On Tuesday March 14 Felicia, Rémi and Floris went to the Oriental Museum in Durham in order to run a teacher training day for Durham University School for Education’s PGCE students as part of a continued collaboration with the University’s Library and Collections Learning and Engagement team.

Date: 24th and 25th JULY, 2023

Place: ONLINE

On a foggy autumnal morning, the project team crammed into Oliver’s small car and set off to the Bowes Museum.

I travelled to Sunderland on a rainy bonfire night to spend a day making glass marbles at the National Glass Centre. After arriving late due to my poor time management, we met the artist-teacher Zoe Garner (https://www.zoegarner.co.uk/home). We were taken backstage into the workshop and after a health and safety brief, we were let loose on the glass and blowtorches.

11-12 October saw the annual UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Conference that took place in person for the first time since 2019. Two very intense days at the Hilton in Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre were filled with plenary sessions, workshops, and networking amongst the Fellows from the different cohorts during workshops and poster sessions.

On a sunny Autumn Thursday in early October, Oliver made the trip to London to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum. After getting lost in the vast museum galleries, Oliver eventually found his way to the conference he was attending. The Association of the History of Glass, along with the Victoria and Albert Museum, hosted a conference titled “Celebrating the birth of English and Irish Crystal Drinking Glass”.

In September Felicia travelled to the Netherlands to take part in a one-day workshop organised by Prof Catia Antunes (Leiden) and Dr Edmond Smith (Manchester). As they explained: “Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship sit, often uncomfortably, at the heart of many historical traditions interested in imperial expansion, economic development or technological change.

In May, and September 2022, Rémi undertook fieldwork in Venice to look at documents and objects related to firearm technologies in the Mediterranean world, especially in the Ottoman empire. In its long history, Venice was the main interlocutor of the Ottomans. Intense conflicts, trade relations and diplomatic exchanges produced vast archival holdings.

On a sunny Autumn Thursday in early October, Oliver made the trip to London to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum. After getting lost in the vast museum galleries, Oliver eventually found his way to the conference he was attending. The Association of the History of Glass, along with the Victoria and Albert Museum, hosted a conference titled “Celebrating the birth of English and Irish Crystal Drinking Glass”.

In July 2022 Felicia met with the Bowes’ new textiles’ curator, Rachel Whitworth. They wandered through the Bowes’ exciting collections and displays and discussed how the museum and project might collaborate to further the museum’s founders’, Josephine and John Bowes’…

After being postponed because of the COVID crisis, the 19th World Congress was finally held in the new Campus Condorcet, in Aubervilliers, just outside Paris. The Congress theme this year was “resources”, that is natural, material, immaterial and human (work and skill): water, air, energy, food products, raw materials, labour, capital, patents etc., as one of the main challenges of the contemporary world.

On Monday the 20th of June 2022 the team met with our national museum partners in our office at Northumbria University. To discuss issues of community engagement, representation, and inclusive practice we were joined by…

For those of you who are not aware, 2022 has been designated the International Year of Glass by the United Nations. This will celebrate the essential role glass has in the world today. As part of a large programme of events exploring glass and its impacts…

On Friday May 13 Felicia, Rémi and Floris attended the ‘Early Modern Science, Technology, and Institutions’ Conference at the University of Manchester…

In December 2021, and May 2022, Rémi undertook fieldwork in Paris to visit the archives and collections of the Musée de l’Armée, the Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac, and the Bibliothèque Ottomane et Turque of the Collège de France.

On the 7th of April, Floris set off to the Netherlands to conduct research at both the National Archives (Nationaal Archief) and National Library (KB Nationale Bibliotheek) in The Hague…

On Friday 11 March, Rémi took part in a roundtable devoted to the Sahelian sultanates, between the 14th and 16th centuries…

On Wednesday the 26th of January, Nicholas McGee from Durham University visited us in Newcastle to discuss his research with us. In advance of the meeting, Nick shared a chapter of his forthcoming book on interactions between the Qing and British empires in managing the sovereignties and movements of Chinese migrant communities.

On Wednesday the 24th of November the members of the team (Felicia, Rémi, Floris, June and Oliver) visited the Discovery Museum, in Newcastle, to meet our project collaborator, the Tyne and Wear Archive and Museum (TWAM)…

On Tuesday 19th November project team went on their very first trip to visit TOP, The Other Perspective. Founded by Bini Araia, himself a former Eritrean Refugee, this community interest organisation assists migrant and refugee communities in the North East of England, by helping highly motivated individuals find employment…