Cornwall Museums Partnership: Recent Episodes
Cornwall Museums Partnership
Rachel:
(upbeat music starts) Welcome to Talking Intern a podcast by five trainee curators, working in museums and galleries across Cornwall.
Sarah:
So if you're thinking about getting started as a museum professional, we're here to share with you some of our experiences and lessons learned, setbacks and successes from the early stages of our careers.
Katie:
So join us,
Sian:
Sian from Wheal Martyn Clay Works, a Victorian China clay works in mid-Cornwall,
Sarah:
Sarah from Bodmin Keep, Cornwall's Army Museum,
Katie:
Katie also from Bodmin Keep,
Lizzy:
Lizzy from Falmouth Art Gallery,
Rachel:
and Rachel from the Museum of Cornish Life.
Sian:
As we make a daring attempt to break into the museum...
Rachel:
Industry.
Sian:
Industry, yes that's what I meant.
Sarah:
Coming up on today's episode. Our society is putting up these disabling barriers, which means that some people are excluded.
Lizzy:
but we need other things, more personal creative interventions into our spaces.
Sian:
I guess this is a time for my to do a cheeky plug of Wheal Martyn again.
Katie:
Oh no. I've used red text in my exhibition. I didn't know that (laughs) (music ends)
Katie:
Hello everyone. And welcome to Talking Intern the podcast where five trainee curators from across museums and galleries in Cornwall discuss all things, culture and heritage. My name's Katie. I'm the trainee curator at Bodmin Keep, Cornwall's Army Museum. And I'm joined by Rachel from the Museum of Cornish Life, Lizzy from Falmouth Art Gallery, Sarah also from Bodmin Keep and Sian from Wheal Martyn Clay Works. Today, we're going to be discussing disability and accessibility in the museum sector and how it's changed during lockdown. I'd like to preface this with, we are going to try our best to use the right terminology today, but if we mess up, apologies in advance. First of all, though, how is everyone doing?
Rachel:
Busy, very busy. We're opening the museum of Cornish life and a couple of weeks. So we're doing a fresh coat of paint on all the walls, getting exhibitions ready. And so it's full steam ahead, but really, really exciting.
Sian:
Yeah, same at Wheal Martyn really, really busy, but really, really excited, you know, got a project where we had loads of people send in photos. So I'm trying to sort those all out, but it's going well.
Sarah:
I'm back in Cornwall, which I'm thrilled about (Sian whoops). I'm back in the museum again, and you just can't get me out of the object store right now, repacking boxes, rooting through the archives and loving it.
Katie:
Cool! Right. So, as I said, we're going to be talking about disability. And my first question today is what initially comes to mind when you think about disability and why do you think that is? Sarah do you want to start us off?
Sarah:
Yeah. So when I think about disability, I would think about people who face barriers to engagement in a variety of different ways because social spaces, whether that be the physical museum building or an online site, is inaccessible to them. I used to think about disability in a negative way. So people who can't do something because they themselves were disabled, but sort of in the past few years, I've been learning a lot more about the social model of disability, which is just so much more empowering for differently abled people. So therefore I've been like retraining my approach towards disability. Right now, I understand that it's actually society, which is disabling people. So our society is putting up these disabling barriers, which means that some people are excluded, whether that be through lack of access, prejudice, or systemic injustice.
Rachel:
I suppose when I think of the term disability, I think of impairments either physical or mental, which have a substantial effect on someone's daily life. Having said that, I think Sarah's comment about the social model of disability is a much more constructive way of envisaging disability and working towards a much more equal society in all aspects, including cultural heritage and galleries and museum spaces. And I think as public spaces and community hubs, museums and galleries do have a considerable responsibility to reduce barriers to access as much as possible, serving everyone's fundamental right to engage with culture.
Lizzy:
The first thing I think of when talking about disability is my own experiences of people in my family having disabilities, especially my own personal experiences with mental illness as well. So many disabilities aren't even visible on the outside and present different challenges for different people. So two people can have the same or very similar conditions, but have vastly different experiences of those conditions.
Sian:
Yeah, much like Sarah said, the first thing that comes to mind for me is that of barriers. So, museums, many of which are often historic buildings in their own right. They're not always the most accessible of spaces, to be honest. And as Lizzy mentioned, not all disabilities are visible and everyone has this completely different experience navigating the world. So I can't speak on any person's like individual personal form of disability, only what institutions and organizations can do to make their spaces and their information as accessible as possible.
Katie:
Yeah. Awesome answers everybody. I'd really like to echo that issue of invisible disabilities because I think often the stereotype of a disability is, you know, a wheelchair or an assistance dog, disabilities that have a physical marker that someone else can see. Just some quick stats for you. 14 million people are disabled in the UK, which is about a sixth of the whole population and 70% of those disabilities, so the majority of them are estimated to be hidden or invisible. So if you're only serving the population where you can see their disability, you're missing most of the people. My own disability is chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis, which I frequently have to Google in order to spell (laughs). And it's completely hidden. There's no physical markers. Apart from when my energy gets really, really low and I go sort of gray and my facial expressions just stop, I stop smiling or, or anything. And I must look like a zombie. The other thing I just want to mention is that the language of disability is inherently not great because you're saying that you are dis-abled, you're less abled, you're different from normal. Like a lot of language that is changing, as you said, Sarah, differently abled. I really like the term neurodiverse, which is often used for people with autism or learning difficulties because it implies, yes, my brain is different, but it's not inherently worse than anyone else's, it's just different from yours, which I think is a lot more of a positive way of looking at it. So my second question is in a time of lockdown, what does accessibility mean for museums? Has our offer for disabled people, improved or worsened?
Rachel:
I think lockdown has offered to museums and galleries some time to think really, to step back from their buildings and consider what sort of institution they want to be and what their priorities are. I think a lot of museums have taken this time of temporary closure to review and rewrite some of their policies. I know that we've been doing this at the Museum of Cornish Life, which has meant really thinking deeply about equality, access and diversity. When we talk about access in museums, I think it's quite easy to forget the barriers to access, which are not such tangible concepts. Exactly like you were saying, Katie. Museums might have lifts and wheelchair ramps, but it's important that they also offer easy read guides to visiting their institutions, audio guides and information packs in various languages as well. I think financial access should also be considered by heritage institutions when it comes to entry prices and offers in the cafe. When cafes and cultural institutions are up and running again, I wonder if more museums and galleries might consider accepting donations for snacks and drinks, as opposed to setting prices. Cultural access should also be prioritized. And it's always positive to see various cultural experiences and issues represented throughout programs and exhibitions.
Lizzy:
There are definitely some struggles with accessibility right now. Not everyone has a smartphone or internet access. So those people are missing out a lot on the online offer museums and galleries have been pouring out there during lockdown. Social distancing as well in the physical galleries is tricky for accessibility too. It feels like while we've tried to improve online our physical accessibility has been sort of compromised. Being outside is still very risky for many people. And I myself am still finding it quite uncomfortable having to go outside though. Yeah in the culture and heritage sector, more can always be done. We always do things like lift, ramps, toilets, and people are starting to pick up on introducing Changing Places as well, which is good, but we need other things, more personal creative interventions into our spaces to improve the experiences that we're trying to offer for everyone. That could start with working with local communities to find solutions together, especially coming out of the pandemic.
Sarah:
So I'm not disabled. So I, I don't feel like I can adequately answer whether our offer has improved or worsened and really don't want to assume the experiences of others. However, what is clear is that since the start of the lockdown, museums have massively increased their online content, which has pros and cons in terms of accessibility. So for people who can't physically access museum buildings, such as Bodmin Keep, you know, we have no lift. So wheelchair users and people who can't climb the stairs easily, just cannot access our museum. So putting exhibitions and content online, offers a new opportunity for engagement, which some people would not have had at all. You know, I intend to keep curating both virtually and physically, even after the museum reopens. And I really hope that other museums continue to do this as well. However, you know, just because something's online doesn't mean that it's accessible to everyone, but it does seem to me that recently, because of this new, like emphasis on digital content, museums have started to take digital accessibility much more seriously. I've been making an effort myself to ensure that all the videos I've been making for the museum are like appropriately captioned. And I see a lot of other museums doing the same. A new thing is that I've been seeing many more museums providing alt text on their social media images, which is something I was not actually aware of until the lockdown. So that's really encouraging to see, although it's still not happening enough. And it's been great to see organizations such as the Disability Collaborative Network providing advice, promoting resources to aid museum professionals and reminding museums that creating accessible web content should really be a priority.
Sian:
In some ways during lockdown, I think information, like everyone has just said, information has been more readily shared and available online. So only to people that use the internet and that itself is already a barrier. Museums have done excellent work in getting their collections digitalized and in starting projects on the internet. And I don't want to dampen the significance of that because I think that's really great and that enables so many more people as well, to access information and access collections. Like maybe you can't afford to visit the museum for whatever reason as well. But that doesn't actually make information more accessible to people who don't use the internet or who are not savvy on the internet. Like I said, it's just another barrier. So what museums can do is really fulfill their role as centres for the community, and perhaps try to reach people within their community itself rather than expecting to come to the museum. Or expecting people to click on the museum website and things like that. So during lockdown, one of our volunteers, he's 75 plus, and he's autistic. And he comes into Wheal Martyn usually once a week and he doesn't use the internet. He doesn't have the internet. And this could have been quite an isolating experience for him, but we made sure that at least one member of staff every single week, called him up to kind of keep that routine. And I think he really appreciated that, but at the same time, because he doesn't use the internet and because he's older and shielding at the moment during lockdown, he couldn't access basically anything to do with heritage. I don't know if it was Rachel, just now that mentioned putting together packs and stuff to send to people physically. I definitely think museums could do more to actually uphold their role as community centres.
Katie:
Yeah, absolutely. The other thing to mention is, which we haven't covered in detail, is not just digital access, but digital poverty, which is a really big problem in Cornwall. People not being able to afford the internet or it's just on their phone or the signal is too bad because you're living next to mountains and valleys. The online potential is really great, especially for people who are housebound or can't physically access our museums, as you said, Sarah, due to not having lifts and things. I think I agree with your point, Lizzy, that we've improved digitally, but maybe we've worsened physically because all the visitors who are vulnerable and have to keep isolating, they probably won't feel safe coming into museums for quite a while. Maybe until there's a vaccine. From a personal perspective, I can't come back to work in Cornwall because my fatigue makes me vulnerable to COVID. So the digital connection has become even more important to me because that's how I do all my work now. The feeling that I seen from a lot of disabled people is a little bit resentful because "why weren't we doing this before?". Especially with employers, "why did it take a pandemic for you to let me work online, to let me work remotely?". And my concern is that as we reopen, people are very used to doing things the old way, and they might return to those defaults instead of learning from this experience and improving their own practice, which is what I hope happens. Thinking of improving your practice, could you give me an example of good or bad design for accessibility that you've seen?
