Crafting the Past: Mission Models and the Curation of California Heritage

Abstract

Small-scale representations of the California missions in the form of mission models and miniatures have circulated in public and private display contexts for close to a century. Produced by students, hobbyists, preservationists, and artists, this material culture constructs, in specific and codified ways, an ideal mission materiality. For almost a century the mission models have been consumed through the distinct discursive practices of crafting, collecting, displaying, and buying. The models allow me, therefore, to trace the production of cultural memory in daily life through the materialization of heritage constituted through formal and informal practices, across personal and public spheres, and over multiple generations. In their representation of landscape, labor, and Native Americans, these discursive cultural artifacts contribute to the construction of a highly politicized past that reinforces a romanticized and valorized presentation of colonialism. A postcolonial critique of the models also raises questions regarding the roles of heritage professionals in mediating community-curated history.