From Ancient Egypt to modern China, the Oriental Museum is devoted to the culture, art and archaeology of Asia and Northern Africa.
The museum has partners all over the world, and its latest major collaborative project, working with one of Japan’s national museums, sees a collection of its objects transported to Sakura, just outside Tokyo.
Dialogue caught up with our Head of Museums, Galleries and Exhibitions, Dr Craig Barclay, about what it’s like working at the museum and to find out more about the amazing family story at the heart of its latest exhibition.
Our Oriental Museum
How did the collection at the Oriental Museum come about?
The collection at the Oriental Museum includes around 40,000 objects. Although the University opened its first museum in the 1830s, the Oriental Museum can trace its origins back to the period after the Second World War, when we started collecting artefacts to support teaching in Asian languages and cultures.
The museum itself opened to the public in 1960 and over the years we’ve continued to be a centre for University teaching and research, and also opened our doors more and more to the public.
Why did you want to work at the museum?
My background is a slightly unusual one. I left school to take a job in archaeology, then went to university to study psychology. After I got my MA, I defected back to classical archaeology, doing a research degree and landing my first museum job at the University of Aberdeen. Since then, I’ve worked in museums around the UK and completed my PhD in modern history, so I’m a bit of an oddball!
The collections here at the Oriental Museum are absolutely out of this world. I have a longstanding interest in ceramics and the pottery collections are astonishingly good. As it’s a University museum, I also get to teach my subject specialism of numismatics – the study of coins.
What’s your favourite thing about your job?
It’s the variety. One minute, I can be working on an exhibition project, the next I’m teaching. I write grant bids, do object-based research and work with our partners around the globe.
The museum has wonderful collections and wonderful people. People tend to think of museums as sleepy places, but they’re not – they’re places where people are constantly on the go.
Who are the museum’s key partners around the world?
We have several key partners who we’re working with on collaborative projects in Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore, as well as the National Museum of Japanese History and the Palace Museum in Beijing – China’s largest museum.
We also work very closely with Durham University’s UNESCO chair in archaeology on project work, including post-earthquake cultural protection in Nepal and post-conflict heritage management in Sri Lanka.
Our relationships are enormously important to us. They support research collaboration and allow us to fly the University’s flag internationally.
Photography exhibition at the Oriental Museum
Can you tell us more about this latest collaborative exhibition?
It’s with the National Museum of Japanese History, with whom we have a longstanding history of collaborative work, including a very successful, jointly-curated exhibition on Japanese woodblock prints here at the Oriental Museum.
Led by Rachel Barclay, the Oriental Museum's Senior Curator, this particular project involves taking collection materials from Durham University to Japan, and this material all relates to the interconnectivity between Japan and the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
It reflects the experiences of a North East family, the Squires, who lived in Japan and became assimilated into its culture, in an area where there weren’t many other foreigners. George Squire worked in the paper industry as part of its modernisation process – but this exhibition isn’t about papermaking. It’s about George, his wife Lydia and their two daughters Marjorie and Dorothy, and how their connection to Japan shaped their lives.
What items have been included?
We’ve sent ceramics, letters, photographs and postcards. The collection also includes items of clothing, including Mr Squire’s Japanese cufflinks and his daughters’ traditional Japanese clothing, which was adapted for them. Also included are the dolls the children played with and silver fans which they were given, which still have their little fingerprints etched into the metal.
It's an incredibly evocative exhibition. Obviously, paper is featured – in the form of woodblock prints given to Mr Squire by his Japanese colleagues.
What can the exhibition tell us about the relationship between the UK and Japan at this time?
It’s about interconnectivity and everyday life. It’s a love story, especially for the two daughters who remained in love with Japan for the rest of their lives.
That interconnectivity went both ways. From the middle of the 19th century onwards, Japan underwent a period of rapid modernisation. Japanese students came to the North East and became students at Durham University to learn about Western science and technology.
The North East was particularly important because of the shipbuilding industry, with Japanese naval personnel learning how ships were built and sailing North East-built vessels back to Japan. Several Japanese people who were involved with this process are buried in Newcastle.
How long did the exhibition take to prepare?
It’s taken a few years to get to this point. It’s a long journey, especially when you’re working with partners internationally. The process of physically packing the items themselves took a couple of weeks, and thankfully all the delicate items arrived intact.
And finally, how can someone visit the Oriental Museum?
When we’re open, just turn up at the front door! We’re open Tuesday to Friday, 10am-5pm, and at weekends, 12pm-5pm. Entrance is free. If you want to research our collection, drop us an email and we can sort a time.