B Hodgett
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coloursburntin.bsky.social
B Hodgett
@coloursburntin.bsky.social
300 followers 410 following 84 posts
Rummaging around museums

Postdoc | 'Making the Museum' | Pitt Rivers Museum

PhD | Life in Photographs : Archaeology, Assemblage and Temporality in the Archive of O.G.S Crawford

Previously | Krasis JTF | Ashmolean Museum

All views my own.

They/Them
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coloursburntin.bsky.social
Late night library find: a pamphlet written by the archaeologist John Evans with a note on the front cover that appears to be in his hand, dedicating it to his son, Arthur Evans (of Knossos fame).

Any experts on Evan's handwriting out there?
Photograph of John Evans 1893 pamphlet "The Forgery of Antiquities" with a handwritten note on the top reading "Arthur John Evans, with his fathers love"
September 4, 2025 at 9:35 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
We're hosting a FREE workshop @pittriversmuseum.bsky.social this September on the topic of 'Form'. Join artists, makers and researchers in a series of public conversations about what 'Form' means in their practice. Full programme here 👇 No need to book!

prm.web.ox.ac.uk/sites/defaul...
August 19, 2025 at 6:05 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
It's a friend's wedding this weekend, so please enjoy this card I made for them featuring bad drawings of their cat.
Four digital sketches of a black cat in distorted poses. In one, the cat awkwardly extends a single leg out of a cardboard box. Next to it, the cat claws it's way up a door post. In the third the cat rolls on the floor looking shocked, and in the fourth it lies draped in a bizarre Uffington horse shape. All of the cats appear vacant behind the eyes.
June 5, 2025 at 6:30 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
Had the absolute delight today of hearing @plainstitchdeb.bsky.social talk at the @pittriversmuseum.bsky.social
about her amazing PhD research and work on the 'Within the Frame' project on quilting histories, making, and protecting critically endangered craft.
A traditional quilting frame sits on top of a nineteenth century quilt in pink and brown hues. Two carding brushes and some fleece pieces are in the top right hand corner, ready to be used as batting for the quilt on the frame...
May 23, 2025 at 7:23 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
This next speaker in our 'Making the Museum' Seminar Series is Deb McGuire from the 'Within the Frame' Project, which explores the now endangered practice of hand quilting a flat frame. If you're in Oxford this Friday please do join us 👇

www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/prm-research...

#MakingTheMuseum #Quilt
May 21, 2025 at 10:55 AM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
This Friday at the VMMA seminar series we're incredibly lucky to hear from Prof. Trevor Marchand talking about his research into the incredibly skilled process of craft.

Details of the talk here: www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/prm-research...
May 7, 2025 at 3:15 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
This coming term the Making the Museum Project are running a seminar series on the theme of making. If you think spending your Friday lunch break learning about quilt making, traditional carpentry, and pottery sounds ace 👇

Full abstracts and dates/times: www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/prm-research...
April 24, 2025 at 10:49 AM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
One of the pages from the Zine making workshop last weekend which Imperfect Bound Collective and I co-hosted on the topic of replicas, copies, casts and fakes in museum collections. This one is called "How to fake a handaxe with a photocopier".
A black and white A4 page with the outline of a handaxe picked out. The page reads "How to fake a handaxe on a photocopier: 1. Crumple museum packing tissue paper 2. Photocopy 3. Cut out hand axe shape (you can also photocopy a picture and cut out the outline) 4.Glue pages together 5. Profit?!
April 11, 2025 at 9:07 AM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
Ready to start an afternoon of #MakersandFakers workshops. If you're in Oxford pop over to the @pittriversmuseum.bsky.social between 13:00 and 16:00 to make a collaborative zine with our friends from Imperfect Bound Zine Collective.
Research room filled to the brim with exciting objects for the tour
April 6, 2025 at 11:31 AM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
For archaeologists local to Oxford please join us this Thursday 3rd April for a one-off seminar series on Nigerian Archaeology hosted at the School of Archaeology, 1 South Parks Road.

More details here: prm.web.ox.ac.uk/making-museu...
Screenshot of two speaker bios which read: Uwagbale Edward Ekpu is a researcher from Benin City, Nigeria. Uwagbale has recently been working with the archaeology team at the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) excavation projects in and around Benin City. In this short talk, Uwagbale will give us an update on the recent fieldwork. Uwagbale has also co-curated the new Benin Kingdom display on the 1st floor of the Pitt Rivers Museum galleries and is in Oxford to do more research on the Benin Kingdom objects. Dr Ferdinand Saumarez Smith is Director of Factum Foundation London. Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation was established with the aim of using Factum Arte's innovative processes and technologies for preservation, education, and the dissemination of cultural heritage. Factum has recently been working with collaborators to replicate the famous 9th century Igbo-Ukwu bronzes, first discovered in Nigeria in the 1930’s, then more extensively excavated in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In this short talk and demonstration, Ferdinand will share with us the replicas of the Igbo-Ukwu bronzes and talk about the work being done to produce facsimiles of archaeological objects such as the Igbo-Ukwu bronzes when the originals are inaccessible to local communities
March 31, 2025 at 3:58 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
For #worldbookday here are some of the great titles on the @pittriversmuseum.bsky.social library shelf! I can't decide if I prefer 'Bobbins of Belgium' or 'The Romance of the Lace Pillow'....
A #Shelfie showing a series of PRM library books with titles like "Devon Pillow Lace' and 'Bobbins of Belgium'
March 6, 2025 at 7:07 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
Great to see the bookmarks I made for our forthcoming 'Makers and Fakers' workshop on display at Imperfect Bound Collective's stall at @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social Zine fair today!
Bookmarks which are stamped with a museum label and read "maker or faker" are on display on a table full of colourful zines.
February 22, 2025 at 3:13 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
This evening is all about making some hand stamped and photocopied bookmarks ready for @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social Zine fair tomorrow. I'm swimming in QR codes...
An a4 page covered in tiny QR codes, ready to be cut up and stuck on individual bookmarks.
February 21, 2025 at 5:26 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
Spent my lunch break today handprinting bookmarks to advertise our forthcoming #MakingTheMuseum workshop on 'Makers and Fakers'.

