Reimagining Heritage Through Community and Curatorial Dialogue
Museums are powerful spaces of memory, knowledge, and representation—but they have also been central to colonial histories of extraction and misrepresentation. At the Highland Institute, we believe that museums must evolve into more ethical, inclusive, and dialogic institutions. Our Museum Collaborations programme supports precisely this transformation.
Through partnerships with institutions in India and internationally, we work to decolonise collection practices, amplify Indigenous voices, and restore access to cultural heritage for communities in the highlands and beyond.
What We Do
Collaborative Research on Historical Collections
- We work closely with museum archives and curators to identify and contextualise objects originating from Northeast India and Highland Asia—often through dialogue with elders, artists, and researchers from the source communities.
Exhibitions and Community Co-Curation
- We co-develop exhibitions that centre Indigenous worldviews, stories, and aesthetic frameworks. These range from small-scale community exhibits to international museum showcases.
→ Recent work includes the “Look Up” and “Ancestral Voices” exhibitions in Nagaland.
Workshops on Museum Anthropology and Decolonial Curation
- Through our PGCertR Summer School, visiting scholar programme, and project-specific training sessions, we offer workshops on ethical curating, material culture studies, and digital archiving.
Access and Repatriation Dialogues
- We facilitate discussions on access to collections, digital repatriation, and, where possible, the return of objects—always guided by community priorities and local governance systems.
Current Collaborators
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (University of Cambridge)
- Long-term research on colonial collections, Indigenous epistemologies, and collaborative curation practices.
Pitt Rivers Museum (University of Oxford)
- Joint work on visual and material heritage from Nagaland, including archival research and digitisation.
Humboldt Forum (Berlin)
- Exchange on ethnographic display, contested collections, and emerging models of museum-community partnership.
Regional and Community Museums in Northeast India
- Including the Chümoukedima Museum, the Centre for Karbi Studies, and locally maintained heritage centres.
Why It Matters
For many communities across Highland Asia, heritage objects remain scattered across global institutions—often without consent, context, or community access. Our museum collaborations seek to return meaning to these collections, not only through physical return, but through storytelling, re-interpretation, and re-connection.
We aim to support a new generation of Indigenous curators, researchers, and museum professionals, ensuring that narratives about the past are shaped by those to whom it matters most.
Interested in co-curating an exhibition or contributing to our research?
We welcome proposals for collaboration with museums, community archives, and cultural organisations working to rethink representation and collections.
info@highlandinstitute.org
The Highland Institute, Meluri Road, Kohima, Nagaland, India
The Highland Institute, Meluri Road, Kohima, Nagaland, India