The city of Hull boasts a plethora of museums and galleries, as well as world-renowned tourist attractions, including The Deep aquarium.
But the University of Hull is also home to a little-known museum, which houses a range of colourful and fascinating artefacts from South East Asia.
The collection, which was established in 1968, now has 3,000 artefacts, ranging from musical instruments to weaponry and dragon-themed exhibits.
Curator Monica Janowski, who is leading a project to encourage more people to visit the museum, said: “It’s very exciting and mind-expanding to find out about how other people live.”
The collection includes about 3,000 artefacts from places including Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar [BBC]
Ms Janowski said Prof Mervyn Jaspan had donated his own items from the Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar to start the collection as part of his role within the centre for South East Asian studies at the university.
Staff and students also then helped to grow the collection by donating their own artefacts.
“Although it has always been open to the public, it’s largely unknown about,” Ms Janowski said.
“Nobody knew outside the university that it was here at all,” she added.
Ms Janowski said the museum included an array of fascinating objects, many themed on dragons.
“Dragons are the flow of life-force. They are water in South East Asia and more widely in the Far East,” she said.
“We’ve got a beautiful carving of a dragon, wall hangings and bracelets [and] a Buddha, with the dragon protecting the Buddha.”
The collection also features a textile dragon from Myanmar (formerly Burma), which was donated by an anthropologist shortly before his death.
Other artefacts include representations of Barong and Rangda – two central figures in Balinese mythology.
“Bali is still [largely] Hindu and in the Hindu cosmology you have to have a balance between good and evil – between destruction and creation,” Ms Janowski said.
Ms Janowski says she wants to encourage more people to visit the museum [BBC]
She added it was disappointing that so few people had seen the collection.
“I want to tell people about it. I want people to come and see it and I want to interpret what is here so people can understand it,” she said.
“There are themes here which are universal human themes, and it would be lovely to show South East Asian films, have South East Asian food and to bring children in to do activities.
“Objects have a way of achieving this because they’ve got a kind of life of their own – they speak to you directly.”
The museum is located on the first floor of the university’s Wilberforce building and is open to all students, staff and the public Monday to Friday from 13:00 to 17:00 GMT.
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