Sian:
I guess this is a time for me to do a cheeky plug of Wheal Martyn again (Katie: of course) (Sian laughs). Any chance, any chance to talk about it. So as a Victorian clay works, the monument is obviously not very accessible to everyone. Parts of the site previously could only be reached by steps and stairs, which obviously is not ideal. We've recently had a new renovation space, so it's a new space of temporary exhibition and an educational space. So we put in a lift and obviously having a lift is great. It's not the 'be-all end-all'. So it's not the most important takeaway, but I think that the thought and the intention behind it was significant because straight away the first thing I think they considered was "how do we make this space more accessible? So we're building something new, but how do we make it more accessible?" And I think that's really important now because I don't think those conversations and that kind of thinking was perhaps happening, 20 years ago in museums. But it seems hopefully to be at the forefront now, and it's something that's actually talked about. There are still loads of areas of the site, we have a 26 acre site, there's still loads of areas that you can't access, or some people won't be able to access. And that is obviously not ideal. So I'm waiting for scientists to invent hover cars, which would be great. But until then, until then, all that museums can do is really just keep it at the forefront of their thinking for the future. How would we make things accessible to people? How do we make sure that we're not kind of putting up barriers to anyone?
Lizzy:
Before it was mentioned about activity packs, and I'm also going to plug my gallery as well (laughs). Over lockdown, we put together some art packs of sketchbooks, pencils, paints, brushes, and things, and gave them out to local families in the area. We had a little team of people, volunteer,s just running them out, taking them to kids in the area and families who needed things to do at home. And then we've also got a new website with films and activities and things you can make and do. So we've been trying to improve there, I guess, our accessibility, through online engagement because the gallery website hasn't really had much like that on it before. We usually have a WordPress for an exhibition, but actually putting our activities online is kind of new. That's something I think we could definitely improve on.
Sarah:
That project sounds so wonderful Lizzy (Lizzy laughs), really making steps to tackle that digital poverty that we talked about earlier. So my good example is the Wellcome Collections new 'Being Human' gallery, which is supposed to be the most accessible gallery in the UK. And I don't know if anyone's been, but when I went to visit, I was actually really impressed. It just felt like there was such attention to detail and it felt like a really inclusive space. And I did a little research and found out that when Wellcome was in the earliest stages of curating this new gallery, they wanted to embed accessibility across the board from the content, to the interpretation, to the design, to the marketing. And they went for a very collaborative approach to do this. So they invited in academics, such as Richard Sandell from the University of Leicester's research centre for museums and galleries, and also diverse people with lived experiences of disability. And they got these people together to participate in workshops and consultations that informed the way in which the gallery and the final exhibition was actually shaped. And Wellcome also held themselves accountable. And it also appears that they're still actively seeking feedback from the public. So, for me, this is exactly the kind of approach that is needed across the sector. So thorough research and listening to people to understand what they need rather than making assumptions. And just as you said, Sian, you know, embedding accessibility into a project from the very start rather than having it be an add on once it's already been completed.
Katie:
That sounds awesome.
Rachel:
It really does. Maybe when lockdown is finished, we can all go together and have a little field trip, cause I would love to see that (others agree).
Sarah:
And it's a free gallery as well, which is brilliant.
Rachel:
Oh fantastic! See financially accessible as well! (others laugh) So lots of museums have started offering sensory backpacks, which are absolutely fantastic and help young visitors with additional sensory needs to explore museums in a fun and positive way. We have some here at the Museum of Cornish Life, which are free of charge to use and include things like ear defenders and a soft toy. National Museums Scotland also offer sensory backpacks as does the British Museum. In terms of resources which are really helpful when it comes to accessible design in museums, I never fail to be impressed by the Collections trust. They're absolutely wonderful. And on their website, there's a fantastic tool kit to help increase accessibility for visitors with dyslexia by Nina Glencross. And it includes some fantastic advice like, don't use italics in text and avoid red, green, or pink text. Things that you may not necessarily think about originally when you're putting together interpretation.
Katie:
Oh no. I've used red text in my exhibition. I didn't know that (laughs).
Rachel:
You've got a week to fix it Katie!
Katie:
Yeah better go change that before it goes live. That's fantastic. I love all those positive examples. I'm going to be a little bit of a negative Nancy and just show the other side when accessibility isn't prioritised and isn't embedded from the start. I went to a really brilliant exhibition in Oslo when I was on holiday. They were comparing modern climate change with sea level rise in the Iron Age. So it was fantastic for bringing prehistory into modern day interests. However, one of the design choices they made was that the room of the floor was cracked like tectonic plates. So it jutted up in spikes all over. Which looked interesting, visually appealing, but would have been an absolute nightmare if you were in a wheelchair or partially sighted. You would have just fallen over all of these spiky floor bits. And then the labels for the objects were on top of the cases, which were quite high. So if you were in a wheelchair again, or even if you were just short, like if you were a small child, you wouldn't have been able to read the text. So we can see that thinking about accessibility from the start rather than as an add on, is really, really important. And what I always feel with it is that when you improve one aspect, you're often benefiting multiple groups of people. I know I'm using wheelchairs as an example a lot, but think about putting ramps in, yes, you make it so that a wheelchair user can get across the space, but you also make it better for parents with prams or older people with walking frames or small children that want to run around the space and won't trip up a step and fall over. You're actually improving it for everyone, everyone who visits. (upbeat music starts) Thank you everyone for such a brilliant chat. I love hearing all of your thoughts.
Lizzy :
Join us next time when we talk about museums and galleries and their role in the wellbeing and mental health of the community.
Everyone:
Bye!
Katie:
This podcast has been kindly supported by Cornwall Museums Partnership, Cornwall Council, the John Ellerman Foundation, Cultivator, European Structural and Investment Funds and Arts Council England.
Lizzy:
You can listen to this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you find your podcasts.
Rachel:
Make sure you subscribe so you can be notified as soon as it's released.
Sian:
You can also follow us on Twitter @CornwallInterns, all one word, to keep up to date on what we're doing in the museums around Cornwall. See you soon (music ends).
Talking Intern follows five Trainee curators across four Cornish museums. In this episode we discuss invisible disabilities and Covid-19's impact on accessibility. What should museums do to be more accessible?
Thanks to ashamaluevmusic.com for our music
Resources mentioned:
Changing Places toilets
https://www.independentliving.co.uk/changingplaces/what-makes-a-changing-places-facility/
Disability Collaborative Network
https://www.musedcn.org.uk
Collections Trust Dyslexia toolkit
https://collectionstrust.org.uk/resource/a-toolkit-to-help-increase-accessibility-for-visitors-with-dyslexia/
Sensory backpacks, National Museums Scotland
https://blog.nms.ac.uk/2017/10/03/new-resources-for-autistic-children/
UK Invisible disabilities
https://www.psychreg.org/invisible-disabilities/
Wellcome Collection Being Human gallery
https://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/XNFfsxAAANwqbNWD
R: Welcome to ‘Talking Intern’ a podcast by five trainee curators working in museums and galleries across Cornwall.
Sa: We’ll be discussing what goes on behind the scenes at cultural institutions.
K: And asking questions like,
Si: Well if a museum is closed to the public then is it still a museum?
L: What does a curator actually do?
R: And do all museum professionals get to wear hats like Indiana Jones?
Sa: If you're thinking about getting started as a museum professional, we're here to share with you some of our experiences and lessons learned, setbacks and successes, from the early stages of our careers.
K: So join us,
Si: Sian, from Wheal Martyn Clay Works, a Victorian china clay works in Mid-Cornwall
Sa: Sarah, from Bodmin Keep: Cornwall's Army Museum
K: Katie, also from Bodmin Keep!
L: Lizzie, from Falmouth Art Gallery
R: And Rachel, from the Museum of Cornish Life
Si: As we make a daring attempt to break into the museum…
R: … industry
Si: industry, yes that’s what I meant…
Sa: Here’s a taste of some of the conversations we’ve been having.
K: And I’ve always thought of museum exhibitions as plays every single aspect has to be rehearsed and planned out from the lighting to the colour of the object backgrounds, to the tech, and the layout of how the visitors go round the room.
L: I wouldn’t be put off by your background, like I’m from a very Northern working-class background, we didn’t visit many museums when I was a child. We went to local National Trust places and saw them, but even if you find them slightly intimidating if you want to work in a museum don’t let your background put you off.
R: Sarah, can I ask, do you have walking boots and a wetsuit because you really need those to you know, survive here?
[Laughing]
Sa: I have my walking boots but I was not planning on going into the sea until like at least July so no worries about that
R: Summer we will make sure that you get in.
Si: We’ll give you a proper Cornish welcome at some point.
Sa: Sounds fantastic. I have been having a pasty like every weekend so... [Laughs]
K: This podcast has been kindly supported by Cornwall Museums Partnership, Cornwall Council, the John Ellerman Foundation, Cultivator, European Structural and Investment Funds, and Arts Council England.
L: You can listen to this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts and wherever else you find your podcasts.
R: Our first episode will be coming soon, so don't miss it! Make sure you subscribe so you can be notified as soon as it's released.
Si: You can also follow us on Twitter @CornwallInterns, all one word, to keep up to date on what we're doing in the museums around Cornwall. See you soon!
Rachel:
(upbeat music) Welcome to talking into a podcast by five trainee curators, working in museums and galleries across Cornwall.
Sarah:
So if you're thinking about getting started as a museum professional, we're here to share with you some of our experiences and lessons learned, setbacks and successes, from the early stages of our careers.
Katie:
So join us, Sian from Wheal Martyn Clay Works, a Victorian China clay works in mid Cornwall.
Sarah:
Sarah from Bodmin Keep, Cornwall's Army museum.
Katie:
Katie also from Bodmin Keep.
Lizzy:
Lizzy from Falmouth Art Gallery.
Rachel:
And Rachel from the Museum of Cornish life.
Sian:
As we make a daring attempt to break into the museum...
Rachel: Industry.
Sian:
Yes, industry, that's what I meant.
