Pacific collections in Scottish Museums: Unlocking their knowledge and potential is a partnership project supported by the Museums Association Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund. It ran from April 2013 to December 2014 and aimed to reconnect dispersed Pacific collections held in museums across Scotland, and their histories.

The core partner museums were National Museums Scotland, Aberdeen University Museums, Glasgow Museums, and Perth Museum & Art Gallery. The team studied Pacific collections in all four museums, documenting stories that emerged both within and across the collections.

Previous reviews revealed significant material from the Pacific in Scottish museums and gave details of the quantity and location of collections. You can see the results of these here:

UNESCO survey of Oceania collections in UK and Ireland (1979)

A Wider World: Collections of foreign ethnography in Scotland (1994)

This project wanted to take that information further, drawing out stories of quantity, quality, significance and uniqueness. It also aimed to develop and implement a new method for collections knowledge transfer between a new curator, current collections staff and subject experts.

The outcomes from the project can be found on this website. You can navigate Pacific Collections in Scotland to find out about material held by the project partners as well as several other Scottish museums. You can also explore the Introduction to Pacific Collections.  These resources are aimed at anyone interested in developing their knowledge of working with Pacific collections.

Throughout the project we shared some of the stories that emerged on our Pacific Collections Review blog