Past exhibitions | Pitt Rivers Museum

Beaded hide skirt with hide tassels. The skirt was made prior to 1940 and would have been worn during the Marmo ritual initiating young Iraqw girls into womanhood. (Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Accession Number: 1940.7.0114)

29 October 2018 – 11 March 2019

A Tradition Continued: Iraqw Beaded Skirts Old and New

Iraqw skirts are amongst the most elaborately decorated textiles from eastern Africa. Each skirt is unique, the design being a product of the skill of the individual maker and the resources available.

Didcot Case (Lower Gallery)

intrepid women image 18 main image

15 October 2018 – 11 March 2019

Intrepid Women: Fieldwork in Action, 1910–1957

This exhibition focused on six of the Pitt Rivers Museum’s most important female collectors and their fieldwork carried out between 1910 and the late 1950s.

Special Exhibition Gallery

Votive object (Tibetan: tsa-tsa) depicting Palden Lhamo. Acquired by Augustus Pitt-Rivers before 1884 and donated as part of the Pitt Rivers Museum founding collection. (Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Accession Number: 1884.59.31)

31 August 2018 – 25 January 2019

Tibetan Objects in Transition

The material culture of Tibet has been sought, collected and studied in the West since the middle of the nineteenth century.

Display Case C.56.A (Court)

Messy Realities: The Secret Life of Technology

23 July – 28 September 2018

Messy Realities: The Secret Life of Technology

'Messy Realities: The Secret Life of Technology’ was a special display exploring the work of the research project 'Studies in Co-creating Assistive Living Solutions'.

Didcot case (Lower Gallery)

Woman of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) (name unknown), engraved for publication by James Caldwell after an original drawing by William Hodges.

28 May – 23 September 2018

‘A Variety of Portraits of Persons’: From the Official Account of Cook’s Second Voyage to the Pacific (1772–75)

The eighteen prints displayed here were from a copy of 'A Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World'. This was the official account of James Cook’s second famous voyage to the Pacific, from 1772 to 1775.

Archive case (First Floor)

home 4 nyange outside a

21 April – 28 September 2018

Kwibuka Rwanda

Commemorative practices of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda

Sunil Shah

17 February – 23 September 2018

Sunil Shah: Uganda Stories

Uganda Stories by Sunil Shah was both a subjective journey to recollect the past and a study in photography’s documentary potential to reassemble history.

Special Exhibition Gallery

tito in africa image 8 main image

13 November 2017 – 8 April 2018

Tito in Africa: Picturing Solidarity

This exhibition presented a selection of photographs showing Marshal Josip Broz Tito taken during official visits to various African countries in the post-war period.

made in imagination image 1 main image banner image top

9 October 2017 – 25 June 2018

Made in Imagination

These objects were made as they might be imagined based on the historical descriptions of real artefacts found on the Pitt Rivers Museum database.

Bow-Fronted Case (Lower Gallery)

Identity without borders

15 June – 30 November 2017

Identity Without Borders

Identity Without Borders

Bow-Fronted Case and Puppet Case (Lower Gallery)

Syrians unknown

15 June 2017 - 9 December 2018

Syrians Unknown

A photographic exhibition by John Wreford of large scale portraits of people displaced from Syria, now surviving and thriving in Istanbul, Turkey.

Case Installation (Upper Gallery)

Camel herdsman. Rajasthan, India. Photograph by Roger Chapman. 2011. (Copyright Roger Chapman)

15 May – 29 October 2017

Camel: A Journey through Fragile Landscapes – Photographs by Roger Chapman

This exhibition presented sixty-five monochrome prints by Roger Chapman from his major international photography project premiered at the Pitt Rivers Museum.

Oxfordshire folklore and customs

20 February – 15 May 2017

Oxfordshire Folklore and Customs: Celebrating the Centenary of Antiquarian and Folklorist Percy Manning

A display commemorating the centenary of the death of antiquarian and folklorist Percy Manning (1870–1917), who had a keen interest in archaeology and the history of English customs and traditions.

