In connection with my previous summer on Korean Americans and forgiveness, my second summer centers on combining my interests in psychology and anthropology in the form of understanding colonial legacies.

Based across the six Gardens, Libraries, and Museums across Oxford (GLAM), my work has focused on supporting tours for people who are unable to access these spaces because of various factors (elderly people housed in retirement homes, incarcerated people, and youth struggling with mental illness). Through crafting narratives that uplift and encourage mental wellbeing by highlighting underrepresented voices from the archives, my understanding of leadership has shifted from research in a "vacuum" to impactful, public-facing work. 

My supervisor, Helen Adams, has also allowed me to shadow conferences, which include multiple museum curators from several countries attempting to understand colonialism within museums. Leading from behind, I have been taking notes and engaging with these crucial conversations on colonial legacy, indigenous history, and questioning the role of a museum as an institution itself.

As I continue to support and shadow the work of the Central Engagement team, I am excited to gain a more nuanced understanding of the museum as both a site of visibility and erasure. In an attempt to reconcile a violent past with the present desires and needs of these cultural institutions' visitors. Ultimately, I am still pondering: How do we confront legacies of erasure without reproducing and highlighting violence?

Below, I have attached a photo of my home base and workplace: the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.