World Cultures Collection

The Museum’s Collections Team have embarked on an exciting new project to delve into ANGUSalive’s World Cultures Collection.

The aim of this project is to research and catalogue this highly significant collection, engage with local minority and advocacy groups, culminating in a co-curated exhibition and educational resource for schools.

It is difficult to identify, at this stage, the total number of objects in the collection, but the team estimate that the final figure will be between 600 and 800 objects. Some of the objects within the collection include:

Egyptian Plaque – Donated by Dr James Burnes in 1837. It was one of the earliest donations to the museum. Following a bout of Malaria in 1833, he was granted sick leave to travel back from India to Scotland. He did so via Egypt, where he enjoyed an audience with the ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha. It is during this period that he acquired the plaque which is said to have come from a temple in Thebes.

Chinese Embroidery – This is a fragment of an early Chinese embroidery on silk. It is part of the Arbroath Embroidery Club Collection. The Club gathered a vast collection of embroidery in all styles, and from all over the world. They sought to safeguard works of embroidery from destruction and gather a collection for the study and advancement of the craft of embroidery.

Coconut Fibre Armour – This coconut fibre armour comes from Kiribati, an island group in Micronesia in the Pacific. It is made of dense coconut fibre matting with a design woven with human hair. The coconut fibre, aside from being one of the few resources available with which to construct the protective clothing, was also thought to possess special protective powers.

Javanese Pot – Our original catalogue information states this object came from Java in Indonesia, but is this information accurate, and, if so, who donated it and what was its purpose in its native country? These are the kinds of questions we are hoping to answer as we re-evaluate what we know about our World Cultures Collection.

The World Cultures Collection was largely amassed during the Victorian period corresponding with a period of growth and expansion in the British Empire. Britain was exerting economic and political power by developing colonies in areas such as Africa, India, and North America. The empire was so far-reaching that the famous phrase ‘the sun never sets on the British Empire’ was used to describe it.

Some of the individuals who held privileged positions travelling and trading in colonised countries also used their position to further another Victorian pastime: the collecting of curios. Curios were objects that were rare, exotic, or valuable. They included wonders of the natural world, valuable works of art and cultural objects from far flung places.

ANGUSalive’s Ingrid Leon – Curatorial Assistant who is leading on the project explained “We know we have objects from every continent in the world, except perhaps Antarctica, but we often don’t have detailed information about the history of the object or its cultural significance.

The imbalance of power between coloniser and colonised led to objects being taken from their places of origin with no regard for the impact or ethics of such action. This left a legacy that endures to this day and raises questions around how we interpret these objects, how we share the narrative around Victorian collecting practices, and whether some of these objects belong back in their native countries.

ANGUSalive cares for the World Cultures Collection on behalf of the people of Angus, therefore we need to hear your voices!”

The Collections Team are enthusiastic about engaging with the local community and plan to reach out to advocacy groups working in this area to inform of this exciting project and possibly provide workshops and events. They hope that there will be a co-curation dimension to the exhibition with people from marginalised groups responding to the objects and their stories, either through adding their voices to the labelling or through more creative means through the expressive arts.

The team hope that the finished exhibition will add to the discussion of colonialism and the British Empire in museum collections as well as open dialogue for potential repatriation of objects.

It is expected that the final exhibition will take place in the latter half of 2025, running for approximately 3 months and the initial plan is to first display at Montrose Museum before moving on to two, yet unidentified, spaces within Angus.

The World Cultures project is funded by Museums Galleries Scotland and will run from January 2024 until October 2025.

Find out more about the World Cultures Collection.