Southeast Asia Museum, Hull: Yorkshire's least known museum which is tucked away in a university building
It’s probably Yorkshire’s least known museum, but its curator is on a mission to get more people through its doors.
Tucked away on the first floor of the University of Hull's Wilberforce building is a room full of cabinets displaying a selection of more than 3,000 artefacts, relating to traditional and contemporary Southeast Asian culture.
There are beautifully embroidered textiles, wooden sculptures and paintings, some themed on dragons, representing the flow of life-force, a case with charms and amulets, another dedicated to shamanism.
Although open to the public, few outside the university know about the Southeast Asia Museum, but Dr Monica Janowski hopes this will change.
In time she also hopes to show Southeast Asian films, put on Southeast Asian food and get schoolchildren to come in.
She said: "It is very exciting and mind expanding to find out how other people live. Objects have a way of achieving this through a life of their own. They speak to you directly in a way photos and videos don't."
It was founded by Professor Mervyn Jaspan, head of the Centre for South-East Asian Studies, in 1968, as a teaching collection.
It grew over the years as it received donations from staff and students, returning from their travels.
In 2007, four years after the centre closed it moved to its current location.
Dr Janowski, an anthropologist who has studied the Kelabit people of Borneo for 35 years, has received a small grant from the Humber Museums Partnership to put up interpretation panels.
"What I am trying to do is convert a teaching collection for students into something which will be comprehensible to the wider public, especially people who have never been to Southeast Asia.
"Something that chimes with the people of the Humber and East Yorkshire - an intercultural communications device. If you visit at the moment, they are lovely objects but it is a bit mysterious.
"The collection focuses not so much on arts objects as everyday life. It covers all sorts of religious and spiritual activities.
"Southeast Asia is quite a melting pot of cultures, you can draw out themes that are important to everyone, belief systems about how you live in a family, at home, beliefs about the flow of power, the life force, the Chinese chi. "
She hopes the museum will be used for cultural activities including Gamelan, the traditional percussion-dominated orchestra of Indonesia, as well as a chill-out space for students.
The university is storing instruments decommissioned by Hull's Albemarle Centre and Dr Janowski will be putting some on display. She would welcome anyone who would like to play Gamelan to get in touch.
The museum is open to Monday to Friday from 1pm to 5pm. Email [email protected]