Throwback Thursday – Summer Programme 2010

The fifth ITP summer programme saw the British Museum and our six partners welcome another twenty-two curators, archaeologists, and specialists from ten countries to the UK.  Participants from China, Egypt, India, Iraq, Palestine, Sudan, Kenya and Turkey were joined, for the first time, by colleagues from Nigeria and the UAE.

Again, this year fellows were asked to work on a project to create a new display of their culture at the British Museum.  These projects where fascinating and enlightening and gave fellows the opportunity to use BM objects to tell their stories.  However, the projects looked very different to today.  Back in 2009 and 2010 the ‘displays’ were done at PowerPoint presentations, without the access to objects that fellows have enjoyed in more recent years, but that didn’t stop our creative and imaginative colleagues sharing a wealth of new ideas.

As Ding Pengbo from China told us at the end of her six-week programme ‘At the end of the training, we were asked to design a small exhibition each, this was an opportunity to practice [what we learnt]. We could combine our thoughts about the training with our cultural background and the understanding of the British Museum’s collections together, even the improved spoken English, to expound fully. It was also a chance to learn about other participators’ knowledge structure, level of planning exhibition and a sense of their gained knowledge.’

The 2010 summer programme, our fifth, marked an important milestone with our network of ITP fellows growing and a set of evaluations helping us shape and change the programme. It also saw Shezza Edris Rashwan join the team bringing her invaluable skills and experiences to the ITP.

Wonderful memories!!

Claire