The Afterlives of Captured Objects: Reanimating the Gaidinliu Collection Digitally

In the Special Exhibition and Long Galleries of the Pitt Rivers Museum

Free entry

In 1932, a sixteen-year-old Naga girl called Gaidinliu was arrested for leading an uprising against the British in northeast India. She was incarcerated and her possessions were captured by British colonial officers. Those things were then sent to the Pitt Rivers Museum where they have been stored ever since as the 'Gaidinliu Collection'. This is the first time they have been put on public display.

Over the course of a four-year project, researchers from India and the universities of Edinburgh and Oxford made the Gaidinliu Collection accessible to Naga communities using digital methods. The original objects were digitised and 'returned' to the three states of India where Naga people currently live. When shared with Naga community members via workshops, pop-up exhibitions, creative activities and social media practices, the Gaidinliu Collection took on a new life.

This exhibition tells Gaidinliu's story through her possessions and their afterlives when reanimated by her family, her followers and Naga communities today.