Call for Papers - International Conference From Malacca to Manchester

From Malacca to Manchester: Curating Islamic Collections Worldwide
23-24th February, 2017
Proposal deadline: Sunday, 25th September 2016 

Proposals for papers are welcome for the two day conference From Malacca to Manchester: Curating Islamic Collections Worldwide, to be held at Manchester Museum on the 23rd and 24th February, 2017. The conference is part of a wider project to catalogue and research collections of Islamic art and material culture across the Manchester Museums and Galleries Partnership (MMGP), and is supported by the John Ellerman Foundation.
In the UK there is a need to better understand the rich and complex traditions of the Islamic world. A 2010 YouGov survey commissioned by the Exploring Islam Foundation revealed that the British public know relatively little about Islam and tend to problematise it as a consequence of exposure to negative media stereotypes. In an attempt to counteract this, UK museums and galleries are using collections of Islamic art and material culture to increase understanding and challenge misconceptions. In Manchester specifically, work on the Islamic collections will inform an exciting series of events and exhibitions in 2017 to mark UK-India Year of Culture, and a permanent South Asia gallery due to open at Manchester Museum in 2020.

Concurrently, across the UK and Europe high-profile museums such as the Louvre, the British Museum, and the Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin, have embarked upon or completed major re-installations of important Islamic art collections. At the same time, smaller and regional museums are developing new ways to work with existing collections. The role of the curator is changing, and previously underrepresented voices are increasingly given space to express personal responses to material cultures. All such projects represent critical opportunities to present the complexity of Islamic art in innovative new ways, reach out to new audiences and utilise the richness of Islamic material culture to promote social cohesion and understanding.

This conference will explore and appraise current and developing practices in the curating of museum collections of Islamic art and material culture around the world, in Europe and in the UK. A keynote address by Dr Stefan Weber, Director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin, will be complemented by a series of presentations, panel discussions, practical workshops, and visits to collections in Manchester including the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester Museum, The John Rylands Library (Special Collections), and Manchester Art Gallery. The conference’s aim is to offer a vibrant and challenging perspective on the field, review ongoing projects and public and scholarly engagement, and explore professionals’ aspirations for the future developments of collections of Islamic art and material culture.
Original proposals are welcome from British, European, and international museum professionals, rising and established academic scholars, and graduate students. Submissions are invited on topics including, but not limited to:

- Recent and continuing developments in the organisation and display of museum collections of Islamic art and material culture.
- The conceptual understanding of these collections (both ‘Islamic’ and ‘art’ as concepts).
- The representation of faith in the museum.
- Presenting cultural complexity engagingly.
- Islam in Europe: in the museum.
- How museum education and volunteer programmes are engaging with this field.

- Outreach and education involving both Muslim and non-Muslim groups.

- Particular challenges faced by non-specialists working with these collections.

- Addressing the longstanding scholarly exclusion of certain regions from the traditional consideration of ‘Islamic world’ (i.e. parts of South and South-East Asia).

- Migration of artistic techniques and transregional interconnection between cultures.

- Approaches to the museum presentation of Islamic artistic traditions alongside those of non-Islamic cultures which are related temporally, geographically, or stylistically.

Guidelines for paper proposals:

Papers will be 20 minutes in length with an additional 10 minutes for questions. Proposals for presentations or panels of up to four participants should be emailed to Jenny Norton-Wright and Stephen Terence Welsh by 25th September 2016, using the following email address: malaccatomanchester@gmail.com.

Proposals should include the presenter’s name, position and institutional affiliation, the paper’s title, an abstract of up to 250 words, a biography of up to 200 words (written in the third person), and a contact email address. Panel proposals should include the above for each speaker, plus a paragraph of up to 250 words describing the panel’s rationale. Informal enquiries in advance of this deadline are welcome. 

Pacific Collections at Royal Museums Greenwich: MEG Collections Visit

Pacific Collections at Royal Museums Greenwich

9 September 2016 1 to 4pm

Royal Museums Greenwich has a small but significant World Cultures collection developed from British maritime exploration in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Pacific artefacts come predominantly from two famous collecting endeavours: James Cook’s three voyages in the 1760s and 70s, and the activities of the London Missionary Society from the 1790s. 

