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Twenty five photographs that change the history of anthropology

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on October 30, 2023 – 1:08 pm
Filed under Anthropology, Curatorial Projects, Photography, Research

A. F. Dixon, Untitled, 1890. Digital print from scan of silver gelatine, glass-plate negative (Ciarán Rooney, 2019). The original negative is held in in the School of Medicine, Trinity College, University of Dublin.
© curator.ie

‘Haddon and the Aran Islands’ is an exhibition of twenty five photographs that builds on Ciarán Walsh’s newly published book on Alfred Cort Haddon’s work as a photographer and anthropologist in Ireland in the 1890s. A Very English Savage will be launched in the Royal Anthropological Institute on 31 October 2023. More at Ballymaclinton.

circle of texture grey back ground with the words www.curator.ie embossed on it. designed by Ciarán n Walsh

in partnership with

curator.ie finds oldest surviving photo of Skellig

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on August 8, 2023 – 4:35 pm
Filed under Curatorial Projects, History of Anthropology, Photography

William Mercer, c. 1868, St Michael’s Church and Cell, digital scan of gelatine silver print. Permission of the Royal Irish Academy © RIA.

“Skellig provided J. J. Abrams with the perfect location for the birthplace of the Jedi. The challenge of filming Star Wars on a steep rock twelve kilometres out in the Atlantic has added enormously to the mystique of a place with a long tradition of pilgrims scaling its twin peaks. 150 years before Abrams landed on Skellig, Edwin Wyndham-Quin noticed a monastic complex on the first ordnance survey map of the rock and included it in his study of pagan forts, Christian hermitages and mediaeval churches. William Mercer photographed each site between 1866 and 1869 and the discovery in April 2023 of his print of “St Michael’s Church and Cell” provides an opportunity to revisit an adventure in photography that surpasses Abrams’ determination to film on the rock.“

For more on this story go to the Irish Examiner.

circle of texture grey back ground with the words www.curator.ie embossed on it. designed by Ciarán n Walsh

Vanished Knowledge: turning research into activism and advocacy

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on September 25, 2019 – 11:46 am
Filed under Curatorial Projects
The burning of the Amazon rainforest in Mato Grosso state, Brazil. Photo: Mayke Toscano/AFP/Getty Images & The Guardian

curator.ie is working with a group of activists and scholars to organise a debate about the capacity of anthropologists and geographers to confront genocide. We are putting together a panel for a major conference on anthropology and geography, which is scheduled to take place in London in June 2020.

Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future is being jointly organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), the Royal Geographical Society, the British Academy, the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS (University of London), and the Department for Africa, Oceania and the Americas in the British Museum. It will run from 4 – 7 JUNE 2020.

The debate has been triggered by the current crisis in the Amazon, but the issue is as old as anthropology itself. That is where Dialogues Past, Present and Future come into play. We are asking people to consider the following:

40,000 fires burn in the Amazon, threatening the homeland of the Awá people. In the 1890s, anarcho-Solidarists demanded a radical political response from anthropologists, geographers, and sociologists to the threat of genocide through habitat destruction by colonists.

Was anyone listening?

The debate will be framed by an historical precedent from the 1890s, when Alfred Cort Haddon called on the anthropological community to stand in solidarity with the victims of imperialism. The call was taken up by a small group of humanitarians within organised anthropology, but they were forced underground.

Michael Faherty, Inis Meain, 1890-1, from the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey (1891-1903). The photograph shows a group of islanders in traditional homespuns.
Alfred Cort Haddon, 1892, Michael Faherty, and two women, Inishmaan. The photograph was taken during an ethnographic survey of the Aran Islands off the western coast of Ireland. Haddon commented that ‘Faherty refused to be measured, and the women would not even tell us their names.’ (Photo: Trinity College Dublin).

