About Summer Scholars Lunchtime Talks
The Summer Scholars season of lunchtime talks is hosted by the Eccles Institute for the Americas and Oceania at the Library and showcases the exciting and wide-ranging research into our Americas collections by the Institute’s Visiting Fellows and associates, as well as Library staff.
Free. No need to book, just drop-in.
Deerskins, trade and cotton, 1760s–1830s
Artist Melinda Schwakhofer shares her journey of discovery and re-connection to her Indigenous Muscogee Nation and its history and culture through her textile art practice, including quilting, stitching and tanning deerskin. As an Eccles Fellow, her research will focus on how the deerskin trade between Britain and her indigenous Muscogee Nation fundamentally changed the Muscogee’s relationship with their environment, leading ultimately to the Trail of Tears as the Muscogee were forcibly cleared from their lands to make way for slave-grown crops (cotton and tobacco) that fed British industry.
Yuma: Portraits from a Cuban Journey
Step into two decades of Cuban life through the lens of photographer James Clifford Kent. James will share images and stories from Yuma, his forthcoming photobook (GOST Books, 2026), offering a rare window into the close relationships and everyday moments that have shaped this long-term body of work. Reflecting on his encounters with people and places on the Caribbean's largest island, James will speak candidly about the process of documenting lives over time – how trust is built, stories unfold, and images take on meaning beyond the frame.
Image: © James Clifford Clark.
More information
About the speakers
Melinda Schwakhofer is an internationally exhibited American artist and citizen of the Mvskoke Nation (aka Muscogee or Creek) with Austrian-American ancestry. Her practice is mainly textile-based and her work has been acquired by the British Museum, the New York Public Library, the RAMM in Exeter, and the Muscogee Nation. Her most recent work draws on her personal story, varied family roots, and Mvskoke ancestry. The work also explores universal themes of how each of us forms the images we have of ourselves, and how these change through self-discovery. She lives and works on Dartmoor. She is a 2025 Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow at the British Library.
James Clifford Kent is a London-based photographer and Associate Professor of Visual Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is also the founder of Yuma Studios. For over two decades, Kent has documented life in Cuba, including Fidel Castro’s funeral in 2016. His award-winning photography has featured in publications including The Guardian, The Times and The Lancet and exhibited internationally. He earned his PhD from the University of London (2012), published Aesthetics and the Revolutionary City: Real and Imagined Havana (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and was named a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society (2022). Yuma, his first photobook, will be published by GOST Books in 2026.
About the Eccles Institute
The Eccles Institute builds, curates and preserves the Americas and Oceania contemporary collection at the Library and champions knowledge and understanding of these regions through a rich programme of fellowships and awards, cultural events, research training, guides to the collections and initiatives for schools.
For more information about the Institute and our collections, contact eccles-institute@bl.uk or visit our blog.
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