“Field/Work in the Archive: Herbaria as Sites of Cultural Exchange”
with Martha Fleming
Museologist, historian of science and of collections, Associate Professor, Natural History Museum of Denmark
Abstract: Martha Fleming will discuss the aims, research methods, and preliminary findings of the project of the same title for which she is the Principal Investigator. Field/Work investigates the global cultural historical value of elements of the dried plant collection of 'Herbarium C' -- the Danish national herbarium held at the Natural History Museum of Denmark. Significant elements of the collection are colonial in nature, and the project thus aims to conjoin history of science, history of collections, collections-based research, and global and colonial histories.
Bio: Martha Fleming is a museologist, an historian of collections, and an historian of science with a particular focus on natural historical and correlative scientific collections and archives. Her current research investigates the creation and management of natural history collections as significant forms of knowledge producing practices embedded in globalised colonial contexts. Fleming was instrumental in the creation of the Centre for Arts and Humanities Research at London’s Natural History Museum (2009-2011), a research centre that has since been held up as a model internationally for the productive integration of the methods and rigour of humanities and social science disciplines into life science research contexts.
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