National Museums Liverpool Blog - world cultures

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...

A beautiful example of Tibetan art.

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.

Curator Ashley Cooke gives a tour of the Ancient Egypt gallery with BSL interpretation.

Here's Treasure House Theatre Co-Ordinator Jo Connor, to tell us about last week's DaDaFest events at the World Museum!

Last Saturday, the World Museum held a number of inclusive events as part of DaDaFest 2009. Led by Treasure House Theatre demonstrator Paul Netterfield, visitors enjoyed an afternoon of events based on the World Cultures gallery.

The aim was to provide accessible events for visitors from the local deaf and disabled communities and their families. It included a new show from our adult drama group volunteers. The show followed Dr Huw (Dr Who, get it?) as he visited the World Museum to discover more about Earth's various cultures both past and present. He explored the Egyptian and Ethnographical collections and their collectors. Actors from the group also played the parts of the various collectors who had contributed their objects to the museum in its 150 year history.

Our curators also got involved, with Oceania collections curator Lynne Heidi Stumpe, helping out with research and leading one of the tours. Curator of Ancient Egyptian collections Ashley Cooke, also led a fascinating tour around the Ancient Egypt gallery. We were also lucky to have a number of volunteers who helped out on the day, handing out programmes and creating the background for the show amongst many other things.

All of the tours, shows and events on the day included British Sign Launguage (BSL) interpretation to make them more accessible to all. The day was a great success with over 300 hundred people visiting and participating in our DaDaFest events. We hope to see you all again for next year's festival!