October 2 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Collections from a Gender Perspective: How Archaeological Objects and Approaches Speak About Patriarchal Practices
Thursday October 2, 2025
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT
Online via Zoom
Part of the Gardiner Signature Lecture Series
The Diane Wolfe Lecture
Speaker: Dr. Fernanda Ugalde, Museum Rietberg, Zürich and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito
Archaeological collections in museums are built mainly on pieces whose contexts of origin are unknown and have been excavated by looters and sold to collectors.
In the case of pre-Columbian America, the longest tradition of production of anthropomorphic figurines is found on the coast of Ecuador. The analysis of these figurines from museum collections offers a valid approach to analyzing aspects of the life of these societies, including gender relations, which has received limited attention.
Collecting archaeological pieces from Ecuador and other parts of the Americas was one of the impulses for looting—what began in the Enlightenment as a scientific curiosity ended up being a lucrative activity and a symbol of wealth and prestige. The aesthetic preferences of collectors were transferred to looters, developing a supply-demand market.
In this online talk, Dr. Fernanda Ugalde presents a reflection on collecting as a traditionally white-patriarchal practice and proposes that the decolonization of museums should have an intersectional approach and include analyses and reflections on the misogynistic and racist attitudes that are evident in some documents on collecting practices.
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General : PWYC starting at $10
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Students : Free
Female Effigy Figure Holding a Small Figure
Bahia, Los Esteros, Manabi, Ecuador, 500 BCE-500 CE
Red earthenware, pigment, and hand-built
Gift of George and Helen Gardiner, G83.1.212
About the Speaker
Dr. Maria Fernanda Ugalde
Dr. Maria Fernanda Ugalde is an Ecuadorian archaeologist. She obtained her MA and PhD degrees from the Free University of Berlin. For 15 years, she was a senior professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, where she was Director of the Department of Anthropology. Since 2022, she has been the curator of art of the Americas at the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, Switzerland. Her main interests and most recent publications are on pre-Hispanic iconography, gender relations in archaeology, and public archaeology. She is currently conducting archaeological research on the coast of Ecuador and working on the curation of a major exhibition on Amazonian archaeology.