workshops.\n\nThe project builds on previous AHRB-funded research carried out by Brown and Peers which explored how historic photographs of ancestors were culturally interpreted by Blackfoot people (Brown, Peers et al 2006). Based on relationships developed then and in Brown's D.Phil. research (1997-2000), and on specific community consultations regarding the shirts (2003, 2005, 2006, 2008), this proposal responds to repeated requests by Blackfoot ceremonial leaders, Elders and educators, who wish to study these artefacts to aid in cultural revitalization. The Glenbow and Galt Museums are offering considerable in-kind support including exhibition and workshop space. Outcomes will include an illustrated book with research findings, refereed articles, and a conference to bring together UK museum professionals with Blackfoot people to explore perspectives on such early collections.

The biological membrane is a highly organised structure. Many biologically active compounds interact with the biological membrane and modify its structure and organisation in a very selective manner. Phospholipids form the basic backbone structure of biological membranes. When phospholipid layers are adsorbed on a mercury drop electrode (HMDE) they form monolayers which have a very similar structure and properties to exactly half the phospholipid bilayer of a biological membrane. The reason for this is that the fluid phospholipid layer is directly compatible with the smooth liquid mercury surface. The great advantage of this system is that the structure of the adsorbed phospholipid layer can be very closely interrogated electrochemically since it is supported on a conducting surface. In this way interactions with biologically active compounds which modify the monolayer's structure can be sensed. The disadvantage is that Hg electrodes are fragile, toxic and have no applicability for field use in spite of the sensitivity of the system to biological membrane active species. Another disadvantage is that the Hg surface can only be imaged with extreme difficulty. This project takes the above proven sensing system and modifies it in the following way. A single and an array of platinum (Pt) microelectrode(s) are fabricated on a silicon wafer. On each microelectrode a minute amount of Hg is electrodeposited and on each Hg/Pt electrode a phospholipid monolayer is deposited. The stability of each phospholipid layer will be ensured through the edge effect of the electrode. We will use the silicon wafer array to carry out controlled phospholipid deposition experiments which are not possible on the HMDE. We shall also try out other methods of phospholipid deposition. The project will exploit the fact that the microelectrode array system with deposited phospholipid monolayers is accessible for imaging. AFM studies at Leeds have already been used to image temperature induced phase changes in mica supported phospholipid bilayers showing nucleation and growth processes. The AFM system is eminently suitable therefore to image the potential induced phase changes of the phospholipid monolayers on the individual chip based microelectrodes. It is important to do this because the occurrence of these phase transitions is very sensitive to the interaction of the phospholipid layer with biomembrane active species.In addition the mechanism of the phase changes which are fundamentally the same as those occurring in the electroporation of cells are of immense physical interest and a greater understanding of them can be gained through their imaging. We shall also attempt to image the interaction of the layer with membrane active peptides at different potential values. The AFM system will be developed to image the conformation and state of aggregation of adsorbed anti-microbial peptides on the monolayer in particular as a function of potential change. When biomembrane active compounds interact with phospholipid layers on Hg they alter the fluidity and organisation of the layers. This in turn affects the characteristics of the potential induced phase transitions. This can be very effectively monitored electrochemically by rapid cyclic voltammetry (RCV). Interferences to the analysis will be characterised. Pattern recognition techniques will be developed to characterise the electrochemical response to individual active compounds.The project will deliver a sensor on a silicon wafer which has the potential to detect low levels of biomembrane active organic compounds in natural waters and to assess the biomembrane activity of pharmaceutical compounds. The proven feasibility of cleaning the Hg/Pt electrode and renewing the sensing phospholipid layer will facilitate the incorporation of the device into a flow through system with a full automation and programmable operation.