Wednesday, September 28th, 3pm – 4pm
Repatriation in Three Acts: Patricia Allan, Curator of World Cultures at Glasgow Museums talks about her experiences in the repatriation of artifacts from Nigeria (Benin), India, South Dakota (Cheyenne River and Pine Ridge Nations), Saskatchewan (Lakota) and Scotland.
Patricia Allan has been Curator of World Cultures since 2002. Her responsibilities cover non-European art and history, and include Africa, Oceania (Pacific regions), the Americas, the Caribbean, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Patricia graduated with an Honours degree in Biology from the University of Aberdeen, a Postgraduate Master’s degree in Archaeology and Anthropology and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from The University of Sheffield. She has worked on archaeological sites throughout the world as an ethnobotanist, principally on the Southern Coast of Ecuador where she was field director and environmentalist for a multidisciplinary research project and museum.
Patricia’s research interests include international repatriation, indigenous cultures and heritage, post and pre-colonial art and history, and contemporary folk and tribal art of Northern India and South America. Patricia has undertaken field research for Glasgow Museums on projects in Northern India, Australia, and Ecuador. She has supervised international repatriations and was a member of the Museums Galleries Scotland’s working group that produced the current guidelines on the Care of Human Remains in Scottish Museums. Patricia is heavily involved with local and international community engagement and has worked on many events such as Mithi: Our Asian Roots, Afr-I-can and Celebrating Africa, as well as the craft elements of Glasgow Mela for 10 years. She works proactively to ensure that the cultural stakeholders of non-European histories, art and artistic practices represented in the collections are given equal voice and the platform to tell their own histories in the way of their choosing through displays such as Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum’s African Style, Ancient Tea Horse Road, Life in the Rainforest Object Cinema, Survival and the Land and Tramway’s Pehchaan: Art from Another India.