NMAA Online Program – Unpacking Provenance: A Himalayan Phurba6.3.2026 {en}
Join the Freer Research Center on Tuesday, March 10, 10–11:15 a.m. EST on Zoom for Unpacking Provenance | A Himalayan Phurba.
In this webinar, a panel of four experts discusses a Himalayan phurba, a ceremonial dagger in the collections of the Ethnologisches Museum (Ethnological Museum) in Berlin. The phurba left the Himalayan region and entered a private collection in Germany at an unknown point in time and was sold to the museum in 1931 by its previous owner. Panelists will consider questions about and approaches to researching its origin, its journey, and its significance within spiritual traditions of the Himalayan region.
The online series Unpacking Provenance: Retracing the Histories of Asian Art brings together cross-disciplinary specialists to discuss provenance research processes and share resources. Discussions focus on a single object, exploring a variety of innovative, strategic, and collaborative approaches to inquiry.
Unpacking Provenance is part of a larger collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz that seeks to cultivate the global network of provenance researchers and promote exchange. Previous programs include Hidden Networks: The Trade of Asian Art (2020–22) and Provenance and Asian Art: A Collaborative Workshop and Symposium (2023).
Generous support for the museum’s provenance research and object histories program is provided by the David Berg Foundation and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.
Speakers include
- Thupten Kelsang, Victoria & Albert Museum, London
- Thupten Jinpa Langri, Institute of Tibetan Classics
- Sonja Mohr, Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
- Alisha Sijapati, Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign
Facilitated by
- Joanna M. Gohmann, National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC
- Christine Howald, Zentralarchiv – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz
Thupten Kelsang (DPhil, University of Oxford) is a research fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London, where he leads the Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded Reanimating Tibetan Heritage project. Drawing on the case study of Tibetan collections (at the V&A and twelve participating institutions), the project focuses on developing methodologies for community-engaged research and comprehensive research-led approaches to contested/colonial collections in museums. At Oxford, Kelsang was awarded the Clarendon Fellowship and received major academic grants, including Wenner-Gren’s Engaged Research Grant and the ACLS-Ho Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. He curated Tibetan Objects in Transition at the Pitt Rivers Museum and has advised institutions such as the British Museum, the British Library, the Horniman Museum, and the Pitt Rivers Museum. Prior to academia, he worked as a community organizer and an independent researcher, speaking and advising on Tibetan heritage at platforms such as the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and the Prince Claus Fund.
Thupten Jinpa Langri is a former Tibetan monk and holds the Geshe Lharam degree from Ganden Monastery, India, and a BA in philosophy and PhD in religious studies from Cambridge University. Since 1985, he has been the principal English translator for H.H. the Dalai Lama. Jinpa’s works include English translations of Tibetan texts in The Library of Tibetan Classics of which he is editor. His books include A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives and Tsongkhapa: A Buddha in the Land of Snows. Jinpa is the main author of the Compassion Cultivation Training program and general editor of Science and Philosophy in Indian Buddhist Sources. Jinpa serves as adjunct professor at McGill University and is the founder and president of the Institute of Tibetan Classics. He is chairman of the Mind and Life Institute and co-founder and chair of the Compassion Institute.
Sonja Mohr has been curator of the South and Southeast Asian collections at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin since May 2024. After completing her studies at the University of Cologne, she worked at the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne, where she coordinated provenance research as well as the sustainability working group and, from 2018, was curator of the collections from Insular Southeast Asia.
Alisha Sijapati is a cultural heritage professional and the founding director of the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign (NHRC). She is a leading advocate for the recovery of illicitly trafficked cultural property and directed the International Conference on Recovery of Cultural Heritage 2025. She also founded Nepal’s International Day Against Illicit Trafficking in Cultural Property: Awareness Week, strengthening national and international dialogue on heritage protection. With over a decade of experience in investigative journalism and higher education, Sijapati specializes in bridging forensic provenance research with public-facing advocacy. She holds an MA in cultural heritage studies from Central European University, where her research was recognized with the Zvetlana-Mihaela Tănasă Memorial Fund. Her work focuses on heritage literacy and the individual biographies of artifacts, employing narrative and linguistic mediation to facilitate collaboration between global institutions and source communities. Through this approach, she advances ethical repatriation practices, community empowerment, and renewed cultural stewardship.
Joanna M. Gohmann (PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is the National Museum of Asian Art’s first curator of provenance and object histories. In this role, she leads provenance research across collection areas and manages the museum’s ongoing collaboration with Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz’s Museum of Asian Art and Central Archives. Gohmann integrates provenance stories into NMAA’s web presence and gallery installations. Her work appears in the exhibition Freer’s Global Network: Artists, Collectors, and Dealers, exploring the influences that shaped how the museum’s founder collected art. Before coming to the Smithsonian, she held positions at the Walters Art Museum, the Offices of Historic Alexandria, the Ackland Art Museum, and the National Gallery of Art.
Christine Howald (PhD) is an expert in Asian art provenance research. As deputy director of the Zentralarchiv (Central Archive), she coleads the provenance research team at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Howald manages the global research and network initiative on provenance and Asian art with the National Museum of Asian Art (Smithsonian Institution). She has published widely and is coeditor of two issues of the Journal for Art Market Studies on Asian art (2018 and 2020) as well as the publication “em//power//relations: A Booklet on Postcolonial Provenance Research” (2022). Amongst others, she currently runs the research project “Traces of the ‘Boxer War’ in German Museum Collections,” a cooperative project of seven German museums together with the Palace Museum Peking.
Contact: FreerResearchCenter[at]si.edu
Further information at https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/events/search/event:197160243/.
Source: ANN: NMAA Online Program – Unpacking Provenance: A Himalayan Phurba, 10 March 2026, H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US.