The workshop will be hosted at the @pittriversmuseum.bsky.social on Sunday 6th April. Join us to make your own bookmark, or zine page. Booking details in thread 👇
A photograph in black & white of a bookmark on a wooden counter. The bookmark is stamped with the outline of two muse labels. One label reads "Faker" and the other reads "maker".
February 18, 2025 at 5:02 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
Booking is live for our next #MakingTheMuseum workshop! We've teamed up with Zine Collective Imperfect Bound to run a Zine making workshop exploring the stories behind the hundreds of copies, casts, replicas and fakes in the Pitt Rivers Museum collection.

More info: torch.ox.ac.uk/event/makers...
A sample zine page. On the left individually printed letters read "Makers and Fakers: How Copies, replicas, casts and fakes 'make' museum collections". The letters are pasted over the image of a replica handaxe cradled in tissue paper. On the right details of the event workshop are given. For event details please follow the link in the main text post.
February 14, 2025 at 6:07 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
I've been thinking a lot about Zines recently, and especially the ways that the copying involved in making a zine might help us think about other forms of copying, like archaeological fakes and replicas. Here's a little test piece made on fabric by ink printing directly from a replica flint...
A close cropped image in warm light shows a black ink impression of a small worked flint. Next to it sits the replica the print was made from, and surrounding them both are the remnants of zine making, printed letters, pens, paper and glue
January 24, 2025 at 11:32 AM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
Housemate and I decorated the Christmas cake last night. As it was the eve of the #WinterSolstice we made a small #Stonehenge tribute
A Christmas cake decorated in white fondant icing. Among (badly) sculpted mice, hedgehogs, deer and trees is a tiny model of Stonehenge made out of fondant.
December 21, 2024 at 2:48 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
Just going to leave this here...spotted in the wild on Ebay

#TheRarestStoneInTheWorld
#SplitByJesusHimself
#Allegedly
Ebay listing for "The rarest stone in the world". The stone is a small grey unevenly shaped pebble with an exposed central crystalline structure. Another screenshot of the listing. The item description written by the seller reads "Split by Jesus's himself...allegedly". The item price is £200,000
December 20, 2024 at 1:54 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
And finally in Session 4 I'll be speaking about the new
@pittriversmuseum.bsky.social project #MakingTheMuseum and Melanie Giles and Sophie Adams will be excavating intimacy in the Mortimer archive...
December 12, 2024 at 11:29 AM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
In session 3 we mix things up a bit and start thinking about value and collections, from biscuit tins being used for object storage to high value objects circulated through dealers with Lisa Randisi and @danpotteregypt.bsky.social
December 12, 2024 at 11:28 AM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
Then @martynjb.bsky.social
and Helen Wickstead will be delving into the untold histories of archaeology and museum that only emerge after you deep dive into a collections rabbit hole...
December 12, 2024 at 11:27 AM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
First off we'll be thinking about how we work with 'old data' in archives, and what kinds of new information and narratives might emerge when we go back to the archive. Featuring Heidi J. Miller and Renee Trepagnier
December 12, 2024 at 11:26 AM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
Counting down to @tag45.bsky.social ! I'm running the session 'Excavating the Collection: New Evolutions in the Archaeology of Museum Collections' this Friday 13th 14:00-16:30, and am so excited to be joined by
@alicestevenson.bsky.social
as discussant! For more info 👇
Poster for the conference session 'Excavation the Collection: New Evolutions in Museum Archaeology'. The poster is in black and white. In the centre is a historic photograph of the Pitt Rivers Museum court (taken about 1900). The photograph shows crowded glass display cases. At the top, the title is displayed in bold font, while at the bottom the details of the session organiser (Beth Hodgett) and Discussant (Alice Stevenson) are in smaller block capitals.
December 11, 2024 at 8:33 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
Just got back from a wonderful few days at the Society for Museum Archaeology conference in Cardiff. I even got a chance to head out to the coast, and stumbled upon this modern standing stone and circle in Rhoose.

#2000CE #standingstone #modernmegaliths #SocMusArchCon2024
November 11, 2024 at 3:50 PM
coloursburntin.bsky.social
One of the most famous objects in the #PittRiversMuseum is the 'Witch in the Bottle'. Collected in 1915 from Hove, the previous owner is said to have warned field collector Margaret Murray "they do say there be a witch in it, and if you let un out there'll be a peck o'trouble"

#samhain #witch
October 31, 2024 at 2:14 PM