History of the collection
The museum has its origins as an ethnographic teaching collection. The collection was begun in 1968 by Professor Mervyn Jaspan when he was appointed to the Chair in the Sociology of South-East Asia within the Centre for South-East Asian Studies at the University of Hull. The Centre was established in 1962/3 following the Hayter Report, which recommended a 10-year period of funding to establish area studies centres in British universities. The county of Yorkshire received funding to establish three centres: Chinese Studies (University of Leeds); Japanese Studies (University of Sheffield); and South-East Asian Studies (University of Hull).
Prof. Jaspan began the collection with artefacts and photographic material from his personal collection, which he used to illustrate the practical ethnography classes which he held as part of his course on The Peoples and Cultures of South-East Asia. The core of the collection derives from his early collecting in Indonesia from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as those of his wife, Helen Jaspan, their three sons and other relatives. Subsequently he collected materials in the Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar, which he also donated to the collection. The collection continued to receive donations from Mervyn Jaspan and his wife Helen, until his untimely death in 1975.
In 1970 the collection became The University of Hull Collection of South-East Asian Art and Traditional Craftsmanship. From the 1970s the collection grew rapidly, with donations from staff, students and associates of the Centre. It has continued to receive donations, including from individuals and institutions not linked to the Centre.
Major donations to the collection have included:
- the teaching collections of Indonesian objects from Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon
- a bequest of Philippine items from Ifor Ball Powell
- the Philla Davis collection of Indonesian and Philippine basketry and textiles
- the Arthur Twaites collection, donated by his widow Marjorie Thwaites, of Sarawak artefacts, including textiles, wooden sculptures, plaited ware and beadwork
- a collection of Cambodian textiles from the Victoria and Albert Museum
- part of the Andrew Fayle textile collection from the Horniman Museum, with the assistance of Dr Fiona Kerlogue
- the Professor Stuart [JSG] Wilson bequest of Southeast Asian and Japanese artefacts
- artefacts collected by Dr. Clive Christie and his late wife Professor Jan Wisseman Christie, both former staff in the Hull Centre for South-East Asian Studies
- a donation of paintings by the Sarawak artist, Stephen Baya made by Dr. Monica Janowski.
Purchases have also been made for the collection, including:
- a substantial acquisition of Burmese items at auction from the collection of the Reverend Mathieson
- Thai and Buddhist artefacts, with funding from the Royal Thai Embassy in London
From collection to museum
In 2007, the collection became a museum, when a substantial financial donation to the Centre from Dr Roy Bruton, who had research interests in Sarawak, enabled the collection to be relocated to a first-floor gallery in the Wilberforce Building. It is now the Southeast Asia Museum at the University of Hull. Previously, it had been displayed in cases along corridors and in seminar rooms, and some objects from the collection were also displayed for a time in Middleton Hall.
The museum is now a public-facing institution which aims to be accessible and relevant to a wider public in the Humber region, as well as being oriented towards research. The function of the museum as a teaching collection has become less important with the closure of the Centre for South-East Asian Studies in 2005, due to the decision to bring the three Asian Studies centres situated in Yorkshire together in Leeds, to form the White Rose East Asia Centre (WREAC), with Prof. Victor King as its Executive Director.
The curatorship of the museum
In 1972 Lewis Hill, Lecturer in the Social Anthropology of South-East Asia, became the curator of the collection and later the museum. He continued to serve in that position after his retirement in 2000, until 2022. Sadly, Lewis Hill died in March 2023, after many years of service, both on behalf of the study of South-East Asia at Hull and through his curatorship of the collection and then the museum.
The position of curator has since been taken over Dr Monica Janowski, who was awarded her MPhil at Cambridge and PhD from the London School of Economics under the supervision of the eminent French anthropologist Professor Maurice Émile Félix Bloch; she is a specialist in Borneo anthropology and has considerable expertise in material culture and museum studies.
Her deputy is Prof. Victor T. King, who had been supervised for his PhD in social anthropology at Hull by Mervyn Jaspan and who was Professor of South-East Asian Studies there from 1988 to 2005.
Curatorial consultants for the Museum are Dr Fiona Kerlogue and Dr Andy West.
Exhibitions and community interaction
The Museum has occasional exhibitions, including:
- Costumes of the Golden Triangle (1987–1989), a touring exhibition in the Humber region based on a donation of costumes from Dr Robert G. Cooper, a Hull graduate who spent two years carrying out field research (1973–1975) among the Hmong in northern Thailand and Laos
- Textiles and Embroidery of the Ethnic Minorities of South-west China (1991), an exhibition in the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull.
- Art and Religion in Bali (1993), an exhibition in the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull
- Sumatran Textiles (1990s and early 2000s), a display in the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull based on the collection made by Dr. Fiona Kerlogue.
- Precious Cargo (2010–2011), made possible through funding as part of the Cultural Olympiad, which included a number of wayang shadow puppet shows and puppet-related performances and workshops, bringing in schools, drawing on puppets in the collection and involving the Department for Drama and Music at the University of Hull and local puppet companies in East Yorkshire.
- Heroines, Heroes and Cosmic Power in Southeast Asia (2023), an exhibition in the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull supported by a grant from the Ferens Education Trust, featuring some of the work of the Borneo artist, Stephen Baya together with objects from the collection.
- An exhibition is planned for 2025 on SE Asian textiles
Access to the museum
The Museum is located on the First Floor of the Wilberforce Building in the Roy Bruton Room (next to Zucchini's Cafe).
It is open Monday to Friday.
It is available for booking for seminars and meetings every morning between 9:00am and 1:00pm (booking system available to UoH staff - Room Name: Wilberforce Building - South East Asia Museum).
It is open to all students, staff, and members of the public between 1:00pm and 5:00pm.
Volunteering
We welcome both students and members of the public as volunteers at the Museum. Please get in touch with Monica (m.janowski@hull.ac.uk) if you are interested in volunteering.