UNSETTLED OBJECTS: POST-COLONIAL PERCEPTIONS OF BELONGING, EXILE AND HOME

UNESCO Chair Refugee Integration Through Language and the Arts and Glasgow Museum's Virtual global forum 

28-30 September 2021 

An evaluation of centuries of European colonialism is at last emerging and moving to centre stage. Museums, archives, universities and related institutions whose own histories are inextricable from colonialism are being forced to examine their practices unquestioned for centuries.

For many indigenous peoples their history, identity, culture and traditions are often contained within their artefacts. However, for over 300 years many activities associated with colonialism have resulted in colonised peoples being physically separated from their material heritage which may now exist only in museum or archive collections.

How can entrenched ways of seeing, collecting, conserving, and curating the knowledge and material inherited from imperial collecting become inverted, subverted, and diverted?

How can colonial institutions function as both a target of criticism and a means through which colonising nations re-evaluate their colonial past?

Can museum objects themselves act as catalysts for critique and reinvention?

The volume of demands for accountability, transparency, and repair for injustice past and present is increasing. Conversations are often harder to hear than accusations, condemnation or dismissal. We want to start these conversations. 

Themes for Unsettled Objects: Global Repatriation Forum:

• Place: Who decides whether an object or objects are in the right place? How do we define that place? Do objects have a ‘home’
• Relationships: objects define and can be defined by their relationships with people and cultures. Objects can tell many stories, sing many songs. Whose stories are we listening to? How do the stories that get told affect the objects?
• Fragmentation and dispersal: Often the true importance of sacred objects to the people and cultures who created them are obscured or hidden. They may only be whole when united with the legends, songs, and ceremonies associated with them. Can the material objects survive the separation from their sacred intangible whole? What is lost when a collection is fragmented and dispersed? Who loses? Who gains?

Full details and how to sign up available through University of Glasgow website. 

Job: Programme Manager: African Histories and Heritage Collaborative Programmes, British Museum

Programme Manager: African Histories and Heritage Collaborative Programmes 

Fixed-Term (5 years)
£49,962 per annum
Application Deadline: 12pm on 27 April 2021

The British Museum is seeking an experienced Programme Manager to plan and deliver an exciting and complex externally-funded research and public engagement programme in collaboration with curatorial and research staff. The African Histories and Heritage Collaborative Programmes will involve working with partners nationally and internationally in the development and delivery of innovative, collaborative projects with a focus on diverse African histories and heritage, including pre-colonial African histories and global connections, and shared African-British history and heritage.

In this role you will lead on strategic budget and resource planning, and the reporting and management of the programme and its projects. This will involve the development and delivery of operational, financial, contractual and governance frameworks to ensure successful collaboration and the timely delivery of the programme. You will be responsible for coordination of the programme and activities with partners, managing dependencies and the different priorities of collaborative partners.

Full details on the British Museum website 

PhD Opportunity: Tan See Bock Studentship at Northumbria University

Northumbria University Gallery holds the Woon Collection of Asian Art, which includes a significant number of rare ancient Chinese bronzes including a standing and a seated Acuoye Guanyin both from the late Nanzhao Kingdom (AD 653-902) and an Amitabha Buddha and a Vairocana Buddha, both seated in Dhyanasana pose, from the Dali Kingdom (AD 937-1253). The project would further our understanding of the histories, iconographies, collecting and display of ancient Chinese bronzes in the Woon Collection and other collections around the world, as well as their composition and methods of manufacture. The successful PhD student would help shape our understanding of the best approaches to the care, interpretation and exhibition of ancient Chinese bronzes in museum collections and the influences on the technology used. Although there is research on the history of early Chinese bronzes from this area, there is little from the technological perspective. 

Full details available here.

History Makers grants of £90k available - AIM Biffa Award

Museum Ethnographers Group members are encouraged to have a look at the AIM Biffa Award History Makers grant programme.

Eligible organisations can apply for grants of up to £90,000 to create an exhibition telling the story of their chosen History Maker – someone who helped shape the world we live in today.

All the details can be found on the AIM website. 

We’ve already funded some great projects celebrating history makers from the worlds of education, engineering, sport, health and science, but we want more.

We are looking for projects that use the life and achievements of extraordinary historical figures to inspire and educate people today.

Your History Maker may not be a well-known public figure, but their life and/or work will have helped shape the world we live in today. People are making history all the time, so we are happy to consider history makers from any period, including more recent history.

We want the programme to be as representative of the population as possible, so are particularly keen to hear from projects based on women who made history and history makers from diverse backgrounds.

The programme is open for Expressions of Interest now until the end of September, with the final application deadline at the end of October.

Please feel free to contact Tim Burge, History Makers Project Manager at historymakers@timburge.org if you’d like to discuss a possible application and please pass this message on to any others who might be interested.