February 23 – Museums@Noon – Internships in Switzerland and West Africa
February 23 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Internship experiences at Museum of Natural History of Bern, Switzerland and the Museum of West African Art
February 23 from 12:00 – 1:00
Online via Zoom.
Patricia Torres-Pineda – MSP24; PhD student, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
From the Field to the Museum: Experiences at the Museum of Natural History of Bern
More than 60 million natural history specimens are housed in Swiss museums, universities, botanical gardens, and other heritage institutions. Nationwide investment in storage, databasing, and policy development actively advances museomics, digitization, anti-racism initiatives, and provenance research. As a result, these collections are increasingly recognized as dynamic archives for phylogenetic and global change research, rather than as static displays. Join me to reflect on my experiences in one of the most important natural history museums and collections of Switzerland.
Timilehin Ayelagbe – MS24; PhD student, Anthropology
Art, Labor, and Landscape at MOWAA: Centering Production, Environmental Knowledge, & Community in Museum Interpretation
This presentation reflects on my internship at the Museum of West African Art Edo (MOWAA), where I contributed to research, interpretation, and the curation of an exhibition. Drawing on both my MOWAA experience and my UM Museum Studies training, I discuss exhibition-making by centering production processes, environmental knowledge, and community context rather than focusing only on finished objects. The talk highlights how archaeological and ecological perspectives shaped my curatorial decisions and how this experience deepened my understanding of emerging museum practice in West Africa.
