Dr Pandora Syperek awarded prestigious Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship
Dr Pandora Syperek has recently been awarded with a three-year Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship with Loughborough University London.
Dr Pandora Syperek been awarded the three-year fellowship for her research project ‘Ornament and Grime: Animal Excess in the Bethnal Green Museum, 1872-1928’.
The highly prestigious Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship is awarded to early career researchers looking to undertake a significant piece of publishable work.
Professor Jo Tacchi, Associate Dean for Research, will be Pandora’s mentor throughout the fellowship.
As part of this fellowship, Dr Pandora will be based in the Institute for Design Innovation, as well as working with colleagues from Loughborough University (East Midlands campus), in particular through the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture and the Museums, Markets and Critical Heritage research group.
For the duration of the fellowship, Pandora will be affiliated with the V&A Research Institute as a visiting fellow.
Speaking about the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship and her research, Dr Pandora Syperek has said:
“'Ornament and Grime' interrogates the design histories of sustainability, colonialism and the nonhuman on display in the Bethnal Green branch of the South Kensington Museum (V&A).
I will examine how the Collection of Animal Products, which contained global jewellery and decorative arts alongside industrial waste displays aimed at East London’s working classes, represent 'excess' - whether ornament or refuse - in nature and culture, and how this corresponds to late Victorian categories of knowledge and their legacies today.
Collaborating with the V&A, the research will facilitate dialogue between pressing museological concerns regarding ecology and decolonisation with local communities and their histories.”
Following this announcement, Dr Aidan McGarry, Reader in International Politics, has said:
“It is an incredible achievement to receive a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, one of the most prestigious awards for an early career researcher. Pandora will work closely with the V&A Research Institute helping to forge close links through this exciting research project.”
Dr Pandora Syperek will begin the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship in September.