Sarah:
Coming up on today's episode. For me, it felt like one of the most genuinely inclusive exhibitions I've ever been to.
Katie:
One of the first things that our director at Bodmin Keep ever said to me was that "military history is social history".
Rachel:
It kind of reminds me of that song from little shop of horrors about the dentist every time I walk past it. (music ends)
Rachel:
Welcome back to Talking intern, a podcast where five trainee curators from across museums and galleries in Cornwall, discuss all things, culture and heritage. My name is Rachel. I'm the trainee curator at the Museum of Cornish Life. And I'm joined as always by Katie and Sarah from Bodmin Keep: Cornwall's Army museum, Lizzy from Falmouth art gallery and Sian from Wheal Martyn Clay Works. Now tell me team, are we feeling refreshed after the weekend, Sian, what have you been up to, apart from feeding your dog pasty meat?
Sian:
Driving the lovely Cornish country lanes and having the suspension spring, just pop out of my car. So just a normal weekend, really.
Rachel:
(laughs) Average Saturday on the Cornish roads. I like it.
Sian:
(laughs) Absolutely, yep!.
Rachel:
Sarah. What's going on with you in London?
Sarah:
Oh, it was a very exciting weekend. Had my first socially distant pint at my local pub.
Rachel:
Fantastic. And Lizzy, what have you been up to?
Lizzy:
I just finished making a coffee cake. I've yet to ice it but looks good so far.
Katie:
Very jealous.
Rachel:
Fantastic (laughs). We were just saying, if you could email us a slice, that would be hugely appreciated (laughs). And finally, Katie, how about you?
Katie:
I saw four adorable kittens that I could fit in the palm of my hand this weekend. So I'm very happy.
Rachel:
How many in your pockets?
Katie:
Yep, one in each hand, one in each pocket, set (laughter).
Rachel:
Amazing. Today we are going to be discussing social history, a term which is used widely to describe museum collections. But what does it actually mean? I'm interested to know team, what the term social history means to you. So Katie let's come to you first.
Katie:
Yeah. Social history is a really odd thing to define. And before I started working in museums, I had absolutely no idea what it was. And, at its core, now I would define it as it's about people, and it's about stories in the past. One of the first things that our director at Bodmin Keep ever said to me was that "military history is social history". I'm not a military historian. I never planned to work in a military museum. So it's really helpful for me to reframe our collection as about stories and people, rather than getting bogged down in cap badges or types of weapons or when a particular battle happened, it should be about people and groups of people and their stories.
Sarah:
Yeah, I totally agree. Katie. I think personally I find the term social history a bit misleading because you know, all history has social impact. So therefore all history, whether that be history of science, history of art, political, economic, military history, all of it is social history. However, I mean, in a museum context, just for ease of reference, social history, collections and displays will be emphasizing human stories, how particular people and communities shaped and were shaped by history. I'm really interested in how social history, collections reveal, powerful narratives of inclusion and exclusion and reflect the evolving relationships between different groups.
Sian:
See, I do agree with you, Sarah. I do agree that you could call all bits of history, social history, but I do think even though the term could be misleading, I do kind of think that it's important to make that distinction just because historically we haven't always centered the narratives of, you know, ordinary, everyday people. We've not been interested in them really. We've been interested in, you know, kings and lofty, I don't know, Barons or whatever (laughs). I think, it is quite important to make the distinction for social history, to me personally, to answer the question, I think social history is kind of focusing on everyday people and trying to tell the stories of the majority, I suppose, would be how I would describe it.
Rachel:
Lizzy, what's your concept of social history?
Lizzy:
Being at the art gallery, it's kind of different. Generally I think of objects that belonged to everyday people. So we don't have a lot of those kinds of items actually in the art gallery stuff that you'd classify as social history, but I guess you could count the artwork as social history. We've got other stuff like artists' sketchbooks as well. So actual kind of more personal items than a finished painting on a massive canvas. So you see how they've kind of developed their artwork, what's going on in their brain kind of thing. Yeah. So it makes me mostly think of personal items from someone's life that tell a story or describe a certain moment in time that are worth preserving.
Rachel:
Yeah, I'd absolutely agree with that. And personally, I feel very lucky to work at the Museum of Cornish Life in Helston because it houses one of the largest social history collections in the Southwest. So the collection ranges from archaeological finds from some of the earliest settlers to the Lizard Peninsula, to musical instruments used by Helston town band, local school photographs from the 1930s, a fully stocked 1950 shop. The common thread between these things for me anyway, is people. And I think social history provides a historical lens through which to examine ourselves and essentially our connectivity to one another. You might remember when we went on a study trip to London, we met Hazel Forsyth, who is the senior curator of the medieval and post medieval collections at the Museum of London. And she told me afterwards, don't lose sight of the fact that history is fundamentally about people, us. I think the inwardly interrogative nature of history is particularly true for social history collections.
Rachel:
So this brings me on to our next question. And I know in the past we've talked amongst ourselves about inclusivity and museums. Do you think people will be more likely to engage with social history collections if they see themselves reflected in the collections in some way? So in essence, if social history museums invested in more diverse narratives within their collections, would people be more likely to visit and how as curators can we ensure that social history collections are made more inclusive and reflective of whole communities? Sarah, let's start with you.
Sarah:
So museums are powerful shapers of society and they can reinforce the power dynamics that exist within society. So to see yourself and your identity represented in a museum is incredibly validating. I think that the curator and founder of the Museum of Transology, E. J Scott, captures really emotively, just how important inclusion is. He writes, "to not be included on the walls of a museum is to be rendered historically homeless.It is to be told that your existence is meaningless, that you are the unspeakable that you are destined to be forgotten." So you know, why would you want to visit a space where you feel forgotten, where your experience of the world isn't acknowledged? So, absolutely, I totally believe that representation within museum collections and displays can be one really good way to encourage diverse people through the doors. And it's something that we as curators actually have the power to do, to influence. In terms of ensuring that this representation is actually authentic and not tokenistic, the Museum of Transology is a brilliant case study. Scott gathered everyday items and stories from the local trans community in Brighton and built a collection of over 250 objects from 108 trans people. And in the exhibition, the interpretive labels for each object were written by whoever donated it. So for me, it felt like one of the most genuinely inclusive exhibitions I've ever been to, it was really enlightening. And I can only imagine what that experience must have been like for any trans museum visitors. How about you, Sian? What's your experience with this been like?
Sian:
Yeah, I completely agree with Sarah. And I think that was a really nice case study that you pointed out as well, because what I wanted to add was that, as curators often we're seen as kind of back of house, we're seen as looking after the collections, but not really having much to do with engagement. And I think that's actually quite a positive change that I notice in museums lately, is that collections and engagement work seems to be not only merging and blurring together, but even if it isn't doing that, there seems to be more work and collaboration between the departments, even if they are completely
separate. Because I think we really do need to engage with the community and with people. It's all well and good trying to tick off a box and think, Oh, I need to do this because this will look good. You know, that's just kind of cold. And I think it's sort of empty as well. If museums really want to make sure that they are reflecting the stories of their community and they are capturing everyone in the community, they actually need to make the effort of engaging the community, of asking people of doing public engagement work. So I think that's probably a really important thing to do. And my case study would probably be the Museum of Ordinary people. It might be a pretty easy one to pick, but it's really great. You know, it's using a collection of things that people have just chucked away in the past. So obviously things that weren't kind of important to them at the time, like diaries, love letters, things like that, but because they belonged to people, because they are important in that way and were reclaimed. Now they make up the bulk of the collection. And I think that's so interesting. We think of social history as just, when you need to define it, it's every single thing about our lives. And often things that we don't even think are very important, you know, or worth reflecting. But if we had those pieces of history that were reflecting different people's lives and stories from different backgrounds, then it would draw more people in. One thing that is a barrier to visiting museums, and not only to visiting museums, but to working and volunteering in museums, is the feeling that museums aren't for you wherever, for whatever reason. And it is the responsibility of museums to make sure that people don't feel that way. I don't think that it's the responsibility of individual people to kind of force themselves into a museum space, if it's not making them comfortable. It's the museum that really has the responsibility of making sure that they are bringing people in by making sure that they are telling everyone's story, that they are reflecting back everyone's narrative. Or they are at least making the effort to engage with people outside of, just back of house collections work.
Lizzy:
I think if you want to increase inclusivity, you should start with visiting actual marginalized communities in your area, working with charities and such, before actually starting working with your collections. So bringing people in and collaborating with them. You need to go out and meet people where they are at their level and open a discussion, to actually build the relationships with these people. So they trust you enough to work with them. And then you need to think about what they have to say. Are we hearing their stories clearly and actually representing them in a way that they want to be perceived, rather than just the first thing we think about. Co-curation is a little daunting at first, but collaborating with people just brings in new eyes and new perspectives and it opens a lot more doors to you. We also need to go back through all of our documentation and interpretation, really assess our collections, whether we are being inclusive, especially in our choice of language, which is a massive task, but it's the talks that will ensure longevity and relevance of our collections in the future.
Katie:
I absolutely agree Lizzy, that you've got to start with relationships and you've got to build trust because otherwise these communities are not going to come. They're not going to feel welcome. So thinking about inclusivity, there was a great webinar recently on bias by the Inclusivity Project who are based in Cornwall. And they talked a lot about affinity bias, which is that people are attracted to people who look like them or think like them. So if you're making your collections more diverse or you're bringing out those diverse stories, then you can use affinity bias in a really like sneaky, positive way, because you can attract everyone to the museum. As we've said before, I think often people feel that museum spaces aren't for them, because they've been marginalized because historically museums were for rich white men who took objects from the colonies. And we know this from marketing, that if you only show, say a white nuclear family on your website, then anyone else is not going to think that the museum is for
them. Whereas if your collections, your advertising, your staff, if everything is more diverse, then everyone is going to feel more welcome.
Rachel:
Yeah. That reminds me Katie of a fantastic social history seminar we had recently with Dr. Tehmina Goskar from the Curatorial Research Centre, and she was talking about inclusivity and social history. I think social history collections especially have a responsibility to represent society as inclusively as they can. But I also think it's important that this isn't done as a tick box activity. I think Sarah touched on this briefly early on when she was talking about it becoming tokenistic. It can't be done as a tick activity and interpretation really needs to be considered fully and thoughtfully. And I think consulting various community groups as suggested by Lizzy, about aspects like interpretation can be incredibly, incredibly helpful. So for my final question for you all, I would just like you to tell me about an object within a social history collection, which you found particularly engaging, and it's okay to plug objects from your own museums here, because I certainly will be. Lizzy. What you want to tell us about?
