In our latest blog post University of Cambridge researchers Katherine Enright and Liana Chua explore how colonial collecting reclassified Indigenous foods (such as tiger milk mushrooms and edible bird’s nests) and rituals as charms, specimens, and commodities: www.maadigitallab.org/blog/2025/11...

New online: The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) collection is now available on LSE Digital Library! We’ve digitised and published the GLF Diaries and the GLF newspaper Come Together. Further series from the archives will be added as digitisation continues.
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digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/...

Within the collections cared for at MAA is a wooden figure of the langsuir - a Malay vampire. In our latest blog post University of Cambridge MPhil students Ashley Chin and Ryan Ko trace its ties to folklore and colonial collecting practices: www.maadigitallab.org/blog/2025/09...

I'll be presenting online, this evening, at the kind invitation of the British Cave Research Association! My talk is on histories of speleology, guano harvesting, and archaeology in Malaysia. Details here: bcra.org.uk/seminars2025...

Thrilled with this news! And what an honour to be part of the curatorial team behind this exhibition

I had a lovely time chatting with Juliet of BFM Radio and Dylan from Sunda Shelves in KL! Catch our conversation on historic scientific expeditions and why they matter today: www.bfm.my/content/podc...

Had a truly wonderful time sharing about Mohamed Haniff (1872-1930) and his botanical collecting through herbarium sheets @ Forest Learning Centre, Perdana Botanic Gardens KL - huge thank you to the team there and to the Sunda Shelves bookstore!

Guide to the now-defunct Natural History Gallery at the National Museum of Malaysia (Muzium Negara), 1979 -- from the personal collection of Abdul Nasir Halim (1938-1999), who made these amazing dioramas (Perpustakaan ATMA, UKM)

Excited to be part of this great line up of natural history talks and walks at the Forest Learning Centre, Perdana Botanic Gardens, KL later this month!

Palm Practices, a collaboration between Jelai Asli Craft, a Semai weaving collective from Pahang, and Gerimis Art, Malaysia, on display at GMBB in KL. Pictured is my favourite pattern, with a delightful name: ekor tenggiling, or pangolin's tail

Naturhistorisk Museum Aarhus: Amidst charismatic mammals and danish wildflowers, unassuming crustacean specimens offer a glimpse of Denmark's scientific endeavors in Southeast Asia: one from Penang, first Galathea Expedition, 1846 & a jar from Ban Kao, Thai-Danish Prehistoric Expedition, 1961.

Some highlights from an absolutely fantastic ArtJog 2025, the annual art festival in Jogjakarta:

first up, two prints from Agung Pramana's series 'Looting Back the Shadow Puppets' (2025) - the puppets escaping, video-game style, from the floor plan of the British Museum

These beautiful pressed seaweeds are the work of 19th-century botanist Amelia Griffiths. Sent to Dawson Turner, writer of 𝘚𝘺𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘴𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘍𝘶𝘤𝘪, around 1808, this volume is currently on display as part of our exhibition 𝘐𝘯 𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘌𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵: 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦’𝘴 𝘍𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘻𝘦𝘳𝘴.

Had a wonderful time learning and sharing at the History of Medicine in Southeast Asia conference in Jogjakarta!

Latest paper with the fantastic @katherinenright.bsky.social Our thoughts and recommendations on #herbarium #digitisation

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

First post here! Happy to share my brilliant friend @tanvidg.bsky.social's reporting on funding for climate initiatives in the bay area