Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2023 Contexts (Vol 46)
2023 Contexts (Vol 46)
volume 46
2023
ABOUT
The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology (HMA) is
Brown University’s teaching and research museum. A
resource across the university and beyond, we inspire
THE creative and critical thinking about culture by
fostering interdisciplinary understanding of the
MUSEUM material world.
Images are from the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University unless otherwise noted.
Front cover exterior: Manning Hall, Gallery Open! (2023).
Front cover interior: Front Green at Night (Manning Hall). © Brown University (2008).
Back cover interior: Haffenreffer Museum Collections Research Center in Bristol, Rhode Island (ca. 2018).
Back cover exterior: Arpillera of appliquéd cotton and yarn depicting students protesting in front of an escuela (school), detail (2001-13-
52).
Contexts
Editor, Christina J. Hodge
Copyright 2023 Brown University
CONTENTS 1
Leadership / 01
2
Grants & Projects / 06
3
Teaching Highlights / 11
4
Exhibition Highlights / 15
5
Repatriation / 19
6
Programming Highlights / 22
7
Research / 30
8
Laboratory for Circumpolar
Studies / 41
9
Staff of wood and gold foil depicting seated men in
front of a table with a bowl of food , which is a
Collections & Archives / 46
metaphor for the power of the king, created by an
Akan person in Ghana (2004-15-83a-c). Currently 10
on display in the Manning Hall Gallery.
Acknowledgements / 55
4,783
The # of people who were impacted by the HMA from July 2022
through June 2023 as students, researchers, correspondents, event
attendees, and gallery visitors.
Left: Professor Emeritus Douglas D. Anderson (left) and Justin Junge of the National Park Service (right) examining
collections in the Laboratory for Circumpolar Studies (2022). Center: Laurie Tamayo ('25), a student in
Anthropology in/of the Museum, holding the artifact she researched for the class exhibition (2023). Right: View of
the audience at Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Presidential Lecture, titled "Restoration and Reciprocity: Healing
Relationships with the Natural World," organized by Brown's Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative and
cosponsored by HMA (2022).
[1] "Faith and Practice at an Early-Eighteenth-Century Wampanoag Burial Ground: The Waldo Farm Site in Dartmouth,
Massachusetts." Historical Archaeology 39, no. 4 (2005): 65–86.
[2] "A New Model for Memory Work: Nostalgic Discourse at a Historic Home." International Journal of Heritage Studies 17, no. 2 (2011):
116-35. "‘A Small Brick Pile for the Indians’: The 1655 Harvard Indian College as Setting." In Archaeologies of Mobility and Movement,
edited by Mary C. Beaudry and Travis G. Parno, 217–36. New York: Springer, 2013. Consumerism and the Emergence of the Middle Class
in Colonial America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. "‘A Sharp White Background’: Enslavement and Privilege at
Eighteenth-Century Harvard College." Historical Archaeology 55, no. 4 (2021): 463–89.
[3] "Decolonizing Collections-Based Learning: Experiential Observation as an Interdisciplinary Framework for Object Study." Museum
Anthropology 41, no. 2 (2018): 142–58. And Christina F. Kreps (editors), Pragmatic Imagination and the New Museum Anthropology.
New York: Routledge, in press.
Two stone projectile points after rehousing Pairs of Native American moccasins of hide,
into custom-made archival boxes with corner glass beads, and fur, rehoused into archival
bumpers, along with rehousing tools (2023). shoe-trays for safe storage and study (2023).
Students in Anthropology 1901 working with archaeological artifacts from the Dominican Republic, describing and
drawing the items and using their observations to generate research questions (2023).
Decolonial E-Textiles
Thierry Gentis, Head Curator
In fall 2022, RISD faculty fellow Mariela Pinochet’s brutal military dictatorship.
Yeregui requested a CultureLab session They were sold to tourists and became a
on HMA’s Chilean arpilleras collection powerful expression of resistance,
for her Research Studio class Decolonial depicting protests against abuses.
E-Textiles. Arpilleras (“burlaps”) are Arpilleras are relevant to many
textile protest art. The HMA’s sixty- contemporary student concerns. HMA
seven arpilleras were donated in 2001 has loaned twelve arpilleras to the RISD
by Dr. Billey Fink in memory of Dr. Museum of Art for teaching and display.
Kenneth J. Smith-Aman, father of Julia
Smith-Aman, Class of 2001.
