What Photographs Do
Book
What Photographs Do explores how museums are defined through their photographic practices. It focuses on the huge number of photographs that are integral to the workings of museums yet ‘invisible’, existing outside the structures of ‘the collection’. These photographs raise complex questions about how such accumulations of photographs create the values, hierarchies, histories and knowledge-systems, through multiple, folded and overlapping layers that might be described as the museum’s ecosystem.
The India Museum Revisited
Book
Arthur MacGregor’s book provides a full examination of the India Museum’s founding manifesto and evolving ambitions. It surveys its multi-faceted collections – with respect to materials, their manufacture and original functions on the Indian sub-continent – as well as the collectors who gathered them and the manner in which they were mobilized to various ends within the museum.
Nazi-Era Provenance of Museum Collections
Book
Jacques Schuhmacher’s research guide equips readers with the knowledge and strategies essential for confronting the shadow of the Nazi past in museum collections. The author provides the vital historical orientation required to understand the Nazis’ campaign of systematic dispossession and extermination, and highlights the environment in which museum-based Nazi-era provenance research takes place today.
Crafting Medieval Spain
Online
Crafting Medieval Spain focuses on four monumental wooden ceilings from the Torrijos palace, near Toledo. The interdisciplinary project investigates how Islamic techniques were adapted to Gothic taste and how artistic heritage was dispersed in the 1900s while addressing issues of display, conservation and restoration.
Connecting Threads
Online
Connecting Threads is a collaborative digital history project dedicated to amplifying the contributions of Indian weavers and African Caribbean consumers to global histories of dress.
Unearthed
Online
‘Unearthed’ is a poetry film by Amina Jama. It responds to items in the V&A’s archive showcasing stereotypical depictions of people of colour throughout time.
Play in the Pandemic
Online
Play in the Pandemic is an online exhibition celebrating how play empowered children's resilience, well-being, and creativity during the pandemic. The exhibition showcases children's artworks, games and films across the UK that were submitted to the Play Observatory.
Chinese Iconography Thesaurus
Online
The Chinese Iconography Thesaurus combines sinology, art history and information studies to create the first thesaurus of Chinese iconography, a valuable research tool enhancing the accessibility and understanding of Chinese art. The CIT was launched with a grant from DCMS and subsequent sponsorship from the Bei Shan Tang Foundation.
Open-source speculum
Online
This blog series is part of a strand of research on the project, Content/Data/Object. The project explores how museum practices can broaden access to digital works so that their design processes can be enjoyed well into the future.
