Sian Tiley-Nel

University of Pretoria Museums

ICOM No. ZA63121

Nominators: Terry Simioti Nyambe (Zambia), Helene Vollgraaff (South Africa)

Biographical note

Sian is the Head of the University of Pretoria Museums and Curator of the Mapungubwe Collection under the Office of the Registrar to the UP Executive. She majored in Applied Anthropology (1996), with an Honours degree in Archaeology (1997), a postgraduate diploma in Heritage and Museum Studies, and lectured in museology for 12 years. She received honorary status as a Laureatus Conservator (2011), obtained her Master’s Degree in Archaeology (2013) and her PhD in History (2017). Sian served as a Council member for the SA Museums Association from 2000 to 2004, as regional Chairperson for the SAMA North Gauteng (2002 to 2004), and Vice-Chairperson for SAMA North (2004 to 2005). She also serves as the Co-Editor of SAMAB, the only accredited museum journal in Africa. Link to CV.

Qualifications for the position

currently serve as Head of the University of Pretoria (UP) Museums, under the Office of the Registrar (a member of the Executive), Pretoria, South Africa. I have also held the dual role of curator of the Mapungubwe Collection and Mapungubwe Archive, a nationally declared archaeological collection associated with a world heritage site. My tenure within higher education spans more than 25 years within a university museum context, with two decades in conservation, curation and heritage management. I serve on numerous internal committees, such as the Chair of the UP Museums Management Committee, Deputy Chair of the UP Museums Committee, and a long-standing member of the University of Pretoria Art Committee and Heritage Committee. Externally, I have served on Page 2 of 3
numerous professional affiliation boards such as the SA Museums Association, ICOM-SA and serve in an advisory capacity to the South African national government on matters related to university museums, collections and the broader arts, culture and heritage sector. In 2024, I was appointed to serve on the National Forum for the Law Enforcement of Heritage Related Matters, a new initiative by the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture (DSAC) and the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA). Therefore, I have strategic, operational, professional and practical insight into the workings of university museums/academic museums, archives, collections and galleries. She holds several professional memberships, is a published author and is recognised nationally and internationally, with an extensive university museum network. She has published in the public domain and academia, spanning her 25-year career. Sian is a well-known ambassador and advocate for mobilising and synergising the contributions and efforts of university museums and collections as powerhouses of archival, historical, cultural and artistic knowledge to museology in South Africa.

Main goals of candidacy

To serve as an ordinary board member to advance the mission and vision of UMAC. More importantly, my goal is to advocate for the reach of UMAC on the African continent and notably wider within South Africa. UMAC has advanced its reach to Africa since my presence on the board (2019). This is evident in the number of African universities that have joined the database and on LinkedIn, among other platforms. I founded UMAC-SA, the first-ever GLAM in higher education in South Africa. UMAC has seven of the top South African universities as members, which have much more potential to reach all 28 universities in South Africa. I aim to expand teaching and academic collections, not all located within museums or galleries, and advocate for UMAC to be more widely available among scientific, natural, library, archival, and architectural collections. Promoting the efforts, offerings, advocacy, the journal, and conferences of UMAC more widely in South Africa, and hopefully to the SADC countries, would be ideal. Africa within ICOM and UMAC have been marginalised for decades due to a lack of resources and funding. The representation of South Africans on an organised forum such as UMAC is critical, and to stimulate co-operation and partnerships of higher education in South Africa with global professionals within the domains of academic museums and collections needs to be maintained for both the benefit of UMAC and ICOM.