This has been another exciting year filled with exhibition openings, lectures, research, teaching and public outreach! Some of the highlights are as follows:
Chancellor Samuel Mencoff opened our new exhibition celebrating our 60th anniversary on Oct 21, during Brown Family Weekend! The exhibition, curated by Kevin Smith, Deputy Director, is entitled "Northern Horizons, Global Visions: J. Louis Giddings and the Invention of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology." It features the life and legacy of Jim and Bets Giddings as well as the contributions of Doug and Wanni Anderson and their students.
We have been selected to participate in the Museum Assessment Program (MAP) funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and administered by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). This is a necessary first step towards AAM accreditation and a way to build support and engagement by the university for long-term planning to improve the Museum’s facilities and its abilities to care for and mobilize our collections for community engagement, research, and interpretation.
We collaborated with the RISD Museum on their exhibition "Whirling Return of the Ancestors: Egúngún Masquerade Ensembles of the Yorùbá" as part of our Mellon-funded Assemblages initiative. This exhibition was co-curated by Bolaji Campbell (Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture, RISD), Henry Drewal (Professor of Art History and Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Kate Irvin (Curator of Costume and Textiles, RISD Museum). It celebrates the rich and varied artistry of the ensembles worn in Egúngún masquerades—performances that evoke the power and enduring presence of ancestral spirits among the Yorùbá peoples of West Africa.
We continue to host our popular public lecture series and programs. Dr. Chip Colwell (Denver Museum of Nature and Science) gave this year's Barbara A. and Edward G. Hail Lecture entitled "Exploring the Collections: An Anthropologist in the University Museum Storeroom," and this was just one of six major events this term!
Our faculty programs continue to grow. We have appointed five new Faculty Fellows from Brown University's faculty: Sheila Bonde (Department of History of Art and Architecture), Jessaca Leinaweaver (Department of Anthropology), Courtney Martin (Department of History of Art and Architecture), Andrew Scherer (Department of Anthropology), and Parker Van Valkenberg (Department of Anthropology). We have appointed two Teaching Fellows funded by the Mellon Assemblage Project: Masha Ryskin (RISD, Experimental and Foundation Studies) and Jeff Moser (Brown, History of Art and Architecture).
Our research flourishes with NSF- Arctic Social Science support. Kevin Smith organized the Brown component of a multi-university Arctic Horizons initiative charting the future of Arctic Social Science research. Michèle Hayeur Smith is continuing her exciting research on women’s roles in the production and trade of cloth across the North Atlantic from the Viking Age until the early 1800s.
We welcome several new people into the HMA family and report two departures. Emily Jackson is our new Museum Operations and Communications Coordinator. Coming to us from the University of Edinburgh, where she earned her Masters in Anthropology studying social media, she oversees our online presence while holding down the functions of our front desk. Caleb Churchill, a practicing artist, is our new, part-time Mellon Photography Assistant. Sophia Sobers, who was with us for nearly two years, was offered an excellent career opportunity at the University of Pittsburgh and remains in close contact. Kaitlin McCormick is our Postdoctoral Fellow in Museum Studies and Anthropology. Kaitlin also comes to us from the University of Edinburgh where she completed her dissertation on Haida argillite carving. Alexandra Peck is our new proctor from the Department of Anthropology. We regret to report that Geralyn Ducady has left us to serve as Director of Education and Public Programs at the Rhode Island Historical Society. Arianna Riva has stepped into her position.
Our public outreach program serves nearly 2,700 Pre-K to High School students in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts every year, with eight Culture CaraVan programs and six educational packages that include lesson plans available online. In collaboration with Brown's Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World and the RISD Museum we also take our nationally recognized program Think Like an Archaeologist to Middle Schools around Providence and Rhode Island.
The Haffenreffer Museum's Gallery and Collections & Resource Center will be closed during Brown University's Holiday Break: December 23rd, 2016 through January 2nd, 2017. On behalf of the Friends Board and the Haffenreffer Museum staff, we wish you all a happy holiday season and look forward to seeing you throughout the coming year.