Department of History of Art and Archaeology
Pim Fitzpayne
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Key information
Key information
- Department
- Department of History of Art and Archaeology
- Qualifications
- BA (Oxon), MA (SOAS)
- Thesis title
- Constructing 'authentic Khmer art': fakes, authenticity and the Khmer art market (19th century to present)
- Internal Supervisors
- Professor Ashley Thompson & Dr Heidi Tan
Biography
Her doctoral research investigates the demand for and commodification of (authentic) Khmer art through the question of ‘fakes’, exploring conceptions of the ‘fake’ and the ‘authentic’ as they overlap in Khmer art history and the market for Khmer sacred art.
Taking ‘authenticity’ as a flexible, polysemic notion, she asks how colonial and postcolonial categorisations of ‘authentic Khmer art’ have interacted with market demand, illicit trade, and the spiritual authenticity of sacred images. Pim's research is generously funded through a CHASE AHRC studentship.
In 2023, Pim received an MA in History of Art and Archaeology from SOAS, University of London. Her MA thesis explored the juxtaposition of anthropomorphic and aniconic representations of the Buddha in Thai sculpture. Pim is also interested in museum collections and display, and in provenance research and the restitution of objects, and these types of questions have informed her doctoral research. Following her MA, she undertook a collaborative research project with the Circumambulating Objects: On Paradigms of restitution in Southeast Asian Art project, funded by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories Scheme.
This project investigated the provenance and history of the Cambodian collections at the British Museum. She has also worked as a researcher for the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, for which she worked on claims for the restitution of Nazi-looted art.
Research interests
- Art history;
- Southeast Asian studies;
- Postcolonial studies
