2013 and 17 fellows return to the British Museum

Rebecca Horton, International Training Programme Coordinator

This week 3 ITP fellows have returned to the British Museum: Abiti Nelson (ITP 2013, Uganda) Chithra Kallur (ITP 2017, India) and Omar Nasser (ITP 2013, Palestine).

Chithra and Nelson are back for one week only to participate in discussion panels for the symposium, Exhibiting the Experience of Empire. The symposium will bring external invited academics, writers, and museum professionals into discussion with British Museum staff to explore how experiences of European imperialism, with a focus on the British Empire, can be researched and exhibited through objects. Nelson will take part in a panel discussion on Empires, Objects and Displays while Chithra will be on a panel entitled Responses to the Day. 

The symposium will take place on Friday, until then both are spending time in their ITP departments (Africa, Oceania and the Americas, and Asia), meeting BM colleagues and UK partner representatives and visiting institutions in Bristol, Cambridge and Norfolk.

Omar is here for 3 months working on researching and documenting the British Museum’s Palestinian textiles with colleagues from the Middle East and Collection Services Departments.  He will be splitting his time between the Middle East Department and Blythe House. Omar will be updating you as the project develops!

Last night Chithra, Nelson, Omar and I went out for fish and chips; Nelson and Omar caught up after last seeing each other on the 2013 summer programme and both met Chithra for the first time. We had a lovely evening reminiscing and talking about future projects.