Happy New Year from the ITP team
Written by George Peckham, ITP Assistant
We wanted to wish you all a very Happy New Year and give you a brief up-date on our plans for 2023.
What a year 2022 was for ITP! It was certainly one of our busiest ever, as we managed to have two annual programmes and five legacy projects over the last 12 months! In all, we were very grateful to see 52 ITP fellows at the British Museum or in the UK in 2022!!
2023 will look more like a ‘traditional’ year for ITP. This year the annual programme will return to the summer and will go back to a six-week programme, with 10 days spent at UK partner museums. The process for selecting participants for ITP 2023 is still ongoing, as is the selection for the ITP 2023 Senior Fellow. Don’t forget that applications are still open for Senior Fellow 2023 until Friday 13 January. You can find out how to apply by seeing our call for applications blog.
We have a few more reports to share from 2022 in the coming weeks. Anna is currently working on our report from the Museums Association Conference 2022. We will be sharing the reports written by the fellows who joined us in Edinburgh for the conference soon. We also have reports to share from our Leadership Week project, which ran alongside the MA Conference. So be sure so to look out for those on the blog very soon!
In 2023 we plan to attend the MA Conference with ITP fellows. More information about this will be shared when more details about the conference are announced. Stay tuned for calls for applications later this year!
We also have some more blogs and reports to share from ITP Research and Conference Grants for 2022. Fellows have been kindly sending use their updates and reports from their grants and we’re looking forward to sharing more in the coming weeks. We will be sharing a new call for applications for our ITP Conference and Research Grants. If you have a place at a conference or a research proposal that needs additional financial support, we might be able to help you. In 2023 we’ll be setting more funds aside to support our ITP network so keep checking the ITP blog for more information!
The 2023 ITP Newsletter will be our 10th issue, marking a significant milestone for the ITP network. The newsletter will focus on Past and Present. Museums, galleries, and art institutions are always looking for new ways to connect with their audiences and by bringing in contemporary artworks and voices to create new dialogues is one of those ways. Many museums around the world are currently incorporating contemporary art into their spaces. The call for submissions is currently open and can be viewed on our blog.
Finally, we have 2 new pages to share on the ITP website! At the beginning of 2022, our website underwent a makeover and was given a fresh new design and some new features. Over the last year we have been working to make improvements to the website and expand its content. Today we’re happy to share that we now have a new page showcasing the ITP’s programme partners. This includes institutions and individuals who support the ITP and the annual programme.
ITP Programme Partners
And last, but certainly not least, we have created a new page to showcase our latest ITP co-curation project! Working with colleagues in the Department of Egypt and Sudan we have supported Heba Khairy (Egypt, ITP Fellow 2017) to work on a co-curated display and Room 3 show focussing on Tutankhamun.
This project, to enable the British Museum to commemorate the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun (opened in November 1922), saw Heba co-curate a small display in Room 4, the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery, through objects from the Museum’s collection. The display forms the last stop on a short Tutankhamun trail which focusses on the political and religious background of Tutankhamun’s reign. The theme of the case is the ‘legacy’ of Tutankhamun and how he is viewed by Egyptians today.
Heba was also been able to support the British Museum’s current Asahi Shimbun display in Room 3. The exhibition, Tutankhamun: reimagined, seeks to explore both ancient and modern Egyptian relationships with the image of Tutankhamun, by placing both ancient and contemporary objects alongside each other. The British Museum has commissioned work by Egyptian graffiti artist Nofal O, a connection made possible by Heba, to mark this centenary.
Tutankhamun co-curation project
We hope you enjoy exploring the new pages on the ITP website! And over the next 12 months, we hope that the ITP continues to support and engage our network. If you have ideas or thoughts you would like to share with us, please don’t hesitate to contact us at anytime – we’d love to hear from you!