 

Work on a new Pacific gallery for the National Maritime Museum, to open in May 2018, provides the opportunity to revisit these collections, increasing the Museum’s understanding of them, and, through collaboration with Pacific communities, adding much-needed indigenous voices. 

 

We invite MEG colleagues to join us for the afternoon examining our collections and sharing expertise. We would particularly welcome assistance from colleagues knowledgeable on tapa cloth and war clubs, in which our collections are particularly strong. Due to restrictions on store access, the visit will be capped at 15.

PLEASE EMAIL TONY ECCLES to book your place.

Opportunity for Hatton Gallery African Art Curatorial Consultancy

Newcastle University, in conjunction with Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM), wishes to appoint an ethnographic curatorial consultant for the Hatton Gallery’s Redevelopment Project.  This is to deliver the interpretation for a small display of African art objects (the Fred Uhlman collection), which is part of Heritage Lottery funded capital redevelopment of the gallery. 

The work comprises writing an introductory panel about Uhlman, the source of the collection and what it represents, and captions for 20 artefacts, each up to sixty words long.  The consultancy will be undertaken this year with the exhibition installation scheduled for July 2017.

Please contact Lindy Gilliland for the tender brief, and for further information, by 27 July. 

Tender returns should be received by 18 August 2016.

Email: lindy.gilliland@twmuseums.org.uk

Tel: 0191 2781966 (Wed/Thurs)   Mob: 07768570035 (Mon/Tue)

Creating African Fashion Histories

Creating African Fashion Histories

A conference hosted by Royal Pavilion & Museums

with the Sussex Africa Centre / University of Sussex

and the University of Brighton

 

The Old Courtroom, 118 Church Street, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

Wednesday 2 November 2016

 

Coinciding with the first major UK exhibition dedicated to contemporary African fashion, Fashion Cities Africa, this one-day conference will explore the possibilities and limitations of dress and fashion history to discuss current and past narratives in African fashion.

 

Panels will focus on the construction of African fashion histories; the role of African diasporas in the translation of African fashions; new directions in collecting and curating African fashion and the evolution of new platforms for the dissemination of African fashion.

 

Speakers include Hannah Pool (author, Fashion Cities Africa, curator of Africa Utopia), Helen Jennings (author, New African Fashion), Carol Tulloch (author, The Birth of

Cool: Style Narratives of the African Diaspora), Erica de Greef, Angela M Jansen (author, Moroccan Fashion, Design, Tradition and Modernity), Heather Akou (author, The Politics of Dress in Somali Culture) and Victoria Rovine (author, African Fashion, Global Style).

 

For booking and more information:

www.brightonmuseums.org.uk/cafh

03000 290902

Transforming People to Transform Museums Call for Papers

Transforming People to Transform Museums, is a national conference exploring how heritage and arts organisations are reacting to new challenges through radical approaches in partnership working, workforce development and the use of museum and gallery spaces.

When: Thursday 29^th and Friday 30^th September, 2016

Where: Colchester Castle, Essex

Are you a change-maker in your organisation? Have you got big ideas about how to transform the face of heritage and the arts? We want to hear from you. We are looking for submissions from all career levels and all sizes of organisation.

Submissions will be welcomed that explore new ways of partnership working, workforce development and innovative use of spaces.

We are looking for contributions for:

-          Workshop activities (45 mins)

-          Short presentations (20 mins)

-          Keynote speakers (15 – 20 mins)

If you have something to say, we’d love to hear from you. Email us with:

o   Name(s) and contact details, including organisation

o   Summary and title of your idea (no more than 300 words), including structure

o   What you expect delegates to learn from your session

Submissions to be emailed to training.museum@colchester.gov.uk by 5pm on Monday 18^th July. All submissions will be considered and we shall inform successful applicants by Friday 29^th July. All presenters will receive free entry to the conference on the day of their session.  (NB: the conference cost for delegates will be £50 for one day or £80 for both days).

