Dr Lissant Bolton is an Australian anthropologist and the Keeper of the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum. She is particularly known for her work on Vanuatu, textiles, and museums and indigenous communities.
Career
Bolton began her museum career in the Anthropology division of the Australian Museum firstly for the pilot survey of the Australian Pacific collections in 1979. From 1985 where she was the collection manager, and then senior collection manager, for the Pacific collection. During this time Bolton took leave to complete her PhD in social anthropology from the University of Manchester which she completed in 1994. Bolton left the Australian Museum in 1996 to work as an Australian Research CouncilPost-doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Cross Cultural Research at the Australian National University. From 1999 Bolton was a curator in the Department of Ethnography at the British Museum from 1999 and became Keeper of Africa, Oceania and the Americas from January 2012. Bolton works in Vanuatu annually with the Vanuatu Cultural Centre developing programmes to document and preserve women’s knowledge and practice. Bolton chairs the Women’s Culture Project, developing ni-Vanuatu women fieldworkers who document and preserve traditional knowledge and culture. Bolton has worked on a series of major research projects focusing on Pacific anthropology. Most recently she has worked on Melanesian art: objects, narratives and indigenous owners with Nicholas Thomas and Engaging Objects: Indigenous Communities, museum collections and the representation of indigenous histories with the Australian National University and the National Museum of Australia. Among Bolton's curatorial work for the British Museum she was the lead curator in 2003 for the permanent gallery Living and Dying, and curated a number of temporary exhibitions including Power and Taboo: Sacred Objects from the Pacific, Dazzling the Enemy: shields from the Pacific, and Baskets and Belonging: Indigenous Australian Histories.
Honours
Bolton was the lead curator on the Living and Dying Gallery at the British Museum which won the Museums and Heritage Award for best Permanent Exhibition 2004. Bolton delivered the Keynote Address to the Australian Anthropological Society Conference 2012 at the University of Queensland on Materialised moments: objects, museum and Melanesia.
Publications
B. Burt and L. Bolton, The things we value: Culture and History in Solomon Islands
Brunt, Peter, Sean Mallon, Nicholas Thomas, Deidre Brown, Lissant Bolton, Suzanne Kuchler and Damian Skinner, Art in Oceania: A New History
L. Bolton, ‘Describing Knowledge and Practice in Vanuatu’, in Hviding E. and K.M. Rio Made in Oceania: Social Movements, Cultural Heritage and the State in the Pacific pp 301–319
L. Bolton, ‘Framing the art of West Papua: an introduction’, in L. Bolton and N Stanley The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Special Issue: Framing the Art of West Papua 12 pp. 317–326
L. Bolton and N. Stanley, Framing the Art of West Papua The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Special Issue 12
L. Bolton, ‘Los textiles y la vida’, in Mondragón, Carlos Moana: Culturas de las Islas del Pacífico pp. 67–72
L. Bolton, ‘Explorers and Traders of South Papua’, in I. McCalman and N. Erskine In the Wake of the Beagle: Science in the Southern Oceans from the Age of Darwin pp. 108–123
L. Bolton, ‘Living and Dying: Ethnography, class and aesthetics in the British Museum’, in D. Sherman Museums and Difference pp. 330–353
L. Bolton, ‘‘Island dress that belongs to us all’: Mission dresses and the innovation of tradition in Vanuatu’ in E. Ewart and M. O’Hanlon Body Arts and Modernity pp. 165–182
M. Rodman, D. Kramer, L. Bolton and J. Tarisesei House-girls Remember: Domestic Workers in Vanuatu
L. Bolton, ‘Resourcing Change: Fieldworkers, the Women’s Culture Project and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre’, in N. Stanley The Future of Indigenous Museums: Perspectives from the Southwest Pacific pp. 23–37
L. Bolton, 'The museum as cultural agent: the Vanuatu Cultural Centre extension worker program', in C. Healy, and A. Witcomb South Pacific Museums: Experiments in Culture
L. Bolton, ‘Power of the gods’, British Museum Magazine, 56 pp. 24–27
L. Bolton, 'Dressing for Transition: Weddings, Clothing and Change in Vanuatu', in S. Kuechler and G. Were, Pacific Clothing: the Art of Experience pp. 19–32
L. Bolton, 'The effect of objects: the return of a north Vanuatu textile from the Australian Museum to the Vanuatu Cultural Centre', in V.Attenbrow and R.Fullagar A Pacific Odyssey: Archaeology and Anthropology in the Western Pacific. Papers in Honour of Jim Specht Records of the Australian Museum, Supplement 29. pp. 31–36
L. Bolton, Unfolding the moon: Enacting Women's Kastom in Vanuatu
L. Bolton, 'Living and Dying', British Museum Magazine, 47 pp. 34–37
L. Bolton, 'Radio and the Redefinition of "Kastom" in Vanuatu' The Contemporary Pacific Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 335–360
L. Bolton, 'Fieldwork, fieldworkers: developments in Vanuatu research' Oceania, Special Issue 70 1999
J. Weiner and L. Bolton Multi-sited ethnography: investigations of a methodological proposal Canberra Anthropology 22
