Anthropology and Archaeology student won a place on the Otsego Institute Summer Seminar "Beyond Hyridity: Modelling Intercultural Histories and Material Worlds in Native North America".
Second year PhD student in Anthropology and Archaeology, Christopher Martin will attend a workshop in May 2017 to develop his understanding of theoretical and methodological engagement with North American museum collections.
He joins 12 international PhD students and leading scholars in museum anthropology for four days at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York State to engage in lectures, seminars, exercises in making, and learning skills and techniques used in the study of Indigenous North American visual and material culture. This workshop culminates in the informal presentation of his PhD project, and a short research essay from the Thaw Collection of American Indian Art which will be developed during his time at the workshop.
Christopher’s research focusses on a collection of Northwest Coast American, Indigenous-made objects which were collected by Perthshire-born fur trader Colin Robertson and donated to the Perth Museum and Art Gallery in 1833. Through looking at the active role of objects in social interaction, Christopher intends to demonstrate how objects continue to be active and shifting in meaning throughout their museum lives, rather than becoming static once institutionalised.
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2012 Seminar meeting. Image credit: Otsego Institute