Didcot case (Lower Gallery)

A man and boy holding an embroidered textile typical of the Palas valley in Kohistan district of north-western Pakistan. Photograph by Sheila Paine. Sherakot, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. 1993. (Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Accessi

1 November 2016 – 30 April 2017

Embroidered Visions: Photographs of Central Asia and the Middle East by Sheila Paine

This exhibition presented a selection of photographs taken by textile expert Sheila Paine during her travels in Central Asia and the Middle East in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Embroidered cotton shift (incomplete). Bar Paro, Palas Valley, Kohistan, Pakistan. Instead of traditional silk, solar motifs and the protective power of the triangle are embroidered in cotton yarn.

16 August 2016 – 12 February 2017

Stitch of a Symbol: Insights into the Textile Journeys of Sheila Paine

This display followed an incredible journey by Sheila Paine, who wanted to discover the origins of an embroidered dress she saw in a London textile dealer’s shop in the late 1980s.

Didcot case (Lower Gallery)

Actor Nakamura Kanzaburō XVIII preparing for his role in the kabuki play Renjishi. Here is he seen applying the thick make-up known as kumadori ('shadow painting'), one of kabuki theatre's most distinctive features. The photograph on Kanzaburō's mirror sh

12 July – 16 October 2016

Kabuki: On Stage, Behind the Scenes

This exhibition presented a selection of photographs by Akio Kushida and Stephanie Berger on kabuki theatre, the popular Japanese style of drama established around 400 years ago that still thrives today.

Identity Without Borders

30 March – 31 May 2016

BK.LUWO

Identity Without Borders

Didcot Case (Lower Gallery)

Detail of ‘A PROCESSION’ by Elizabeth Price. (Copyright Elizabeth Price)

18 March – 29 May 2016

Elizabeth Price: A PROCESSION

A PROCESSION was a companion exhibition to the Ashmolean Museum’s exhibition, A RESTORATION, by the celebrated contemporary artist Elizabeth Price.

Māori house (whare) with carved and painted wooden decoration. Photograph by Alfred Burton for the Burton Brothers studio (Dunedin). North Island, New Zealand. Circa 1887. (Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Accession Number: 1998.68.29.1

30 November 2015 – 6 March 2016

Burton Bros. of Dunedin: Photographs of New Zealand and Fiji by a Late Nineteenth-Century Commercial Studio

This case display presented twenty-six mounted albumen prints by the Burton Brothers studio of Dunedin, New Zealand.

Archive Case (First Floor)

Wabamum Lake.

20 October 2014 – 3 May 2015

Scarred/Sacred Water: Tanya Harnett

This exhibition presented six large photographic works by Canadian First Nations artist Tanya Harnett.

Group portrait of the first three students to receive the University of Oxford’s Diploma in Anthropology, including James Arthur Harley (right). Photographer unknown. 1908. (Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Accession Number: 1998.266.3)

18 October 2014 – 8 February 2015

A Well-Documented Life: James Arthur Harley (1873–1943)

This exhibition considered how a man born in Antigua – and studied at Howard, Yale, Harvard and Oxford – spent his last 20 years campaigning on local issues in rural Leicestershire.

Archive case (First Floor)

Interior view of the Pitt Rivers Museum, looking towards the east end of the Court, showing the Haida totem pole (‘Star House Pole’). Photograph by Alfred Robinson. Oxford, England. 1901. (Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Accession Numb

9 June – 28 September 2014

Star House Pole: Early Images of the Haida Totem Pole in the Pitt Rivers Museum

This case display presented a selection of historic images – including photographs, drawings and published material – relating to the Haida totem pole on display in the Pitt Rivers Museum.

Archive Case (First Floor)

(Copyright Mamadou Gomis)

12 May – 7 September 2014

Points of Departure: Photographs from Senegal by Mamadou Gomis and Judith Quax

Looking at the transatlantic slave trade and contemporary migration, photographers Mamadou Gomis and Judith Quax examined migration in West Africa in this photographic exhibition.

Prints salvaged from Rikuzentakata City Museum after the tsunami. The photographs show damage caused by an earlier tsunami, when a series of massive waves following the 1960 Valdivia Earthquake in Chile struck the Tohoku coast of north-eastern

8 October 2013 – 27 April 2014

Surviving Tsunami: Photographs in the Aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake

This exhibition presented visual material from a volunteer-led project in Japan to salvage and conserve historic photograph collections after two museums and a library in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, were destroyed in the 2011 tsunami.

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