Flashback Friday: Revisiting Zorn

Elayne Zorn spent many years and much of her professional career as a museum collector and anthropologist in the Andean regions of Peru and Bolivia. Although it was her interest in textiles and traditional weaving techniques that first brought Zorn to the Island of Taquile in Peru, she was also a musician and took a great interest in festivals (see Fiesta Fiesta in the Elayne Zorn collection). When Elayne passed away in 2010 her son donated her large collection of musical instruments, textiles and archival materials to the National Museum of the American Indian.

Men playing charangos at a festival in Puno, Peru. Elayne Zorn collection. National Museum of the American Indian, Archives. Smithsonian Institution. 

Field notebook from Taquile, Peru, 1975-1976. Box 1, Folder 6 Elayne Zorn collection. National Museum of the American Indian, Archives. Smithsonian Institution. 

Often times as archivists we become attached to certain collections, or more specifically to the people whose papers we can spend months getting intimately acquainted with. For me, the Elayne Zorn collection has always been one I have held close. Processing Elayne’s collection of field notes, tens of thousands of photographs and array of other materials was one of the first projects I was assigned as a professional at the NMAI back in 2011. Soon after finishing the collection I had the pleasure to work with Aymar Ccopacatty an Aymara artist participating in the 2012 NMAI Artist Leadership program. Aymar, who learned traditional weaving techniques from his grandmother in Puno, Peru, was the first researcher to look at the Zorn materials. He immediately recognized individuals in the photographs from Puno, Peru and requested scans to take back to his community.

Festival in Puno, Peru, 1989.  Elayne Zorn collection.
National Museum of the American Indian, Archives.
Smithsonian Institution. 

Festival in Puno, Peru, 1989. Elayne Zorn collection.
National Museum of the American Indian, Archives.
Smithsonian Institution. 

Since 2012 I had little opportunity to engage with the Zorn collection. This past year however a project to survey the object collections and enhance their records, led by Maia Truesdale-Scott, has brought attention back to the archival materials. Because of Maia’s work, departments across the museum, scholarship, collections management, conservation, registration and archives, have come together to examine the collection as a whole. This work has also given me the chance to reconnect with Aymar who was recently brought in by our conservation department as a consultant to review textiles. Due to the advancement of digital projects at NMAI in the last five years it is now much easier for us to digitize and make available the Puno photographs in the Zorn collection using the SOVA (Smithsonian Online Virtual Archive). Moving forward the Archive Center, working collaboratively with Aymar, will be able to ensure these images find their way back to the community where they were taken.

For more information about Maia’s work on the Zorn collection be on the lookout for an upcoming blogpost!

For more information on Aymar’s art visit: http://aymart.org/blog/

Rachel Menyuk, Processing Archivist
National Museum of the American Indian, Archive Center