On Monday 17 February, Girton College celebrated the Mountford Humanities and Arts Communications Prize.
Annually, the prize offers students an opportunity to present an object from any museum – however obscure or esoteric its significance may be. Merit is judged on the basis of participants’ ability to present their chosen object’s meaning to an audience as creatively, engagingly, and accessibly as possible.
The students’ entries were considered by an audience and a panel of judges including Girton alumna, Papyrology expert and TV personality Dr Margaret Mountford.
The four prize categories encompass the judges’ choice of winner, the audience’s choice, a prize for the best abstract and a special prize for the best presentation about an object from the College’s very own museum, The Lawrence Room.
Four students this year were awarded the four prizes, as follows:
Sarim Gillani (Judges Prize)
Valentin Herdeg (Judges’ Prize)
Hadeal Abdelatti (Judges’ Prize, Audience Prize)
Anna Williams Moura Costa (Abstract Prize, Lawrence Room Prize)
We caught up with a few of the prize winners to find out more about their presentations and what winning the prize means to them.
Hadeal Abdelatti (Law), Judges and Audience Prize winner
I was very grateful to take part in the prize this year. Having worked in Alabama over the summer in criminal and constitutional law, I was very keen to discuss the global challenge found in unjust prison conditions. When visiting a client in a US prison, he informed me that the bricks on the walls were sixteen by eight inches. He only knew this information because he relies on making art as a means to cope with being in prison.
The bricks become relevant when considering the conditions in which people in Alabama’s prisons are kept: overcrowded, understaffed and under-resourced. The consequence of this is that they are forced to spend substantial time in a cell.
When visiting 'The Legacy Museum' in Birmingham Alabama the exhibit of the prison visitation booth stuck out to me. Whilst sitting on a metal bench, you hold a phone to your ear and watch a video retelling real stories on the impacts and experiences of mass incarceration, the prison industrial complex, and systemic racism within the criminal justice system. Importantly, the exhibit featured bricks from a prison wall.
Having the opportunity to communicate this through the Mountford Prize was an important opportunity to encourage greater reflection on the global failures in criminal justice as well as the harsh, uncomfortable and inhumane structures we design and furnish prisons with.
Sarim Gillani (MPhil, Digital Humanities), Judges Prize winner
Allah allowed me to be eloquent, Alhumdulilah. This win is very special, and I dedicate it to the historians and friends of Baltistan.
Baltistan is a northern region in Pakistan and is home to K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth after Mount Everest. I was fortunate to spend two summers there as a participant in the Baltistan Experience. During my time, I researched Balti Dastaan Goyi, which exposed me to the region’s rich storytelling culture, myths and legends. I had the privilege of learning from Mr. Yousuf Hussainabadi, a revered historian and founder of the Hussainabadi Museum, who shared his approach to preserving and promoting Baltistan’s heritage.
It was an honor to be selected for the Mountford Prize and a delight to see both the audience and judges acknowledge my research. I hope I was able to provide international exposure and spark genuine curiosity by presenting Baltistan’s history on a global platform. My particular interest lies in the early spread of Islam in the region, but I am also keen to explore digital technologies and digitization, oral histories, cultural festivals, and their intersections.
To begin my presentation, I brought a candle and butter (which I then burned live)—not just for theatrics but as a way to emphasize my statement: "I don't want to overwhelm you with historical and educational facts but inspire you to research this topic further." The candle and butter received a special mention, validating my belief that presentations can and should be engaging!
Anna Williams Moura Costa (Geography), Abstract and Lawrence Room Prize winner
My talk was titled “Fishing for Enchantment, in an Ever-Changing World”, and explored the idea of Enchantment (more below!) as practise through the Māori Matau (fishhook) collection from the Lawrence room. I must admit that I didn’t know we had these Matau in college until very recently; but whilst I was looking through the museum catalogue, they leapt out to me. Partially, and this is something I discussed in the talk, I noticed the embedded Paua (abalone mother of pearl), because of its association with jewellery. I read more, and discovered the multilayered significance of its place in the fishhooks; not only is it beautiful, bringing pleasure to the beholder, but it helps attract fish. This duality of use and beauty was at the centre of my talk. I do really recommend you look the fishhooks up.
Katherine May describes “Enchantment” as the finding of wonder, pleasure, appreciation- or overarchingly, hope- through the small, the daily, the unnoticed. Applying this framework to the Matau was not meant to suggest that they are mundane- far from it, they hold serious spiritual importance in Māori culture- but to illustrate how this idea of appreciation can extend to objects of use, something we perhaps struggle with in the UK. In the face of ever-increasing issues with pollution and in-built disposability, I think, and said in my talk, that there is a lot to be said for consciously bringing significance to the tools and objects we use daily.
It was a wonderful opportunity to share these ideas with the Mountford audience. Enchantment is a fairly niche idea in the already small area of hopeful academia, so being to entwine this with objects found in the Girton Lawrence Room was very special. I participated in the Mountford Prize in my first year, which was such an exciting moment- it felt like the Cambridge fantasy come to life! It’s nice to feel that I made my younger self proud, especially since at the time I was SO nervous about the abstract!