Lizzy:
I love the sketchbooks we have in our collection, especially the ones from Marjorie Williams that we've got so many of them. And for the exhibition we had just before we closed for lockdown, I was allowed to rifle through them all and pick out sketchbooks and open them to pages, to display in a vitrine, which is easily the best thing I've done so far. It's amazing. It's like picking the artist's brain and seeing how they see the world basically before, like I've said before, before it goes up onto a finished thing, like a canvas or in a sculpture.
Rachel :
Amazing. And what about you, Sian?
Sian:
If I'm going to be honest, it's got to be the photograph collection that we've got. So Wheal Martyn Clay works is a china clay museum. Obviously I've mentioned it before, but ECC, the English China Clay's company basically set up the museum in the seventies for the miners, for the China clay workers and their families. So we've got this amazing archive and this brilliant photograph collection, the English China Clay's photograph collection. And it's not just kind of groups of workers setting and looking at the camera, although those are really great. And I do love them, especially when it's a big photograph of lots of people, and some people look like they really want to be there. Some are absolute posers, they're proper giving it smiles and all that. And some people are grumpy as anything. I think it's great, but there are also loads of photographs that we have of local festivals, local dances, things that you just, you don't, I don't know about. And it's so fascinating to see all these tiny little clay villages. And they each had a brass band connected to them and they each had their own dance and their own parade. And I think that's such a cool way of just tapping into kind of like folk culture and, you know, pieces of what people were doing in the past, like what people actually doing in their free time, what they were excited about, what they were spend their money on, you know, learning an instrument, you know, being part of the brass band, being part of the community in that way. So I love the photographs I really do. And I think that with all industrial museums because it's such hard physical work. And because a lot of the time, the villages around industrial centres were basically, their genesis was to, you know, accommodate the workers in that industry and their families. People need to let off steam in their free
time. So it's fascinating to me just to see what people choose to do with their free time and what makes them happy. So I love those photographs. They really do bring me joy.
Katie:
My absolute favorite object is the Lucknow quilt, because as you all know, I'm a massive textiles nerd. So it was made during the siege of Lucknow in 1857, which is when 3000 soldiers and civilians barricaded themselves into the Governor's residency for six months, because they were under attack from Indian troops, which is not a period of history I knew anything about before working at a military museum. And the name of the war itself is really interesting from a social history point of view because the British call it, the Indian Mutiny, implying that the Indian population had like broken the rules, you know, as if they were serving on a ship or in an army, whereas in India, it's called the First War of Independence. So breaking away from Britain. And the quilt itself is made out of dead soldiers uniforms. So thinking about what you do in your spare time, Sian, it's white, blue and red, and then the green sections of it are made from the top of a billiards table, that like green fuzzy, fuzzy fabric.
Sian:
Oh wow.
Rachel: Amazing
Katie:
Because they couldn't leave the building to go and get more fabric. So they just had to use what they had. And another interesting thing is that initially we were assuming that the quilt had been made by a woman, but actually military quilts in this period were made by male soldiers. We don't know his name and we don't know who he is, which makes it even more intriguing. So in just that one object, you've got colonial bias in how you think about the physical name of a conflict and how different nations view that conflict. And you've also got a really interesting conversation about gender roles and assuming that all textiles in the past were made by women, which is just not true.
Rachel:
Sarah, which social history object do you feel like sharing with us today?
Sarah:
So Bodmin Keep has this amazing collection of trench art, which is something I've not heard of before coming to work at army museum, but it's sort of an umbrella term for these decorative objects or little trinkets fashioned out of battlefield debris. So that's empty shell or bullet casings. And they're all such like amazingly detailed pieces. But my favorite is this tiny little airplane with a moving propeller. And it's actually made out of bullets. Trench art was usually made by soldiers just behind the front lines, prisoners of war and civilians, many of whom whose towns and livelihoods were destroyed by war time, shellfire, and battle. And so the pieces were made to pass time, to be a memento of the war, to be bartered for other goods, and to help people get through economic deprivation. For me, these objects are so fascinating because they perfectly embody the resilience of people in horrendous situations and the sort of human ability to make something beautiful from such ugliness and terror. So yeah, I think they're really poetic even though they're just little sort of trinkets, I suppose. They're not considered a part of a serious collection of more serious army museums, I guess.
Rachel:
I find it really difficult to choose one object from the Museum of Cornish Life because I'm surrounded by such amazingly diverse social history, every time I walk through the door to go to work. But perhaps this one is a little macabre. I really like this dentist drill from I'd say the early 20th century, which is actually operated by a foot pedal. So it was used by a dentist on Meneage Street, in Helston, who was known for his uncompromising attitude towards patients whilst extracting their teeth (others exclaim). It kind of reminds me of that song from Little Shop of Horrors about the dentist every time I walk past it (laughs) It's such a characterful piece of equipment and it really must have seen and heard a lot I would expect. So yeah, I would absolutely choose the dentist drill. Thank you team for another very thought provoking discussion. (cheerful background music starts) I look forward to the next, so Katie, you're going to be chairing that one. What will we be talking about?
Katie:
Next time, we're going to be looking at disability and accessibility in museums.
Rachel:
Fantastic. And thanks also to everyone listening and bye for now.
Katie:
This podcast has been kindly supported by Cornwall Museums partnership, Cornwall Council, the John Ellerman Foundation, Cultivator, European Structural and Investment funds and Arts council England.
Lizzy:
You can listen to this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you find your podcasts.
Rachel:
Make sure you subscribe so you can be notified as soon as it's released.
Sian:
You can also follow us on Twitter @CornwallInterns, all one word, to keep up to date on what we're doing in the museums around Cornwall. See you soon (music ends).
Talking Intern follows five Trainee curators across four Cornish museums. In this episode we ask what is social history? And how can it make our museums more inclusive?
Thanks to ashamaluevmusic.com for our music
Resources mentioned:
Tehmina Goskar, Curatorial Research Centre
https://tehmina.goskar.com
Museum of Transology
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/museum-of-transology-london-college-of-fashion/UAJi2JzZUfiSKQ?hl=en
Museum of Ordinary People
https://www.museumofordinarypeople.com
The Inclusivity Project
https://theinclusivityproject.co.uk
Marjorie Williams' Sketchbooks
https://www.falmouthartgallery.com/Collection/Artist/Williams,_Marjorie_(nee_Murray_1880-1961)
Lucknow quilt
https://bodminkeep.org/the-lucknow-quilt/
Trench art aeroplane
https://bodminkeep.org/trench-art-beauty-from-bullets/
Wheal Martyn photograph collection
https://www.wheal-martyn.com/Pages/FAQs/Category/our-collections
Rachel: Welcome to Talking Intern, a podcast by 5 trainee curators working in museums and galleries across Cornwall.
Sarah: So if you’re thinking about getting started as a museum professional, we’re here to share with you some of our experiences and lessons learned, setbacks and successes from the early stages of our careers.
Katie: So join us…
Sian: Sian, from Wheal Martyn Clay Works, a Victorian China Clay Works in mid Cornwall.
Sa: Sarah, from Bodmin Keep, Cornwall’s Army Museum.
K: Katie, also from Bodmin Keep.
Lizzy: Lizzy, from Falmouth Art Gallery.
R: And Rachel, from the Museum of Cornish Life.
Si: As we make a daring attempt to break into the museum…
R: …Industry!
Si: …Industry…yes that’s what I meant.
Sa: Coming up on today’s episode…
Si: I would never have done this project were it not for lockdown
K: You saying that about moving your paintings around, I'm imagining a Chuckle Brothers ‘to me, to you’ situation, trying to keep two meters apart.
Sa: Lockdown, for me, has really just expanded the definition of what's a curator actually is
R: What are your thoughts on that, Sean, Sian?
Si: Well,
All: [laughter]
R: Shall I say that again?
Sa: Hi everyone, welcome to Talking Intern. I’m Sarah, hosting today’s podcast on the Curator in Lockdown. Just before we get into the meaty bits, I want to hear about how you guys are all doing on I think it’s week 14 of the Lockdown? We can feel it easing a little bit can’t we because Boris is about to announce today that our museums can reopen in July. But I’m going to go to you Katie, how are you doing?
K: Absolutely got nothing to do with museums, but I have hedgehogs in the garden, so I am great. I have six baby hedgehogs and every single time they come out I rush to go see them and I’m like ahh you’re so cute! Yeah so I’m feeling very happy.
Sa: Ah how can you not love hedgehogs?
R: I’m so jealous!
[laughing]
Sa: How about you Sian?
Si: Yeah, I’ve just had a week off, so I’m a little bit sort of going through all my emails and everything now and trying to put my museum brain back on. I don’t know about you guys but I’m finding this weird period another kind of transition period because the heart of lockdown you kind of got used to doing digital work and whatever, there was some sort of flow but now we’re getting back into the mindset of opening up again so things are all just kind of flurried and rushed and everything again. So it’s exciting in some ways but yeah it’s a little bit strange.
Sa: Yeah everything’s definitely up in the air again, we knew where we stood before and now… [laughs] How about you Lizzy?
L: Ah I’m alright. Just very apprehensive about going back in now. I’ve got to go back in Wednesday, yeah going back in on Wednesday and I’m not looking forward to being outside. It’s scary now. [Laughs]
Sa: It is a bit, like, I feel a little anxious sometimes.
R: I think it’s because you’re used to getting into kind of a little bubble and then when you have to come outside that bubble it’s a little bit different and yeah we don’t quite know what to expect.
Sa: Mm absolutely. So how about you Rachel?
R: I’m well thank you. But I am in the museum today. So I come in a couple of days a week to carry on different projects that I’ve been working on, obviously we observe social distancing but I’ve taken myself off to the costume store now so I’m recording this surrounded by mannequins and boxes and some Edwardian mourning clothes at the moment so it feels very bizarre to be talking to you guys in this setting. But yeah I’m well thank you.
Sa: Ah it’s so good to hear you guys, hear your voices. I’m feeling, I think, fairly optimistic today actually. I’m quite looking forward to a return to Cornwall in July, getting back in the museum.
Si: Yes, I’m so excited!
Sa: I know, It’s so exciting. The amount of sun I’m getting right now is honestly lifting me out of this like big dip in my lockdown mood that I think I was stuck in for the last couple of weeks. So I’m feeling pretty grateful for that.
R: I’m so excited for when we can actually socially distance socialise together again.
Si: Yes!
[laughing]
R: It would be so lovely I miss you guys.
Sa: Take me to the sea please, take me to the sea!
[laughing]
- How has your role as a curatorial intern changed since the lockdown began?
Sa: Alright well let’s get stuck into our first question. So I want to ask you guys how your role as a curatorial intern changed since the lockdown began? So what sort of projects have you had to leave behind? What work have you been able to adapt? And actually what new opportunities have arisen for you? So I’ll come to Rachel first.
R: Yeah so I mean when lockdown first began it was a bit of a shock to be taken out of our buildings. It was like being taken out of your natural habitat, what we’ve got use to for the last few months. I’d been working on documenting our art store the day before lockdown was announced and had left twine and labels on my desk which gave it a bit of a Mary Celeste vibe when I did return physically to the museum space. As trainee curators I think we’d probably all envisaged handling collections and suddenly that wasn’t possible, but other possibilities arose allowing us to develop our digital skills and focus on things like museum policy, which for me was really valuable and actually having some time away from the museum setting gave me a chance to really consider why we operate in the way that we do and take that step back to isolate and identify properly what makes a museum an effective community hub which is what it should be essentially.
I am back in the museum a couple of days a week now, observing social distancing, so I have been able to continue documenting the art store. I work on the upstairs balcony which has a great view of the museum and to be completely honest I doubt I’ll ever find another workspace which is quite so special. I was due to be opening my first exhibition in June, which didn’t happen, but it’s been postponed rather than cancelled and I think opening day, whenever that may be, will feel all the more special because of the extra work and planning which everyone’s put into the exhibition. Kind of staff and volunteers included in that. So I’m really looking forward to when we finally do get to open. But Lizzy I don’t know if that’s been a similar experience for you?
L: Yeah obviously I’m no longer in the gallery spaces or handling any artworks. This summer we were supposed to be doing a sensory exhibition featuring artworks in many different mediums from three dimensional works that you could touch, really interesting painting works, to film and audio. Now all the whole kind of programme is changed. It’s all kind of up in the air at the moment. Before the lockdown I was doing our personal projects that we’re all doing, mind was setting up an exhibition for the Cornwall Schools Art Collection. Being at home has given me a lot more time to think about my exhibition in depth. So that’s due to be in September. So at least I’ve got plenty of time to kind of sit with that. We’ve always had groups and children’s activities in the gallery spaces before lockdown, but now those are all postponed as well, so I have been planning on how to use the space so it doesn’t feel really empty whilst also having plenty of room to move around in. Kind of finding a balance between it being spacious enough but not empty. An opportunity I have now, is there’s more room to experiment with is the interpretation ideas and try out new things because of being in the Lockdown. You just get all this time to just kind of wonder ‘How can I do this?’ so it’s the time to really experiment. So I’m coming up with ideas for downloadable resources such as PDF booklets and worksheets and things like that.
Si: And it’s funny that you bring up interpretation because yeah it’s just been interpretation, interpretation, interpretation. It’s been the thing we’ve been working on most as a team in Wheal Martyn. And it’s been good in some ways but a little frustrating as well because it’s all been done via Microsoft Teams and there’s only so much you can do in that way. But for me, some of the work that I was already doing pre-lockdown I could already continue to do. So some interpretation work and some research and work updating the guide book. And things like that. But one opportunity that did kind of arise for me just because of lockdown or, you know, in a way I had to change the way I was working and what projects I was focusing on was, um, there was obviously a need to put out images that were going to uplift people's moods, but at the same time kind of celebrate this little area of Cornwall.
So obviously Wheal Martin clay works is a China clay mining museum. It was a huge industry and Mid-Cornwall and the whole landscape has just been completely changed by this mining industry. So we set up this project called ‘Celebrate Clay Country’ and it just took off. So many people have submitted entries to it and loads of people have used the hashtag or sent in pictures via Facebook and that's been excellent. And because of that directly, because of this lockdown project, I would never have done this project were it not for lockdown, but because of this, it's now going to be our summer exhibition in Wheal Martin, or it's what we were hoping to be our summer exhibition. So we're going to hopefully display certain images across the outside of Wheal Martin in a kind of trail. I need to get people's permissions to do that obviously.
But then they might also become our very first items in our digital collection. So this whole thing could kickstart our digital collecting in Wheal Martin, which is so exciting. Um, and the fact that this was all born from lockdown, uh, is actually kind of a nice thing really, that we've had something so creative and so interesting, and innovative, um, that's come out of lockdown for us. And I'm really so excited about it because not only is it really celebrating the history and heritage of this bit of Cornwall, and I think that's what small rural museums you know do best in some ways, um, when they're very specialized in the way the Wheal Martin is, is that they really are a kind of heritage centre. And you, you know, you do want visitors from across the world and across the UK visiting you, but you also want to have a connection with your, your community as well. And I think that celebrate clay country has done that. So pretty excited about that summer exhibition. So that's my main project at the moment, but I don't know about you, Katie, if you found any exciting things that have arisen from lockdown?
K: Yeah, so like everybody, my work is a lot more digital now. Um like Sarah, I'm not even in the county anymore. I'm back in the Northwest. And I really miss working on objects and doing packing and conservation, which I never thought that I would miss packing, packing objects into boxes. I'm really glad that we did so much of it at the start of our internship because otherwise, you know, if we'd saved it for, ‘Oh, we'll do it later when you're a bit more experienced’, than we never would have done any. So I'm really glad we, we did it, did it in January. So this summer, my exhibition Frontiers of Fashion, which was meant to be a physical one is going to be online. And that's enabled a lot of collaboration which wouldn't have happened. So collaborating with fashion curators and military historians and schools and universities. Um, same as you Lizzie, it was supposed to be a tactile exhibition. It was supposed to be, you know, touching the fabric and, and a lot of, a lot of feelings things which now is going to be tricky because of infection risk when the museum can open again. So we've had to switch that and make it so that the objects can't be touched, unfortunately, but the other opportunities we've had are to do digital projects like this podcast that we really wouldn't have done if it weren't for lockdown, because we were talking to each other on a fairly regular basis in person. So we didn't need to have a podcast to chat to each other. What about you, Sarah? You're the other one that's out of the out of the County. I know we both miss Cornwall a lot.
Sa: I know I miss it so much. And I also like you, I actually find myself missing making all those like tissue paper doughnuts and sausages and all that lovely stuff that we pack up our objects with. I, um, it was quite therapeutic work and I find myself getting bored of staring at my screen all the time. But that being said, lockdown, I think has ironically opened up a lot more opportunities, um, than I ever had before when I was actually working in the physical museum space. And for me, it's really just expanded the definition of what's a curator actually is as with all of you guys, I've been enjoying learning lots of new digital skills. So one of my projects was to teach myself how to produce some professional looking videos with some nifty new software. Another one I've been working on building, um, our museum, a chat bot, but really like just echoing what many of you said already, the way that we work with collections has just been the most dramatic and I think obvious change. So not only have like all the collections care responsibilities been put on hold basically. Um, but the way that I'm going about curating exhibitions has, um, massively shifted. So right before the lockdown, I was about to install a new display in one of our galleries, looking at souvenirs and spoils, which were acquired by soldiers in the army. However, I instead I had to translate that into a digital format and launch it online. What's more challenging now though, is that I'm sort of in the research stages for larger exhibition, but have no access to the collection, really or the collections database, which makes crafting a really good object-based exhibition narrative, pretty difficult. I think the whole situation this sort of renewed emphasis on digital media has only served to just reinforce how important it is to have our collections digitized, not only for remote working remote curating, but also just in terms of like accessibility for our audiences.
That sort of brings me on to my second question. During this lockdown, museums have faced really a crisis of identity. They've been faced with a reality, which has prevented them from carrying out what is sort of traditionally been seen as their ‘core’ work. So inviting visitors into our physical space to see their objects. We've seen museums channel lots of their efforts into going digital some with more success than others. But as we have no idea how long these distancing measures will be in place, how long until vaccine will be available, you know, it's a very uncertain future that museums will be operating in. So in what ways do you guys see the role of the curator changing and adapting to the new normal? Lizzie, what do you think?
L: If we are to adapt to the ‘new normal’, we really need to get out of our comfort zones. I think programming needs to be thoughtful and welcoming for the public after so long being stuck in doors. It needs to be something people really want to see and engage with, that’s uplifting. Losing our ability to actually invite people, to interact with displays and objects means that we need to push our boundaries when it comes to our interpretation, make it memorable, make it more interesting as well. Not just having standard labels, but maybe something else that’s a bit more interactive. But at the same time you can't touch it. So I don't know, like in the art gallery sense, we're going to be hanging an exhibition of paintings and saying things in our captions along the lines of, ‘can you see this?’ or ‘what do you notice in this painting’ or ‘find this object hidden in the painting’. Just kind of trying to make it a bit more fun really.
Few people will actually want to stand in a room reading really long text panels. I guess people have been doing a lot of reading at home in lockdown. So maybe they're a bit fed up of it. I don't know. So we need to get something a bit more memorable. Many museums and galleries have really taken the move to digital engagement in their stride, but a few still feel a little bit lost with it. So we need to make sure we're all kind of collaborating and supporting each other and just like the move to digital, keeping it up really, so future accessibility online is greatly increased. I'm still not sure how we plan on taking down and installing an exhibition with people two meters apart, not all of them, but most of our paintings are under two meters apart. We have some two meter-wide paintings, but it's going to be difficult working it out. So I've got my own mask and everything ready.
K: You saying that about moving your paintings around, I'm imagining a Chuckle Brothers ‘to me, to you’ situation, trying to keep two meters apart. There was an Association of Independent Museums, they had an online conference last week and it was a really interesting point raised, that obviously this is a time of crisis, but it's also a time of opportunity for us. And it's a chance for museums to ask, what do people really want and what do they need? And are we meeting those goals or are we just drifting into ‘well we've always done this? So we'll carry on doing that’. I know it's a good, it's a good chance for, for reflection. And I'm really hopeful from a personal perspective that this is going to improve accessibility for disabled visitors because everybody's putting things online. If you're housebound or if, our physical museum at Bodmin Keep, um, we don't have a lift cause it's a very old building. So if you're in a wheelchair, you cannot access the museum. Whereas we can now bring it to them. And we can have online exhibitions. We can have subtitled videos, we can have 3d tours, you know, all of those things. And I think the role of the curator is going to be different for every museum, especially those who are in really severe financial difficulties, because they're not going to have the opportunity for reflection because they're going to be focused on how they need to increase their income and that donations rapidly. But from an education or an exhibition point of view, I think it might really help museum professionals to create content. That's more in the moment rather than planned five years into the future. I'm thinking, especially of the Museum of London's collecting COVID project who were asking for physical and digital donations that reflect this time. I think that's a wonderful, rapid collecting project. That's going to be really interesting in the future. When we look back on this, on this period of history. What about you, Rachel?
