Friday 23 July 2010

CALL FOR PAPERS, PRESENTATIONS, AND EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

This colloquium will be the third meeting in an occasional series founded and organized by a loose association of researchers with interests in the visual traditions of Eastern Africa. The first meeting, organized by Hassan Arero at the Horniman Museum, was held in October 2003 under the title ‘East African Visual "Traditions": New Perspectives' and led to the publication of East African Contours:

Reviewing Creativity and Visual Culture (Arero and Kingdon (eds) 2005). The second meeting, organized by Chris Spring and Elsbeth Court, was held in September 2006 at the British Museum (in conjunction with the inaugural conference of AEGIS (Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies) held at SOAS) under the title ‘Mbili: Sharing Visual Traditions of Eastern Africa'.

This third meeting has been organized to take advantage of the full reopening of the Pitt Rivers Museum's permanent displays (on 1 May 2010), after ten years of redevelopment work at the Museum and its associated facilities, as well as the opening of two relevant special exhibitions: The Burial of Emperor Haile Selassie: Photographs by Peter Marlow, which opened in the Long Gallery on 22 April, and Wilfred Thesiger in Africa: A Centenary Exhibition, which will open in the Museum's new Special Exhibition Gallery on 4 June 2010 (see Morton and Grover (eds) 2010). Those attending the conference will have the opportunity to see both special exhibitions and the permanent displays.

Given the nature of these two special exhibitions, we would be interested in receiving proposals for papers and presentations relating to visual representations of Eastern Africa in photographs and other media, but offers of papers and presentations on any topic relating to current research into the historic or contemporary visual traditions of the region will be welcome. Offers of papers should be emailed to Jeremy Coote at jeremy.coote@prm.ox.ac.uk by 31 May 2010.

Jeremy Coote (Joint Head of Collections) and Chris Morton (Head of Photograph and Manuscript Collections)

Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

References and Links

Arero, Hassan and Zachary Kingdon (eds) 2005. East African Contours:

Reviewing Creativity and Visual Culture (Contributions in Critical Museology and Material Culture), London: The Horniman Museum and Gardens.

Morton, Christopher, and Philip Grover (eds) 2010. Wilfred Thesiger in Africa, London: HarperPress

http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/

http://southernsudan.prm.ox.ac.uk/

http://photos.prm.ox.ac.uk/luo/page/home/

http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/pdf/MarlowFlyer.pdf

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/Titles/49563/wilfred-thesiger-in-africa-alexander-maitland-9780007325245

This policy explains how human remains are treated within the museum environment and attitudes towards public access and repatriation.

For further information please click here

28 August 2009 - 28 February 2010

Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany 

The British explorer, navigator and cartographer James Cook (1728 -1779) achieved world fame for leading three expeditions into the vast and unchartered waters of the Pacific Ocean. He was the first to survey and map New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific Islands, completing our modern image of the world and finally defeating the idea of a mythical Southern Continent.

The exhibition includes around 500 original exhibits presenting the voyages of James Cook and the international team of scientists and artists accompanying him. Their work during the European Enlightenment period contributed new insights to a host of disciplines (from navigation and astronomy to natural history, philosophy and art. It even led to the birth of a new science: the field of ethnology and ethnography.

As early as the end of the 18th century many of the ethnographic and natural history objects from diverse Pacific cultures, which were collected during the three Cook voyages, were spread into various collections all over Europe. Now, for the first time, they are being reunited for this exhibition in Bonn. Many of the objects are of incalculable value to art historians since comparably exquisite feather ornaments, wooden sculptures and other Oceanic artefacts can no longer be found in the Pacific region.

The Royal Albert Memorial Museum has loaned three items from its ethnographic collection to this exhibition; a Tongan club, an Easter Island staff of authority and a decorated Nuu-chah-nulth working plane from the Northwest Coast Canada.

Token Values showcases items from RAMM’s World Cultures collection alongside modern interpretations from a selection of Guild members. 

RAMM has an important collection of objects from many parts of the world. Some of these items were collected as memories of a journey, as curiosities and gifts of friendship. Traditionally given as gifts to family and friends, items are also acquired because of their perceived beauty or their commercial value.   

Souvenirs are fragments of a time and place but they are also containers of culture, identity and expressions of traditional values. They offer a deeper understanding of the people who made and collected them.   

Inspired by the museum objects, South West makers have used similar craft skills to produce a range of modern pieces, which are for sale. 

The display can be found at  The Devon Guild of Craftsmen in Bovey Tracey, Devon.

Admission is free T: 01626 832223

E: devonguild@crafts.org.uk 

W: http://www.crafts.org.uk