Tales of exploration usually involve tales courageous high-profile explorers risking their lives in remote and exotic places around the world, but what about those people who guided and supported them?

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has funded the ‘Hidden Histories of Exploration’ exhibition, currently being held at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) with the Institute of British Geographers (IBG) in London, which brings to light the roles of indigenous peoples, local guides and interpreters, giving visitors the chance to discover more about their remarkable contributions to world explorations.

Professor Felix Driver of Royal Holloway, University of London, who led the project said: “The aim of the exhibition is to think about exploration differently and to look at the people in the margins of published accounts.  What happens if we make them no longer marginal but the main story?”

In published narratives of exploration, the inhabitants of territory through which explorers travelled are often relegated to the margins, while European adventurers are described as heroes. Even where their contributions have been explicitly acknowledged, there has been a tendency to accord them lower status - as ‘local’ assistants or informants, guides or porters – rather than true participants who made exploration possible.

The exhibition takes advantage of the unique Collections of the RGS-IBG, by looking at traces of local people in the archives, whether through a name on a photograph or a sentence in a diary, to piece together a narrative of the vital role that such people played in contributing to the success of expeditions. 

Professor Driver concludes: “This exhibition will help to bring the unsung heroes of exploration out of the margins and into the spotlight by showing the crucial role that they played in Western exploration.”

The exhibition runs until 10 December 2009 and features a wide variety of material from original art-works and sketch-books by expedition artist Thomas Baines, to a documentary film of the 1922 Everest expedition.

Accompanying the exhibition is a beautifully-illustrated companion volume and catalogue, by Felix Driver and Lowri Jones, available from the RGS. In addition, a new website includes many more images never before exhibited, as well as film clips, original articles and a wealth of further information about the Society's historic Collections.

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Notes for editors:

Media contact: Emi Spinner, Communications Officer, E.Spinner@ahrc.ac.uk, 0117 987 6770

Images:

Images of the exhibition are available upon request.

They include:
• Thomas Baines, 'A Malay native from Batavia at Coepang', oil on canvas, c.1856 © Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
• Ikmalick & Apelagliu, lithograph after a sketch by John Ross, in J Ross, Narrative of a second voyage in search of a north-west pasage (London 1835) © Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
• The wife of Captain Drysdale, oil painting by Thomas Baines, 1856 © Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
• Moehamad Jen Jamain, his own signature. watercolour by Thomas Baines, 1856. © Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
• Everest expedition members, Photograph by J. B. L. Noel, 1922. © Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)

Use of these images must include the description and © Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

Links:
• For further information on the project, please visit the Hidden Histories of Exploration website.
• For more information on the exhibition, please see the RGS-IBG website.
• To listen to a podcast on the exhibition, please see the AHRC’s exclusive interview with Professor Felix Driver.

Arts and Humanities Research Council: Each year the AHRC provides approximately £102 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,350 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.