Collecting and Curating Southeast Asian Art: In Conversation

Abstract

• This conversation between the two curators, Alexandra Green and Rosanna Nicolson, celebrates two exhibitions focusing on Southeast Asian art–“Burma to Myanmar” and “Theravada Buddhism”–concurrently showing at The British Museum and at National Museums of Scotland respectively. It highlights issues related to the formation of Asian art collections in the UK, the curation of sacred objects in museum settings, and collaborations between museums and diasporic communities in the UK. This dialog brings attention to salient issues on decolonising museum spaces and practices, including the production and sharing of knowledge. Dr Alexandra Green is the Henry Ginsburg Curator for Southeast Asia in the Department of Asia at the British Museum and Lead Curator of Burma to Myanmar. She has written books and articles on Southeast Asia’s arts and material cultures, including Buddhist Visual Cultures, Rhetoric and Narrative in Late Burmese Wall Paintings (2018), Burmese Silver from the Colonial Period (2022), and Southeast Asia: a history in objects (2023). She edited and partially wrote Burma to Myanmar that was published in October 2023 to accompany the exhibition at the British Museum. Previous exhibition projects include Raffles in Southeast Asia: Revisiting the Scholar and Statesman at the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore and Sir Stamford Raffles: Collecting in Southeast Asia 1811–24 at the British Museum in 2019. Rosanna Nicolson is Assistant Curator (West, South and Southeast Asia) in the Department of Global Arts, Cultures and Design at National Museums Scotland. In this role she has been developing a special interest in Southeast Asia, and more recently has been identifying and improving documentation for Buddhist material culture. Her exhibition Theravāda Buddhism, 16 Sep 2023 – 9 Jun 2024, is the result of partnerships with members of the Buddhist community in Scotland and developed collaboratively with Edinburgh Buddhist Studies, an interdisciplinary research network at the University of Edinburgh.