National Museums Liverpool Blog - world cultures

It has been over two weeks since I set out for India to undertake research on the Tibet collections held at National Museums Liverpool. It has been a very busy couple of weeks.

I began my research in New Delhi and the National Archives of India. Here, there are held hundreds of thousands of records relating to the British Empire in India. Of particular interest to me are the many hundreds of records relating to Sir Charles Bell, a colonial officer based in Sikkim, a small Himalayan state on the Northeast frontiers of India tucked in between Nepal and Bhutan.  It was from here that Bell worked as a diplomatic agent for the British Indian government developing and maintaining relationships with Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet. During the twenty years he worked in the area he learnt the Tibetan language, understood, more than most, Tibetan culture and protocols and became a friend of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso.

So far I’ve looked at over 1000 records, memos and reports detailing the relationship between Britain and Tibet in the early 20th century. Now with the help of Tashi Tsering, the Director of the Amnye Machen Institute here in Dharamsala , I am beginning to identify a number of previously unidentified Tibetans found in the photographs taken by Bell that are now in the Ethnology collection here at Liverpool.

Although I am inside working much of the time it is difficult not to look out the window occasionally. This town which sits on the edge of the Dhauladhar Range juts up from the Indian plains and gives visitors their first taste of the Himalayan mountains that lay a little further to the north. The peak I’ve attached to my post is known as Moonpeak and is visible all over town, including from my window, first thing in the morning.

Tomorrow, I fly to New Delhi, India... no, not to take part in the Commonwealth Games, but to begin nine week's of fieldwork which, should result in new research relating to Liverpool's Tibet collections. Although, I'm the full time Head of Ethnology here at World Museum, I'm also currently undertaking a part-time PhD at the School of Oriental and Africa Studies (SOAS), University of London and so I'm taking time away from the museum to carry out my PhD fieldwork.

I will spend time working through colonial archives and talking to Tibetan historians in Delhi, Dharamsala and Sikkim to learn more about the Tibetan and Sikkimese men who worked with Sir Charles Bell, a man who collected several hundred objects and photographs when he lived and worked on the Tibetan frontiers with India in the early 20th century.

I'll keep you posted on my progress and you can also catch me during, what we hope will be, a live video link with the Treasure House Theatre, at World Museum on November 11th.

Here's a small taster of what to expect as I make my way across India. This is the Norbulingka, a Tibetan monastery and centre for the teaching and preservation of traditional Tibetan arts, based just outside Dharamsala. I'll be making a visit here as World Museum has in the past commissioned works of art from the centre.

Yes, you have read the title correctly! Here in the Ethnology department we are busily packing lots of objects ready for them to have their photographs taken, before they go on display in the Global City gallery of the Museum of Liverpool.

This isn't always as easy as it sounds. One of the more tricky objects I've had today has been a large brightly decorated enamel horse, which is almost 1 metre long. The horse has a detachable mane (which looks a little bit like a toupe) and tail that all needed packing together to ensure it looks its best in front of the cameras. It turns out there is more than one way to pack a horse, but I decided on a nice simple solution of strapping the horse into a box, making sure it can't move about while its being transported. You could say, it will be travelling in its own handmade horsebox.

The horse once belonged to Sir Douglas Crawford a well known figure in Liverpool. Famous for the Crawford biscuit business and his work with the Scout Movement, he also in his spare time collected a very specific type of Chinese enamel called cloisonne. You'll be able to see a fantastic group of objects from Douglas Crawford's collection in the new gallery.

You can get quite attached to some of the objects you care for. I couldn't help naming this horse Biscuit, which seems to suit it.

The Volunteers Team would like to send out congratulations to several of our youth volunteers who each passed their Bronze Arts Award last week.

The group of 12 young people (aged 16-25) have all volunteered as part of our Discovery Volunteers project based at World Museum. During this time they met with visitors on gallery and chatted about handling objects, having received lots of prior training from curatorial and education staff.

Our volunteers also attended several Arts Award sessions run by the Volunteers team, including a visit to Plantastic and writing up a project about their Arts Hero or Heroine.

Arts Award aspires to support any young person to enjoy the arts and develop creative leadership skills and is run by Arts Council England and Trinity Guildhall.

We would like to say a big well done to them all!

You can find out more about youth volunteering from v, the national young volunteers’ service.

A few weeks back, during the Easter holidays, our wonderful team of Discovery Volunteers were on hand in the World Cultures Gallery at World Museum.

Each of the 24 youth volunteers underwent thorough training with curatorial and education teams and then put their knowledge to good use on gallery with interesting and engaging handling objects.

Our Discovery Volunteers had a brilliant time meeting with thousands of visitors and chatting to them about unusual objects, including Japanese netsuke and Arctic snow goggles. Volunteers provided information on what the object was used for and also the natural material it had been made from. This interest in natural resources is a key feature to reflect the Wild Wild World programme of events at World Museum to support the International Year of Biodiversity.

As Richard, one of the volunteers explains:

‘The Go Wild! project has made visitors aware of the diversity within human cultures across the globe…raising topical issues that are relevant in today’s present’

Each of the volunteers gave over 50 hours volunteer work on this project and as a result achieved their v50 Award Certificate, a nationally recognised certificate supported by v, the national young volunteers’ service.

