The SKD – A visit to our 2014 Dresden fellows
Building on the successes of the International Training Programme, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD) – one of our Programme sponsors – kindly offered two fully funded fellowships in 2014 at two of their 14 museums in Dresden and Leipzig. The fellowships lasted between six weeks and three months and the fellows had the chance to become part of the team of one of SKD’s international research projects.
Sun Yue, Museum Fellow and Curator at the Palace Museum Beijing (China, ITP 2010) and Antonio Luis Ntimbanga, Head of the Exhibition and Education Department, Ethnology National Museum, Nampula (Mozambique, ITP 2009) were chosen for the first of a total of 6 fellowships that will take place over 3 years.
Yue and Antonio were both in Germany in early December 2014 which gave me a wonderful opportunity to travel to Leipzig and Dresden to re-connect with them and to catch-up with colleagues at the SKD. It was an absolute pleasure to see them both again for the first time since we’d been together in London. Both were working hard on their research projects and relishing the chance to work with the SKD’s staff and collections. As well as having the opportunity to collaborate with academic colleagues and exchange ideas, they were able to bring a new perspective and insight into collections from their home countries.
But I have to confess, as well as enjoying the opportunity to look at the SKD’s collections with Antonio and Yue, we also made time for lunch in Leipzig and a trip to one of Dresden’s wonderful Christmas Markets where we were able to reminisce over the 2009 and 2010 Programmes and catch-up on our news.
The reports produced by Yue and Antonio at the end of their Fellowships are attached and I hope you will read and enjoy them.
And I just want to send my thanks to Antonio and Yue for all their hard work and the energy and enthusiasm they brought to their placements in Germany. As two of the first past-participants to take up the fellowships at the SKD they have been a credit to the ITP alumni.
Claire Messenger, Manager, International Training Programme