Giovanna Vitelli

The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, Scotland

ICOM No. 152267

Nominators: Steph Scholten (Scotland), Florian Knothe (Hong Kong)

Biographical note

I am an archaeologist and anthropologist by training, having undertaken fieldwork and research in Europe, North Africa and North America with both university and Indigenous communities. I have a BA in Anthropology, and a Masters in Landscape Conservation and a PhD in colonial archaeology. I have held senior posts in academics (as professor) and museums (as director or head of programmes), responsible for creating and promoting programmes of university engagement with collections for the last 15 years. My work as a teacher, a researcher and a leader is always with the support of others and I will support Board teamwork to deliver our agenda. Link to CV.

Qualifications for the position

A position on the UMAC Board requires a solid museum background and a deep understanding of the place of the university museum and collections in the life of the university itself. I have been an academic (a professor of Anthropology) and a museum practitioner for several decades, always with the aim of making museum collections accessible to university communities and community groups represented in the collections. My career has been spent bridging the gap between university collections and their potential users. I have been an active teacher and facilitator, and I have researched and published on interdisciplinary collections study and on object-led teaching and learning, as well as on the legacy of colonial collections and their centrality to university histories. I was the Director of a large university engagement programme at Oxford, and with my team I developed methodologies for the use of objects as research and teaching tools, across many disciplines. I advocated successfully to university management for the recognition of collections as academic assets. I have carried this work into my current job at The Hunterian, where I am Head of Research and of the Curators responsible for engagement with both the university and local communities, which is central to the work of all university museums. I sit on university Research and Curriculum Development committees in order to contribute a museum perspective to planning and strategy. I have participated in a number of international conferences that have stressed commitment to opening up museums to social and community participation, including MINOM, UMAC-ICOM, Museums Association UK, World Archaeological Congress (WAC), bringing the experience back to UMAC to open up conversations and develop better inclusion in ICOM.

Main goals of candidacy

I want to improve access and inclusivity in the committee’s work, which we began in the last mandate but now need to carry forward. In agreement with Board colleagues, and under the direction of the Chair, the areas I expect to focus on are:
1. Improve our communications with UMAC membership, and share projects, resources and networks. Listen to the membership!
2. Support existing programmes that focus on under-represented regions or demographics such as Building Bridges and Imaginations.
3. Improve linguistic diversity and expand UMAC geographical reach: begin with more promotion of ICOM official languages to encourage dialogue and exchange in multiple languages, and actively seek out members where UMAC is less well known.
4. Support the work of UMAC Journal by promoting more diversity and agency in topics and languages that are proposed by potential authors.
5. Ensure that UMAC Board is accountable and transparent in its business.