Programme 'Matters of Care: Museum futures in times of planetary precarity' Conference 2021

How can ethnographic and world cultures museums use their collections and galleries as spaces which create active discussion around the impact of humans on the planet, while also highlighting what long-term perspectives can tell us about sustainability for developing positive futures? The project TAKING CARE explores the connections between ethnographic collections and questions regarding the climate crisis, the Anthropocene and issues related to the afterlives of colonialism

Thursday, 8 April 2021 10:00-11.15 CET

Taking Care Introduction and In Conversation with Wayne Modest

In the opening session of our 6-week webinar series, project leader Claudia Augustat will introduce the TAKING CARE Project and museum partners. Our keynote speaker for this session, Wayne Modest, will then share his thoughts on museums as ‘Spaces of/for Care’, followed by a discussion with Laura Van Broekhoven.

Welcome from Laura Van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum and Claudia Augustat, Curator at Weltmuseum Wien and TAKING CARE Project Leader

Wayne Modest, Professor and Director of the Research Center for Material Culture, National Museum of World Cultures, Netherlands

*KEYNOTE* ‘Spaces of/for Care’

Discussant: Laura van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum

Watch the recording of this session here.

Thursday, 15 April 2021 10:00 – 11.15 CET

Discussion on Indigenous Knowledge and Community Environmental Justice

In the second week of the Matters of Care: Museum futures in times of planetary precarity conference series, we will hear from two speakers about environmental justice, community conservation and the preservation of environmental knowledge from different global perspectives. Through their experiences, they showcase the diverse ways of documenting and capturing environmental knowledge, discussing the ways that these processes of learning and gathering are ethical and sustainable.

Pauline von Hellermann, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

‘Reflections from environmental anthropology’

Iokiñe Rodríguez Fernandez, Senior Lecturer in International Development, University of East Anglia, UK

‘Becoming (in) visible in environmental justice struggles: using participatory mapping, filming and writing to support the indigenous research agenda’

Discussant: Ashley Coutu, Pitt Rivers Museum

Watch the recording of this session here.

Thursday, 29 April 2021 10:00 – 11.15 CET

Climate Change Activism through Film

In the third week of the Matters of Care: Museum futures in times of planetary precarity Conference series, we are joined by two filmmakers, Itandehui Jansen and Camilla Andersen, who will talk to Lotten Gustaffson Reinius and Thandiwe Wilson about the process of creating thought-provoking films as a form of activism.

Itandehui Jansen, Filmmaker and Programme Director, Film & TV, School of Design, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

‘ Kii Nche Ndutsa (Time and the Seashell)’

Camilla Andersen, Documentary Photographer and Filmmaker, Oslo, Norway

‘Eyes on and from the changing Arctic’

Discussants: Lotten Gustafsson Reinius, Professor of Ethnology, Stockholm University and Nordic Museum and Thandiwe Wilson, TAKING CARE Project Assistant, Pitt Rivers Museum

Watch the recording of this session here

Thursday, 6 May 2021 10:00 – 11.15 CET

Matters of Care: In Conversation with Cissy Serrao

In the fourth week of the Matters of Care: Museum futures in times of planetary precarity conference series, we talk with Cissy Serrao, founder of Poakalani & Company, Hawai’i. Cissy and her family have been creating Hawaiian quilts for many generations. In conversation with Jeremy Uden and Misa Tamura, she shares her thoughts with us on the cultural significance and symbolism of quilting in Hawaiian culture, why the patterns and tradition are so important to keep alive, and how she teaches this exciting and beautiful art.

Cissy Serrao,  founder of Poakalani & Company, a quilting guild and school in Honolulu, Hawai’i

‘The Art of Hawaiian Quilting’

Discussants: Jeremy Uden, Head of Conservation at the Pitt Rivers Museum and Misa Tamura, Senior Conservator on the Talking Threads textile research project at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Watch the recording of this session here.

Wednesday 12 May 2021 15:00 – 16.15 CET

In Conversation with Subhadra Das

In the fifth week of the Matters of Care: Museum futures in times of planetary precarity conference series, keynote speaker Subhadra Das asks us the fundamental question: What is a Museum For? In conversation with Marenka Thompson-Odlum, Subhadra asks us to question our museums, collections, and stories that we tell.

Subhadra Das, Curator, UCL Science Collections, London, UK

*KEYNOTE* Taking Care of Business: What is a Museum For?’

Discussant:  Marenka Thompson-Odlum, Pitt Rivers Museum

Watch the recording of this session here.

Thursday 20 May 2021 10:00 – 11.15 CET

In Conversation with Naman Ahuja and Concluding Thoughts 

In the final week of the Matters of Care: Museum futures in times of planetary precarity conference series, keynote speaker Naman Ahuja will share thoughts on the decolonisation of museums, the globalisation of art history and issues around the showcasing of difference and the inability to translate one culture into the language of another. He will discuss the complexities of taking ideas of a universal museum and global art history to a non-western audience in conversation with Clare Harris.

Professor Naman Ahuja, Curator, art historian and Professor for Indian Art and Architecture at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India

*KEYNOTE* 'From India IN the World to India AND the World’

Discussant:  Professor Clare Harris, Curator for Asia Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum and Professor of Visual Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford

Rewatch the session here.