More International Visitors at the Booth Museum

The Booth Museum has had two international visitors this month on very different missions. Both were from North America, and both are studying for their Ph.D.s.

Caitlin Silberman

First we welcomed Caitlin Silberman from California, but studying for her doctorate in Art History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is in the early stages of writing a dissertation on birds and bird/human hybridity in Victorian British art, visual culture, and material culture. One of her chapters deals with bird taxidermy, and the Booth Museum is of course a prime source for nineteenth-century taxidermy. Caitlin looked at all our archives about Mr. Booth, his diaries, catalogues and paintings, as well of course as his splendid 4-volume publication ‘Rough notes on the birds observed during twenty-five years’ shooting and Collecting in the British Islands, 1881-1887.

Michelle Campbell

Only a week later, we were happy to be able to help Michelle Campbell in her quest for Chalk fossils of some early representatives of marine reptiles. Michelle is studying for her doctorate at the University of Alberta, though she originally comes from Ottawa. She is interested in how land-based reptiles made the leap into becoming fully marine in their habits. Michelle’s supervisor, Prof. Mike Caldwell first visited the Booth Museum in 1995 and discovered our rich collection of 85 million year old fossils which he studied and published on. Michelle is extending those studies.

We take a great deal of pleasure in the knowledge that we are able to help people as diverse as scientists and art historians advance their studies by using the collections in the Booth Museum.

John Cooper, Keeper of Natural Sciences

The Jeff Koons Collective

The Jeff Koons Collective (JKC) is a group of young people who are working with Brighton Museum & Art Gallery on the upcoming Jeff Koons exhibition. Each of us has worked with the museum at some point in the past, and that’s why we were invited together for this project.

Personally, I joined the group as part of my “trying new things” year and because it seemed like a unique experience. I’m still not sure what I want to do as a career yet, and this gives the opportunity to do things I wouldn’t have even thought about before. I wasn’t sure what to expect at first, but a few weeks in I’m glad I signed up anyway.

So, what exactly have we been doing?

Well, first of all we took some time to look at the work of Jeff Koons and really study the pieces that would be coming to the gallery. To be honest, I didn’t like it to begin with. Its unusual and at first glance uninteresting. What’s so special about a case of basketballs anyway?

But then we looked closer and started thinking about the meaning behind it and I guess they grew on me.

Like with a lot of other contempory art, until you stop and think about it, it’s all just a little strange. It’s not exactly what comes to mind when you think about art, and its probably quite a surprise to walk in and see it in a gallery, but does that mean it’s not art? I’m getting slightly off topic here but it opens the doors to these kind of discussions and everyone has their own opinion on the matter. It all comes back to individual taste.

Getting back on track now, after looking at his work, it was time to start thinking about the actual exhibition and there’s a lot more to do than I would have ever thought. Cue lots of meetings with lots of different important people.

The main things that the JKC are focusing on are merchandise and events. At this point I don’t want to give too much of it away, but I will tell you now that it’s going to be one hell of an awesome ride!

Charlie, Jeff Koons Collective member

 

LGBT and Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

I’m Rob and I usually work in the Booking Office in the Royal Pavilion. At university I studied Fine Art and particularly enjoyed organising and setting up our exhibitions. I found it really interesting to see more of the behind the scenes work that goes on, as at the time I was mostly working on my own art practice. When this opportunity to work with Laura Waters on new interpretation and a trail for Brighton Museum & Art Gallery came up as part of the workforce development programme, I thought this would be a great time to broaden my knowledge of art from a more curatorial or research-based angle.

Between Laura, myself and Kelly (who also began working on the project through workforce development) we decided to theme the trail on the LGBT history of our collections then went on to select some artists or historical areas to research. Over the next couple of months we researched, photographed objects, filmed videos and typed up our text for the trail leaflet. I was not too happy that I woke up on the morning of the filming to discover I had a bad cold – so keep that in mind if you watch the videos on YouTube please!

A video screenshot of Kelly and I discussing Alexander McQueen

As a gay man myself I found researching the lives of others, especially those further back in history, really intriguing. It was fascinating to see how LGBT people lived in lots of different time periods and as part of very different societies to ours today. Originating from Nottingham, finding more out about the history of Brighton Pride and also Brighton’s gay past in general was great too.

Alexander McQueen was probably my favourite person to research though. I loved seeing all the images of his very elaborate and dramatic clothing designs as well as reading about his rather crazy catwalk shows. This part of his creative work was something I’d not known anything about until this project, and the descriptions of the theatricality, intensity and darkness to his shows make me wish I could have seen some of them in person. Glass cubes filled with moths, models in gas masks, huge shipwrecks – sounds pretty amazing to me!

As I write this our trail leaflet is being designed and printed and the videos are being prepared to go online. The trail opens at the start of May and I hope that it offers a new, alternative history of some of our collections to the visitors to the museum as well as other staff members. Kelly and I will also be working with Ellie Newland on organising the Out Late event in July, linked to both this trail and Brighton Pride. It should be a whole lot of fun and hopefully I will see you there!

Robert White