Brit Asmussen

Dr Brit Asmussen is the Senior Curator of Archaeology at Queensland Museum. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours Class 1) from The University of Queensland and a Doctorate from The Australian National University.

Brit is a researcher, writer and curator who has worked in the museum sector since 2011. She routinely works with museum objects and archival documents to reveal hidden histories and stories behind a diverse range of Queensland objects and collections. She is interested in people, the lives and histories of objects and archives, Queensland social history, decorative arts and digital humanities.

Brit is experienced working across humanities collections (global cultural collections, anthropology, archaeology, antiquities, contemporary western object collections and archival documents). She has delivered public facing outcomes including several exhibitions, videos, blogs, talks, lectures and seminars, educational materials and papers, and works behind the scenes in the curatorial role to deliver exhibitions, manage physical and digital collections, complete collections-based research, undertake grants funding and collaborate in research projects.

Brit’s longer-term archaeological research background has seen her involvement in archaeological research projects in Australia and Papua New Guinea, where she has analysed patterns of peoples’ behaviour as signalled by molluscan and terrestrial faunal sequences, and aspects of socio-political and landscape change. Her research has been funded by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, The Wenner-Gren Foundation, Australian Institute of Nuclear Sciences and Engineering, and a Collections Fellowship with the Australian Museum. She has written over 30 academic publications.

Brit is a Partner Investigator on the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, and the ARC linkage Sugarbags and Shellfish, producing inclusive narratives of Indigenous peoples’ experiences of colonialism and the negotiation of power in colonial settings, and European Research Council (ERC) grant Seachange, assessing major global cultural transitions on marine system functioning and Biodiversity. She is also partnering on the QM-UQ Collaborative project investigating WW1 soldier collecting of antiquities

Brit currently holds an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow position at James Cook University. She has previously worked as an adjunct lecturer in Archaeology in the Archaeology Program at The University of Queensland and a contract zooarchaeologist and archaeological consultant for The University of Queensland’s Cultural Heritage Unit (UQCHU).

Projects

Current projects 

• Partner Investigator - ARC CABAH: Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage
• Heritage Futures - University of New England (UNE): Sugarbags and shellfish: Indigenous foodways in Colonial Cape York Penninsula
• The University of Queensland: The First World War Antiquities Project
• Seachange

Museum Exhibitions and Displays 

• mYOUseum Digital exhibition – Queensland Museum (lead curator for Archaeology and Anthropology)
• Awakenings: Stories from the Torres Strait – Queensland Museum (Co-curated with Imelda Miller)
• Awakenings: Stories from the Torres Strait Island – Queensland Museum (Online exhibition)
• Ancient Egypt: The Queensland Museum Collection – Queensland Museum
• Antiquities Revealed – Queensland Museum
• Antiquities Revealed – Queensland Museum Tropics
• First Scientists – Discovery Centre, Queensland Museum (Co-curated with Imelda Miller)
• Science and Archaeology – Discovery Centre, Queensland Museum