An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Collections Team of the Plymouth Arts and Heritage Service in Plymouth City Council. They are looking to appoint a Curator with experience in managing Social and Maritime History collections. The post will work with the wider service to help deliver the Plymouth History Centre project. This ambitious £34m scheme is due to complete in 2020 and will include a variety of new gallery spaces, learning and research facilities and public spaces, including a new public piazza. Further information on the Plymouth History Centre project can be found here.
This post will specifically work with the gallery development team to take the Port of Plymouth gallery through to detailed design stage, helping with story development, script-writing, object assessments and image and asset research. It will also be responsible for supporting the Decant Officer develop the plans for the recant of maritime and social history collections to the Plymouth History Centre in 2019. Full details and how to apply can be found here. Please note this post is not available for job-share. For more information or an informal discussion contact Louisa Blight on 01752 307590Closing date: Monday 15 May 2017Anticipated interviews: TBC
9 May 2017
China Art Research Network (CARN)
CARN brings together art historians, archaeologists, museum and art world professionals who specialise in China and who work on object-based research in disciplines including history, technical art history and conservation. At the core of CARN is research, with an emphasis on a range of materials from Chinese painting to jade carvings. The network was launched March 1, 2016 with a 24-month grant from Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) Art and Humanities Networks scheme.
On the website interested parties are able to sign up for membership, where access to the first CARN Newsletter which has abstracts from the first colloquium and other information as well is available. This form under MEMBERSHIP.
Once a member, information can be sent about events/exhibitions/etc relating to Chinese art. It could be also about new developments in the museum regarding Chinese art.
Musical Instruments Resource Network (MIRN) Conference
Theme:
The Life
Cycle of Musical Instruments and MIRN’s first Q&A surgery
Date: Thursday, 12th October, 2017
Venue: Horniman Museum and Gardens,
London, SE23 3PQ
Musical
instruments can have curious and complex biographies! They often accumulate
layers of wear, accretion, repair and modification, presenting challenges to
all who come into contact with them.
This conference
will explore the myriad ways that musical instruments have been adapted to
extend their working lives, and the rationale behind such adaptations. What are
the outcomes when new and old materials and past and present working practices
meet? What values are relevant when we repair or change musical instruments,
and how do we formulate an approach to accretions and interventions?
MIRN invites
contributions from musicians, dealers, instrument makers/restorers,
conservators, researchers and curators who have played on or worked with
instruments that have undergone change, or who have themselves been agents in
that change. Contributions may address general issues, relay a specific case
history, or be a combination of both. Presentations may take the form of 5
minute (plus 5 minutes questions), 10 minute (plus five minutes questions) or
20 minute (plus 10 minutes questions) talks or talk/demonstrations. Panel
discussions of 60 or 90 minutes, examining one issue or instrument from a
variety of perspectives would also be welcome.
Following the
presentations, MIRN will hold its first musical instrument Q&A surgery
where members of the audience, who may bring (small) instruments or photographs
with them, will be invited to pose questions to a panel of specialists. NB It will
not be possible to accommodate questions regarding the valuation of individual
instruments.
The conference day
will be brought to a close with MIRN’s AGM to which all members are invited,
followed by a social hour at a nearby pub.
Submit proposals
by 5pm BST 10th June 2017 to enquiries@mirn.org.uk with the subject line: CONF2017.
Proposal
submission guidelines:
·
For 5 minute
presentations: not to exceed 250 words
·
For 10 minute
presentations: not to exceed 300 words
·
For 20 minute
presentations: not to exceed 400 words
·
For panel
discussions of 60 minutes: 3-4 speakers, submit one proposal not exceeding 450
words.
·
For panel
discussions of 90 minutes: 4-6 speakers, submit one proposal not exceeding 500
words.
All proposals must
include the proposer’s name, address, email address and institutional
affiliation (if any). Each must state clearly the type of presentation for
which application is being made. All prospective panel members must be listed
and their individual details included as above. All proposals must be submitted
electronically as Microsoft or Microsoft-compatible WORD documents attached to
an email. Acceptances will be notified by 1st July.
The conference
registration fee will be £25 (MIRN members), £20 (MIRN members who are retired,
students or unwaged) or £30 (non-members), to include all presentations, lunch,
coffee, tea and a tour of the Horniman Music Gallery. Registration will open in
July.
