Lisa Randisi

Thoughtful questions from students at last week's UCL Careers panel on Career Options in Museums in the Digital Era.
Educators & mentors, take note: current students want to learn where museum jobs are advertised, how to describe volunteering on CVs & how soft skills relate to different museum jobs.

Delighted to be joining the Steppe Sisters network's Steering Committee as Programmes Coordinator.
If you're a woman doing research in Central Asia/Mongolia, consider joining us! We offer news, resources, support, a platform to share your work - and, very soon, more events.
www.steppesisters.org

Lisa Randisi in the museum wearing gloves and holding an artefact tray, speaking to a group of people who are not shown.

A newspaper from January 1897 that has been posted from London to Petrie in Egypt.

Selfie in the library, wearing a shirt with books on it.

In a lecture theatre. Lisa is standing in front of a projection screen showing the title slide: Between object and archive: the Petrie’s Archaeological Ephemera Project.

Many thanks to @lisarandisi.bsky.social for a wonderful day at the Petrie Museum in London. First, a handling session, looking at ephemera – eg newspaper used to wrap an item during excavation.

Then I worked in the university library for a few hours. Then more ephemera this evening.

Actually, the terms in the first screenshot do govern Member Content, as Collective Content is defined further up as "“Collective Content” means, collectively, Academia. edu Content and Member Content.". That being said, it then contracts itself in a later clause re: ownership of Member Content:

📢 Tonight at the Horniman Museum (6–9pm): All Eyes on Her!

A powerful display from our AHRC-funded project with @uclarchaeology.bsky.social & Horniman Museum, celebrating the creativity, resistance & heritage of Egyptian women, past & present.

Free entry, all welcome⬇️

The more I look at Pompeii, the more it strikes me how plastic it was. Rubble walls plastered & painted to look like marble. Brick columns plastered to look like solid stone. Tiny gardens painted to look like rolling villas. An aspirational city, where everyone wanted to be someone/somewhere else.

YouTube video by The Egypt Exploration Society Spotlight Lecture: Between Object and Archive

My Spotlight Lecture for @theees.bsky.social, on the @uclpetriemuseum.bsky.social's Archaeological Ephemera Project, is now available online -

If you work with a historic collection that has similar bits and bobs, and would like to join our Community of Practice, please get in touch!

A Woman’s Intimate Record of Wyoming in the Early Twentieth Century Lora Webb Nichols created and collected some twenty-four thousand negatives documenting life in her small town.

Lora Webb Nichols’s photographs of boom and bust in her small Wyoming town might be the largest photographic record of the era and region.

Zoom screenshot: Between Object and Archive: the Petrie Museum Archaeological Ephemera Project, Lisa Randisi. The slide shows images of boxes for candles, matches, carbolic tooth powder etc.

Excellent lunchtime Egyptology with @lisarandisi.bsky.social and @theees.bsky.social – looking at ephemera. The random bits and bobs in museum collections that initially had no value, such as food containers reused to transport artefacts, which give a snapshot of life on that excavation.

Between Object and Archive Following EA 66, Lisa Randisi discusses items in the liminal space between object and archive within the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology. Start time: 13:00 (UK) / 15:00 (Egypt)

Looking for something fun to do at lunchtime tomorrow? Why not tune in to my EES Spotlight Lecture on archaeological ephemera at the Petrie Museum? Stories of Victorian archaeologists shopping, grumpy museum curators & more... 1pm (UK) / 3pm (Egypt)

@uclpetriemuseum.bsky.social @theees.bsky.social

John J Johnston (1965–2025) Aidan Dodson remembers former EES Vice-Chair and long-term supporter, John J Johnston.

www.ees.ac.uk/resource/joh...

Shocked and deeply sad to hear of the passing of Egyptologist and performer extraordinaire John J Johnston yesterday.
Tonight in the Petrie Museum we raise a glass to you. Ave atque vale.