If you are aged 16-25 and interested in becoming a future Discovery Volunteer please contact the Volunteer team.

Thursday 6 May is the day people have been talking about all across Liverpool: it's the day our public lecture series features the history of World Museum Liverpool.

Liverpool's Museum - The First 150 Years is the first of three great talks lined up for this afternoon's session. Presented by our Executive Director of Collections, John Millard, the event starts at 2pm in the Treasure House Theatre, World Museum, and is part of our celebrations in the museum's 150th anniversary year.

John's talk will be followed by, at 2.25pm, Collecting Tibet: Objects, People and Places in early 20th-century British India - presented by Head of Ethnology Emma Martin; and at 2.50pm A Place Called Home: Liverpool Court Housing by archaeology curator Liz Stewart.

An impressive line-up for your Thursday afternoon!

Thursday afternoons are never going to be the same again…

I am really excited about our new Spring 2010 Public Lecture Series, which kicks off tomorrow (April 22). It’s being held at the Treasure House Theatre, World Museum, and features a selection of subjects from our museums and galleries’ collections and exhibitions, from archaeology to contemporary slavery.

For the next four Thursdays, our curators will be talking about some of the fascinating things they have researched.

Tomorrow’s topics are Researching 10th to 16th-century Caribbean wood sculpture; Collecting contemporary slavery objects for the International Slavery Museum; and The Huxley Hoard of Viking Silver. Each talk lasts about 25 minutes.

Future highlights include Toxteth Deer Park; Liverpool's court housing and the history of World Museum Liverpool, as part of the venue's 150th anniversary celebrations.

The public lecture series is admission free and runs on Thursdays 22 April - 13 May from 2pm-3.15pm. Hope to see you there!

Hello, it's Claire Olson from the Volunteers team. This is the first official blog post from the Volunteers team, we will be keeping you updated on all the different volunteer activities happening from now on.

We are already well in to the second of three weeks of our Discovery Volunteers Go WILD! project, which links in to our Wild Wild World series of events to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity.

Our friendly team of 24 volunteers have been eagerly sharing their knowledge with visitors and helping them handle museum objects. In fact, last week alone our volunteers spoke with a staggering 1756 visitors on gallery, and this week looks set to be even busier!

You can find our Discovery Volunteers on the World Cultures Gallery from 11am – 4pm, each day until Sunday 18th April. If you haven’t already popped by the museum this Easter then why not drop in, speak to our amazing volunteers and put their learning to the test!

Discovery Volunteers Go WILD! is supported by v, the national young volunteers service.

For the past month a group of 24 volunteers aged 16-25 have been receiving in-depth training, prior to being let loose on gallery with specially chosen handling objects.
 
The group have worked with curators and education staff to learn about objects from our World Cultures gallery at World Museum; looking at how they were made and what they were used for. Linking in to our Wild Wild World series of events to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity, our volunteers also found out about the natural materials each object was made from. The natural resources used are themselves very interesting and include snow goggles made from caribou antler and Japanese netsuke made from vegetable ivory.
 
Our friendly team of Discovery Volunteers will be in the World Cultures gallery passing on what they have learnt to  visitors from 11am - 4pm each day during the Easter holidays - Monday 29 March to Sunday 18 April.
 
Why not visit them and find out more. You will have the chance to quiz our volunteers, handle museum objects and even try some of them on!
 
Discovery Volunteers go wild! is supported by v, the national young volunteers service. You can find out more on the v website and the youth volunteering page of the National Museums Liverpool website.

This week we're looking at a recent aquisition to the World Museum for our 150th anniversary blog series. Here is our Head of Ethnology and Curator of Asia Collections, Emma Martin, to tell us more...

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One of World Museum's first purchases during it's 150th anniversary is quite an unusual one. World Museum has for many years had a fantastic collection from Tibet, which you can see in the Asia section of the World Cultures gallery.

Most of the objects are 100-200 years old, but in the past month National Museums Liverpool has received funding from Friends of National Museums Liverpool and The Art Fund to buy a group of contemporary Tibetan artworks. This group of 12 artworks is the first to be collected by a museum in the UK and is an interesting new area of collecting for Liverpool.

It's a really exciting development as we are recognised across the world as having one of the great collections of Tibetan art. Displaying this artwork will give visitors a chance to see a completely different kind of Tibetan art that deals with global issues of cultural identity and the changing society. 
 
The piece you can see here is by a woman artist called Dedron who lives and works in Lhasa. Using traditional paint pigments, she has created a beautiful painting of a injured antelope. Although the antelope is being watch by the vulture and the whole scene looks pretty ominous, Dedron sees it as a sign of rebirth and the beginning of new life and new ideas. As you can see this powerful painting is surrounded by a carved frame in the shape of the Buddha's head, a sign that the Buddha continues to surround and protect the Tibetan landscape.
 
We hope to have the group of artworks on display in World Museum in a couple of months time, so come along and have a closer look at this beautiful and unique collection.