Matt Buckley: Head of Workshop Publication Requests

MAA has around 270,000 digital images of objects in its collections. We aim to make these as available as possible online. Images up to 1200 pixels can be downloaded directly under a Creative Commons Licence (CC-BY-BC) from our online collections…

Engaging 21st Century Researchers

Monday 2nd July 2018, 12:30 – 6:00pm

A workshop exploring museum engagements with academic and community researchers, related to Engaging Collections Online, a project funded by the Designated Development Fund, Arts Council England.

Photographing Tutankhamun

14 June  – 23 September 2018
South Lecture Room

An unique exhibition exploring the pioneering images taken during the 1920s excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb, by British photographer Harry Burton.

Museum Affordances

What do museums afford? What repertoires of action do they make possible? MAA is the lead partner in a 3-year AHRC-funded project being led by Paul Basu, Professor of Anthropology at SOAS University of London, who will be working with Nicholas Thomas and Chris Wingfield.

Kuruman 2018 Fieldschool

A grant of £6000, awarded to Dr Chris Wingfield (University of Cambridge) and Dr Jesmael Mataga (Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley) from the Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA Research Fund will enable the first full season of a collaborative research at Kuruman in July 2018.

Preliminary Fieldwork at Kuruman Moffat Mission

Preliminary fieldwork in 2017, as part of the larger Re-collecting the Missionary Road project was enabled by a grant from the D M McDonald Grants and Award Fund. The site was visited between 8th and 12th of April by Chris Wingfield and Mark McGranaghan…

Metal on the Missionary Road

This project received preliminary funding in the form of a Cambridge Humanities Research Grant for £18,521. This made it possible for Dr Mark McGranaghan to be employed for six months from February to July 2017 to compile eyewitness accounts and visual evidence in a project database and to begin to explore relevant archival sources.

Re-collecting the Missionary Road

The intention of this project is to re-collect and re-assemble a wide range of artefacts associated with the missionary road. In the longer term, the project will result in a major exhibition at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, scheduled for 2024.

Kholwa

The Longing of Belonging
13 June – 10 September 2017
South Lecture Room

An exhibition of photographs of Zionist Christians in contemporary South Africa, by Sabelo Mlangeni.

Repatriation

The Museum’s governing body, acting on the advice of the Museum’s professional staff, may take a decision to return objects or specimens to a country or people of origin. The University of Cambridge will take such decisions on a case…

Roundtable Discussion – South Africa: The Art of a Nation

27 October: 5:30pm
Mill Lane Lecture Theatre 1

A roundtable discussion between seven curators and academics, visiting from South Africa, to mark the opening of the British Museum’s autumn exhibition South Africa: the art of a nation.

Carriers of Culture: Women, Food and Power from the Congo Basin

October 2016 – March 2017
Spotlight Gallery

Exploring the role of women and food from Kongo in the past and today, MAA’s first exhibition in our rebranded spotlight gallery, is co-curated with the Congo Great Lakes Initiative.

On the Path of British missionaries in the Congo

MAA was proud to work with the Congo Great Lakes Initiative (CGLI) during 2016 on this ‘Our Heritage’ project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The project involved three workshops between April and August, leading to an exhibition that will open in MAA’s Micro Gallery for
Black History Month in October 2016.

Antipodes

22 June – 26 September 2016
South Lecture Room

This new collaboration between the University of Cambridge Museums and the Australian Print Workshop brings together three of Australia’s most respected contemporary artists Brook Andrew, Tom Nicholson and Caroline Rothwell.

Pacific Presences

Oceanic art and European museums European Research Council 2013-2018 This project will explore major ethnographic collections that entered European museums during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and have remained largely unstudied since. Focussing on materials from the Pacific that…

Sounding out the Morning Star – Music and West Papua

Tuesday 10 March – Sunday 22 November
Micro Gallery

Focusing on sound and music in West Papua, past and present, this exhibition draw together items collected in the early twentieth century with personal items from The Lani Singers, a West Papuan group in exile in the UK.

Guidelines for Consideration of Requests for Return of Cultural Property

Proposals or requests for the return of human remains, or artefacts incorporating human remains, from MAA collections, should be directed to the University of Cambridge Registrary’s Office. Full details of the procedure entailed are available at: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/secretariat/remains/ These guidelines were…

The Von Hügel Lecture 2015

Thursday 12 March 2015, 5.00pm
Mill Lane Lecture Theatre 1

Professor Chris Gosden: Art, Animism and Power

Jonathan King: Von Hügel Fellow

Jonathan King is a visual anthropologist, who completed nearly 40 years at the British Museum, leaving in 2012 as Keeper of Anthropology. While he was in London the old Department of Ethnography settled into its new designation as the Department…

The Power of Paper: 50 years of printmaking from Australia, Canada and South Africa

14 February 2015 – 6 December 2015
Li Ka Shing Gallery

From the mid-twentieth century onwards, colonized and indigenous communities began to represent themselves through modern media. This exhibition is a revelation of eloquent prints made by black and indigenous artists since the 1960s.

