QVMAG global collab research project

 Media release – Friday 1 November 2019

Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery's Collections and Research Manager, Dr Christine Hansen, is traveling to Europe for three weeks to begin a major research project studying centuryold shell necklaces from our region in order to better understand the effects of climate change.

Funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) and based at Gothenburg University, the project begins in Stockholm where Christine will be working at the Swedish Ethnografik Museum, which holds several shell necklaces made in the early 1900s and believed to be from Oceanic communities including the Pacific Islands, New Zealand and Australia.

These communities sit along the East Australian Current, a major migratory path for marine life. In studying the century-old shells alongside contemporary examples of the same species, Christine expects to demonstrate how rising sea temperatures are changing the marine world.

The project will also examine community ties: how the traditions of shell necklace making are practiced throughout the region and how these practices thread together communities that share the same waters.

Christine will also travel to Kew Gardens in London to examine Tasmanian specimens held in this renowned institution's collection and champion links with QVMAG's botany specimens and artworks.

The research project is scheduled to be conducted across four years.

QVMAG is proud to be working collaboratively with international research institutions to gain better knowledge of underused collections in Europe so we might better connect the past to the present and understand future environmental challenges.

Christine departs Tasmania later this week and will be providing regular updates of her journey so stay tuned to QVMAG social media pages.