
Where is time in the historic house museum? Is it found in the unchanging presentation of furnishings and effects? Or does it hide out in the cracks, tiny at first, which spread slowly across the plaster? Will it lend itself to your experience of a historical period? Do you think it can be earnestly engaged by you and me?
If historic house museums hope to communicate their value to contemporary society, they must develop a new language to describe their activities. Specifically, these institutions must articulate how, in remaining static, the buildings under their stewardship convey something essential about the historical process. To do so, they must direct their attention to the basic unit of historical experience and understanding: time.
Preserving Eagle’s Nest is an exhibit that explores this theme through artifacts and documents. It examines the historic house museum’s language of time by foregrounding the broken, damaged, and decayed aspects of the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s collections and grounds. In interrogating the markers of temporality that occasionally threaten the museum’s elected reign of constancy, it also examines the time and labor invested in preserving the historic appearance of the Museum, finding value in the multigenerational care and expertise given to the project. By focusing on the tension that develops between degradation and preservation, Preserving Eagle’s Nest directs our collective interest toward questions of temporality, effort, and historical stasis.
Specific objects included in the exhibition include a chair carved from oak in the 1500s, European-mounted sea-turtle skulls, photogrammetric scans of decapitated sculptures, blueprints for the restoration of hardscape features in the garden, and elements of fiberglass molding that once decorated the bell tower. In their presentation, each of these items is marked as special, isolated for reflection and paired with an accompanying
It is our hope that visitors to the exhibition will leave with a renewed appreciation for the tremendous work that occurs behind the scenes not only at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum but at the innumerable historical societies and house museums that are assiduously maintained for public benefit.