R: Well, to me, the role of the curator is to tell stories either through interpretation, which often figures as texts and exhibits through the object they've selected or through supporting learning resources. Um, firstly I think the objective of telling the story can be achieved digitally via online exhibitions. But I also think it has to be said that not everybody has access to digital technology or wishes to engage in that way. Ultimately I hope that once museums do reopen, the curation of exhibitions would take place in a more physical sense. Once again, even if museums have to implement social distancing measures because it would be wrong for those without access to technology to be excluded from collections and essentially their own heritage when digital disadvantage is a very real thing. What are your thoughts on that, Sean, Sian?
Si: Well,
All: [laughter]
R: Shall I say that again?
Si: No, no, I think it’s fine. Especially before we were recording this, I had a malfunction with my microphone. So I did sound like a man. [laughter] So I agree with you that digital exclusion is definitely a thing. There are certainly people who are not online and to purely go to a digital kind of platform and ignore, um, the physical platform of a museum would be completely wrong. And we shouldn't do that. A big example is, um, one of the volunteers with us, he doesn't use the internet, but he's a key volunteer and all throughout lockdown, you know, we've had a phone conversation with him once a week, made sure that he's okay, made sure that he's had a shopping and everything. So if museums kind of went purely to digital, you'd be leaving behind people like that and that's unfair. But at the same time, in my view, um, being a curator is to care for the collections and you can care for them in a physical way. Obviously you can handle them, you can clean them, you can make sure that they're safe and they're not in any sort of harm, but also it's caring for the information around an object. So there is still work that you can do more from home or there is still work that you can put more digitally and get across this kind of history and heritage and collections across to more people in it in a digital way. There is one project, a citizen curators project in at the moment. That's going to be really interesting because the whole point of it is to train up, um, volunteers with curatorial skills. And I think the next year, which will be year three, they're going to really hone in on, um, having a more digital way of going about it. So I really look forward to seeing what elements of being a curator they pull out and highlight in this more digital program. I do think that museums, when they're kind of at their best, they are places that are, you know, caretaking bits of history and heritage. And so there are ways that you can connect to the community digitally that museums perhaps just were not doing before, but not only digitally, you know, it's not digitally, doesn't have to be the opposite of being in the physical museum space. You can also do more actual community outreach. And I want museums to connect to community centres and to connect to even Facebook groups that are dedicated to towns and villages and things like that. There are ways that museums could definitely, um, connect to their communities. And I think that's going to be interesting, uh, post lockdown, especially. So I don't know if you've got similar thoughts on that, Sarah, whether you know, what museums, what their actual role is and what the curator's role is?
Sa: Hmm. Yeah. So, sort of I was saying before, like I think the scope of the curator's role has gotten a lot broader. Um, and I think we're all very conscious of the fact that we're heading into a recession, um, jobs that were very competitive before COVID are going to be even tougher to get, uh, going forwards. Um, and so, you know, museums are going to be demanding much more from their curators and I reckon that's going to be more digital capability. Um, but also entrepreneurial thinking, which hasn't usually been the domain of the curator. And I think audiences are well aware now, like, like you were saying, Katie, of the pressure to focus on audience needs and particularly the needs of like a local or like hyper local audience. And that means being like proactive rather than reactive, going out there, talking to people, finding out how best to direct their services in a way that provides like actual measurable value to these local communities. So, you know, I see we were already heading this direction, but I see a much greater focus on like wellbeing, combating social isolation. Um, basically just taking the pressure off of other, you know, council services that will be facing cuts and in practice, this could mean curators are facilitating more like participatory or co-created projects, particularly with marginalized communities, but it could also be forging really thoughtful partnerships with organizations outside of the sector. So whatever way our energies are channelled, I think that after the lockdown, the curator really cannot ignore visitors and audiences anymore. They cannot just be looking after their objects. They have to be thinking about the experiences that they can facilitate for people at the museum, online, or anywhere else using their collection.
So just quickly before we wrap up, I was just wondering if you guys could flag up any really good articles or resources that you've come across just about curating or the role of the museum, um, during these times, because you know, I'm sure there's a lot of really switched on museum professionals who are giving their take right now. Don't know if you had any ideas on that Sian?
Si: Well, I mentioned the Citizen Curator program. It's kind of, I think it's done through the Curatorial Research Centre. I believe it's called, by Tehmina Goskar. And also I think we'd be remiss if we didn't kind of mention Cornwall Museum's Partnership as well. Um, but they are constantly sharing, um, really good resources and they're very, very encouraging and supportive about new and innovative ways that we can act. And we can, um, you know, projects that we can achieve through lockdown and post lockdown. So I would definitely check out those. And I think that we are quite lucky in some ways that our project, you know, our program as Trainee Curators even exists really. And they've been so on board with all the changes that lockdown brings. I don't know about Katie?
K: Yeah so at the Association of Independent Museums conference again, um, there was a lovely quote from, I don't know how you pronounce her name, Lucy Cassot the director of Museums and Galleries Scotland who said as the museum sector, we're all in the same storm, but we're in different boats. And that really brought it home to me that like we're all in COVID, we're all struggling with the same background problems, but each museum is going to have to deal with it in a different way, because sometimes it's going to be financial. Sometimes it's a physical space, that's too that's too small or whatever, whatever the situation might be. The other really good resource that I read at the start of lockdown was Andrea Jones, ‘Empathetic Audience Engagement During the Apocalypse’. It was a really wonderful article. It really brought home the emotional impact of COVID that everybody is going to be dealing with this in a different way. And as visitors, people might need distraction, they might need light-hearted things, they might want to grieve, or they might want to help. They might want to do practical charity work that makes them feel better, makes them feel like they're doing something and that you need to think about what all of those different groups might want and how you as a museum can kind of help them to fulfil those needs. What about you, Rachel? Have you found any, anything interesting online or…?
R: I listened to an interesting podcast called ‘The Future of Museums’ by Aspen UK, which centered on a discussion between Diane Lees, who is director of the Imperial War Museum and Tristram Hunt who’s director of the V&A. Although the discussion focused a bit more on the practicalities of museums emerging from lockdown, they did also discuss the digital side of things and how curators now have as much as a digital responsibility as a physical one to bring an object to life, and position it in the context of its existence. They also discussed some interesting topics like whether international loans will still be possible in the current climate and whether people will be so screen fatigued, that they will be desperate to reenter the physical space or conversely whether they will still have the capacity to connect to physical works of human creativity after so much digital engagement, which I think is going to be a really interesting tension for museums to negotiate. But Lizzie, have you come across any interesting resources that you could share?
L: Oh, I've been doing a lot of reading in lockdown, not so much relevant, I guess, to the current situation, but I've been reading books that have been kind of informing my practice in some way while I’m out of the gallery. So I've been reading books such as Playing to the Gallery by Grayson Perry, also got one called Who's museum? that's by James Cuno. That's about art museums and the public trust, which is a collection of essays that’s really interesting. And then I've got Experience or Interpretation by Nicholas Serota that’s another one. That's about the museums of modern art. So those are the books I'm currently reading. Really into art and curation, kind of changing ideas around how an art gallery, an art museum should be kind of curated and displayed.
Sa: You’ve been going old school Lizzie, reading physical books. [laughs] How refreshing!
R: Love it!
Sa: Yeah, I'm just gonna flag up a bit of fun, um, for us nerdy curator types. Art UK has launched a new digital ‘Curations’ platform, which means that you can use their entire,
Si: I saw it!
Sa: Yeah, it's so much fun. I spent a whole Friday night doing it cause I'm that sad.
[laughter}
Sa: Curating my own art exhibition online. It's a lot of fun. So I do recommend that, and ooh if we all, if we all make one, we can go visit each other's museums!
[Laughter]
Sa: All right, gang. This has been a really interesting chat I’m so glad we could all catch up.
R: Well, we're looking forward to chatting again for our next podcast recording and the theme for that one is going to be social history. So we'll be chatting about what social history actually is and what is its purpose.
Sa: See you soon guys!
ALL: Bye!
K: This podcast has been kindly supported by Cornwall Museum's Partnership, Cornwall Council, the John Ellerman Foundation, Cultivator, European Structural and Investment Funds and Arts Council England.
L: You can listen to this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you find your podcasts.
R: Make sure you subscribe so you can be notified as soon as it's released.
Si: You can also follow us on Twitter @CornwallInterns all one word, to keep up to date on what we're doing in the museums around Cornwall. See you soon.
Introduction
R: Welcome to Talking Intern, a podcast by 5 trainee curators working in museums and galleries across Cornwall.
Si: So if you’re thinking about getting started as a museum professional, we’re here to share with you some of our experiences and lessons learned, setbacks and successes from the early stages of our careers.
K: So join us…
Si: Sian, from Wheal Martyn Clay Works, a Victorian China Clay Works in mid Cornwall.
Sa: Sarah, from Bodmin Keep, Cornwall’s Army Museum.
K: Katie, also from Bodmin Keep.
L: Lizzy, from Falmouth Art Gallery.
R: And Rachel, from the Museum of Cornish Life.
Si: As we make a daring attempt to break into the museum…
R: …Industry!
Si: …Industry…yes that’s what I meant.
Sa: Coming up on today’s episode…
K: ‘…I always thought of museum exhibitions as plays. Every single aspect has to be rehearsed and planned out, from the lighting to the colour of the object backgrounds...’
Sa: ‘…it required me to shlep about 16 gigantic beanbags from Hammersmith all the way to Camden (which is a long way!)...
L: ‘…Even if you find them slightly intimidating, if you want to work in a museum, don’t let your background put you off...’
Si: Hi everyone, welcome to the first episode of Talking Intern! We are five trainee curators across four Cornish museums. So we are gonna be tackling various subjects about working in the museum industry. This is for people that are just getting started with their careers, whether or not you’re an emerging professional or you have just finished uni, or you want to work in museums, or you already work in museums and you think ‘oh you sweet summer children’ - let’s see.