Julia Norman: Museum Attendant Who Cares? Missionary Heritage Network

Britain was one of the most significant sources of missionaries to Africa and the Pacific during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While histories of missionary activity continue to matter to people in these now strongly Christian parts of the world,…

Fijian Art Research and Websites

Chiefs & Governors: Art and Power in Fiji WEBSITE Political power, sacred value, social transformation and collecting since the 18th century This three-year project, running from May 2011 to April 2014, is a collaboration between the Sainsbury Research Unit for…

Videos

Von Hugel Lecture 2019 by Tristram Hunt, Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Von Hugel Lecture 2018 by John Mack of the University of East Anglia. MAA Curator, Mark Elliott speaks about the stories told by objects at MAA.…

Archival Material

The Museum’s archives are a rich resource that relates to MAA’s collections as well as to the history of the Museum itself and its role in the development of the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology. Among the archives are excavation…

Modern and Contemporary Art

Since the 1990s the Museum has acquired works of modern and contemporary art, especially works that are from communities represented in our great historic collections, or that are otherwise relevant to the Museum. Since a surprising number of the historic…

Photographic Collections

The Museum holds over 220,000 photographic objects, one of the largest and most significant anthropology and archaeology collections in Britain. The Museum has always collected photographs, viewing them as important sources of information. Our earliest photographs were taken in 1860…

Anthropological Collections

MAA cares for works of art and artefacts from Asia, Africa, Oceania and native America, and those representing British and European folklore. Among the museum’s most famous collections are those deriving from the voyages of Captain Cook to the Pacific…

Archaeological Collections

The Museum holds archaeological finds from every part of the inhabited world. They range from some of the very oldest – early hominid tools discovered by Louis Leakey in Olduvai Gorge, east Africa – to medieval and post-medieval finds from…

Tall Stories: Cannibal Forks

15 September – October 31 2010 This was the first version of the artwork, ‘Tall Stories: Cannibal Forks’ on display in the Maudslay Gallery next to the Fiji cabinet as an intervention into the museum’s displays. The artwork comprised 26…

Unlimited Global Alchemy

23 June – 18 August 2012 Unlimited Global Alchemy is a collaborative exhibition project spearheaded by artist Rachel Gadsden (UK). Working with the Bambanani artist-activist Group (South Africa), they explore the psychology and politics of HIV/AIDS and of life-giving medical…

PITOTI

7 – 23 March 2013 • P • I • T • O • T • I • is a multimedia digital rock art exhibition which originated from years of research by Dr Christopher Chippindale and Dr Frederick Baker of…

Gifts and Discoveries

25 May 2012 – 16 February 2013 Gifts & Discoveries is the first special exhibition in MAA’s new Li Ka Shing Gallery. It tells the stories behind some of the outstanding artefacts in the Museum’s collection and traces their journeys…

Eleanor Wilkinson: Teaching and Collections Assistant for Archaeology Chiefs & Governors: Art and Power in Fiji

7 June 2013 – 19 April 2014,
Li Ka Shing Gallery

This will be the first ever exhibition dedicated to Fijian Art outside Fiji. It draws on MAA’s exceptional collection of Fijian artefacts, photographs and archives, a collection closely linked to the early colonial history of Fiji and the foundation of the Museum.

Getting Here

Getting here Cambridge is easily accessed by road or rail and has good transport links to London and towns across East Anglia. Bicycle Cambridge is a ‘bike-friendly’ city with designated cycle lanes on many roads. Bicycles can be rented from…

PhD Research

Curators at the museum are always interested to hear from students who are thinking about pursuing doctoral research relating to museums, and particularly to their own research specialisms. Members of staff who are able to supervise research students are: Prof.…

MPhil in Social Anthropology

The MPhil in Social Anthropology and Museums is a taught course in social anthropology examining artefact-based theory and anthropology in the context of museums, and the history and role of museums themselves. Drawing on historical and cross-cultural comparisons, students are…

Undergraduate Studies

MAA regularly hosts practicals for undergraduate students of archaeology and other subjects. These enable students to get their hands on relevant artefacts from the Museum’s collections, gaining essential practical experience alongside their lectures and seminars. MAA holds a teaching collection…

Creativity in the Bronze Age – a response

2 April – 30 June 2013
An intervention into MAA’s experimental World Archaeology Gallery by a group of seven contemporary craft artists, ranging from artist jewelers to potters:
Mary Butcher, Susan Kinley, Helen Marton, Syann van Niftrik, Julian Stair, Sheila Teague and Gary Wright