In the Department of Re-Archaeology, objects can only be understood in the context of a historical narrative. 

For this reason, the department focuses on the discovery, analysis and display of precious artifacts. Objects are witnesses, and their story must be told, however by no means told accurately. The identity of an object can and must be manipulated by the frame we put around it.

As contextual alchemists, members of this department pursue the hidden meaning within objects and inherently reject notions of truth-finding.

Matilda Rupertson

Department Chair

Matilda Rupertson had an interest in ceremonial objects from an early age. She spent the first twelve years of her life on the Adak Naval facility on a remote portion of the Aleutian Islands where she had thorough exposure to Aluet shamanistic culture and objects. After receiving a Bachelor’s in Anthropology from the University of Alaska, she traveled to the Kamchatka peninsula to study the atypical jewelry techniques of Koryak and Yakut tribes of Eastern Siberia, ultimately participating in a traveling exhibition on the subject. Matilda’s investigations into the ceremonial objects of remote cultures continued, guiding her graduate degree in Archeology from Boston University, where she specialized in the Civilization of Llhuros during the Late Archaic period.

In the following years, Matilda’s views began to radically shift, becoming frustrated with the human prejudice against non-living, non-conscious things. Believing in the inalienable, individual sovereignty of objects, she rejected the traditional notion that artefacts should be studied solely to understand the exploits of the societies and people that created them. The context and narrative were still imperative for understanding, however, she believed in unearthing the stories of objects for the objects’ sake. 2016, she collaborated with artist John Frum on a series of installations titled “Material Mirrors” where they “took the tools, language and objects of archaeology, put them in a blender and served the delectable concoction that emerged.” Matilda has been the Director of the Department of Re-Archeology since 2018.