Blog Post 3: Speakers
We had four speakers as part of our event. We carefully chose all of these speakers due to their differing perspectives on the Skull Collection.
Zaki El-Salahi was chosen for his work as a community member to visit one of the ancestors and his outspoken nature. He discussed his own work as part of the Sudanese Community Partnership as well as many members’ desires to interact with their ancestors in the skull room. Many of them are unable to see their ancestors due to the University schedule and the lack of flexibility it allows.
Marenka Thompson-Odlum was chosen due to her work in museums and its relevance to the Anatomical Museum and Skull Collections labeling system. She spoke on her experience working at the Pitt Rivers Museum on their Labelling Matters project. Unfortunately, she was unable to attend in person but did a prerecorded video. She also provided us with a handout to give guests to take their own look at museum labels.
Dr. Tobias Houlton was chosen due to his perspective as an anthropologist and his students’ work with the collection, which gives him a very different view than our other speakers. He came all the way from Dundee to speak at our event and is a specialist in craniofacial identification and anthropology, which made him of particular interest to myself and Jude. He spoke about visual representations in museums.
Finally, Nicole Anderson was chosen due to her close work with the collection for her Ph.D. and her understanding of ongoing repatriation work with the Canadian First Nations Peoples. She spoke on provenance research as it relates to the Skull Collection. She also touched on her work as a moderator between Canadian First Nations groups and the University. Her talk was a fan favorite according to the surveys.
The whole group collectively agreed on these speakers due to their interesting and varying perspectives.
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