Taking Care Introduction & In Conversation with Wayne Modest
Thursday 8 April, 9.00 - 10.15
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.
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.
*KEYNOTE* Spaces of/for Care
Speakers:
Wayne Modest is the Director of Content, National Museum of WorldCultures, Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, Head of the Research Center of Material Culture and Professor of Material Culture and Critical Heritage Studies in the faculty of humanities at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (VU). Modest was previously head of the curatorial department at the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, Keeper of Anthropology at the Horniman Museum in London and Director of the Museums of History and Ethnography in Kingston, Jamaica.
Dr Claudia Augustat is head of the project Taking Care: Ethnographic and World Culture Museums as Spaces of Care, co-funded by the European Union and initiated in October 2019. Claudia has been curating the South America collections at Weltmuseum Wien since 2004. Her research focuses on collections from the Amazon and Tierra del Fuego, material culture and cultural memory, museum and colonialism, collaborative curatorship and decolonising museum practice.
Discussant:
Dr Laura Van Broekhoven is the Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Laura's current research interests include decoloniality, reconciliation and redress, with a focus on the importance of collaboration, inclusivity and reflexive inquiry.
