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In the summer of 2019, Manolis Marakis' CHIP placement took place at the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas (AOA), British Museum. 

“I had the wonderful chance to learn so much about the processes of working in a museum setting during my time at the British Museum, under the supervision of the incredible James Hamill. With the guidance of the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas curators, I performed a variety of supporting activities that included collection research, pictorial archiving and object handling. 

My main involvement was with two great projects. The first one was a collection research task for the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme of the department, to identify museum assets related to a dying practice of making clothing from processed paper, still performed in the Japanese town of Shiroishi. The second one was the documentation and digitalisation task concerning a photographic collection from the archaeological excavations of the Nigerian town Igbo-Ukwu, created by the late Thurstan Shaw in 1959-60. Not only did I gain significant insights into the dynamics of pictorial cataloguing, which turned out to be a valuable reflection on my thesis as well, I also selected it as the focus of my research report.

Next to those, I had the unique opportunity to assist the curator Africa, Julie Hudson, with the cataloguing and measuring of bronze casts from Benin, which was a truly remarkable experience. I thoroughly enjoyed getting hands-on experience at the British Museum, which complemented my Anthropology and (Art) History background so well.”

Class of 2019, Interdepartmental Major SSC/SCI