Making the Pitt Rivers Museum
Making the Pitt Rivers Museum
Podcast Description
Lieutenant-General Pitt-Rivers did not make the museum in Oxford that bears his name, or the objects within it. The real makers of the museum are the people who lived (and live) outside its walls; who made and used the objects on display, and the people whose lives are captured in the photograph collections. Yet these makers have often been silenced within the Museum's displays, labels, catalogues and exhibitions, which have historically focused on collectors, cultures, and curators.
Join the Making the Museum project team for a behind-the-scenes look at how we are trying to redress this balance in the information the museum holds about its collections. You’ll not only hear from researchers and museum professionals but also practitioners, artists, and other modern makers from communities around the world. As we collaborate, you’ll hear about it, giving a real-time insight into the inner workings of the museum.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
Focuses on the interplay between community makers and museum collections, with episodes discussing archival sound in music, collaborative projects such as X and Rawz’s, and the historical silencing of local creators in museum narratives.
Lieutenant-General Pitt-Rivers did not make the museum in Oxford that bears his name, or the objects within it. The real makers of the museum are the people who lived (and live) outside its walls; who made and used the objects on display, and the people whose lives are captured in the photograph collections. Yet these makers have often been silenced within the Museum’s displays, labels, catalogues and exhibitions, which have historically focused on collectors, cultures, and curators.
Join the Making the Museum project team for a behind-the-scenes look at how we are trying to redress this balance in the information the museum holds about its collections. You’ll not only hear from researchers and museum professionals but also practitioners, artists, and other modern makers from communities around the world. As we collaborate, you’ll hear about it, giving a real-time insight into the inner workings of the museum.
The University’s inaugural San visiting fellow Kileni Fernando speaks about the significance of the San community items in our collection. Join us to hear about stealing fire from ostriches and shapewear made from ostrich egg shells! Content note: In this episode we will be discussing terminology used in museum labels that is outdated and that has historically been used in a derogatory way. Be aware that this discussion occurs between 20’30” and 23’50” (following the discussion of ostrich eggshell water containers).
Kileni Fernando is the inaugural San Visiting Fellow at the Pitt Rivers Museum, co-sponsored by the Africa Oxford (AfOx) Initiative and developed in association with the !Khwa ttu San Heritage Centre. She is a !Xung-speaking San woman from Namibia, currently pursuing a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree with the Open University of Tanzania.
Since 2017 Kileni has acted as a voice for the San as a development consultant for the !Khwa ttu San Heritage Centre on the West Coast of South Africa. She is a co-founding member of an indigenous San youth organisation called Ana-Djeh San Trust (AST). Kileni has completed several courses on marginalization & inequality, as well as a diploma in legal history. She has also volunteered as a community facilitator for the Women’s Leadership Centre (Windhoek, Namibia) on the project “Speaking for ourselves, Voices of the San Young Women”.
In this episode, listen to some of the work she has been doing with the Making the Museum project to improve the categorisation of San materials within the museum database and change the understanding and presentation of San collections within the museum.
Find out more about Kileni and her work at https://www.afox.ox.ac.uk/person/kileni-fernando.
For more about the !Khwa ttu San Heritage Centre: https://www.khwattu.org/
For information about the AfOx Initiative and the AfOx fellowship programme: https://www.afox.ox.ac.uk/
To learn more about the work the museum is doing to address the terminology used in its historic labels, check out the work of the Labelling Matters project: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/labelling-matters
Want to follow along when we’re talking about collections items? This episode features the following items from the Pitt Rivers collection (in order of appearance):
Denise Gross collection rock art rubbings (not yet individually catalogued – link to the YouTube channel for videos of these items below)
Ostrich eggshell water carrier (accession no. 2004.142.1110)
Ostrich eggshell water carrier (accession no. 1970.11.1)
Ostrich eggshell waist beads (accession no. 1886.1.492.1)
Tortoise shell powder carrier (accession no. 1990.25.1)
You can also see these conversations in video on the Making the Museum playlist on our YouTube channel: Making the Museum playlist – Pitt Rivers Museum YouTube channel
This episode features music from the Kalahari San community, featuring a gut pluriarc and 3 men’s voices, kindly provided (with permission of the copyright holder) by Dr Chris Low of the !Khwa ttu San Heritage Centre, recorded by Megan Biesele and Nicholas England. Copyright Megan Biesele and Nicholas England.
You will hear from (in order of appearance):
Dr. Rebecca (Becky) Martin (she/her) – Research Project Officer, Making the Museum project
Dr. Beth Hodgett (they/them) – Postdoctoral Researcher, Making the Museum project
Kileni Fernando (she/her) –AfOx Fellow and !Khwa ttu Heritage Centre consultant
Dr. Christopher Morton (he/him) – Principal Investigator, Making the Museum project
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