The Wonder House – 'My pilgrimage is well begun. And what work! What work!' ~ R. Kipling

In Podcasts
Planning for an uncertain future with Dan Simmons

In this special episode, I welcome leadership coach Dan Simmons to The Wonder House. The last 8 months have been incredibly difficult and the second…

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In Exhibition Photo Galleries/ Travels & Reviews
Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk @V&A

In September, I visited Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk exhibition at the V&A that was curated by Anna Jackson and Josephine Rout. It was an exhilarating…

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In Podcasts
Furlough #MuseumHour with Zey Kussan

On June 22, 2020, Zey Kussan and I co-hosted Museum Hour. Our topic was: Furlough (given leave of absence from your job). It had…

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In Podcasts
Coffee & Catch Up with Dan Vo

In this week’s Coffee & Catch Up, I chat to Dan Vo, founder of the award-winning LGBTQ+ volunteer-led tours at the V&A. Dan tells me…

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In Podcasts
Dan Vo

In Episode 14, I speak to Dan Vo, Founder of the award-winning LGBTQ+ volunteer-led tours at the V&A and he has since developed similar…

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In Podcasts
Coffee & Catch Up with Prof. Margot Finn

For the fourth episode of Coffee and Catch Up, I chat to Margot Finn, Professor of Modern British History at UCL and President of…

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In Podcasts
Coffee & Catch Up with Thanh Sinden

Today, I’m speaking to Thanh Sinden, Chair of the Museum Detox Executive Committee, and museum consultant. We talk about work, family and health, as…

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In Podcasts
Coaching for a Challenging Time with Gaylene Gould

Today, I’m speaking to Gaylene Gould, Creative Director of The Space to Come and coach. I am drawing on her coaching expertise in this episode.…

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In Podcasts
Coffee & Catch Up with Sara Wajid

Lockdown was sudden, scary and we didn’t know what the coming days and weeks would hold for us, our loved ones or even our…

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In Podcasts
Coffee & Catch Up with Subhadra Das

Lockdown was sudden, scary and we didn’t know what the coming days and weeks would hold for us or our loved ones. The days…

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In Podcasts
Reconnecting: Protests, Breaking Barriers & Windrush Waves with Arike Oke

In Episode 8, I catch up with Arike Oke, Director of the Black Cultural Archives. We last spoke during the lockdown in May, before…

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In Podcasts
Arike Oke

In Episode 7, I speak to Arike Oke, Director of the Black Cultural Archives. We talk about her incredible career that started as a…

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In Podcasts
Margot Finn

In Episode 6, I speak to Margot Finn, Professor of Modern British History at UCL and President of the Royal Historical Society (‘RHS’) about two…

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In Podcasts
Sadiah Qureshi

In Episode 5, I speak to Dr Sadiah Qureshi, Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Birmingham, about two recent projects that…

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In Podcasts
Rachael Minott

In Episode 4, I speak to Rachael Minott, Inclusion and Change Manager at The National Archives, board member of the Museums Association and visual artist working on Jamaican national…

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In Podcasts
Sara Wajid

In Episode 3, I speak to Sara Wajid, Head of Engagement at the Museum of London, about her sector-changing approach to ‘The Past Is Now’ (2017)…

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In Exhibition Photo Galleries
Photo Gallery – The Past Is Now

The Past Is Now In this photo gallery, I share the photographs that I took at The Past Is Now exhibition that was on…

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In Podcasts
Miranda Lowe

In Episode 2, I speak to Miranda Lowe, Principal Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Natural History Museum – and, yes, I ask her…

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In Podcasts
Subhadra Das

To kick off the new podcast series, I speak to Subhadra Das (@LittleGaudy), Curator of the Science Collections at UCL. Subhadra is doing some…

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In Projects
Q&A: How did you become a curator?

