Methods of cataloguing1

This project is an attempt to understand the meaning and value that a catalogue can bring and to communicate in a new way through the creation of a catalogue based on a topic of one’s own choice.
A catalogue is a loosely defined and systematised record of a collection. A catalogue always has a purpose and context, and can reveal the components and values of a collection.

In the first tutorial, I analysed a set of my own collections and experimented with a variety of methods to create a new catalogue that reconstructed purpose, meaning and value, including.

Experimentation

The materials I have used in this project are catalogues of Japanese stamps. These are categorised thematically (commemorative stamps, hometown stamps, ordinary stamps…) and arranged in chronological order.

First, the stamps were classified according to pre-war and post-war periods. Because Japan was defeated in World War II and I thought that this outcome had a great impact on Japan afterwards, I compared what comparisons there were between the pre-war and post-war periods.

What was clear was the variation in colour. Before the war, there was less colour variety, as the printing was mainly done in four main colours: red, blue, green and black. Furthermore, the images are similar because the technique of etching was not developed enough.

On the other hand, the post-war period shows an increase in colour variation. It seems that the development of printing technology helped the designs have also become more diverse.

Next, I analysed the motifs depicted on the stamps. The most common motifs were those featuring human figures. Categorisation based on gender showed that most of the people whose names were mentioned were male.

On the other hand, the only portraits of women whose names could be identified were those of the Empress Shang-Emperor and Ichiyo Higuchi. This shows how few women were (and still are) active in society.

What was also interesting was that other unnamed, generalised depictions of women were mainly in ukiyo-e and paintings. This reminds me of the Guerrilla Girls posters “Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?“, where women existed as objects to be seen.

Other notices were that many more motifs and symbols were designed in the post-war period than in the pre-war period.

Feedback

An interesting perspective was that despite the stamps themselves being objects, they are sometimes deeply related to politics and history, and are also identities or symbols that represent Japan and its prefectures.
Furthermore, stamps are, in a sense, a communication tool. Today, messages can be exchanged easily and quickly via email and social networking services, but when the value of a stamp is added to a letter, the message can physically jump over space and generate communication that goes one step further. I also thought it would be interesting to think about a system of combining several stamps.

Other ideas that came up were the possibility of mapping stamps designed with themes outside of Japan. Indeed, stamps are not just for communication within Japan, but can also be delivered to the rest of the world, so I thought this perspective was also interesting.
The idea of email stamps was also interesting. This is a combination of modern digital and analogue methods of stamps. I also received feedback that it is also possible to think about it from an interactive point of view, where people can communicate with each other.

On the other hand, I also received feedback that the number of stamps analysed was too large and that we should try to expand the size of stamps or focus on a few more themes.

Personally, I thought the perspective that stamps can be a tool to jump across space and deepen communication was interesting, so I will consider the final results in this respect.