Changing Curatorial Legacies

 

In October 2024 the Museum was generously awarded £90,000 from the John Ellerman Foundation for the project ‘Changing Curatorial Legacies’ (CCL). Headed by curators Marenka Thompson-Odlam and Faye Belsey, the project aims to question and challenge traditional methods of curation. 

Outcomes from the project will help to inform and shape the direction of what the future Pitt Rivers Museum will be, including investing time reimagining what new, innovative and collaborative curatorial practice in museums can look like.  

A group photo of seated and standing people within a Museum interior

2025 Workshop 

 

In May 2025 the Museum hosted 14 global curators, cultural practitioners and knowledge holders from Nigeria, Aotearoa, Australia, Greenland, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, California, Kazakhstan, Sarawak, Minnesota, Hawai’i and Uganda for a week-long workshop at the Museum in Oxford.

The programme for the week included time spent in the galleries for critical engagement with the current display practices of the Museum; time spent contextualising the Museum within the wider context of Oxford and the University; tours of the University Museum of Natural history; and an uncomfortable walking tour of Oxford to situate the Museum and the collections within the greater colonial legacy. 

Notes taken during the workshop identified key aspirations and principles which form the basis of a new “celestial map” - a nascent navigational tool the group has developed to ensure that all emerging curatorial ideas and decisions are rooted in the shared values of this diverse group. Aspirations and principles identified in the map include those of centring people, not just collections and prioritising healing, truth and accountability, as well as acknowledging colonial past. A visualisation of the the celestial map is in development for use by the PRM to test ideas for changes to displays, interpretation, cultural care, policy and procedure. The concept is that if an idea does not successfully pass the 'celestial map', then it needs to be re-discussed and re-worked until it upholds all those values.

 

Ongoing activities

Additional suggestions that emerged from the group  for the Museum to action and carry forward such as interventions at the entrance to the Museum to help visitors recognise the gravity of the space as well foregrounding the element of ceremony, through the creation of a ceremonial space. Later stages of the project will involve developing and prototyping some of the ideas within the Museum.

The longer-term vision of the group that emerged from the workshop includes

  • shifting the focus from the colonial spectacle that the Museum currently presents to visitors to one of experimental, ethical and educational engagement
  • envision a museum model centred on people, not just objects
  • reimagine displays, ownership, language and governance structures with transparency and co-curation

A direct outcome of the project is the formation of a ‘Cultural Council’ who will act as a curatorial advisory board to the Museum.

A group of people sit in a circle facing each other on a grassy lawn