I am Junior Professor of Social Anthropology at the Institute for European Ethnology working across CARMAH and HZK (Hermannn von Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Techniques). My work focuses on material culture and museum studies, in relation to collections and intangible heritage. I am interested in questions of history and memory, knowledge production, materiality, politics and affect. I have conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Romania and the UK and brief stints of research in Italy, Germany and Poland.
I currently act as a co-chair of the international COST Action TRACTS: Traces as Research Agenda for Climate Change, Technology Studies & Social Justice (2021 – 2025). Within TRACTS, I am also responsible for the deliverables related to tracing museum collections in the context of climate change and social justice, as well as taking part in the curatorial collective to develop a Counter-Atlas of the Trace. I am also a DFG Network Public Anthropology member, co-organising the network meeting in Berlin (November 2022). I teach museum and collection research and anthropological perspectives on visual and material culture. In my pedagogical practice and museum research, I currently collaborate with the Museum of European Cultures in Berlin (MEK), the Deutsches Hygiene Museum in Dresden (DHMD) and the Weltmuseum in Vienna.
I joined the HU and CARMAH as an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow (2019-2021) after a postdoctoral project on learning cities at the University of Bristol. Initially trained in anthropology and critical heritage studies (UCL, Goldsmiths), I have previously taught at Goldsmiths, Bristol Doctoral School and Imperial College London. In 2018-2019, I helped to coordinate the development of the UK Research Infrastructure Roadmap in the area of arts and humanities with a focus on interdisciplinary heritage studies. I have also worked in applied anthropology in the private and museum sector, and I am particularly interested in developing new modes of ethnographic writing and exhibition-making. Previous co-curated exhibitions include:
– Revisiting Romania: Dress and Identity at the Horniman Museum in London that reimagined a 1950s museum collection through ethnographic research
– Forging Folklore, Disrupting Archives at Constance Howard Gallery in London that worked to remediate textile collections through critical art interventions
– Learning City: A Self-Portrait at Coexist Gallery, Hamilton House in Bristol that brought together contributions from Barton Hill Settlement, Countering Colston, Dhek Bhal, Easton Community Centre, Bristol Bike Project, Coexist Community Kitchen, Refugee Women of Bristol, St Mungo’s, Workers’ Educational Association and Wild Walks for Wellbeing as well as artists Eleanor Shipman, Joff Winterhart and Biggerhouse Film.
Research areas:
Material and Visual Culture
Collection Ethnography
Memory, Heritage Politics and Activism
Intangible Heritage
Trace as Epistemological, Ethical and Methodological Challenge
Making and Knowledge Production
Learning, Affect and Care
Curatorial Practice