Interning with the Pitt Rivers Collections Department

Last summer I spent five weeks interning with the Pitt Rivers Museum’s (PRM) Collections department, this was an invaluable experience for me as a student looking to pursue a career in the museum sector. The internship taught me a lot; both in practical skills and about working in museums in general. I am very grateful for the opportunity, and for the Santander award funding I received through the Oxford University Internship Programme.

For the duration of my internship I was shadowing Faye Belsey and Nicholas Crowe in their day-to-day work. They, the whole Collections team, and everyone working at the Pitt Rivers were incredibly welcoming, friendly, and always eager to answer any questions that I had. I got to engage with so many different tasks, ranging from photographing La Madeline stone tools, to collecting objects from museums cases, to researching objects. Here I will just summarise a few tasks I undertook.

Over the course of my internship I assisted with two research visits, one from a curator of the Sarawak Museum, and one from a Maori art collective. These were very interesting experiences as they allowed me to engage hands on with material and learn more about the objects from people who really understood the context of the objects. Assisting with the Maori research visit was definitely a highlight of my time at the PRM. The objects the artists were exploring were mostly cloaks, but there were also woven bags, a piece of bark cloth, a Huia bird skin, and a tuatara knife. These artists explored the collection with excitement and passion, able to analyse every woven stitch to uncover how the object was made. Before beginning their research, a statement was made and their hands were washed, with some of the artists being moved to tears. This was incredible to see as it really contextualised the objects as belonging to a present cultural group, not some past peoples, as is so often expected of early collected ethnographic material. 

For the Sarawak research visit the objects were: two tobacco boxes, two shirts, four jackets, one hat. Of particular interest to the researcher was the hat (sera’ong). The this type of bamboo hat offers a protective power to a woman and child when worn. It offers protection from the sun, and from snakes and head hunters in the area outside the longhouse. The researcher had come across the hat on the PRM Online Database and thought there was a possibility it may have once been in the collections of the Sarawak Museum. It was a very exciting moment when, through handling the object, the Sarawak Museum Accession Number was uncovered, confirming the researcher’s theory.

Hat and inside of hat, 1923.86.102 . ©  Pitt Rivers Museum

Kesang Ball, London 2018. © Nyema Droma and Pitt Rivers Museum

At a later date, I helped with the transcribing of subtitles for the video of interviews shot by Nyema Droma during her photoshoots. It was particularly interesting to see how different people held conflicting opinions on the basis of identity, such as how much of it is symbolised by local dress. For example, Tsewang Gonpostated,“I think Tibetans should wear traditional costume more often as wearing a Tibetan outfit shows your Tibetan identity.” Whereas Tsering Yata believes, “My Tibetan identity is not about what I am wearing.” 

During my internship, the largest piece of independent research I undertook was the documentation of the John Driver acquisition. This was a collection of eighteen items donated to the museum after the passing of linguist John Driver. The objects were a selection of items from Driver’s time in Tibet, and were all textile based. I greatly enjoyed handling the textiles and trying to uncover their function and relation to other objects. One piece that was particularly exciting to analyse was the mask (2018.220.1) 

Mask, 2018.220.1 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Through searching online I discovered that this particular style of mask is a soft-shaped mask, of the hard quality type. It was made using paperboard as a roughcast and then cloth and animal skin are stuck on, with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth. This type of mask is seen primarily in folk operas, dancing performances, singing, and story-telling. They are basic and unsophisticated, displaying a strong influence of Tibetan folk art and the characteristics of the primitive art of masks. After researching the objects, I updated their information on the database, sewed on their labels and photographed them. It was incredibly rewarding being able to work with a group of objects from start to finish as I got to see first-hand the amount of work that goes into acquisitioning an object.

Both these research activities involved getting to grips with the Objects PRM Database. This was initially a difficult piece of software for me to navigate, but with time I got the hang of things and could confidently update information and search for objects. Near the end of my internship I attended a meeting centred on understanding how the database is used across the museum, and the functions that must be obtained when the software is updated. This was really interesting as I was able to learn how the database was used across the different departments; from collections, to conservation, and education.

One very exciting job I was lucky enough to assist with was the hanging of the Performing Tibetan Identities exhibition, photographed by Nyema Droma. It was fantastic to see the amount of work different departments do to both plan for and install an exhibition, and wonderful to see that a year of work had culminated in such a great result. The end result was stunning and conceptually interesting, with the installation boldly filling the empty space above the cabinets in the Great Court, producing the aesthetic of contemporary western art whilst echoing the form of strings of traditional Tibetan prayer flags.

This focus on the importance of traditional dress in identity making was particularly interesting to me having worked with the Tibetan textiles from the John Driver acquisition. Some of the pieces I researched were exquisitely made, and it would have been interesting to have discussed with their makers how they felt the pieces were reflective of Tibetan identity in the same way Nyema has asked contemporary Tibetans.

Another key task I performed during my internship was working at the off-site store. The OPS project has meant that all the material stored at the off-site store needed to be audited and packed to be moved. I arrived in the last few weeks of this project and assisted with the packaging of spears and identifying objects that had been found unnumbered.

The spears I was packing were mostly Australian or Asian, but there were also spears from all across the world. The variety was extraordinary, ranging from a sharpened stick to those that were ornately decorated, such as spears from Nagaland, North East India. Great caution had to be taken while packing so as not to damage the object, but also to avoid causing injury to myself or others around me. The approach was to consider all objects likely to be poisoned, which I had discussed with the Conservation department beforehand, and I was made aware of the safety precautions that ought to be taken.

The found unnumbered objects (FUs) are objects that had been found in the packing of the collections without an accession number on them. I worked with Joanna Cole to try and match these objects to database entries, and where it was not possible we endeavoured to describe the object and its possible use in as much detail as possible.

This experience has definitely affirmed my desire to work in the museum sector. Being able to engage with the different tasks of research visits, independent database work, exhibition planning, and collections management/organisation has definitely encouraged me to pursue work in a Collections team specifically. I have had an amazing experience interning at the Pitt Rivers, and am incredibly grateful to Nico and Faye for all their help, and I would certainly recommend the internship to others.

Catherine O’Brien