Chimwemwe Phiri is a third-year doctoral researcher in medical anthropology and visual history at Durham University. Her research examines the legacies of two medical photographic collections related to two former British colonial medical officers that are held in four UK based archives. Using archival research, visual analysis and curatorial practice across Malawi and Sudan, her PhD project explores histories of race, violence, the ethical dimensions of medical photography, questions of ownership, and the afterlives of archival material.
As a member of the Malawi Medical Humanities Network, she is fostering collaborations with artists from the ArtMalawi collective to explore the relationships and entanglements between art practice and health experiences. She holds an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the Catholic University of Malawi and an MSc in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology from the University of Oxford.
