Lissant Bolton facts for kids

Lissant Mary Bolton AM (born 1954) is an Australian anthropologist and the Keeper of the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum. She is particularly known for her work on Vanuatu, textiles, and museums and indigenous communities.

Career

Bolton began her museum career in the Anthropology division of the Australian Museum firstly for the pilot survey of the Australian Pacific collections in 1979. From 1985 where she was the collection manager, and then senior collection manager, for the Pacific collection. During this time Bolton took leave to complete her PhD in social anthropology from the University of Manchester which she completed in 1994. Bolton left the Australian Museum in 1996 to work as an Australian Research Council Post-doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Cross Cultural Research at the Australian National University. From 1999 Bolton was a curator in the Department of Ethnography (later Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas) at the British Museum and from January 2012 became Keeper (head of department) of Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

Bolton works in Vanuatu annually with the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta) developing programmes to document and preserve women's knowledge and practice. Bolton chairs the Women's Culture Project, developing ni-Vanuatu women fieldworkers who document and preserve traditional knowledge and culture.

Bolton has worked on a series of major research projects focusing on Pacific anthropology. Most recently she has worked on Melanesian art: objects, narratives and indigenous owners (2005-2010) with Nicholas Thomas (University of Cambridge) and Engaging Objects: Indigenous Communities, museum collections and the representation of indigenous histories (2011-2014) with the Australian National University and the National Museum of Australia.

Among Bolton's curatorial work for the British Museum she was the lead curator in 2003 for the permanent gallery Living and Dying (The Wellcome Trust Gallery), and curated a number of temporary exhibitions including Power and Taboo: Sacred Objects from the Pacific (2006), Dazzling the Enemy: shields from the Pacific (2009), and Baskets and Belonging: Indigenous Australian Histories (2011).

Honours

Bolton was the lead curator on the Living and Dying Gallery (Wellcome Trust Gallery) at the British Museum which won the Museums and Heritage Award for best Permanent Exhibition 2004.

Bolton delivered the Keynote Address to the Australian Anthropological Society Conference 2012 at the University of Queensland on Materialised moments: objects, museum and Melanesia.

Bolton was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for "significant service to the museums sector, and to anthropology" in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours.