University of St Andrews hosts international symposium on museums and Indigenous knowledge

Academics, curators and artists from across four continents gathered at the University of St Andrews this month for an international symposium exploring how Indigenous knowledge can reshape museum practice.

Held from 8–10 July, “Unsettling the Museum: Thinking Through Indigenous Entanglements” welcomed participants from Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Australia, the United States, France and the UK for three days of discussion, performance and creative exchange.

The symposium was co-organised by Patricia López Sánchez Cervantes, a PhD candidate in the University’s Museums and Heritage Studies programme, alongside Dr Bruno Brulon Soares. Patricia’s research explores how museums in Mexico and the United States work with the Indigenous communities connected to objects in their collections, providing the inspiration for the event.

“As a doctoral student, having the opportunity to co-organise an event of this scale, and to see my own research questions taken up in conversation by scholars and curators from around the world, has been one of the richest experiences of my time at St Andrews,” said Patricia.

The programme examined topics including Indigenous-led curation, the decolonisation of museum practice, and care for archives and collections. It featured contributions from leading international institutions, including Brazil’s National Arts Foundation (FUNARTE), the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), Brown University and the Science Museum of Minnesota.

Ṗejuta Ḣaka Win Red Eagle, Assistant Curator of Native American Ethnographic Collections at the Science Museum of Minnesota said: “We invite Native people in, we let them lead, and we let them correct our mistakes. We commission new work from community artists for the permanent collection, and we let them write their own text panels, in their own words — that way, we’re giving control back to our communities, to our Native people.”

The symposium concluded with a textile workshop led by Mexican artist Carlos Barrera Reyes, who demonstrated traditional cochineal dyeing using both Mexican and Scottish wool, highlighting the shared craft traditions and collaborative knowledge that connected the event’s international participants.

The event was funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the EU-funded EDGES project (“Entangling Indigenous Knowledges in Universities”), supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the European Union, with additional support from the ICOFOM and SOMUS committees of the International Council of Museums (ICOM).