5.5 From Documentation to an Instrument or Object Account
An Instrument or Object Account brings naming, relationships, material description, making knowledge, care, use, restrictions, and documentation media into a single coherent record. It should allow someone who was not present in the field to understand what this particular object is, whose knowledge shaped the description, how it lives within practice, what could and could not be documented, and how it connects to the other entities in the archive.
Bring the evidence together
Keep the object identifier connected to the General Instrument Record or other field record, specialised measurement sheets where used, conversation and observation notes, photographs, permitted audio or video demonstrations, consent and access information, and related entity links. The General Instrument Record also includes media references, operator and reviewer information, verification and repository fields so that later database entries can be checked against the original field record.
Before leaving, return the object to the agreed-upon condition and position, account for any detachable parts, and inform the custodian that the session has ended. Check that forms, notes, and media share the same identifier, and that primary files have been safely copied where possible.
Write from the object outward
Begin the account with the preferred name, alternative names where relevant, object type in local understanding, and the Art Form, community or context with which it is associated. Then explain the history of this particular object and the people connected to it: maker, owner, custodian, practitioner and information provider, where these are known. Describe the major materials and parts, how it was made or acquired, how it is cared for, and how it is used.
Do not write a generic encyclopedic description when the evidence concerns one particular object. If the record describes a specific drum owned by a particular custodian, say what is known about that drum. Broader information about all instruments of that type belongs in the Art Form or other appropriate contextual record unless it is necessary to understand this object’s use.
Make the basis of each statement visible
Separate participant explanation, direct observation and fieldworker interpretation. A participant may identify a wood species or explain why a mask is restricted; the fieldworker may observe a crack, repair or colour; an interpretation may connect several observations but should be stated cautiously. Attribute important knowledge and preserve uncertainty. Unknown, not measurable, not applicable and permission not provided should remain visible where they affected the record.
Where bilingual description is produced, check names, part terms, material names, role terms and ritual vocabulary with knowledgeable speakers. Translation should not flatten distinctions carried by local terminology. Identify who wrote, translated or reviewed the account separately from the people whose practice and knowledge the account describes.
Keep media and relationships connected to the account
A photograph, measurement sheetl or demonstration recording is not the object itself. Link each medium to the object identifier and preserve file-specific restrictions. If the object was photographed but not handled or measured, record that limitation.
Return the account for review
Before finalising, return the main description to the people who agreed during fieldwork. Ask them to check names, roles, object history, local terminology, materials, description of use, cultural restrictions, sensitive information, and how the object has been connected to other records. The wider workflow requires practitioner involvement in descriptive and interpretive framing. Review should therefore be treated as part of creating the account, not as a ceremonial approval after the writing is already fixed.
Review access and factual accuracy. Confirm which photographs, demonstrations, measurements or descriptive details may be public and which are restricted or subject to conditions. If later requests differ from an existing consent or licence record, pause further dissemination of the affected material until the relevant rights and access record has been reviewed and, where necessary, amended.
Keep the Instrument or Object Account revisable
An object may acquire new repairs, owners, custodians, uses and meanings. A later maker may identify a material differently; another practitioner may supply an alternative name; the object may move from active use to storage or return to performance after a period of disuse. Preserve dated updates rather than rewriting the record as if the latest state had always been true. The value of the account lies partly in showing the object’s changing relationships through time.
Before completing the account, ask:
- Have we recorded the preferred local name and meaningful alternative names?
- Have we distinguished maker, owner, custodian, practitioner and information provider where relevant?
- Have we documented what is known - and not known - about the history of this particular object?
- Have parts, materials, construction, condition, repair and care been described without unsafe or unauthorised handling?
- Have measurements and photographs been made only where useful, permitted and safe?
- Have we shown how the object is played, worn, carried, manipulated or otherwise activated in practice?
- Have cultural rules about who may make, use, touch, display or circulate it been recorded appropriately?
- Have we distinguished this particular object from the general history of the Art Form or instrument type?
- Are the links to Art Form, Artist, Performance and Space records correct?
- Have participant knowledge, field observation, uncertainty, restrictions and documentation circumstances been made visible?
- Have the description, names, access conditions and sensitive information been reviewed with the relevant people?
If these questions have been addressed, the team has moved beyond cataloguing an object as a set of physical properties. It has created a contextual, traceable and reviewable account of a material entity as part of living practice - an account that preserves form and condition while also recognising makers, custodians, performers, cultural authority, sound, movement, memory and the relationships through which the object continues to have meaning.