SPAH Seminar Series: Week 19, Dr Ellie Miles - Museum contemporary collecting during the pandemic

A seminar by Dr Ellie Miles, London Transport Museum on museum contemporary collecting during the pandemic

Dr Ellie Miles is a Documentary Curator from the London Transport Museum is giving a seminar on the museum contemporary collecting during the pandemic.

Biography

Dr Ellie Miles (she/her) is one of two Documentary Curators at London Transport Museum. The Documentary Curator programme is working to record the story of transport in London as it unfolds today, preserving lived experience and making new collections. The programme is funded by Arts Council England. Ellie helps run the Contemporary Collecting Network. Before this Ellie has worked at the British Museum, University of Westminster and Museum of London.elliemiles.wordpress.com 

An abstract from the Documentary Curator programme

For over a century museums have been trying to collect objects that reflect urban life as it happens. Museum collections are built through systems inherited from colonial, extractive projects, which museum workers navigate and adapt. Last March London Transport Museum published an ethical toolkit for contemporary collecting which reflected on ways to improve collecting. Later on during 2020 many of the London Transport Museum’s existing collecting processes and procedures were disrupted by the pandemic, while the museum simultaneously sought to collect and document the effects of the lockdown and the role of transport workers. This work is all ongoing as we hold processes to account and develop them.

To join this seminar, please email hannah.whiting@essex.ac.uk.