Introduce yourselves
Ella: This summer I graduated from Trinity Hall, having studied for a degree in History. My dissertation focused on shifting twentieth-century British ideas around the role of arts and culture in society and their potential for regional heritage production. During my time at university, I have been involved with creative societies such as Gender Agenda zine and Queen’s Art Festival, as well as directing at the ADC Theatre. I have previously worked back home with community interest companies, focusing on how creative approaches to working with young people can be transformative. I am incredibly interested in the important roles that museums and galleries like Kettle’s Yard can play in conserving histories such as Jim Ede’s collection, and in exploring new interpretations of creativity through contemporary exhibitions.
Georgia: I graduated this summer from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, with an English degree. I have visited Kettle’s Yard many times over my three years in Cambridge and have always been drawn to the house. Art situated in a domestic context particularly interests me, and is why I applied to work in the house and collection team.
Describe what you’ve been doing at Kettle’s Yard this summer
Ella: This summer I have been working with the exhibitions team at Kettle’s Yard. This has offered me the opportunity to get involved with fascinating upcoming exhibitions such as Sunil Gupta: Life With a Camera, 1970–Now, and with future projects such as a first-of-its-kind book on women potters and a subsequent exhibition. It has allowed me to see all the finer details that go into creating exhibitions, from the very early stages of conception right up to the final details leading up to installation, and to gain experience in condition checking, technical exhibition planning and the putting together of interpretation. I have also had the opportunity to shadow many of the other teams, such as Learning and Community and Development, to get a sense of how different parts of the organisation come together to make everything that happens at Kettle’s Yard possible.
Georgia and I have also been spending time putting together a proposal for new artworks to extend the Trinity Hall art collection. This involved researching artists and artworks across many different galleries and studios, working within a budget and thinking about which pieces would complement the existing collection and speak to students. We gained a breadth of new knowledge about a range of contemporary artists in the process, and we also had the opportunity to write interpretations for these, thinking about ways of presenting the artworks.
Georgia: I have spent the summer as a Curatorial Intern in the House and Collection team, working with the Assistant Curator. My time has been very varied and has been a useful insight into the many different responsibilities that come with caring for a historic house/living museum. In the last ten weeks I have engaged in curation, research, conservation, archival projects – even pest control. Working with the Assistant Curator day-to-day has meant time in the Art Store going through the works that are not on permanent display, carrying out audits on house furniture and even helping with an Ottolenghi marketing campaign!
I have also had the chance to assist the Archivist and work with the reams of material within the Kettle’s Yard archives. Reading through Jim Ede’s correspondence with collection artists has been helpful in better understanding their relationships and Jim Ede’s position/identity as a collector and patron. I also assisted with the transportation and delivery of tens of boxes of archival material from off-site storage to Kettle’s Yard, a practical and necessary task I would not have anticipated before.
What have you enjoyed the most?
Ella: One of the things I have enjoyed the most is getting to better understand the role of curation and the effects it can have. This has been illustrated so well by learning more about the story of Jim Ede’s collection and the artists within it. I have also been working on a project researching the animal drawings of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, which has allowed for the kind of deep historical research I enjoyed so much during my degree, as well as real insight into a particular Kettle’s Yard artist. As one of the few significant collection artists Jim Ede did not know personally, Gaudier-Brzeska has helped me better understand the role that curators and institutions can have in framing the career and reception of artists, often posthumously, through the promotion of their work. Getting to know the collection better and being supported by Kettle’s Yard to see exhibitions in London by collection artists such as Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, has allowed for a consideration of the canon of modern British sculpture that is so fascinatingly represented in Kettle’s Yard’s collection.
Georgia: One of my tasks has been to track down a contact or representative for every artist in the collection. This has involved much research and investigative work and has been a very enjoyable process! Through it, I have also unearthed information about artists we previously knew very little about. Pauline Brooke’s only existence on the internet was in a short 1950s documentary about her status as a ‘housewife’ who made art as a hobby – but after tracking down her late husband’s address and then making contact with her daughter, she was revealed to be a talented sculptor and trained architect who had successful exhibitions during her lifetime. Drawing out these stories and recording them for future researchers and visitors to Kettle’s Yard has been particularly rewarding.
What have you learnt?
Ella: My time at Kettle’s Yard has shown me the transformative effects that art and galleries can have, and what it takes behind the scenes to make this happen. The biggest thing that has struck me is how much all the different projects at Kettle’s Yard tie into important and deeply interesting wider issues. All the exhibitions I have worked on have linked to fascinating themes: from mortality and life cycles in the Handpicked exhibition, to activism and queer subjectivity in Sunil Gupta, to gender, materiality and disability in the Women Potters exhibition. I have been working on an event that will explore this, helping to arrange an upcoming panel discussion titled ‘What Can Art Do?’, which aims to tackle from an interdisciplinary perspective the power art can have on the mind and on society. It follows on from psychological research at Kettle’s Yard which showed that considering art in galleries can increase abstract thinking and help people escape the trappings of everyday life. This has given me a sense of how events are planned and helped me to think carefully about how best to communicate with a broad public through them.
Georgia: I have learnt just how varied the work of a curator can be and the challenges (and positives!) that come with working in a unique environment like Kettle’s Yard. It has reinforced my desire to work within museums and galleries whilst also showing me potential career pathways and demystifying the sector. Kettle’s Yard has been an incredible place to work and I feel so grateful for this opporunity.