16 August 2016 – 12 February 2017 Stitch of a Symbol – Insights into the Textile Journeys of Sheila Paine This display followed a series of extraordinary journeys by Sheila Paine, whose aim was to discover the origins of an embroidered dress seen in a London textile dealer’s shop in the late 1980s. Didcot Case (Lower Gallery)
18 July – 4 December 2016 Chapman’s Northern Lights: Arctic Skies, Rolling Seas, Changing Landscapes This display presented a selection of original prints taken during the British Arctic Air-Route Expedition to Greenland in 1930–31. Archive Case (First Floor)
12 July – 16 October 2016 Kabuki: On Stage, Behind the Scenes This exhibition presented a selection of photographs by Akio Kushida and Stephanie Berger on kabuki theatre, the popular Japanese style of drama established around 400 years ago that still thrives today. Long Gallery
18 March – 29 May 2016 Elizabeth Price: A PROCESSION ‘A Procession’ was the companion exhibition to the Ashmolean’s installation ‘A Restoration’, by the celebrated contemporary artist Elizabeth Price. Long Gallery
30 November 2015 – 6 March 2016 Burton Bros. of Dunedin: Photographs of New Zealand and Fiji by a Late Nineteenth-Century Commercial Studio This display presented twenty-six mounted albumen prints by the Burton Brothers studio of Dunedin, New Zealand. Archive Case (First Floor)
20 October 2014 – 3 May 2015 Scarred/Sacred Water: Tanya Harnett This exhibition presented six large photographic works by Canadian First Nations artist Tanya Harnett. Long Gallery
18 October 2014 – 8 February 2015 A Well-Documented Life: James Arthur Harley (1873–1943) This display considered how a man born in Antigua – and studied at Howard, Yale, Harvard and Oxford – spent his last twenty years campaigning on local issues in rural Leicestershire. Archive case (First Floor)
9 June – 28 September 2014 Star House Pole: Early Images of the Haida Totem Pole in the Pitt Rivers Museum This display presented a selection of historic images – including photographs, drawings and published material – relating to the Haida totem pole on display in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Archive Case (First Floor)
12 May – 7 September 2014 Points of Departure: Photographs from Senegal by Mamadou Gomis and Judith Quax Looking at the transatlantic slave trade and contemporary migration, photographers Mamadou Gomis and Judith Quax examined migration in West Africa in this photographic exhibition. Long Gallery
8 October 2013 – 27 April 2014 Surviving Tsunami: Photographs in the Aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake This exhibition presented visual material from a volunteer-led project in Japan to salvage and conserve historic photograph collections after two museums and a library in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, were destroyed in the 2011 tsunami. Long Gallery
29 April – 1 September 2013 Travels in Finland and Bosnia-Herzegovina: An Ethnographic Collection of Sir Arthur Evans This display presented a selection of twenty-three drawings, sketches and photographs by the archaeologist Sir Arthur J. Evans (1851–1941). Archive Case (First Floor)
23 February – 8 September 2013 Andrea Stultiens: The Kaddu Wasswa Archive A photographic memoir of the life of Kaddu Wasswa, born in 1933 in Ngangwa Village, near Mukono Town, Uganda. His story gives an insight into twentieth-century Ugandan history. Long Gallery
21 January – 21 April 2013 Brazil, Chile, Peru, 1829–32: A Naval Surgeon’s Costumbrismo Collection This collection of watercolours was given to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1933 by a Miss Wakefield. It contains fine examples of costumbrismo, a genre of painting with Spanish origins that became popular in South America in the early 19th century. Archive Case (First Floor)
26 June 2012 – 6 January 2013 Christian Thompson: We Bury Our Own Leading contemporary Aboriginal artist Christian Thompson presented a ground-breaking new body of work, consisting of eight large photographic self-portraits and a video installation. Long Gallery
16 April – 2 September 2012 Reading the Ruins: Alfred Maudslay and the Maya Site of Quirigua, Guatemala This display presented ten mounted prints by Alfred Percival Maudslay (1850–1931), known as the father of Mesoamerican archaeology, alongside related material concerning his pioneering work during the early 1880s at the Maya site of Quirigua. Archive Case (First Floor)
26 September 2011 – 8 January 2012 A Pioneer of Prehistory: Dorothy Garrod and the Caves of Mount Carmel This display presented seventeen photographs from the collection of the archaeologist Dorothy Garrod (1892–1968), which was given to the Pitt Rivers Museum by her friend and executor Suzanne Cassou de Saint Mathurin in 1986. Archive Case (First Floor)
19 July 2011 – 8 January 2012 People Apart: Cape Town Survey 1952 – Photographs by Bryan Heseltine An exhibition of photographs of Cape Town in the early 1950s, a city in the midst of profound transformation, with unique political tensions and conflicts. Long Gallery
11 April – 18 September 2011 The Last Samurai: Jacques-Philippe Potteau’s Photographs of the Japanese Missions to Europe, 1862 and 1864 This display presented fourteen mounted albumen prints and two related engravings from the important Takenouchi mission to Europe (1862) and the Ikeda mission to France (1864). Archive Case (First Floor)
9 December 2010 – 3 July 2011 Disciples of a Crazy Saint: The Buchen of Spiti – Photographs by Patrick Sutherland This exhibition presented photographs of the Buchen of Spiti: ritual experts, actors and disciples of the fifteenth-century ‘crazy saint’ Thang Tong Gyalpo. Long Gallery
22 November 2010 – 27 March 2011 Among the Pueblos: John K. Hillers (1843–1925), Photographer of the American Southwest This display presented eighteen original albumen prints by John Karl Hillers (1843–1925), pioneer photographer of the American Southwest. Archive Case (First Floor)
19 September 2010 – 6 November 2011 Costume of a King A display of a gown that was found in the Museum's textile store without any documentation in 1974. It turned out to be much more important than just ‘probably West African, possibly Nigerian’, as it was identified then. Didcot Case (Lower Gallery)
4 June 2010 – 5 June 2011 Wilfred Thesiger in Africa: A Centenary Exhibition This exhibition celebrated arguably the greatest traveller of the twentieth century, and one of its greatest explorers, Sir Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003), who is most famous for his journeys in Arabia and his sojourns among the Marsh Arabs in Iraq. Special Exhibition Gallery
22 April – 21 November 2010 The Burial of Emperor Haile Selassie: Photographs by Peter Marlow An exhibition of images by renowned Magnum photographer Peter Marlow from Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie's burial ceremony in 2000, twenty-five years after his death. Long Gallery