Forty years ago Anthony Forge edited Primitive Art and Society, a foundational collection for the anthropology of art. In introducing the book, Forge noted that the study of art had been neglected, a casualty of the lack of dialogue between mainstream anthropology and the museums that had once been, but were no longer, central to the discipline. Since then, a rich ethnography of art has emerged, but it has remained unclear what museums can possibly contribute. This lecture offers a fresh assessment of museum collections, of the museum object, of the museum as method, of the capacity of the museum to empower not only the anthropology of art, but anthropology, conceived ambitiously as a project of social and cultural understanding.

Nicholas Thomas, who has been Director of MAA since 2006, is an anthropologist and historian. He visited the Pacific Islands first in 1984 to research his PhD thesis on the Marquesas Islands, later worked in Fiji and New Zealand, as well as in many archives and museum collections in Europe, north America, and the Pacific itself. He was the foundation Director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at ANU.

His books include Entangled Objects (1991), Oceanic Art (1995), Discoveries: the voyages of Captain James Cook (2003), and Islanders: the Age of Empire in the Pacific (2010), which was awarded the Wolfson History Prize.

Download the A critique of the natural artefact: anthropology, art and museology flyer (280KB PDF)

Forge Lecture Dinner

Time: 7.45pm
Venue: University House
Cost: $44

RSVP

E Emma.Arnold@anu.edu.au
T 02 6125 6674

This lecture is free and open to the public.
ANU Public Lecture Series information:
news.anu.edu.au/for-the-public/