St Andrews exhibition explores colonial links
FROM GOLF TO FISH, UNIVERSITY PROJECT DEALS WITH ‘LEGACIES OF EMPIRE’
SCOTLAND’S St Andrews University, which was founded in 1413 and is the oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge, is following other educational institutions in the UK by examining the colonial history of some of its prized possessions.
Twenty years ago, the university was the centre of much tabloid interest because this was where Prince William met his bride-tobe, Kate Middleton.
Located in Fife, “St Andrews is a unique place to study and live,” says the university’s prospectus. “Nestled on the east coast of Scotland, students may find themselves crossing golf-courses on their way to class or jogging along the beach after dinner.”
Scotland is famed for its golf, with the Old Course at St Andrews Links in Fife said to be “the oldest golf course in the world”.
But neither Prince William nor Kate, who were studying geography and art history, respectively, probably would have thought very much about the wider ramifications of a golf ball.
But it represents a form of “exploitation”, according to a new exhibition, Re-collecting Empire, which has just opened at the Wardlaw Museum in St Andrews, and runs until October 22.
A spokesman for the university said: “Recollecting Empire is part of wider work under way into the university’s connections to empire. The exhibition takes a broad view, asking questions about how we take the best possible care of our collections, and what stories we tell about them.”
One panel, labelled A Question of sport,
reveals, “By recreating and imposing British sports in colonised countries, golf and cricket were spread around the world. Natural resources from colonised countries were exploited to make sporting equipment. Gutta percha, a natural rubber material found in trees native to southeast Asia, was harvested to make golf balls for the European market.”
The British colonialists did take golf to India, where today it has a huge following among the elite.
The Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC) in Calcutta (now Kolkata), the capital of British India until it was moved to Delhi in 1911, was established in 1829 and was the first outside the UK. It remains “a green oasis in the city, and is home to foxes, snakes and mongoose as well as many birds”.
Another golf course was set up at the city’s Tollygunge Club in 1895.
Re-collecting Empire “presents objects from the university’s collections alongside perspectives from individuals and partner groups that help improve understanding of the countries and cultures from which the items came”, say the organisers.
It has a reference to the hilsa or illish, the favoured fish of the people of West Bengal, which fetches ever higher prices in the Kolkata fish markets.
“Among those contributing important cultural and personal perspectives to the exhibition is Dr Anindya Raychaudhuri, senior lecturer in the University’s School of English,” the organisers added.
“Dr Raychaudhuri provides commentary on an exhibit of Tenualosa Ilisha, a fish that is popular in parts of the Indian subcontinent, eaten on special days. Up until now, the fish had been recorded in museum records only by its scientific classification, its cultural significance overlooked.”
Raychaudhuri, who is currently in India, pointed out: “For me, it is a strange experience to see this fish represented simply and uncomplicatedly as a zoological sample.” He explained: “The exhibition highlights the cultural importance of the fish and the emotional investment that people may have with it – from memories of the sensory experience of a loud and messy Bengali fish market, to the pain of Partition, which resulted in millions of people being forced to move away from
their homes and, therefore, from the senses and flavours with which they had been familiar.”
He added: “Objects like this mean many things all at once, and the exhibition is attempting to include as many of these alternative perspectives as possible.”
Other exhibits include a copy of the Qur’an which once belonged to the ruler of Mysore; a Tibetan stone; a Chinese bell used in sacred ceremonies; and a statue of a Buddhist monk. The contributions alongside them include “personal reflections, annotations and quotes, as well as creative responses such as poetry or art, seeking to foreground voices and perspectives that have often been excluded”.
Re-collecting Empire is funded by Museums Galleries Scotland and is a collaboration with Dr Emma Bond of the University’s
School of Modern Languages. She has extensive experience working with Scottish museums to re-assess their colonial legacies and sits on the Decolonising Advisory Board of V&A Dundee.
Bond said: “The Re-collecting Empire exhibition opens at a time when museums and galleries across the UK and beyond are rethinking how best to care for objects in their collections that were acquired during periods of colonial rule. Multiple voices must be involved in these important conversations in order for museums to be able to move forward in more equitable ways.”
The Re-collecting Empire project began in early 2020. Supported by an advisory board of academics and museum professionals from across Scotland, Bond and the museums team held a series of “critical conversations” with students and staff from St Andrews, ran academic workshops exploring the histories of specific objects in the collections, and co-produced a learning programme with the BAME Students’ Network.
Bond added: “It was a privilege to work closely with such a wide range of people with expertise in so many related areas. I hope that Re-collecting Empire signals the start of a productive and transparent conversation with these groups about how to reckon with the legacies of empire that are present in the University’s collections.”
Dr Catherine Eagleton, director of libraries and museums at St Andrews, said: “This exhibition is the result of a lot of careful thinking and consultation about how we tackle the colonial legacies in our collection. It’s an attempt to explore these stories publicly and trial new ways of telling them, with the voices of those who have often been excluded at the forefront.
“We ... hope to open a conversation with visitors to better understand and help improve the legacies of empire today.”
The organisers say the exhibition is “an important part of the University Museums’ strategic objective to tackle institutional legacies and one of several university projects currently under way, including St Andrews and the Legacies of Empire, which seeks to understand the institution’s complex connections to the ideas and practice of empire.
“Recommendations for future research and actions will be published in a report later this year.”