Art-eaology

Underground History has recently featured two individuals that have applied their creative vision to the world of archaeology. We spoke with mixed-media artist Sam Roxas-Chua about his time working with the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology’s Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project (OCDP) while he was the artist in residency at the Portland Chinatown Museum (PCM), and musician Stephen O’Malley about his recent event, You Origin, which transformed the Neolithic alignments of Carnac in Brittany into an immersive three-day musical event. While “arteaology” isn’t a word yet, my recent experiences have suggested that maybe it should be.

As we have discussed on the podcast and in the journal, archaeology is facing many modern challenges: budgetary issues, labor shortages (seriously, go get a degree in archaeology!), and the increasing distrust accompanying the post-truth conspiracy-laden era we find ourselves in. Like many other disciplines, we must do more with less, and to me there is no better way to do that than collaboration. Archaeologists regularly team up with— or poach ideas from—geologists, geographers, historians, and so forth, and we are getting better at recognizing the value of partnering with stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds. While most people recognize the intrinsic value of art, I think that its scientific or research value is often underestimated.

During the years of his residency at the PCM, Roxas-Chua visited archaeological and heritage sites across the state in search of the stories of past Chinese Oregonians. He was embed- ded into some of our field projects in John Day, where we were investigating the Chinatown that once surrounded the Kam Wah Chung & Company, which is now a state heritage site. He used audio recordings to hear the descendants of the birds that would have sung to the 19th century residents of the John Day Chinatown and the sound of the creeks and boots flowing and walking across mines abandoned more than a century ago. He made ink from the ashes of long dead fires, and wrote poetry about the art hanging on walls above beds that were long left cold. Roxas-Chua used all of his senses when he visited the archaeological and historical sites, and as a result he was able to observe and absorb so many details that we, as professional archaeologists, didn’t notice. In centering the idea of how a place was historically experienced: the sound, the smells, the feel of the space, he added a humanity to its past residents that is so often lost in the telling of their stories.

In centering the idea of how a place was historically experienced: the sound, the smells, the feel of the space, he added a humanity to its past residents that is so often lost in the telling of their stories.

Meanwhile, O’Malley, of SUNN O))) fame, worked with French archaeologist Olivier Agogue, Directeur du Musée de Préhistoire de Carnac, to transform the more than 100-acre monolithic site into an outdoor venue where “Musical Interventions” could be safely staged for small dispersed groups across a landscape made