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Museum collections lecture

"What is the point of old archaeological and anthropological collections in the 21st century?"

Dr Christopher Chippindale
Visiting curator from Cambridge Museum and Reader in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge England

Thursday 25th February
6.00 - 7.30 pm Friends Lounge
National Museum of Australia

The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) at the University of Cambridge is an old collection, founded in 1883 and incorporating older accumulations. Its original mission was the high Victorian idea of a combined ethnology-archaeology, studying the primitives in both their ancient and their modern variants. A new programme to modernise its buildings and re-shape its displays prompts it to ask fundamental questions about its collections and its mission. What are they for? Who is their audience today? Are they still of merit and value? Or should the MAA recognise its obsolescence and simply close?

Cost: $5 Friends, NMA & ANU Staff, $10 non members

Dr Christopher Chippindale is curator of the Cambridge Museum (MAA), also a field archaeologist and Reader in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge England, and a long term associate of the Centre for Archaeology Research at the ANU. He is a Visiting Fellow with the Department of Archaeology and Natural History ANU for February 2010.

Bookings are required for all Friends events. Please phone 02 6208 5048 or send an email to friends@nma.gov.au