Haddon, undeterred, devised the phrase “vanishing knowledge” as code for the cultural consequences of genocide. The phrase has been resurrected here as a slightly ironic reminder of a time when anthropologists and geographers stood against genocide; a humanitarian insurgency that has been written out of the history of the discipline of anthropology.

Mohammad Salas, a 51-year-old man from Iran’s largest Sufi order, the Gonabadi Dervish religious minority. Salas was executed by the Iranian authorities after a trial that was widely condemned as a miscarriage of justice. Amnesty International.

The plight of the Awá is desperately topical, but it is not unique. There are many other groups whose way of life is threatened by economic, political, and cultural forces. The question here is whether anthropologists and geographers have the capacity to make a difference. That question will, in many ways, frame a debate about the future relevance of anthropology and geography.

If people want to get involved in this debate, the RAI and has issued a call for papers.

Royal Anthropological Institute Research Seminar: Walsh & Dudding

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on April 8, 2015 – 11:35 am
Filed under Anthropology, Heritage, Research

RAI Research Seminar: Walsh & Dudding, RAI RESEARCH SEMINAR SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Haddon in Ireland, reconstructing the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey Ciarán Walsh, Maynooth University Dr Joe Dudding, Arch and Anth Museum, Cambridge Wednesday 8 April at 5.30 pm This illustrated talk outlines a project to reconstruct the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey that was established by Haddon in 1891 under the umbrella of the British Ethnographic Survey. The Irish Survey was overshadowed by subsequent developments in Cambridge / Torres but, unlike the British Survey, it was active 'in the field' for almost a decade. The records of the Survey were dispersed over collections in Ireland and the UK where they have remained uncatalogued and largely overlooked for 120 years. Recent research has however, uncovered manuscripts, photographs and artifacts (the contents of Haddon's Anthropometric Laboratory in Dublin for instance) that have the capacity to change our understanding of the early development of Anthropology in Ireland and the UK. More work needs to be done and the role played by the RAI in particular in the establishment by Haddon of the Survey and the Laboratory in Dublin needs to be examined. This event is free, but tickets must be booked. To book tickets please go to http://walshdudding.eventbrite.co.uk Location : Royal Anthropological Institute, London

Jocelyne Dudding (Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology) and Ciarán Walsh (Curator.ie and Maynooth University) .

RAI RESEARCH SEMINAR

SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

Haddon in Ireland:

reconstructing the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey

Ciarán Walsh, Curator.ie and Maynooth University
Dr Joe Dudding, Arch and Anth Museum, Cambridge

Wednesday 8 April at 5.30 pm

This illustrated talk outlines a project to reconstruct the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey that was established by Haddon in 1891 under the umbrella of the British Ethnographic Survey. The Irish Survey was overshadowed by subsequent developments in Cambridge / Torres but, unlike the British Survey, it was active ‘in the field’ for almost a decade. The records of the Survey were dispersed over collections in Ireland and the UK where they have remained uncatalogued and largely overlooked for 120 years. Recent research has however, uncovered manuscripts, photographs and artifacts (the contents of Haddon’s Anthropometric Laboratory in Dublin for instance) that have the capacity to change our understanding of the early development of Anthropology in Ireland and the UK. More work needs to be done and the role played by the RAI in particular in the establishment by Haddon of the Survey and the Laboratory in Dublin needs to be examined.

Information: http://walshdudding.eventbrite.co.uk
Location : Royal Anthropological Institute
50 Fitzroy Street
London
W1T 5BT
United Kingdom

Research in Cambridge sheds new light on Haddon and his role in the Irish Ethnographic Survey 1891-1903

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on May 17, 2014 – 1:21 pm
Filed under Anthropology, Heritage, Photography, Research

Ciaran Walsh researching the Haddon papers in Cambridge University Library. The photograph shows freelance curator Ciarán Walsh at work in the Manuscripts Room in the Library. He is surrounded by documents from one of the files containing uncatalogued material dating form the early 1890s when Haddon was active in the Irish Ethnographic Survey 1891-1903, the subject of the 'Irish Headhunter' project curated by Ciarán Walsh in 2012/3. He is trying to piece together the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey as part of a research project called 'Haddon in Ireland.' a project being developed in association with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge and NationalUniversity of Ireland Maynooth. The research was funded by the Heritage Council of Ireland.
Ciarán Walsh at work in the Manuscripts Room in the Library. He is surrounded by documents from one of the files containing uncatalogued material dating form the early 1890s when Haddon was active in the Irish Ethnographic Survey 1891-1903.

