Staff, faculty, and students from the History of Art department recently toured the collections of the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, housed at the Research Museums Center. The off-campus facility houses UMMAA’s 3 million objects, ranging from archaeological ceramics and stone tools to basketry made by local Native communities as recently as 2018.
Collections Managers Jim Moss and Andrea Blaser, alongside UMMAA Curator and HoA faculty member Bryan Miller, shared their work to decolonize the collections through active collaborations and community involvement, and to raise awareness of the collection across the university campus. Museum staff have engaged with students across a wide range of disciplines, including History, Political Science, School of Information, and Classical Studies, and are excited to grow their relationship with History of Art.
Highlights from the tour included pieces from the global weaponry collection, a beaded Oneida bandolier bag made for the 1904 World’s Fair, and a large selection from the Chinese Government Collection - textiles purchased from the Chinese delegation to the 1884 Cotton Centennial World’s Fair.
The UMMAA collections are available for tours, both in-person and remote, for any interested researcher, and for classroom teaching by emailing ummaa-collection-mgr@umich.edu.
