Personal profile

Overview

I am the Director of the Institute for Cultural Practices and the Programme Director for the MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies programme. During the academic year 2024-25 I will convene the core module, Introduction to Museum Studies, and the optional module, Decolonise the Museum!

Overview

I am a Senior Lecturer in Museology and from 2003-2020 I was Senior Curator for National Museums Liverpool (NML). This role accounted for a significant part of my more than 25 years of experience as a curator of collections from South Asia, the Himalayas and Tibet. My research sits at the intersection of colonialism(s), Tibetan Studies, museum activism, and materiality and moves between contemporary museum practice in Tibetan exile contexts and historical research on Tibetan materiality in British colonial archives.  

As a practice-based researcher, I am currently the curatorial advisor to the museum at the Dalai Lama Centre for Tibetan and Ancient Indian Wisdom in Bodhgaya, India. Between 2017-2023, I acted as curator/advisor to the Tibet Museum, a major museum development for the Central Tibetan Administration, otherwise known as the Tibetan government-in-exile (opened in 2022). I also led a series of interventions into the interpretation and display of the anthropology collections at the World Museum, part of National Museums Liverpool. The #WMWhereNext project challenged the relevance of culture-based displays in today's anthropology museum by experimenting with an issue and idea-led approach to interpretation. While at National Museums Liverpool I also developed several contemporary collecting programmes including Tibetan Realities: Collecting Tibet and its Diasporas (2010-2020), a themed programme of collecting that brought together contemporary art (funded by the Art Fund), fieldwork collecting and commissioned works from Tibetan cultural institutions.

I am currently writing a monograph called, The Dissident Museum: Oppositional Curating at the Tibet Museum (Museum in Focus Series for Routledge) based on the methods used to develop curatorial practice during the Tibet Museum project. 

 

Research interests

My academic research focuses on reconstituting the museum roles and representations of Tibetans and Tibetan material culture past and present. I do this through the analysis of the historical record, namely colonial-era museums and archives and embedded, collaborative, practice-led research and critical reflection on contemporary museological practice. Specifically, I ask why museum-based framings of Tibet have remained largely untouched by the well-established processes of recovering and exposing the contested histories of colonial-era museum collections and how through contemporary museum practice Tibetans can address a lack of Tibetan agency in museum decision-making, both concerning the collecting of Tibetan objects, the representation of Tibet and the governance and management of museum and heritage spaces. With these questions in mind, I co-convene the international Tibetan Materiality Network, which brings together researchers from Europe and Asia for the purpose of sharing and collaborating on Tibetan and Himalayan materiality-based research.

I have published edited volumes, several journal articles, and chapters on Tibet-related colonial collecting, colonial-era Tibetan diplomatic gift exchange, and the challenges of representing contemporary Tibet in museums. 

Memberships of committees and professional bodies

  • Editorial Board, Museum History Journal
  • Editorial Board, Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies
  • Contributing Editor, Journal of Museum Ethnography
  • Visiting Lecturer, University of Copenhagen
  • 2018-2021, Committee member for the Museum Ethnographers Group (MEG) conceived and managed MEG's A Repatriation Resource
  • Member, International Association of Tibetan Studies (IATS)
  • Member, Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies
  • Member, Museums Association
  • Member, Museums and Galleries History Group
  • Fellow, Royal Asiatic Society
  • Fellow, Higher Education Academy

Supervision information

I welcome PhD applications in the following areas:

  • Collecting Histories in Tibetan, Himalayan, and South Asian contexts
  • Histories of museums and display in Tibetan, Himalayan, and South Asian contexts
  • South Asian, Himalayan and Tibetan Museology
  • Studies in South Asian, Himalayan and Tibetan Materialities
  • Museology and dissident community practice
  • South Asian, Himalayan and Tibetan Diasporic engagement with museum collections

Completed PhD Supervision

Dr Gumring Hkangda: (2024) Conflicted Objects: Histories of Violence, Trauma and Loss entangled in Kachin material culture from northern Burma/Myanmar (1960 – Present), Department of Art History and Cultural Practices, University of Manchester.

Dr Henriette Pleiger: (2024) Interdisciplinary Exhibitions and the Production of Knowledge, Department of Art History and Cultural Practices, University of Manchester.

Dr Elizabeth Gow: (2023). Enriqueta Rylands: A Study of Private Collecting and Public Philanthropy, 1889-1908, Department of Art History and Cultural Practices, University of Manchester.

Dr Lewis Ryder: (2020). Museums, culture and the Hilditch collection: the contest for cultural authority in early twentieth-century Britain, Department of History, University of Manchester.

Current PhD Supervision

Lauren Barnes: Collecting in Context: Using a Global Histories approach to uncover and understand the histories and implications of collecting Korean art and culture by UK museums, from 1865 – 2020

Chukyi Kyaping: Decolonising the sacred: Acknowledging the colonial experiences of Tibetan Buddhist collections in the British Museum (AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award with the British Museum)

Yasmin Foqahaa: Culture Under Siege: A Cultural Policy Framework for Cultural Sustainable Development in Palestine (SALC Funded)

Bhanu Ghalot: Dissonant Histories in South Asia's Museums: Memory, Religion, and Politics in the ‘1947 Partition Memorialisation Project’ in India (NWCDTP Award)

Tenzin Jinpa: Digital Sovereignty and the Dataset: Data Visualisation and Decolonial Ways of Knowing and Using National Museums Liverpool’s collection data (NWCDTP CDA)

 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 4 - Quality Education
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
  • SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals

External positions

Curatorial Advisor, The Dalai Lama Centre for Tibetan and Indian Ancient Wisdom

1 Oct 2024 → …

External Examiner, University College London (UCL)

1 Jan 2024 → …

External Examiner: MA Museums, Galleries and Contemporary Culture with Professional Experience, The University of Westminster

1 Sept 2023 → …

Curator/Advisor, Tibet Museum, Department for Information and International Relations, Central Tibetan Administration

1 Jan 2018 → …

Senior Curator, National Museums Liverpool

1 Jun 200331 May 2020

Areas of expertise

  • AM Museums (General). Collectors and collecting (General)
  • DS Asia
  • Tibet
  • Himalaya

Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms

  • Creative Manchester
  • Digital Futures

Keywords

  • Museology
  • Materiality
  • Tibet
  • Himalaya
  • Dissidence
  • Practice-led Research
  • Archival Research
  • Collecting Histories
  • Museum Activism

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