Brown University President Christina Paxson enjoying the fall 2022 opening of the exhibit "A Verry Drunk
Hunters Dream”: Modernist Expression in Africa, installed through spring 2024 in HMA's Manning Hall Gallery,
highlighting a full-size reproduction of the textile work A Verry Drunk Hunters Dream by Austrian-born artist
Susanne Wenger (2017-22-1).
In March 2023, HMA introduced The was created and to explore the
Pandemic Journaling Project: A innovations of PJP as public
Grassroots Collaborative Ethnography anthropology. The multimedia exhibit
at the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus features prints of fourteen digital
Center. The exhibit features the images, as well as a physical sketchbook
Pandemic Journaling Project (PJP), created by a long-term journaler in New
which we created in May 2020 with the York City, a painting by a teenage
goal of giving ordinary people a place to participant in Connecticut, and podcasts
chronicle and preserve their experiences created by young people in Mexico City.
of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants The HMA exhibit is one of four
from around the world created a weekly Providence stops of Picturing the
record of their pandemic experiences in Pandemic, a traveling exhibition of PJP
writing, audio, or images. By May 2022, materials with additional stops in
over 1,800 people in 55 countries had Hartford, Connecticut, Heidelberg,
created nearly 27,000 journal entries— Germany, and Mexico City, Mexico. Each
including almost 3,000 images. stop puts visual materials from PJP into
conversation with local materials to
Our HMA exhibit draws upon explore how people around the globe use
participant-submitted images, video, images to tell their pandemic stories and
and audio to tell the story of how and to question, and critique, our changing
why the Pandemic Journaling Project world.
Repatriation Matters
Robert W. Preucel, Director; James Manning Professor of Anthropology
Thierry Gentis, Head Curator
Consultations
HMA is currently in discussions with the consultation process. The museum is
Narragansett Indian Tribe regarding the working with the tribe to resolve the
appropriate disposition of ten issue and assist in development of a
Narragansett ancestors and twenty-four Memorandum of Agreement outlining
burial goods. These discussions follow the formal relationships between the
upon the posting of a Notice of Inventory university and the tribe. The HMA is also
Completion (NIC) in the Federal consulting with other tribes and tribal
Register in 2018. This positing was collectives regarding the repatriation of
based upon a consultation that took "culturally unaffiliated" ancestors and
place in 1997 under a consultation grant grave goods. These are being repatriated
awarded to the museum by the National on the basis of geographical affiliation.
Park Service. As a result of inquiries Jan Bernstein and Associates is helping
from student journalists last spring, the schedule these consultations and provide
museum learned that the Narragansett advice on best practices.
Indian Tribe had concerns about the
Bonney Hartley (left), Tribal Historic Preservation Manager, Monique Tyndall (second from left), Cultural
Affairs Director, for the Stockbridge-Munsee Tribe of Mohicans during the repatraition of three pipes,
with Director Robert Preucel (second from right) and Head Curator Thierry Gentis (right) (2022).
Fall 2022
The 2022–2023 Academic Year was Drunk Hunters Dream": Modernist
finally a return to in-person Expressionism in Africa, curated by
programming. HMA ventured back to in- Professor Bolaji Campbell (RISD) and
person programming with a hybrid Head Curator Thierry Gentis (see
model, using digital platforms and Exhibitions”). This event brought in
recording technology to continue to approximately one hundred guests to
expand our reach beyond campus and the gallery over the course of the
Rhode Island communities. It has been a evening, including President Christina
pleasure to see new and familiar faces Paxson who enjoyed the show along
back in the gallery and on campus, and with a lovely reception. Campbell
moving into the 2023–2024 academic offered opening remarks alongside
year, we will continue to offer both in- Gentis and provided a libation for the
person and virtual programs. ancestors and a welcome to the local
Yoruba community.
Fall 2022 was a busy semester. HMA
hosted five events, two of them being Campbell accompanied the exhibition
highlights of the academic year. We with a curatorial talk on Tuesday,
began on Thursday, September 15th October 18th entitled “Navigating the
with the exhibition opening of “A Verry Mysterious and the Exotic,” where he
Exhibition-related programming
continued on Tuesday, May 2, featuring
Peter Probst, Professor of Art History
and Anthropology at Tufts University.
His talk, entitled “Keeping the Goddess
Alive: Susanne Wenger, and the
Dynamics of Nigerian Modernism,”
situated Austrian-Nigerian artist
Susanne Wenger (1915–2009) in the
context of debates on African
modernism, heritage politics, and
postcolonial theories. This program was
supported by generous donors to the
Jane Powell Dwyer Memorial Fund.
Professor Peter Probst (Tufts) (left) with
Professor Bolaji Campbell (RISD) (right)
Finally rounding out the year’s at Probst's talk about the artist Susanne
programming, HMA hosted a Zoom Wenger and her legacy (2023).
22
The # of workshops, public talks, exhibit openings,
and other events HMA originated (12) or
participated in with institutional partners (10),
which welcomed . . .
HMA program
totals by type,
June 2022
through June
2023.
A capacity crowd filled Pembroke Hall in late fall 2022 for the Gather. Make. Sustain. panel discussion,
"Celebrating Indigenous Land-Based Practitioners," organzied by HMA's Programming Department and cosponsored
by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative (2022).
The discussion regarded their work and This event was supported by generous
expertise in the fields of ethnobotany donors to the Friends of the
(Kimmerer), fine arts (James-Perry), Haffenreffer Museum and cosponsored
seedkeeping (Curliss), and language by Native American and Indigenous
revitalization (Young). This evening was Studies at Brown University.
a celebration of their efforts to make
smoothed for incised designs. Two holes spoken. Most are known from
drilled near the top edge allowed archaeological sites in Mexico
suspension on a cord. Like most of the (Dzehkabtun, Itzamkanac, Oxtankah,
Vista Alegre), Guatemala (Ceibal, Tayasal,
other gorgets, the scene incised on the
Uaxactun), and Belize (Rancho San
HMA ornament depicts elite men
Lorenzo). However, four, including the
holding conference—in this case, two HMA example, are unprovenienced.
seated men facing one another, with the
left-hand figure holding a bundle of The designs on the gorgets are remarkably
feathers, a feathered fan, or a scepter. consistent. All but one depict gatherings
Both figures wear bands around their of men. At the center are two opposed
figures, presumably of highest rank in
thighs and fringed mantles hoods, all
these groupings, sometimes flanked by
apparently made of jaguar or ocelot
males of lower status. Curiously, the dress
skin. As on the other gorgets, the two tends not to be Maya, and their bodies
sides appear to be of equal status. have stippled dots or parallel lines that
may express color or texture. The
These gorgets are typically found in linework is angular, the noses pointy, the
areas where Mayan languages were body paint and evident scarification
[1] Nicholas Carter and Katherine Lukach, “Terminal Classic Conch-Shell Gorgets from the Maya Region and Central Mexico.” Ancient
Mesoamerica (2023): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536122000360. Stephen Houston and Simon Martin,“Foreign Intimacies:
Terminal Classic Shells, Novel Identities, and Gathered Elites.” Paper presented the 88th Annual Meeting of the Society for American
Archaeology, Portland, Oregon, 2023.
[2] Alfred V. Kidder, The Artifacts of Uaxactun, Guatemala. Publications No. 576. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of
Washington, 1947.
45
The # of researchers from Brown and
beyond who worked on HMA Collections last
academic year, whose needs ranged from
email inquiries to a six-week residency.
Geographical
areas of
research
projects at
HMA, June 2022
through June
2023.
Three Diné textiles, which RISD curator Sháńdíín Brown (Diné), Henry Luce Curatorial Fellow for Native American
Art at the RISD Museum, researched in preparation for her fall 2023 exhibit Diné Textiles: Nizhónigo Hadadit’eh at
the RISD Museum, which will include textiles loaned by HMA (see the "Collections" section).
Arctic Activities
James Whitney, Circumpolar Laboratory Inventory Project Manager
162
The # of artifacts and art objects
acquired through 9 new donations from
generous individuals and allied
museums.
70
The # of museum objects HMA has
loaned out for research and exhibition,
enabling HMA’s partners to better fulfill
their own missions.
Geographical
origins of items
donated to
HMA, June 2022
through June
2023.
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and Kaylee Jellum, Volunteer Collections Intern
Anthropology Technician
[email protected] hma.brown.edu
instagram.com/haffenreffermuseum
Haffenreffer Museum www.facebook.com/HaffenrefferMuseum
Manning Hall Gallery youtube.com/playlist?
Manning Hall, First Floor list=PL031FD246CE1CDC15
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Providence, RI 02912
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