Colchester + Ipswich Museums are transforming their workforce through The Training Museum, generously supported by Arts Council England. To find out more about this exciting project, please visit http://www.cimuseums.org.uk/trainingmuseum

MEG Occasional paper on Cook Voyage Collections now available

Mock up of new Cook Voyage display at the Pitt Rivers Museum

MEG’s latest Occasional Paper (number 5) has just been published. Cook-Voyage Collections of ‘Artificial Curiosities’ in Britain and Ireland, 1771–2015 comprises detailed accounts of some of the most important ethnographic collections from Cook voyages, including those of the British Museum, the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthrpology, the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, the National Museum of Ireland (ex Trinity College Dublin), and National Museums Scotland. As well as providing a wealth of new information about what was collected on the voyages and how it was distributed - including illustrated accounts of recently identified objects at the British Museum, the Bowes Museum, and elsewhere - the volume also contains detailed accounts of what has been done with the collections from the time of their arrival in Britain and Ireland in the 1770s through to today. 

Contents: 300 pp., 106 black-and-white figures; Jeremy Coote, ‘Introduction’; Jennifer Newell, ‘Revisiting Cook at the British Museum’; Amiria Salmond, ‘Artefacts of Encounter: The Cook-Voyage Collections in Cambridge’; Jeremy Coote, ‘The Cook-Voyage Collections at Oxford, 1772-2015’; Rachel Hand, ‘“A Number of Highly Interesting Objects”: The Cook-Voyage Collections of Trinity College Dublin’; Dale Idiens and Chantal Knowles, ‘Cook-Voyage Collections in Edinburgh, 1775–2011’; Leslie Jessop, ‘Cook-Voyage Collections in North-East England, with a Preliminary Report on a Group of Māori Pendants Apparently Traceable to the First Voyage’; Adrienne L. Kaeppler, ‘From the South Seas to the World (via London)’.

The volume is available from: Sue Giles (MEG Publications), Senior World Cultures Curator, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Queen’s Road, Bristol BS8 1RL; sue.giles@bristol.gov.uk; UK, £17.50; Europe, £22.00; World, £26.00 (including postage and packing).

‘These essays contain a wealth of new information about enormously significant early-voyage collections in the UK and Ireland. This book will be a vital resource for all curators and researchers interested in the Pacific, in Cook's voyages, and the issues the voyages raise.’ (Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.)

‘These excellent papers are essential reading for everyone interested in forensic ethnography, cultural relations, and the rude good health of museum anthropology in the UK. Cook-voyage studies, which only began in the 1970s, are in all their permutations, at the foundation of best curatorial practice.’ (Jonathan King, Former Keeper of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum.)

 

East meets West: Understanding and sharing traditional ship models in Western collections

 

As a result of the overseas trading contacts in the 19th and 20th Century between western European countries and China many ship models of junks and other traditional vessels found their way into public and private collections. The authentic models represent the rich and intriguing maritime history of China and serve as a source of knowledge, inspiration and public admiration.

 

In order to better understand these models the initiating museums aim to make an inventory of contemporary traditional Chinese ship models in western European collections and to produce an academic and art-historical valuation, resulting in a traveling exhibition and catalogue. Does your museum hold relevant Chinese ship models? Please join the project and learn more about the traditional Chinese ships and shipping.

 

Initiating Museums: China Maritime Museum (Shanghai/Peoples Republic of China), Institute of Ancient Chinese Ships (Shanghai/Peoples Republic of China),  MAS/Museum aan de Stroom (Antwerp/Belgium), Maritime Museum Rotterdam (the Netherlands).

 

Collaborating Museums: National Maritime Museum (London/Great Britain), National Museum of Ethnography (Leiden/the Netherlands), Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam/the Netherlands). 

 

Contact Address:
Maritime Museum Rotterdam

PO box 988

3000 AZ Rotterdam

The Netherlands

Email: r.anraad@maritimemuseum.nl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COLLABORATING MUSEUMS:

 

National Maritime Museum (London/Great Britain)

National Museum of Ethnology (Leiden/the Netherlands)

Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam/the Netherlands)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

admiration.