Exhibition review: Celebrating art and music: the SOAS collections at the Brunei Gallery

Exhibitions are a great way for libraries and organisations to highlight the strength of their collections through a creative narrative and relaxed environment. Exhibitions are also a great way to for librarians to increase public access to the collections. 

In April, the Brunei Gallery opened its Centenary Exhibition, 'Celebrating art and music: the SOAS collections'. This exhibition explores visual arts and music of Asia, Africa and the Middle East through the rich history of collections at SOAS, with a combination of manuscripts, books, painting, photographs, 3D objects and audio-visual display. 

I got my ticket for the official launch of the exhibition and headed of the gallery on May 3rd and I was amazed by what I saw on display. Curator Anna Contadini introduced the exhibition with Nigerian artist Sokari Douglas Camp's modern welded steel sculptures. I loved her sculpture of a woman blowing kisses titled "Kissss Me" because it resembled the colour of a red lipstick. I also smiled at her stand alone sculpture of a mother, father and daughter dancing probably at a church as they each wore 'Jesus loves me' slogans. 

The exhibition continued through North African and the Middle East. Contadini stated that although some instruments were normally played by men during the Ottoman Period, women were depicted playing flutes and santurs. It was great to see this within the exhibition. The displays slowly changed toward Asian artworks with a long 17th-century Japanese scroll depicting a procession of Korean Ambassadors on horseback. This recently restored piece was beautiful and full of vibrant colours.  

We then encountered a set of 20th-century drums, metallophone, xylophone and gongs from across South-east Asia as the exhibition moved downstairs. To my surprise, we were led into a great live musical performance of a large Thai gong circle, that was also on display. Afterwards, our performer explained the significance these instruments played in the development of ceremonial music and the variety of set play variations that were introduced across the region. The gongs continuing to playing in the background really set the scene for the rest of the exhibition. 

I highly recommend you viewing the pioneering work of South Asian Ethnomusicologist Arnold Adriaan Bake; listening to the recording made from a Tibetan manuscript record of chants; photography from Mustang by Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf and looking at the LP album covers of a collection of songs from the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The exhibition closes on June 24th.

My main take away from the exhibition and talk by Contadini was the emphases she placed on the collections being central and reflective of the scholarly engagements at SOAS. From students playing many of the instruments on display and the new research analysis of music from art. 

Another perk about attending this exhibition opening evening was discounted sale of the accompanying exhibition catalogues. I took full advance of the 50% off to acquire the catalogue for my library collections. Unfortunately, this offer has now passed but you can pick up your copy of Celebrating art and music: the SOAS collections edited by Anna Contadini here. 

Archiving artistic heritage in museums

Last November, I attended a conference for 'Unboxing the Archive: how Tate is transforming access to our artistic heritage' at Tate Britain. As I have started a new project on listing the Asia Department Archives in the British Museum (BM), considering the prospect of digitising such an archive has become an increasing thought.

A vast majority of the 20th-century objects in the BM collection have archival correspondence detailing how the object became part of the collection and related files to multiple exhibitions. Whereas the BM Collection Online Database holds the basic information about each object, their corresponding archival files demonstrate the processes and attitudes regarding acquiring art during the time period. This information is valuable to understand how collections develop and change over time and can help people trace family members connections to the BM. Therefore, it is unfortunate that this information is not readily available especially online. As Rosemary Lynch stated in her opening remarks at the conference:

Light-sensitivity in displays

So I have been passed on an interesting to link by my line manager about a blog post that focuses on the affects of light on artwork/ objects. Since working in illustrations on alternative Tuesdays as mentioned in my typical day as a library graduate trainee post, this is a really important issue in displaying old and rare special collections and especially illustrations. 


A lot of the items we have in the Archives and Illustrations are boxed in dark storage for the simple reason of reducing fire and possible water damage but also reducing light induced damage such as paper discolouration. Ink or watercolour artworks on vellum are another tricky item to display due to the material morphing under environmental temperature changes. Due to this, I have definitely been thinking about what items to select from the Library, Art & Archives collection for my commemorative exhibition project focusing on Kew’s involvement in plant science during the First World War. 


Thankfully, a lot of the items we will be using have either had a considerable rest period, are objet d’art part of the Economic Botany collection or just never come out of storage since their acquisition. In addition, all light sources around the display are at optimal levels above temperature controlled glass storage, thus ideal for a two-months exhibition period. Nonetheless, this post is definitely a must read for those doing their first exhibition.