Curating Discomfort
Meet The Team
Community Curators
Arunima Bhattacharya
Postdoctoral research assistant, School of History, University of Leeds
Dr Arunima Bhattacharya is a postdoctoral research assistant on a AHRC funded project titled, The Other from Within: Indian Anthropologists and the Birth of a Nation at the School of History in the University of Leeds. This project involves academics from the Universities of Leeds, Edinburgh and Manchester and focuses on the contributions made by Indian anthropologists to global networks of research that aspired towards the reinvention of anthropology as a cosmopolitan, transnational discipline, and contributed to the process of decolonisation in India. She has completed her PhD in English Literature from the University of Leeds and was the Anniversary Fellow at Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh. Arunima is interested in Scottish imperial heritage, particularly in South Asia and has worked as a project support officer on the LAHRI funded 'Curating/Creating a decolonial classroom' project at Leeds.
Yvonne Blake
Racial Justice Activist, Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment (MORE), Community Historian, Glasgow, doing a Master’s in Community Development
Black Voices on Climate Justice and COP26
Why Climate Justice means Migrant Justice
More Glasgow website
Nelson Cummins
Community Campaigns Officer, Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER), Glasgow
Nelson Cummins is the Communities and Campaigns Officer at the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER), a role he has held since March 2021. In the role he co-ordinates CRER’s work on Black History and involves working within communities in Glasgow. Some of the organisations and projects he is involved in include Glasgow Voluntary Race Equality Network and Black History Month (making it all year round). Nelson got involved in the Hunterian to embed anti-racism in the museum.
Esraa Husain
Creative Writer, Community Organiser, and PhD Researcher, University of Glasgow
Esraa Husain (they/she/he) is a non-binary and multi-ethnic creative writer, academic and community organiser based in Scotland. Esraa is currently a PhD researcher at the University of Glasgow focusing on Black Scottish writing, migrancy, political agency and postcolonial theory. Their creative writings, and photography have been featured in Gutter, Scottish BAME Writers Network, The Bottle Imp, Somewhere For Us, Kohl كحل Journal, Causeway/Cabhsair and more. They are the founder and director of UBelong Glasgow: a multilingual community platform that features BPOC, LGBT+ and disabled creatives.
Churnjeet Mahn
Reader in English at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
Churnjeet Mahn is Reader in English at the University of Strathclyde. Her research investigates the history and practice of travel with reference to race, sexuality, and nationalisms. Her early work investigated the competing discourses of Orientalism, Hellenism and Philhellenism in Greece in the wake of its independence from the Ottoman Empire. After this, she worked on a project about histories of creativity and resistance in post-Partition Punjab. Churnjeet is currently working on a book about queer travel writing which investigates the history of queer travel to, and from, the ‘Orient’. She is currently PI on a British Academy grant entitled Cross-Border Queers: The Story of South Asian Migrants to the UK and is an AHRC EDI Leadership Fellow on a project entitled EDI in Scottish Heritage in partnership with Museums and Galleries Scotland.
Mary Osei-Oppong
Secondary School Teacher and qualified Chartered Teacher, Chair of African Caribbean Women’s Association (ACWA), Glasgow
Mary Osei-Oppong is a qualified secondary school teacher of Business Studies, Computing Science, Religious Education, also, a qualified Chartered Teacher. She taught for 22 years in Scotland and took early retirement on 10 August 2020. Mary has lived in Scotland for almost 40 years to the year 2021. Mary has been an activist from a young age, throughout her career and will continue to fight for equal opportunity issues till it is not physically possible for her to do so. She has made an impactful contribution to Scottish Education and had integrated well in Scottish society. Mary is the author of the book 'For The Love of Teaching; The Anti-Racist Battlefield in Education'.
Hunterian Staff
Christopher MacLure
Designer, The Hunterian
Christopher MacLure is a designer at The Hunterian where he takes the lead in all things design related including all exhibition and graphic design. As well as 2D and 3D design he also designs and specifies The Hunterian’s lighting. He prefers practical designs that make use of natural material finishes as well as contrasting colour finishes. Being practical, he always ensures his designs can be constructed by spending time building detailed 3D models to ensure there are no surprises during the build process. Recent projects in which he has been involved have included designing The Mackintosh House Introduction Gallery exploring the architectural and artistic legacy of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald. More relevant to this project, Christopher designed and came up with the concept for the University’s ‘Call and Response’ slavery exhibition held in the Memorial Chapel.
Dr Andy Mills
Curator, Archaeology and World Cultures, The Hunterian
Dr Andy Mills is curator for the Archaeology and World Cultures collections at The Hunterian, University of Glasgow. He is an anthropologist, ethnohistorian and world art historian and has conducted research and collections engagement with woodcarvers and barkcloth makers in various parts of Polynesia. Andy also has research interests in the impact of Christian missionaries around the world and their collecting practices, as well as museum collections stemming from early colonial exploration. Andy is excited to be involved with the museum’s efforts to address the colonial legacies of the World Cultures and World Archaeology collections and is committed to developing a process for restitution in dialogue with source countries that connect with the museum’s collections.
Mike Rutherford
Curator, Zoology and Anatomy, The Hunterian
Mike G Rutherford is the Curator of Zoology and Anatomy for The Hunterian, University of Glasgow. He has lived, studied and worked in many countries around the world. He started his museum career with Glasgow Museums, working on the Kelvingrove Redevelopment Project, first as a researcher and then becoming Curator of Non-Insect Invertebrates. As well as developing many of the multidisciplinary displays, he worked on cataloguing and decant projects. Then he moved to the University of the West Indies in Trinidad & Tobago to become Curator of Zoology. Here he developed the museum, undertook research on many topics including discovering several new species, conducted outreach events such as bioblitzes and museum roadshows and collected, preserved and catalogued many specimens. He started at the Hunterian in 2021 and is keen on redisplaying the Zoology and Anatomy Museums.