Category: Old Curatorial Archive

Archive of Tehmina Goskar’s curatorial posts, including on museum studies, ethics, and some of my PhD research (2005-9).

Old Curatorial Archive

Curatorial Research Centre a year on

Post author By Tehmina Goskar
Post date November 14, 2019

I just wanted to mark the anniversary of founding the Curatorial Research Centre. Technically that happened on 22 October.

I created the idea out of a desire to take action on a set of broad but related systemic issues I had experienced and observed during my career so far–hierarchy, reputation, diversity, anti-intellectualism, shifts in values around material culture and collections. These issues don’t just affect the museum and higher education world where I am from, but also more widely.

Why curatorial research? Because I love being a curator and I love research, and I wanted a place to think and speak differently about it. I am trying to write a book on the philosophy and methodology underpinning how I now come to think about and practice curation but I must admit I am struggling to prioritise the time to do this. When you start a new business, it can be a bit overwhelming: the accountants, the admin, the ‘make sure you keep your company seal in a secure location’. I do sometimes think that many important things have missed the bus and still roam around in the 18th century.

What’s happened so far? Well, we’re still here and trading and very much in business. We are loving working with Cornwall Museums Partnership and seven Cornish museums to lead the Citizen Curators Programme. We really can’t see anything of this scale and ambition happening inter-institution anywhere else. We are nearly half way through a three-year programme thanks to the Museums Association’s Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund. And of course, I am also studying closely the results, this is active research.

In January 2019, Tom Goskar joined me in the enterprise, bringing in particular his technical and digital experience to the range of services we offer. He is the CRC’s Archaeologist and Audiovisual Specialist. He’s been researching and testing the curatorial applications of such products as 3D digital models. Surely we can do more with them than spin them on a screen, and go, “cool!” His creative archaeological mind has brought a completely different dimension to my view on curating. Some of his point cloud and texture imagery are even being worked up into fabric designs.

We have a fabulous Swiss-design inspired logo and brand thanks to Paul Betowski of Design by Paul. I’ll just leave you with it.

Tags business, curating, Curatorial Research Centre

Old Curatorial Archive

Citizen Curators programme launched

Post author By Tehmina Goskar
Post date May 30, 2017

Chart showing Citizen Curators competencies — Citizen Curators competencies

Street art in Santiago de Chile, one of the many important topics for the modern curator

Last Thursday at Cornwall Museums Partnership’s annual Share and Learn day in Helston, I launched the Citizen Curators Programme and introduced its prospective pilot at Royal Cornwall Museum.

Citizen Curators is basically museum studies in the workplace and takes the place between attending one-off training and a full-on course at a university such as an MA in Museum Studies.

Citizen Curators is a work-based training programme aimed at skilling up volunteers (and also staff who want to develop new skills) in modern curatorial practice. The idea behind this programme was developed over 18 months ago in response to the increasing lack of opportunities to learn curatorial and modern museum skills while working or volunteering in a sustained manner, and have the opportunity to test and assess competencies and in a peer learning framework.

The rural context of Citizen Curators is important. People of smaller museums in large rural regions lack the most access to training, skills, networking and peer groups.

For me it’s an opportunity to experiment with delivering education to workers while they work, and also led by the needs of their work. Colleagues will know about my growing interest and involvement in museum skills development and I am grateful for this opportunity try out something new.

Apart from access to skills and an opportunity to test them out, the Citizen Curators pilot will also focus on recruiting at least 50% under-25s.

The emphasis will be on the participants’ learning goals, rather than on fancying up a regular volunteer opportunity or disguising a dreaded unpaid internship.

That said, participants will have to demonstrate commitment and a dedication to completing the course and creating an outcome that is meaningful to the museum.

It is thanks to Arts Council England support through Cornwall Museums Partnership received through through the Change Makers leadership programme that I am able to conduct this pilot.

Download the Citizen Curators Pilot summary (PDF)

Download the Citizen Curators Flier (PDF)

Tags Citizen Curators, curators, learning, museum studies

Old Curatorial Archive

Curator’s Advent. Day 24. Tea

Post author By Tehmina Goskar
Post date December 24, 2016

Tea opens up the curator’s mind.

Tags curator, curatorship, tea

Old Curatorial Archive

Curator’s Advent. Day 23. The learning officer

Post author By Tehmina Goskar
Post date December 23, 2016

The invention of the curator, not the learning officer

Just want to get something straight. The learning officer isn’t always ‘the fun one’ in the museum.

Tags curator, curatorship, learning

Old Curatorial Archive

Curator’s Advent. Day 22. Conservation supplies

Post author By Tehmina Goskar
Post date December 22, 2016

In need of conservation supplies. Serious condensation inside a showcase

Purchasing conservation supplies is retail therapy for the curator.

Solander boxes. Unbleached cotton tape. Melanex sleeves. Acid free tissue. Goat hair brush. Distilled water. Tyvek. Humidity control cassettes. Nitrile gloves (S, M, L, XL). Solid brass paperclips. Book sofa. Light meter. Thermohygrometer. Plastazote.

Museum gel.

Tags Conservation, curator, curatorship

Old Curatorial Archive

Curator’s Advent. Day 21. Art hang

Post author By Tehmina Goskar
Post date December 21, 2016

Nothing is straight - shows a row of five framed prints — Nothing is straight

Simple, yet fiendish, the art hang requires a different set of skills to the mounting of objects in showcases or for open display. What happens when:

The ceiling isn’t straight
The tops of the walls aren’t straight
The floor slopes
The frames aren’t straight

Throw out the spirit level and trust thine eyes.

Tags art, curator, curatorship

Old Curatorial Archive

Curator’s Advent. Day 20. Documentation backlog

Post author By Tehmina Goskar
Post date December 20, 2016

Documentation at the Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Napoli, Italy

The documentation backlog was the bees-knees museum trend of the late 1990s/early 2000s. It sailed forth amongst the arguments over access vs preservation and rose above the fights for and against perpetuity. Any curator who has the luxury today of dealing with a documentation backlog will no doubt relish the task ahead. It’s probably the nearest today’s curator will get to the Joy of Cataloguing. The depressing bits usually involve a lack of paperwork showing what belongs to the museum and what doesn’t and discovering an entire filing cabinet of ‘long-term loans’ or even ‘permanent loans’. Many modern museums will not permit time to be spent on documentation backlogs meaning that collections will be properly prepared for the post-truth era.

Tags curator, curatorship, documentation

Old Curatorial Archive

Curator’s Advent. Day 19. The exhibition

Post author By Tehmina Goskar
Post date December 19, 2016

Fossils on show in gorgeous gallery at Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter.

“Lights, levels, labels… and action!”

The museum exhibition is the curator’s own art form. Stand aside.

Tags curator, curatorship, exhibition

Old Curatorial Archive

Curator’s Advent. Day 18. Archives

Post author By Tehmina Goskar
Post date December 18, 2016

Photographic postcards displayed as museum objects in the Isles of Scilly Museum.

Is an archive (series of documents) just another type of museum collection? No it is not. Archival and documentary collections are organised differently and the information they contain is (mostly) read rather than gleaned through observation, measurements and other forms of object research. However, sometimes you’re going to walk straight into Dilemma Avenue. Is a collection of photographs an archive or a set of objects? When is a manuscript book an archive and not an artefact? Context is everything. If 100 documents or papery writings come as a set you might like to threat them archivally. If you have two or three photographs as part of a donation you might be more tempted to keep them in situ and threat them as objects. What’s the most useful way you can organise archives for the benefit of your people?