As part of the celebration of 125 years of bilateral relations between Britain and Kuwait, Dr. Paul Collins, museum scholar and academic extraordinaire, former Jaleh Hearn Curator of Ancient Near East at the Ashmolean, the University of Oxford’s Museum of Art and Archaeology and present Keeper of the Middle East at the British Museum was in Kuwait for a visit organized by the National Council For Culture, Arts, and Letters and the British Embassy in end September.

During his stay, Dr. Collins visited museums and met curators and owners of private art collections in Kuwait. The hope is for effective collaboration and knowledge exchange between Kuwait’s museum sector and the British Museum in the future. In an interview with Arab Times, Dr. Collins expressed his admiration for the extraordinary nature of Kuwait’s artifacts and archaeological remains, emphasized the need for storytelling with objects, and the importance of making the past relevant. He highlighted the potential of museums in fostering a sense of pride and belonging, discussed their roles in civic society, and the value of local voices in narrating history. “There are extraordinary works of art, including Kuwait’s vibrant archaeological heritage,” he said to Arab Times. “One reason I wanted to visit Kuwait was to talk to friends and colleagues here about storytelling.There is enormous potential here for telling the story of the past in exciting ways.”

Dr Collins’s fascination for the past began with dinosaurs. “Then I moved into ancient Egypt,” he smiles, recalling his youth. “I was fascinated with the mysteries of the past, the different cultures, and the alien nature of past societies.”During his time at the University, Paul Collins discovered the Ancient Near East. “I found this exciting part of the world further east and got hooked, both through the ancient writing and the extraordinary objects I saw in museums.” Those visits to museums started Dr Collins on a lifelong journey of discovery. He received his PhD from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. His research interests centered on ancient Iraq and Iran’s archaeology and material culture. His area of expertise is in visual representation in Mesopotamia, its relationship to the written record, and the transmission and adoption of artistic forms across the Near East. His other areas of interest include the role of museum displays in shaping disciplinary knowledge and the history of collecting. Talking about his lifelong interest in the Ancient Near East and the need to understand its story and impact on perspectives, he says, “Education is fundamental to changing perspectives. Thinking about the past is part of that. Thinking about how writing came about, how we organized ourselves in cities, and how thousands of people started living together are fundamental questions we are still grappling with.

Learning about how ancient people or people in more recent history grappled with those questions might help us understand how to deal with it.” Speaking about the role of museums in a volatile yet culturally rich region like the Middle East, Dr Collins highlighted the importance of museums in telling stories through objects and using modern technologies like video and sound. “If you are looking for a place where stories can be told through the material objects, video, sound and all the technologies of telling stories, then the museum is where it is done.” Museums are essential in civic society today, he says, because they are no longer about individual collectors but the general population.

“Museums tell the stories of communities in many ways, and they need to be better at telling those stories more effectively so that the wider populations of the city it’s in, then the region, and then, the wider world has a place where they can hear the voices of all the communities.” Despite being the birthplace of human civilization, the Middle East has been late in joining most of the world in recognizing museums as essential spaces for knowledge exchange and inspiration. But the Gulf has been fast catching up in recent years.

Dr Collins acknowledges that people are more interested in the present. “But the past,” he says, “can be as important in terms of memory and identity. Family connections might not take you back too far, but the deeper past can become important when a community comes together and starts thinking about that broader identity.” Reclaiming heritage is an essential part of Dr Collins’s work. He talks about the importance of allowing local voices to be heard when telling their stories. “Often, stories about groups and society are told very often by people from outside those societies.” His work in Iraq includes the Nahrein project. “This project offers opportunities for our colleagues on the ground to tell local stories, and that’s how identity is maintained and preserved, rather than external people coming in and telling you about your past.”

As the former Chair of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, Dr Collins was involved with founding the Basra Museum in the former palace of Saddam Hussein. “Basra’s public museum was no longer fit for a modern museum,” he shares when asked about his work with the Basra Museum. He connects this initiative to his view on locals owning their storytelling in museums. “It is about thinking of local communities and allowing them a space to present their own stories.Eventually, our work was very much about the physical structure of the building, getting cases into the museum, etc.

The Iraqis selected and displayed the objects brought down from Baghdad.” When asked about similar collaborations in Kuwait, Dr Collins remarked, “I have had many conversations during my trip, and I hope we can build on these conversations because there’s huge expertise and experience here, which would be very welcome, for example, in the British Museum. Similarly, we may have ways of doing things that might be useful here.”
By Chaitali B. Roy
Special to the Arab Times