Congo Great Lakes Initiative / Session 1- Opening session

Written by Carys Wilkins, MA Material and Visual Culture, UCL Anthropology



UCL Anthropology and the Horniman Museum have hosted four workshops attended by members of the Great Lakes Community group, and cultural heritage and anthropology specialists.



Session 1: Opening session



The first session brought together all the participants in the project for the first time to meet one another and to discover the collections held at UCL and the Horniman Museum. The main aim of this opening session was to initiate a discussion about objects in the collections. The group learnt about the history of the UCL Anthropology collections, created by Professor Darryl Forde in the late 1940s, with artefacts gifted by the Wellcome Collection, the London Missionary Society, and staff and students past and present from the UCL anthropology department. The workshop also introduced the exhibition space in the anthropology department which now displays three exhibitions per year. The session cemented the aim of the project to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and expertise between the community and the partners. In addition, it raised the significant problem facing the collection, namely its lack of information relating to its history and the lack of documentation on individual artefacts.



Session 1: Opening session