Job Vacancy: Head of Collections & Learning – National Museum of Ireland

The National Museum of Ireland has advertised to fill the Head of Collections and Learning.   Full details of the post and how to apply for the position are available on the Public Appointments Service Website inIreland 

The post holder will form part of the senior management team of the Museum and will contribute to its management and development. He/she will provide leadership and direction on all collections and learning matters and will ensure implementation of strategic priorities.  The post holder will have overall responsibility for line managing the collections and learning staff (currently numbering 57). He/she will manage 9 heads of department directly comprising four curatorial departments (Art & Industry, Irish Antiquities, Irish Folklife and Natural History), the Conservation, Education and Registration Departments as well as Graphic Design and Photography. He/she will ensure the collections are managed, made accessible, interpreted and researched, realising their education and learning potential. He/she will also, as may be required, have responsibility for exhibition planning and development as well as photography and graphic design.

Applicants are required to apply through the Public Appointments Service website.

The closing date for receipt of applications is 25 June 2015.

Exhibition Tour and Curator's Talk

Exhibition Tour and Curator's Talk

Indigenous Australia, British Museum, Wednesday 29 July

Members to meet by the information desk in the Great Court of the British Museum at 1.45pm, to view the exhibition 2-3pm followed by the curator's talk at 3-4pm.

Mask. Mer, Torres Strait, before 1855 © The Trustees of the British Museum

MEG members are invited to attend the British Museum to explore the BP exhibition Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation and speak to Gaye Scunthorpe the curator behind the show.  Indigenous Australia is the first major UK exhibition to present a history of Aboriginal peoples through objects and to celebrate their cultural strength and resilience.  This 60,000-year-old culture has continued in diverse environments of this vast continent; each group defining their own area, language and tradition.

This show has been met with positive feedback but has also received criticism for conveying the effects of colonialism on the indigenous population.   Poignant interpretation aside, Indigenous Australia is worth exploring.  A review in The Telegraph in April stated that the visitors’ experience is an all-too-familiar account of dispossession, malfeasance and massacres by the British; an approach that is all too familiar to British Museum shows.  Regardless of contention, Indigenous Australia is a visual feast of traditional historic items and contemporary art.

  

This is a free event for MEG members

Numbers are limited and the event can accommodate no more than 20 people, places will go on a first come first served basis.

Those who want to attend should contact Tony Eccles 

Curatopia: Histories, Theories, Practices Museums and the Future of Curatorship

On July 6-7 2015 the symposium Curatopia brings together leading curators, critics and scholars from a range of fields in international institutions to debate critical issues in curatorial histories, theories and practices. 

As museums continue to change in twenty first century, the ‘figure of the curator’ appears to be in flux. What is the future of curatorial practice? Is there a vision for an ideal model, a Curatopia, whether in the form of a utopia or dystopia? The symposium facilitates intense thinking through ‘the figure of the curator’ and will be open to museum professionals, other academics and students. 

Dr. Philipp Schorch (Co-conveners: A/Prof. Conal McCarthy, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; Prof. Eveline Dürr, LMU)

Job Vacancy: Curator at the Ethnographic Collection of the University of Göttingen

The Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, and The Ethnographic Collection of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen are seeking to fill the position of a Curator (Payment group 14 TV- with an unlimited employment contract)
by 1 March 2016. Under certain circumstances, an applicant already employed in a tenured research position with the civil service can be taken over as a civil servant.

Göttingen University's Ethnographic Collection is one of the most important educational and research collections in German-speaking countries. Its beginnings date back to the late Age of Enlightenment. It is the initiative of renowned scholars at the Georgia Augusta in the second half of the 18th century that we have to thank for the artefacts from Polynesia (Cook-Forster Collection) and the arctic polar region (Baron von Asch Collection) making their way to Göttingen. These two internationally unique core inventories form the historical flagship of the Ethnographic Collection and substantiate their international reputations.

Today, the approximately 18,000 objects with origins in Asia, Oceania, America and Africa spanning more than three centuries provide insights into the cultural accomplishments and artistic creations of a diverse number of non-European ethnic groups. The objects are incorporated routinely into research and teaching activities and used for exhibition practice as well.

Your duties:
Alongside the scientific and academic management, systematic research, documentation, maintenance and care, digitisation and expansion of the ethnological collections (specifically Cook-Forster Collection and Baron von Asch Collection), your work of the next years will focus on the conception and implementation of exhibition projects within the scope of both permanent and special exhibitions. Additionally, your duties will entail your own research, the development of research projects, academic teaching in the BA and MA degree programmes offered by the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, fostering student involvement in activities relating to the Collection, managing the provision of ethnographic objects on loan or for courses, authoring and editing scholarly publications and exhibition catalogues, recruiting third-party funds, processing academic queries and supervising volunteers and interns, among others. Public Relations with guided tours of and lectures on the Collection similarly belong to your scope of responsibilities. Ultimately, the Curator is expected to cooperate with the general association of academic collections at Göttingen University ("Collection Initiative").

Your profile:

• −  You have earned an academic university degree at the level of M.A., Master's or an
  equivalent qualification and a doctoral degree in social and cultural anthropology or a
  related subject;
  
• −  many years' experience with museum and exhibition work;
  
• −  experience with major exhibition projects;
  
• −  proof of scientific publications (incl. exhibition catalogues);
  
• −  teaching experience;
  
• −  regional expertise in at least one of the collection’s focal regions;
  
• −  public relations experience for museums and exhibitions;−  communication and organisational skills, with primary emphasis on collaboration with international partners;
  −  highly proficient in written and spoken English.

• The University of Göttingen strives to increase its proportion of female staff in fields where women are underrepresented and emphatically encourages qualified women to apply. Severely disabled persons with the appropriate qualifications will be given priority.
  
  Interested candidates are requested to submit their applications consisting of the usual documents by 28.06.2015 (the electronic form is also welcome) to: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Theaterplatz 15, 37073 Göttingen, Germany or ethno@gwdg.de.
  
  For inquiries, Ms. Kristin Jansen-Enabulele is happy to be available at phone number +49(0)0551 39-7892 or by e-mail at kjansen@sowi.uni-goettingen.de.
  
  Please only submit copies of your application documents. The documents will be destroyed after an archiving period of five months. They shall only be returned if a self-addressed stamped envelope with sufficient postage is enclosed. 
  

New research on South Sudanese material culture

Mrs Powell-Cotton buying artefacts in Warrap, South Sudan (1933).

Image courtesy of Trustees of Powell-Cotton Museum.

I’m pleased to introduce some new research currently being undertaken on South Sudanese material culture. The first phase of this is funded by the British Institute in Eastern Africa and is being conducted by Dr Zoe Cormack and Dr Cherry Leonardi. The aim of our work, still in the early stages, is to establish plans and feasibility for a substantial research project involving these collections.  We are currently scoping relevant collections, surveying associated documentary material and developing institutional links in Europe and South Sudan.

Collections from South Sudan in European museums were mainly assembled between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth century. They were created by an assortment of European travellers to Sudan. The nineteenth century was a period of commercial exploitation in what is now South Sudan, as the region was incorporated into Ottoman Egypt. Some collections were assembled by men such as Franz Binder and John Petherick with close links to the slave and ivory trade. Others where gathered by missionaries – for example by the Italian order of Comboni Fathers.  Collectors like Maj. Powell-Cotton and his wife, who is pictured above buying artefacts in the remote village of Panhomweeth, have also left a considerable quantity of material.  So too have anthropologists who worked in South Sudan during the British colonial period.

Decorated clay bulls, collected by anthropologist Evans Pritchard.

Image courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum (1936.10.85).

Broadly reflecting the nationalities of the collectors, this material is now widely dispersed across Europe. There are important collections in France, Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Holland, Italy and significantly in the UK. Much material is also housed in ethnographic museums in Khartoum and Cairo. Rich photographic and documentary sources are also available. Some collections have been studied individually, but they have never been looked at together.

South Sudan has experienced chronic civil war. Most international engagements with South Sudan are focused on urgent responses to conflict and humanitarian emergencies. Cultural heritage has, understandably, not been prioritised in this context. Yet material culture has the potential to open up the discussion of the South Sudan’s history and cultures at a time when the overwhelming focus of national and international discourse is on war and crisis. One key concern for future work is to address museological questions about working with collections and communities from conflict affected areas.

As well as helping to raise the profile of cultural heritage in South Sudan, we hope that work on these collections will facilitate sustainable links between Institutions and scholars in Europe and South Sudan. This will build on successful recent experiences, for example, The Pitt Rivers Museum’s collaboration with UNESCO to provide historical photographs for a travelling exhibition in three states of South Sudan.

For more information contact Zoe Cormack 

Zoe Cormack