Collecting the West seminar

Collecting the West seminar
Event Date & Times:
Thursday, 14 October 2021 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm‘Nothing will remain’ – Paul Montague’s collecting in the Montebello Islands
With Dr Julie Adams (British Museum)
‘Nothing will remain’ – Paul Montague’s collecting in the Montebello Islands
With Dr Julie Adams (British Museum)
In 1913, Paul Denys Montague, a young British zoologist, arrived in Western Australia to undertake fieldwork in the Montebello Islands. Tasked with acquiring specimens for the Western Australian Museum, London’s Natural History Museum and the Zoology Museum in Cambridge, Montague embarked upon a frenzied period of collecting. In an essay written soon after he returned to England, he predicted a bleak future for the islands’ indigenous species, stating: ‘In a very few years’ time little or nothing will remain’. Contrary to this vision of impending extinction, my paper explores the myriad afterlives of Montague’s collections and reflects upon the presences and absences that epitomize museum practice.
Dr Julie Adams is a Curator of the Oceania Collections at the British Museum. Prior to joining the Museum in 2015, she was employed as a Senior Research Fellow at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology and as a Senior Curator at National Museums Scotland. Her research focuses on the historical trajectories that saw Pacific artefacts enter the collections of European museums. She has co-curated exhibitions and produced collaborative research with partners in New Caledonia, Aotearoa New Zealand, Tahiti, Rurutu and Kiribati. Her book Museum, Magic, Memory was published by Sidestone Press in 2021.
Find out more at www.collectingthewest.org
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