Student Name:

Paul

Programme of Study:

Art Gallery and Museum Studies (MA) 2016 – 2017 Academic Year

Career/ Sector Interests:

I have a pragmatic approach to my career aspirations. Whilst I would prefer to work in an art gallery I am keen to work in a larger organisation and so have been looking more towards larger museums for employment.

Placement Venue:

Great North Museum Hancock, Newcastle

Placement Duration (30 or 12 days):

30 Days

What type of activities did you undertake whilst you were on placement?

The team at the GNM were very generous with their time and tried to ensure that I was involved in as many aspects of the job as possible. The range of activities was wide, literally from sharpening hundreds of pencils ready for a school visit to helping curate the Great Exhibition of the North. I was invited into almost all the meetings being held by the museum staff. Initially I was a passive observer in meetings but was encouraged to be an active participant. As a result I was allowed to have input in meetings with academics, artists, designers, education programme specialists and curators.

I helped to install a small exhibition ‘Mithras: Roman Religion from Thames to Tyne’ and was allowed to see all of the administrative and practical factors that are involved in planning temporary exhibitions. I was given two projects to work on during the course of my placement;

The first was to redevelop the ‘Explore’ space, an underused exhibition wing in the museum, and try to make it more appealing to a teenage audience.

The second project was to design a programme that could be run alongside the University to encourage students from across the different faculties to act as museum ambassadors by giving talks based on the museum artefacts but presented with a slant on their own degree course.

What were you placement highlights?

My main role quickly became working on the Great Exhibition of the North and this started taking over all of my time on the placement. Working with the curator, museum director, events officer and learning officer my role was to coordinate all of the different research strands that were being generated.As deadlines were approached I prepared request lists for items from national and international museums. I briefed the core team on a weekly basis and was responsible for liaison with the different stakeholders. I co-hosted a successful fact-finding visit from the NGI board members and helped to prepare information for a HLF inspection. I was responsible for contacting key cultural, design and industry figures and organisations to locate objects for the exhibition. As a result of the work I carried out during the placement I was offered a full-time paid role as a project officer on the team.