I should probably let everyone else introduce themselves right now though…
R: Hi everyone my name’s Rachel and I am the trainee curator at The Museum of Cornish Life in Helston, which houses one of the largest social history collections in the South West.
K: Hi, I’m Katie I work at Bodmin Keep, Cornwall’s army museum, which covers the Cornish Regiment.
Sa: Hi, I’m Sarah I’m also working as part of the dream team with Katie at Bodmin Keep, Cornwall’s army museum.
L: Hi, I’m Lizzy I work at Falmouth Art Gallery, and Sian you should probably introduce yourself as well…?
Si: Yeah I should probably do that shouldn’t I? Hello, I’m Sian I work at Wheal Martyn it’s a Victorian Clay Works, so Wheal Martyn Clay Works. It’s a China Clay mining museum, perhaps the only one in the whole world, certainly the only one in the UK.
So that sort of leads me on to our first question then. We are gonna be tackling three questions today, the first one being: Why museums? Why did we want to work in museums? Katie why did you want to work in museums?
Why choose to work in museums?
K: So I’ve always loved the National Trust, I got a life membership from my grandparents when I was little (before they increased the prices) and it was one of the best presents ever, because it meant any weekend we would just go to historic houses and gardens, and I think one of the problems with academic research is that it just stays trapped in journals and it’s only read by the experts. Whereas museums are a really good chance to spread that knowledge and communicate research to everybody, to the public. I also come from a theatre background and I always thought of museum exhibitions as plays. Every single aspect has to be rehearsed and planned out, from the lighting to the colour of the object backgrounds, to the text and the layout of how the visitors go round the room.
Si: Yeah definitely, I can definitely see it from that theatre background as well, it’s brilliant. Sarah, why did you wanna work in museums?
Sa: Well it all started during a period of existential panic about a year into my undergraduate degree, because I had absolutely no idea what I was planning to do. So I was studying English and so everyone assumed I wanted to be a teacher and no way was I going to do that, the very idea terrified me. So I started to think really deeply about what made me happy, what did I love to do in my spare time and what industry was I willing to support. It became clear to me that the arts, culture and heritage sector was where I needed to be. It was only then, after several years of volunteering in all sorts of different areas of the sector that I actually settled on museums. What really attracted me to working in museums was experiencing first hand really how valuable museum experiences can be – not only for individual personal growth and learning, but also supporting communities and just generally transforming wider societal understanding, creating more equitable societies basically. And yeah, I just it so energising and really exciting to work with objects and these incredible artworks and have a job that means you’re genuinely learning new things every single day. So Lizzy, what about you? Why did you wanna come work in museums?
L: I did art all the way through college and through uni – I spent a lot of time in galleries and museums especially. All of my artwork essentially, was based around a cabinet of curiosities, so I studied museum displays a lot and artists who followed similar themes. The trips became less about a forced thing in my education and more I went for enjoyment, so I would go in my lunch breaks or after college, and then I found that I really enjoyed being in museums and galleries and I wanted to find out how I could work in one. So I had this dream of being an artist at night and then a museum or gallery professional in the day and get to do both at the same time.
Si: That’s definitely what I had growing up as well, I just really liked being in them. Rachel what made you want to work in museums?
R: Well for me the main attraction of working in museums is that you’re surrounded by stories all the time. Every step you take in a museum and every object you look at transports you somewhere new. I just feel really privileged to be part of preserving those stories for other people and hopefully making sure that they are valued in the way that they should be. I also think that working in museums is special the sense that every day is different, like Sarah said, one day you might be presenting a Blue Peter-style broadcast on the museums social media channels, which can be a real challenge if you have my level of artistic ability, which is low to say the least, and the next you could be taking a training course in conservation. So curatorial work also involves a lot of puzzle solving, which I really enjoy, and you get to work with some very passionate and knowledgeable staff and volunteers. So those were kind of my primary reasons for looking at a job in museums. But I think it’s important that we think about how we kind of got to this point, I’m sure we’ve all done lots of work experience and placements and things like that, so I think it would be helpful to people if we discussed that a little bit more. So Sian, how did you get to this point in your career?
Si: I’ll just say why museums first. For me I wanted to – my answer is gonna be a little bit flippant actually, unfortunately, you’ve all given lovely detailed answers and mine was really very much like Sarah’s, except the existential panic for me, didn’t quite kick in until six months after I had graduated from university. Growing up I always loved museums and I remember when I was (gosh I don’t know) about ten or eleven, we went to the British Museum and my dad managed to get tickets when they had part of the terracotta army on display and it was absolutely amazing -
Sa: Oh I went to that one Sian, that was incredible!
Si: You went to it too Sarah? Oh my gosh, we might have bumped into each other in the past! (Laughter) …and I remember just being so blown away by it and I used that in part of my personal statement to get into university. I did a BA in Ancient History and I remember in my personal statement just writing ‘I liked museums growing up, so that’s why I should do this degree’ – it worked, apparently! So yeah, I finished university and I thought ‘What on Earth do I do now?’, ‘I have an Ancient History degree, what can I do with that?’. I didn’t kind of straight away when I was 18 know that I wanted to work in museums whatsoever, so hopefully I’ll elaborate a little bit more in questions two and three, and I’ll get my redemption arc by number three I hope.
How did you get to this point in your career?
Si: In terms of ‘how did I get to where I am’ I volunteered quite a bit so – like I said, it was a good six months after I finished university that I even started to think about or even try to volunteer in museums. I always worked alongside studying so I never really had the free time to volunteer, but I found myself in a position where I could and I went and volunteered in Royal Cornwall Museum for a couple years, did all of the stuff that they threw at me and I got some really great experience there, but all of the different jobs and roles that they wanted me to do I did - so as an education facilitator, front of house, gallery guide, conservation assistant, I was hungry for it all. I was on the pilot group for a programme called ‘Citizen Curators’, which is also (I think) Cornwall Museums Partnership and Arts Council funded, and that was fantastic. That really – that’s what sparked me wanting to be a curator, because that was about getting people from the local community, who might not have as much access to these types of roles, and getting them to actually perform curatorial tasks and that was inspiring, so that’s what made me get to where I am today I think - I really attribute it to the Citizen Curators program.
So I better stop talking now I’m getting sick of the sound of my own voice, Sarah you did a masters in Museums Studies, so how did you get to where you are now as well?
Sa: Yes, so once I sort of latched on to this idea of trying to work my way into the arts, culture and heritage sector more generally, I was thinking ‘Right okay, I need to test this idea out - let’s find some volunteering.’ So, from that point on I just became a bit of a ‘serial intern’ basically, just trying out anything and everything in the arts and culture sector. Just trying to find where I fit and basically accumulating more and more experience so I could go for more exciting positions. Some of the most unusual included interning at a fine art laboratory – which basically tested paintings for forgeries (which was kinda cool), and another was volunteering for an art gallery which was actually in a multi-story car park in South London (which got very cold in the evening), but my favourite though has to be an internship I did at the Jewish Museum in London, and I coordinated this bonkers, immersive audio-visual installation with DJ’s, and it required me to shlep about 16 gigantic beanbags from Hammersmith all the way to Camden (which is a long way!) so 10 I put in the taxi and 6 had to come with me on the tube.
R: 10 in the taxi?
(laughter)
Sa: Yeah, I just packed them off and, you know, prayed that they would get there.
(laughter)
I had to take the rest with me on the tube, I was quite a sight. So yeah, I finished my undergraduate degree, took a year out to sort of work, travel and apply then for the Masters. Cause I was sort of told by everyone I spoke to about careers in museums and galleries, that everyone said ‘Right, go for an MA in Museum Studies’ and so whilst I fully recognise that, that’s not what everyone can do, not everyone’s lucky enough to be in a position to get that degree, but it was absolutely the right choice for me. I was able to get a loan, live at home, work a couple of really flexible part time jobs - which meant that I could do that, and I’m the type of nerd who loves school, so I just adored my time at UCL, it just introduced me to some really focused and driven people who are also passionate about museums. I learned so much about the sector, I was able to do loads of practical projects because UCL has so many different collections you can work with. One of the best parts was researching and writing the dissertation, I investigated queer museum trails, ran a bunch of participant studies, and that project really shaped my current curatorial priorities, so something I definitely wanna pursue in the future. But, I finished the MA last September and was just working and job hunting for a few months (which I know you guys all know is pretty tough!), but then I got this traineeship at Bodmin Keep and just absolutely leapt at the chance to work and actually get paid in a real museum. Getting that acceptance email was such a fantastic moment. It felt like 5 years of hard volunteering and studying had paid off. Oh, beautiful! (laughter)
So Rachel what about you?
R: Yeah, for me I haven’t always worked in the heritage sector. Like you Sarah - I studied English at university and I think we were at the same university actually, and after graduating I went abroad and taught English as a foreign language for a couple of years in Switzerland, and then in Spain and back here in the UK. But I think my heart has always been in heritage really and I’m very glad that I did have that opportunity to travel and gain different skills, and whilst I was at university I volunteered with the National Trust and also like Sian, with Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro and it really gave me quite a tantalising peek, as it were, into the world of museums. So it was always my plan, basically, to go abroad, get some other experience, get some leadership skills and teaching, and then hopefully use those skills in a museums role, whether that’s in learning and engagement, or in curation. And then I started volunteering at the Museum of Cornish Life in Helston where I currently work, and I just absolutely fell in love with the place as a volunteer - you know, the stories that are told by the museum, the feel of it, even the smell of it, so as soon as the trainee curator role was advertised I leapt at the opportunity, and I’m just really glad that I did. But I don’t know if that’s the same for you Katie?
K: Yeah, so I studied archaeology at Durham, and it really appealed to me cause it’s practical history, and it tells the stories of people that weren’t fancy enough to have scribes or people writing down the history, so basically anyone that’s not a king - so that really appealed to me, telling stories of normal people throughout history. The common thread seems to be existential crisis, I had mine at the end of first year, we were on a dig at a Roman fort and I wasn’t feeling very well and I was washing pot sherds rather than digging. I just thought ‘This is really hard work, that I’m not really well enough to do, so if I’m not gonna be a commercial archaeologist, if I’m not going to actually dig on digs, what am I gonna do with my life?’. So, I was washing pot sherds and mentally rifling through all the skills that I had, being like ‘What can I do? What can I do?’ and thought ‘Ah, museums! I wonder whether that would work?’ and then started volunteering at my local and the more I did it, the more I liked it. So I graduated July 2019, and I was actually meant to move to Alaska, I had a job in a museum in Alaska that fell through because of visas - so I applied for the most remote British place that I could get instead, and that’s how I ended up in Cornwall! Lizzy, what about you?
