Remembering How to Wonder with the Poignant Collection
What do you see in photographs from a different era? Leah Mclaine explores the sense of wonder that she encountered while digitising the Poignant Collection, during her summer internship at MAA.
24 October 2023
Classifying Combs – And the People Who Wore Them
Museums have always described and categorised objects and people in problematic ways. But can this be done more humanely? Eona Bell shows with the example of some combs from Malaysia.
17 October 2023
From Russia with Radioactivity: Misidentified Objects and Hazards
A series of surprises leads Katrina to improve the provenance record of a beaded necklace from Russia, and identify a new hazard in the collections at MAA: radioactive uranium glass beads.
10 October 2023
On Yer Bike: A Review of MAA’s Current Exhibition, Beneath Our Feet
Les, a volunteer, reviews MAA's current exhibition, characterising it as a compelling show spotlighting objects and narratives that serve as catalysts for profound contemplation.
5 October 2023
Elliott’s Anthropological Photographs as Mnemonic Devices
A novice ethnographer takes Cambridge anthropologist Allan Elliott's 1950 photographs of Kusu Island in Singapore back to the island to explore narratives of change and belonging.
3 October 2023
The Story of a Tent and its Gypsy Maker
Cambridge anthropologist Ivor Evans' interest in the heritage of British Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities led to the preservation of objects familiar to rural Britain in the 1930s.
26 September 2023