What do you get when you cross musical theatre, decolonial museum practice, archives and student satire?

It'll be some time before the documentary is out - so follow me on Substack to keep up to date with this project:
tinyurl.com/bd5dfwn8

“I feel we’re witnessing the last days of nomads in Mongolia,” said to me archaeologist J. Bayarsaikhan. And indeed as we travelled together through central Mongolia, this phenomenon was repeated everywhere – despite national statistics claiming the contrary. Where have all the young people gone?

Except this year… they weren’t there. In the last year, so many people have moved away. To the city, for a job, to the mines, or just elsewhere, in search of better pastures as the effects of climate change are making themselves felt. Unaware that the steppe cannot survive without herding.

This journey is turning out to be quite different from what I initially set out to do. As I reach my 11th year working on the Western Mongolian steppe, I was looking forward to featuring the young herders I’ve known for so long, and giving others a glimpse into their daily lives, hopes and dreams.

Been keeping this one under wraps… delighted to announce that for the last couple of months, I’ve been working on an audio documentary about young people in contemporary rural Mongolia, thanks to the @rgsibg.bsky.social's Journey in Audio programme. Original pitch (think trailer of sorts) below:

Last chance to see... and unsee our display about the different Egypts that we all see. Closing tomorrow!

Thrilled to work with @ucllifesciences.bsky.social @uclcber.bsky.social researchers to communicate their incredible work on wasps! Many thanks to @hannahcornish.bsky.social, Alice Holloway, @ucllccos.bsky.social wider team, @uclnews.bsky.social @artscouncilengland.bsky.social for all their support 🐝

Yesterday, I ran into a bunch of students who were loading up on dictionaries and thesauruses that had been discarded by our campus library.

I asked them about it and they said “because AI has made digital tools worthless”

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

Job klaxon! We're looking for a Project Archivist at the @uclpetriemuseum.bsky.social

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Thank you very much!

A street scene at night, people walking and cherry blossoms.

'The Ginza on a Spring Night' - Kasamatsu Shiro, 1934.
#JapaneseArt #shinhanga

Hot off the press! You can find my article on archaeological #ephemera and the social history of archaeology in this month's Egyptian Archaeology magazine (@theees.bsky.social)

#makingephemerahappen

Legacies of Heritage Practice in the Nile Valley: Solutions for the Future? A museum-based student forum, workshopping ideas for heritage futures at UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology.

Last year the Petrie Museum hosted Reimagining Flinderella, a programme centring student voices around the legacy of early archaeology.
This year we're inviting students of all backgrounds & people of Egyptian and Sudanese descent to revisit this conversation, to workshop solutions for the future.

Last year, along with 8 brilliant women, I co-founded a network for women in arts & heritage & women from corporate backgrounds to get together & enjoy shared experiences in London. 6 months later, Muses in the City has 100+ members & our first magazine feature by Yinsey Wang. Exciting times ahead!

A sample zine page. On the left individually printed letters read "Makers and Fakers: How Copies, replicas, casts and fakes 'make' museum collections". The letters are pasted over the image of a replica handaxe cradled in tissue paper. On the right details of the event workshop are given. For event details please follow the link in the main text post.

Booking is live for our next #MakingTheMuseum workshop! We've teamed up with Zine Collective Imperfect Bound to run a Zine making workshop exploring the stories behind the hundreds of copies, casts, replicas and fakes in the Pitt Rivers Museum collection.

More info: torch.ox.ac.uk/event/makers...

3) On nuance & inspirational storytelling:
Nuanced representation can be much more empowering than token stories of heroism. Not acknowledging examples of people behaving badly is to deny them agency & whole-personhood. To this effect: more nuanced representations in heritage storytelling, please!

2) On allyship:
Empathy alone is not enough. It is not an antidote. Think of concrete actions that you can take. Be aware that in some contexts, you may have a voice which is preferentially listened to, and heard, and that in this there is power. Use it to make a difference.