At the beginning of
October 2016, Mrs Vicky Karelia realised one of her life’s ambitions when the
‘Victoria G Karelia Collection of Traditional Greek Costumes’ opened in Kalamata,
the main city in Greece’s southern Peloponnese but still relatively unexplored
as a travel destination. Built around her
personal collection, painstakingly amassed over many years, the display has
over 90 fully dressed mannequins, making it one of the most comprehensive
collections of women’s and men’s costumes from the Greek Islands and Mainland,
spanning around 200 years. These
beautifully embroidered costumes are complemented with the correct accessories
and jewellery.
A listed, 19th century house, has been specifically and lovingly restored to house this Collection. It benefits from a tasteful, state of the art display, and visitor experience is enhanced through the use of hand-held computer tablets, allowing detailed magnification of the exhibits, along with supporting text in English.
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Jacqui Hyman MA(Res), ACR, freelance Textile Conservator, visited the
museum last December and was so impressed with the stunning array, the stories
behind each and their professional display, that she wanted to bring them to
the wider attention of textile and costume enthusiasts. Anyone wanting further information, or
wishing to join a week’s private tour to Kalamata, including the opportunity
for in-depth study of the Collection, now being arranged for 23rd -
28th September 2017, should contact Jacqui by e-mail on j.hyman@textilerestoration.co.uk
or by ‘phone on 0161-928-0020. This
tour, limited to a maximum of 16 people, will also offer the opportunity to
discover two of the area’s most important archaeological sites, Mystras and
Ancient Messini.
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Request for information about
West Africa historic ‘woolen blankets’ from Mali and the ‘Niger Bend’ area, housed
in UK museums.
This request is from Bernhard Gardi, a very well
regarded West African textiles specialist from Basel, he is writing a book on
woolen blankets from the ‘Niger Bend’ area, and seeking information about
collections in the UK. His last book was "Woven
Beauty", 2009.
Information
about the book and the textiles.
The inspiration for the book is a set of tremendous
images from Ghana showing woolen blankets from the Niger Belt in use in Akan
society, taken by Michelle Gilbert also from Basel.
Bernhard is interested in all sub-Suharan wollen
blankets, and in particular in ones from Mali called ‘kaasa’ blankets. In Ghana, the Akan society uses these blankets and
call them ‘nsaa’. Until recently everybody thought these blankets were
made of 'camel-hair'.
In UK collections they are often wrongly documented as
‘camel-hair blankets’, ‘Kano blankets’ or ‘blankets from the Hinterland’, and most were bought in Ghana, so
could also be documented as Ghanaian, but they originate from Mali.
Bernhard would be very grateful if you could let him
know if you have any Sub-Saharan blankets in your collection. For more information and images Bernhard has
produced a very good PP presentation that he can send to you to help you identify
these textiles, here are his contact details: Bernhard Gardi bernhard.gardi@bluewin.ch tel: 0041-61-271 43 83.
Here is some
more information from Bernhard:
Most early woolen blankets from Mali were bought in
Ghana and not in Mali. For the Akan society they are ritually important,
but they don't really know for what reason anymore, only what comes from up
north has a special ‘power’ for them. They were too numerous in Mali to awake
any interest to the French. As they were rather rare and special and expensive
in the south, Germans, Swiss and British bought them. In Anglophone museum
collections or even in Anglophone dictionaries they go as 'camel-hair
blankets', as 'Kano blankets', as 'blankets from the Hinterland' and the like.
It is interesting to realize the cleavage between the two
imperial policies, French and British. The British didn't care about the
French territories and cultures - and vice versa. That's why the British Museum
has very few Malian textiles. Claude Ardouin, in charge of the African
collection (10, 15 years ago), tried to buy what he could get them. He did
it through my old friend Kolado Cissé, still textile dealer in
Bamako, ca. 66 years old by now.
There is a Mali-Ghana connection. Yes.
What about a Mali-Berber connection? Why are men
weaving in West Africa and not women as it is the case in the Maghreb? Why do
men in sub Saharan Africa weave on treadle looms and not on a vertical loom or
on a ground loom as the Berbers do? So what about that famous trans Saharan
trade? Such and other questions bother me.
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