The Sainsbury Research Unit (SRU), based in the Sainsbury Centre at UEA, is a centre for the study of the arts and material culture of Africa, the Pacific region and the Americas.
It has six permanent academic faculty supported by library and administrative staff. Visiting fellows, research associates and postdoctoral researchers working on special projects also contribute to the academic life of the SRU.
It has its own teaching and study facilities and a specialist research library known as the Robert Sainsbury Library, all on hand in the Sainsbury Centre.
Our courses
The SRU offers MA and PhD degrees, with generous scholarships and funding support for students. MRes and MPhil options are available.
It also offers visiting fellowships for postdoctoral scholars and hosts regular conferences, symposia and other academic meetings.
The MA and PhD programmes are intended for those interested in careers in higher education, museums and galleries, publishing, journalism and development.
Our research and teaching
Combining anthropological, art-historical, archaeological and museological approaches, SRU research and teaching are focused on the distinctive cultures of the three regions.
It has a particular focus on how artworks and objects are made, used and circulated – in effect, how they matter to people, both in their original contexts and in the contexts of museums and exhibitions.
As part of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at UEA the SRU contributes to a substantial and lively scholarly community in the Sainsbury Centre.
Our people
Events and News
We are excited to put out an invitation to everyone for our upcoming seminar on Thursday 29th February 2024, which Dr Julia Binter (University of Bonn) will be presenting. The talk is titled Carrying the Burden, Caring for the Past Land, Body and Sensuous Knowledge in Contemporary Namibian Art and you will find details below.
This event can be attended in person or online. For those of you in Norwich, you are most welcome to join us for drinks and dinner at The Unthank Arms afterwards.
Venue: Elizabeth Fry Building 1.01.
Time: 5:00 - 6:30pm GMT.
Link to register to follow online: Meeting Registration - Zoom
Here is also a link to Dr Binter's page: https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/research-and-teaching/research-profile/transdisciplinary-research-areas/tra-5/argelander-professur?set_language=en
Abstract
Namibia’s multi-layered histories of colonial exploitation, socio-cultural rupture and genocide have been a recurring theme tackled by contemporary artists in Namibia. In this talk, I will discuss the recent work of Tuli Mekondjo, Cynthia Schimming, Betty Tuavisiua Katuuo, Nicola Brandt and Prince Kamaazengi Marenga who, in their idiosyncratic ways of performance and mixed media installations, reflect on the intertwining of body and land in the Namibian past and present. They all use colonial archives - historical artefacts, photographs, sound recordings and written documents - and make them critically their own by interweaving and overlaying them with previously marginalised experiences and bodies of knowledge, such as those of women and children. Inspired by Minna Salami’s (2020) concept of ‘sensuous knowledge’, which focuses on epistemologies beyond the Eurocentric canon and attunes to the affects and creativity inherent in knowledge production and transfer, I will trace the ways in which the artists embody, contest and seek to overcome transgenerational trauma of colonial violence and genocide, as well as missionary pasts. In Tuli Mekondjo’s words, they are ‘carrying the burden, caring for the past’.