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Two presenters who met at a 2017 conference at W&L joined forces to repatriate a stolen Nepali deity
Published Tuesday, Jul. 27, 2021, 12:00 am
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Story by Lindsey Nair
Professional conferences usually are considered a success when attendees pick up innovative ideas, do some networking or even land a plum job. But those outcomes sound mundane compared to what happened in the aftermath of a 2017 conference at Washington and Lee University.
After meeting at a conference on the ethics of acquiring cultural heritage objects in March of that year, two presenters – artist and activist Joy Lynn Davis and Erin Thompson, an art crime professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice – began a collaboration that would ultimately lead to an FBI investigation, a seizure from a Dallas museu
Q: Were your post-graduate plans impacted by COVID-19?
The pandemic affected my decisions a lot. I had also applied to the Fulbright program to teach English in Serbia, and I was selected as an alternate in spring, but then the program was postponed until January. When I was accepted to the Austrian USTA program and was told it would start on schedule, I immediately accepted even though I was later upgraded to a finalist for the Serbia program. But even so, this was clearly the best choice because I am able to get a full year’s experience.
I arrived in Austria in September 2020, at which point travel and entry into Austria was permitted for specific purposes outlined by the government, and fortunately our program fell within those boundaries. I thought I was going to need a special work visa, but in the end the program provided us with letters from the Austrian government certifying that we were authorized to enter. I had to flash that letter a few times in the airports, along wi