What is materiality? Many philosophers have debated its various meanings; Kant saw materiality as separate from substance, referring instead to the physical traits of an object. More recent minds have defined materiality more as “the quality of being material”. I think of materiality as the quality of an object that you only experience from handling it or seeing it in real life, as opposed to an image or video. When physically examining some of the objects in the George P. Johnson collection, I definitely felt a better connection to the objects than I would have from simply seeing images of the collection.
My group looked at one of the boxes that contained information about many Black actors and other Black figures that George P. Johnson thought to be important. When reading through the interview transcript last week, he commented on the fact that he basically sought after and saved any information in the form of images, newspaper clippings, etc. relating to Black actors and race film at this time because he wanted to have full documentation on this period in history. Due to the shear volume of information he kept, obviously not all of it would end up being particularly important to historians in the future. This was apparent when viewing our particular box because there were a lot of random names and a lot of random clippings that did not end up being particularly famous. Although not every person whom Johnson collected information on turned out to be significant, he did have great insight to document Oscar Micheaux and his films. These films were a very impactful component of race film in general.
With this in mind, actually being able to examine the plethora of objects that Johnson collected definitely affected my understanding of him and the time period. Being able to hold objects that are in some cases close to 100 years old is just really cool. Additionally, seeing items in person really emphasizes how delicate some of them are. This delicacy and age gives the items a feeling of authority and importance-a part of their materiality–which really makes an impact on how you think about the objects and what you remember about them. I feel really lucky to be able to have the opportunity to work with UCLA’s Special Collections and I believe that these physical items will really aid in telling the exhibit’s story.
I definitely agree with how fortunate we are as students to work with UCLA Special Collections and be able to experience these items first hand! It’s interesting that you say that you felt a deeper connection with the objects because I felt the same. There is something about seeing and touching things in front of your eyes that allows you to change your perception and understanding of something. I think it’s great that the items in the box also came with a transcription of the interview where George P. Johnson talked about his collection and why he chose to keep them. It gives way more context to the items and their significance to the collector. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
I agree with you that just looking or reading about an object online is a completely different experience and it does not have that connection that you talked about. I also felt like all that George P. Johnson decided to save was kind of overwhelming, especially since some of his stuff had no context and seemed irrelevant to us. I liked how you discussed the delicacy of the items as that was something that surprised me when handling them. They do seem to have more authority because of how much history they have preserved, and we are very fortunate to have the opportunity to handle and work with the collection.