I often receive emails from students and early career scholars in the UK and abroad who are thinking of entering the museum sector in…

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In Hotung Gallery/ Projects
Moved, blown up, restored: the journey of an Asokan Inscription at the British Museum

One of the most important objects in the South Asia collections at the British Museum is also one of the most unassuming. It is…

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In Hotung Gallery
The Bimaran Casket: Representing the Buddha in Human Form

The Bimaran Casket is a small, gold reliquary which bears the earliest datable representation of the Buddha in human form. Earlier portrays of the…

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In Hotung Gallery/ Projects
How to recreate a Gandhara stupa at the British Museum

The first object you encounter when approach the Gandhara section of the Hotung Gallery is a large, beautifully carved preaching Buddha sculpture from Jamalgarhi,…

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In Hotung Gallery/ Projects
Curating the Life of the Buddha at the British Museum

The refurbishment of the Sir Joseph E. Hotung Gallery for China and South Asia was an opportunity to reassess the full scope of the…

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In Hotung Gallery/ Projects
Behind the Scenes at the British Museum: Indo-Roman trade in the Hotung Gallery

The previous incarnation of the South Asia section of the Sir Joseph E Hotung Gallery for China and South Asia was broadly thematic in…

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In Asian Ethnographic Collections/ Projects
From Siberia to London: the Sakha Collections at the British Museum

The British Museum Siberian collections are substantial – numbering some 1400 objects – and they also range widely in terms of material, type, and…

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In Reviews/ Travels & Reviews
Review: Splendours of the Subcontinent, New Walk Museum

The UK-India Year of Culture 2017 has seen many exhibitions held across the UK as part of the year long programme of events celebrating the…

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In Exhibition Photo Galleries/ Travels & Reviews
Whitworth Gallery: South Asia in photos

Raqs Media Collective Raqib Shaw South Asian Modernists Sooni Taraporevala Beyond Borders…

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In Exhibition Photo Galleries/ Travels & Reviews
Manchester Art Gallery: South Asia in photos

The South Asia focused exhibitions at the Manchester Art Gallery from September 2017 onwards coincide with the 70th anniversary of Indian Independence from British colonial…

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In Col. Colin Mackenzie, 1st Surveyor General of India/ Projects/ Travels/ Travels & Reviews
Journey to the Western Isles

We covered 1371 miles during our journey to the Western Isles and as we left the plains of England and passed through the Lake…

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In Col. Colin Mackenzie, 1st Surveyor General of India/ Exhibition Photo Galleries/ Projects/ Reviews/ Travels/ Travels & Reviews
Collector Extraordinaire Exhibition: treasures from India in Scotland

Opening night! After a slightly frantic start deciding what to wear to an event I had been looking forward to for so long, I…

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In Col. Colin Mackenzie, 1st Surveyor General of India/ Projects
Collector Extraordinaire: selecting objects to reunite a collection

Colin Mackenzie (1754-1821) was born in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis but spent most of his life in India working for the East…

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In Travels/ Travels & Reviews
Burnham Thorpe: The Nelson Connection

We first stumbled across the quiet village of Burnham Thorpe in north Norfolk on a rainy day in 2009 that turned out to be…

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In Asian Ethnographic Collections/ Projects
The Great Game & Alexander the Great: 19th century transformation in Kalasha material culture in northwest Pakistan

In Autumn 2012, I first encountered the vast Asian Ethnographic Collections held at the British Museum. I knew the collections were considerable, but nothing…

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In Travels/ Travels & Reviews
Elveden: a small corner of the Punjab in a Suffolk churchyard

When a son was born to Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Maharani Jind Kaur, it must have seemed inconceivable to them that his final resting place would…

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In Col. Colin Mackenzie, 1st Surveyor General of India/ Projects/ Travels/ Travels & Reviews
In the footsteps of an East India Company official: from the Outer Hebrides to India… and back again – Part 2

Last Spring, thanks to the generosity of the Purvai Project at An Lanntair, I had the opportunity to visit Col. Colin Mackenzie’s birthplace in…

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In Col. Colin Mackenzie, 1st Surveyor General of India/ Projects
Coins, coins, everywhere! The rediscovery of a collection at the British Museum – Part 1

In 2009, I started volunteering at the British Museum. I had come across the Masson Project which was run by Dr Elizabeth Errington in…

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