Digital Lab Blog

This blog aims to highlight artefacts, stories, histories, and relationships from the collections at MAA. Each post begins with an object or a collection at MAA and explores wider themes including substances of wellbeing and intoxication, process of making, mending, and conservation, digitisation and more!

Explore the most recent blog posts below or use the dropdown menu to filter posts by category. For more stories on collections from across the MAA and the wider University Cambridge Museums consortium, head to the University of Cambridge Museums blog.

Lady Clementine Spencer Churchill and Asmat Shields

In 1935, Lady Churchill donated three Asmat shields from Papua New Guinea to MAA. Nick Stanley explores their journey to the museum, their efficacy, and their relevance today.

Nick Stanley

28 November 2023

Thinking Beyond Repatriation through Digital Curation

Can museum audiences continue to engage with repatriated objects? If so, then how? Alyssa Walton offers one solution for this using the Benin Bronzes at MAA as a case study.

Alyssa Walton

21 November 2023

Water and Starlight: Finding the Zodiac Beaker

A dark bronze beaker in one of MAA's galleries has remained hidden in plain sight. Recently, however, Mark Elliott revisited this object, revealing new connections and questions in the process.

Mark Elliott

14 November 2023

Q&A with the Curator of MAA’s Latest Exhibition

What goes into curating a successful exhibition? How are objects and stories selected? Who is involved in the process? Rebecca Rees explores these questions with the curator of MAA's recent exhibition.

Rebecca Rees

9 November 2023

Learning to Play the 小鼓 (kotsuzumi) with a Noh Musician

An experience of playing two centuries-old 小鼓 (kotsuzumi), shoulder drums used in Noh, make Gerard Davis reflect on silences and music in museum collections.

Gerard Davis

7 November 2023

Student Activism and Spotlighting MAA’s First Indigenous Curator

How can student activism lead to change in museums? Anna Freed explores how an open letter to Cambridge museums led her to researching Mikel Utsi, who curated the Sámi display at MAA in 1947-8.

Anna Freed

31 October 2023

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