Jenny Newell

Curator

Pacific and Australia, particularly Polynesia; human remains

Department: Africa, Oceania and the Americas

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8045
Email: jnewell @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

Jenny Newell trained in Pacific history and has been a curator in the Oceanic section since 2001. She works primarily on making the collection accessible to visitors, researchers and indigenous stakeholders (through exhibitions, loan exhibitions, publications, talks, events, and visits to the storehouse). Jenny has a PhD in Tahitian history from the Australian National University (2005).

Her special interests are environmental history (particularly the impact of cross-cultural engagements on island ecologies) and contemporary Pacific art and performance.

Jenny Newell’s previous employment includes working as research and editorial assistant at the Centre for Cross-Cultural research, Australian National University.

Current British Museum projects

AOA Pictorial Collection Cataloguing project

Timelines of world culture web resource

Pacific case refreshment, Living & Dying exhibition

Maori kite commission

Previous British Museum projects

Curatorial staff exchange with the National Museum of Australia (Feb-June 2007)

Curatorial contributions to: ‘Britain Meets the World’, loan exhibition to Beijing; Pacific & Australian section in Enlightenment gallery; Living & Dying exhibition, and Room 2 Pacific display.

Events including: Pacific Islands Conference 1-2 Dec 2006, Pacific Islands Day 4 Nov 2006.

Collaborations (on-going) with Pacific communities in UK.

Fieldwork/collecting in Tahiti, Nov 2004.

External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies

Member of:

Pacific Arts Association (Europe)

Museum Ethnographers Group (UK)

Museums Australia

Publications

Most recent publications

J. Newell, 'Collecting from the collectors: Pacific islanders and the spoils of Europe', in Cook's Pacific Encounters: The Cook-Forster Collection of the George August University of Gottingen (Canberra, National Museum of Australia Press, 2006), pp. 29-47.

 J. Newell, ‘Hawai’i at the American Museum’, Americain Britain, vol 44 (2006). 

J. Newell, ‘Battle call’ (co-authored with A. Harrison, conservator, re: BM conservation and community access project on taiaha, Maori fighting staffs), British Museum Magazine, Winter 2006.

J. Newell, ‘The Maori Kite Flies Again’, Pacific Arts, New series 1 (2006).

J. Newell, ‘Exotic Possessions: Polynesians and their 18^th Century collecting’, Journal of Museum Ethnography, no.17 (2005).