L: I didn't do anything really museum related before this, I did my degree in Fine Art, I graduated BA Fine Art in 2016. I never even had experience volunteering, I just, I kind of knew that I wanted to give it a go, I had a few failed attempts at applying for visitor assistant positions in galleries back up at home in West Yorkshire, and yeah they didn’t work out, they were a bit disastrous! I was not having a great time working in the service industry and retail (that’s what I did immediately before this), I was always kind of looking out for any art jobs or museum work that I might be able to do anywhere they needed help. And then I was about to give up and I saw this advertised intern position on social media – which is the last place you’d expect to see a job like this, I saw it on - I think it was on Facebook at the time, and yeah, it was like a ‘lightbulb’ moment, I just went ‘Oh, I might as well have a go then, I’ll go for that one!’ so that’s how I got here.
Si: I think that’s really great actually, I love that, that happened. I love that you’re here with us and we’re all a group together. Strangely enough, actually, I had applied for this program before. So it was actually, there was an internship the year before this one but it was only 6 months instead of 9 months, and it was quite different, I think the way it was structured was very different. But that was the only reason that I went for this one, because I was walking around one day and I thought ‘Oh, I remember I went for that internship last year, I wonder if the same thing is happening this year? You know it was around this time last year…’ and then what do I notice – I see it, it’s there it didn’t pop up for me on social media or anything, but I just happened to look on the website that day and it was there! And I think the deadline was coming up in one or two days, so I made a hurried (laughter), a hurried job application like ‘Please!’ (laughter) – which sounds like I didn’t really care very much about it but I did!
And I think that kind of feeds into our next question, which is ‘What piece of advice would you have for people?’ and I’ve got a few little things.
What piece of advice would you have for people wanting to work in museums?
Si: Obviously, one piece of advice would be: if you get a ‘no’ don’t let that stop you, try again, cause I got a no for this program and then I tried again the next year, and I got a ‘yes’ - and they remembered me from last year which was really nice. So definitely don’t be disheartened, don’t put yourself down. I definitely suffer from imposter syndrome and I know a few of us here do as well, I’m constantly kind of thinking that I’m gonna get caught out. ‘They’re gonna realise that I’m an imposter’ and ‘I shouldn’t be here, and I don’t know what I’m talking about’ so definitely don’t let that consume you. And, another piece of advice that I would give, personally, is have a purpose or a vision, or a reason why you want to work in museums – so what I said at the beginning that for me it was just I didn’t know what else to do, I’d got an Ancient History degree, and I thought ‘What do I do now?’, and then it took me two years working or volunteering in museums and working in museums before I realised that what I was mostly interested in was getting that information out there and making it as accessible to everyone as possible. You know, there’s a reason why these kind of historical documentaries or science documentaries with Alice Roberts and Brian Cox are so interesting, because they make these subjects accessible to people, and there’s a nasty stigma in museums that, you know, you go into a museum and you’re like ‘This is not for me. I shouldn’t be here.’ and museums really shouldn’t be that way. So, I guess my purpose and my vision for museums is that they are places for the community, they are looking after the heritage of the community, so they are absolutely for you, and I’m very passionate in making sure that, that is something that I carry with me throughout working in museums. So I think once you get a purpose or a reason outside of just ‘Well I did an adjacent degree, I might as well.’ I think once you actually have a reason, that drive definitely will push you towards in a way it did for me anyway. Sorry to ramble on again, so I suppose I better ask – who shall I ask? Let’s ask Lizzy this time. Lizzy what’s your piece of advice for people starting out?
L: I wouldn’t be put off by your background, like I’m from a very Northern, working class background. We didn’t visit many museums when I was a child, we went to local National Trust places and saw them. Even if you find them slightly intimidating, if you want to work in a museum, don’t let your background put you off. Expand your networks, especially, get on LinkedIn and Twitter – all the museum people seem to be on there now and the museums are using them -
K: They really are!
L: Yeah, to reach out to more people. They’re even putting jobs up on there as well, so it’s always work a look, even just for that. Meet people in person, I know with the current COVID-19 situation going on it might be a bit more difficult, but when museums do reopen people are always more than happy to talk to you about how they got into museums. They do need fresh, new young and diverse people working there, to represent everyone in their collections much better. Rachel what about you, have you got any advice?
R: I mean, for me the most important advice I would give anyone looking to work in the museum sector is to gain work experience and volunteer if you can. Through doing practical hands-on work you not only make connections, but you also learn what you like doing and what you don’t, which is actually just as important. So from about year ten onwards, continuing throughout my university studies, I spent time with lots of different organisations, so theatres, newspapers, museums, even a vets surgery, and for me chasing news stories wasn’t something that I could see myself doing for the rest of my life, but routing through dusty archives and curating exhibitions definitely was. At the moment it might seem that work experience would be impossible to do given current constraints, but really there’s nothing stopping people contacting museums they’re interested in and seeing whether there would be any opportunity to contribute in a digital capacity. So there’s a few different avenues that I think people could explore more, and think a little bit outside the box and be a little bit creative as well with what you look at. But yeah, Katie, what advice would you give?
K: Yeah, absolutely agree with what you just said Rachel about getting volunteering in different sectors and then transferring it over. Something we’ve sort of referred to is the issue in museums of getting volunteering in order to get a job - which I think we’re gonna cover in a later episode in a bit more detail. It can be a massive economic barrier and that is something that museums are dealing with at the moment, but if you can’t afford to volunteer you can absolutely use the skills and the knowledge that you have from other jobs, independent study and things like that. We’ve also talked about how difficult it is to get a job, it is very, very hard to get a paid job in museums, and I think it is worth mentioning that you’re never gonna make a lot of money, but it’s a wonderful sector to be in, and it’s really interesting and exciting and you’re learning something new every day. But it’s not finance, you’re never gonna be rich doing it.
Si: Yeah, I think that’s a good point to make isn’t it.
(laugher)
Sa: Rich in spirit though!
K: Exactly!
(laughter)
R: Very good point.
K: Sarah, what about you? What’s your advice?
Sa: So I’ve got two key pieces of advice. I’d say, first of all: try anything. Now this is kind of going back to what Katie and Rachel, what you guys have been talking about, but I would say it’s only useful to a certain extent to be 100% sure of exactly what position you want to be in, in a museum. I would say, if an opportunity from any part of the museum sector sort of comes your way and maybe it’s not exactly what you wanna do, but as long as the time commitment is not too taxing and there’s something in it that you think you could learn, then I’d say absolutely just go for it, because the more you try the closer you can get to where you want to be. And don’t forget if it’s voluntary and you don’t like it, you can just stop whenever you want to. I’m a firm believer in accumulating lots of short and sweet volunteer positions - when you feel like you’ve learnt everything you can from somewhere, then really don’t feel awkward about moving on. But I would say, my experience has certainly been very varied, but I think that’s been quite an asset to me in terms of having such diverse experiences to draw upon when applying for new jobs, but more importantly for me it’s about trying different things and figuring out what really powers and energises me. And the second one is just be brave! So I was really, really nervous applying for this job at Bodmin Keep because, you know, I’m from London, I’ve never lived in Cornwall before, if I were to move down to Cornwall I would have had to leave behind all my family, all of my friends and live in, effectively what I consider to be like, the deepest, darkest countryside. (laughter) Anyway, I got the job, moved to Bodmin without knowing anyone and you know it’s really the best decision I’ve ever made. Whilst I was living in Cornwall I was not only developing professionally with the really engaging, challenging work, but it was a huge step for me personally, and I think it’s been a really big confidence booster. So yeah, that’s what I’d say – try anything and be brave.
R: Sarah can I ask, do you have walking boots and a wetsuit? Because you really need those to survive here.
(laughter)
Sa: I have my walking boots but I was not planning on going into the sea until at least July, so no worries about a wetsuit…
R: We will make sure that you get in!
(laughter)
Si: We’ll give you a proper Cornish welcome at some point.
Sa: Fantastic. I had been having a pasty every weekend, so (laughter)…
Si: I’m so glad, honestly.
Sa: Don’t forget to join us next time, when we’ll be discussing what a museum curator actually is and thinking about our own experiences, before and after the lockdown.
Si: Thank you so much everyone for your lovely, brilliant answers, and thank you to everyone listening. So until next time bye everyone.
K: This podcast has been kindly supported by Cornwall Museums Partnership, Cornwall Council, the John Eleman Foundation, Cultivator, European Structural and Investment Funds, and Arts Council England.
L: You can listen to this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever else you find your podcasts.
R: Make sure you subscribe so you can be notified as soon as it’s released.
Si: You can also follow us on Twitter @cornwallinterns (all one word) to keep up to date on what we’re doing in the museums around Cornwall.
See you soon.
The second episode of the Talking Intern mini series, the first season of the Cornwall Museums Partnership podcast.
Talking Intern follows five Trainee curators across four Cornish museums. In this episode we analyse the role of the museum as a physical space and how that perception has changed during lockdown.
Thanks to ashamaluevmusic.com for our music
Resources mentioned include:
CMP Citizen Curators programme https://www.cornwallmuseumspartnership.org.uk/citizen-curators/
'Empathetic Audience Engagement During the Apocalypse' - Andrea Jones
http://www.peakexperiencelab.com/blog/2020/3/25/empathetic-audience-engagement-during-the-apocalypse
'The Future of Museums' - Aspen UK
https://podtail.com/podcast/aspen-uk/the-future-of-museums/
Art UK 'Curations'
https://artuk.org/discover/curations
Talking Intern follows five Trainee curators across four Cornish museums. In this episode we ask: why do we love museums? What made us want to work in them?
Thanks to ashamaluevmusic.com for our music
Resources mentioned:
Citizen Curators scheme
https://www.cornwallmuseumspartnership.org.uk/citizen-curators/
This is the trailer/teaser episode for the Talking Intern series of the Cornwall Museums Partnership podcast. A project that was started during lockdown.
Talking Intern consists of five Trainee curators across four Cornish museum's discussing various topics such as breaking into the museum industry, accessibility and the role of the curator during lockdown.
Thanks to ashamaluevmusic.com for our music.