The Looking in from the Edge (LIFTE) research project continues apace, with two exhibitions under way and another two due to start shortly.
LIFTE is a three-year programme investigating Orkney and Shetland’s place in 15-18th century European trade networks and involves the UHI Archaeology Institute, the University of Lincoln and the German Maritime Museum, in Bremerhaven.
Our Orkney exhibition, looking at early modern trade in the county, is running at the Stromness Museum until April 28. The museum reopened its doors this week after its brief winter break.
The Stromness exhibition is complemented by Immer Wieter: The Hanseatic League in the North Atlantic, which is under way in Bremerhaven (click here for the blog, Fish and Ships).
As part of the project, Dr Siobhan Cooke-Miller undertook a fellowship at the German Maritime Museum to help bring about the two exhibitions. As well as being a lecturer at the UHI Archaeology Institute, Siobhan is the curator of archaeology at the Orkney Museum and collections manager at the Stromness Museum.
Future plans include a display, in the Orkney Library and Archives, Kirkwall, of documents found, and transcribed, as part of the project. Then, in March, the Shetland Museum is hosting a LIFTE-related exhibition focusing on Shetland merchants.
If you can’t visit, there’s an excellent free booklet available to download in English and German. It features short contributions on topics covered in the two current exhibitions, such as ships, trading places, merchants and their families and traded commodities.