'Haddon in Ireland.&#039 is a research project that is trying to piece together the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey 1891-1903, a project being developed in association with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge and National University of Ireland Maynooth. The initial research in Cambridge has been funded by the Heritage Council of Ireland.http://rpk-tramplin.ru

Walsh recently spent ten days going through uncatalogued material relating relating to the Survey in the photographic collection of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology as well as the manuscripts in Cambridge University. Working closely with Dr. Jocelyne Dudding (Manager of the photographic collection), Aidan Baker (Haddon Librarian) and John Pickles (former Haddon Librarian) Walsh discovered a lot of material – photographs and manuscripts – that shed a lot of light on the administration of the survey and the early development of ethnology in Ireland in the late 1880s and the early 1890s.

The results will feature strongly in a panel on Haddon and the Survey which has been organised by Walsh, Dudding and Dr. Mark Maguire of NUI Maynooth as part of the Royal Anthropological Institute’s conference on Photography and Anthropology which is taking place at the end of May.

Ciarán Walsh participates in Royal Anthropological Institute conference in the British Museum

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on March 24, 2014 – 12:23 pm
Filed under Anthropology, Heritage, Photography, Research

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Ciaran Walsh, www.curator.ie, and Jocelyne Dudding of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge University have put together a panel of speakers that ensures a strong Irish dimension to a major conference on the role of photography in anthropology. The panel will include Dáithí de Mórdha of Íonad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir and Mark Maguire, Head of Anthropology in NUIM (National University of Ireland, Maynooth). It will focus on the photography of Alfred Cort Haddon and examine the importance of the Irish Ethnographic Survey of 1891-1903 in terms of a contemporary understanding of the history of anthropology and photography.

The Royal Anthropological Institute has organised the conference in conjunction with the British Museum’s Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. The aim of the Conference is to stimulate an international discussion on the place, role and future of photography.

www.curator.ie and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge agree on joint research project

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on December 13, 2013 – 4:48 pm
Filed under Heritage, Photography, Research

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Further details to be announced in January 2014.

 

www.curator.ie participating in RAI conference on anthropology and photography, London.

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on December 11, 2013 – 4:01 pm
Filed under Criticism, Heritage, Photography

RAI Anthrop Photog

Босерон

www.curator.ie is participating in a conference on anthropology and photography being organised by the RAI (Royal Anthropological Institute) in the British Museum, London, on 29th- 31st May 2014.

Ciarán Walsh is a member of a panel being convened by Dr Jocelyne Dudding of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge University. The panel came together as a result of the ‘Headhunter’ project being shown in Cambridge University in September followed by the National University of Ireland Maynooth in October 2013. Dr. Mark H. Maguire, Dept. of Anthropology, NUI Maynooth and Dáithí de Mórdha of Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir (The Great Blasket Centre) will also be taking part. Dáithí is co-curator of the ‘Headhunter’ project.

The panel will be examining the importance of photography in the Ethnographic Survey of Ireland of 1891-1903 in the context of social, cultural and political issues that framed anthropology in Ireland in the 1890s and, continue to influence it to this day.

Information: RAI (Royal Anthropological Institute)

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Twenty five photographs that change the history of anthropology


‘Haddon and the Aran Islands’ exhibition in Royal Anthropological Institute | London | Oct 2023


STORYTELLING FESTIVAL LAUNCHES BUSY AUTUMN SCHEDULE FOR CURATOR.IE


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