Representing Africa in British Museums
A one-day event featuring talks by internationally renowned curators, 8 June 2018 at RAMM, Exeter
Objects from the African continent were initially acquired by traders, political officers, explorers, scholars, and missionaries. How well does this material represent Africa?
This question will be explored in a workshop of multi-disciplinary talks, presented by internationally renowned curators and academics of African collections in Britain, including the University of Exeter’s Professor Timothy Insoll (Al-Qasimi Chair in African and Islamic Archaeology, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies), who will deliver his paper, Representing African Islam in British Museums.
The rest of the programme:
Mr Tony Eccles (Curator of Ethnography, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter): Exploring donors, uncovering collections, and transforming displays: the Africa collection at RAMM.
Dr John Giblin (Head of Africa Section, Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, British Museum): Representing (South) Africa in the British Museum: the art of many nations.
Dr Zachary Kingdon (Curator, Africa Collections, World Museum, Liverpool): Rearrangements and Reevaluations of the African Collection at Liverpool’s World Museum, 1895 to 2018.
Dr Malika Kraamer (Independent Curator and Researcher): Kente Trade: African Choices and British Museums.
Professor John Mack (The Sainsbury Research Unit, Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, University of East Anglia): The Rehabilitation of the Fetish.
Mr Stephen Welsh and Dr Campbell Price (Curators of Living Cultures and Egypt and Sudan, The Manchester Museum, University of Manchester): Manchester Museum’s Cross Disciplinary Approach to Representing Africa.
Dr Sarah Worden (Senior Curator, African collections, Department of World cultures, National Museums Scotland): African Collections in the National Museum of Scotland.
Dr Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp (Curator of Anthropology, Horniman Museum, London): Putting the ethnography back into ethnography galleries: Redisplaying African collections in the new World gallery at the Horniman.
8 June 2018, 10.15am-5pm, Gallery 20, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Queen Street, Exeter EX4 3RX. This event is FREE but ticketed – book here.
This event is in association with the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies