Visiting with the Ancestors

What happens when museum objects go home for a visit? The Blackfoot shirts at Pitt Rivers Museum, collected in 1841, express Blackfoot culture and beliefs. In 2010, Pitt Rivers staff took them home to Canada for a visit so that contemporary Blackfoot people could learn from them and strengthen cultural knowledge and identity. This small exhibition includes three of the shirts and quotes and photographs from the reunions with Blackfoot people.

View the exhibition's official website.

Shirt with war honors  -  First half of 19th century

Image courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

The Colonial Album at the Pitt Rivers Museum

This exhibition shows how very ‘ordinary’ albums from the colonial period can provide a unique insight into the colonial experience. Colonial albums are common, owned by many families who were involved in colonial activities, such as administration, missions, engineering, medical work or teaching. They are now recognized as important historical documents, and yet they are rarely seen.

The albums exhibited were produced by Percy Coriat, Ernest Emley and William Freer Hill between 1905 and 1935, and relate to periods spent in Sudan, Kenya, and Nigeria respectively. All three use photography as a tool to communicate and record the relationships between different cultures within a colonial context.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Pagan hunter (print enlargement) -  William Freer Hill  -  Nigeria, 1905–1915

Album  -  William Freer Hill  -  Nigeria, 1905–1915

Album  -  E. D. Emley  -  Kenya, 1914–1948

Album  -  Percy Coriat  -  Sudan, 1928–1931

Text and images courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford