Museums of all types and sizes have long run residency programmes for visual artists and writers, who have explored their practice and created new works in response to an institution’s objects and spaces.
Successful residencies can lead to the creation of innovative or challenging work and shed new light on an institution’s collections, whether on open display or in storage.
For an artist, participating in, a residency can raise their profile, allow them to work with unusual objects, and help them learn new skills. They often also get access to a studio space.
Residencies can be an effective way of challenging preconceptions about contemporary art and connecting a museum with new audiences.
As part of its Prejudice and Pride campaign – a year-long programme of events marking 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality – the National Trust has been working with two national artists-in-residence.
Video artist Simona Piantieri and photographer Michele D’ Acosta have been looking at lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) heritage at the trust’s properties. They have made a series of films that explore the collections and prominent LGBTQ figures connected to Wightwick Manor, a project to reconstruct The Caravan, a queer-friendly members club set up in the 1930s, and the National Trust’s presence at the Pride festival in Birmingham.
One reveller who was interviewed for the video documenting Birmingham’s Pride festival said: “I have known about the National Trust since I was about six. My parents have been lifelong members. I hadn’t actually thought the National Trust is that inclusive but it’s good to see that they have got a presence at Birmingham Pride.”
Engaging audiences
Residencies can be used to help audiences process challenging material. For example, the Ditchling Museum and Art Gallery in Sussex appointed Alison McLeod and Bethan Roberts as writers-in-residence to interpret audience responses to its exhibition Eric Gill: The Body (29 April - 3 September 2017), which questioned whether visitors’ enjoyment of the art is compromised by his sexual abuse of his two teenage daughters.
Audiences were invited to share their views of the exhibition and reflect on whether they could enjoy the beauty of the work with knowledge of Gill’s biography. The writers used these thoughts to produce a final written piece, which was released in September.
“Art can help us to tackle difficult issues in new and engaging ways,” says Nathaniel Hepburn, the former director of Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, who has since joined Charleston as director. “This project will provide visitors with a different and potentially more accessible route into the key question of understanding how our knowledge of Gill’s private life affects our understanding and appreciation of his work.”
The Horniman Museum and Gardens in London has a residency scheme that is for artists who can are able to engage visitors with the museum’s displays to encourage participation with them.
Joshua Shaefer, who undertook a residency with the museum in 2016, used the opportunity to create a collection of false noses inspired by many objects, including masks in the anthropology collection, beaks, trunks and shells from the natural history collection, and a bronze bust of Frederick Horniman himself.
Legacies
Many museums evaluate how the work created during a residency is perceived by visitors and explore whether it has attracted new audiences.
Residencies often result in new artwork for the museum collections or published writings, although it is important to draw up an agreement clarifying whether the artist or the museum owns the rights to the work at the end of the residency.
Sally Dixon, the assistant director of partnerships and communications at Beamish Museum in County Durham, says there were a number of long-term benefits from hosting writer-in-residence Becci Sharrock in 2016.
“We would like to continue to develop some of the outcomes of the residency, particularly in terms of how Sharrock can work with us on engagement plans for each exhibit,” Dixon says. “We think she could help us in terms of making sure new staff remember the stories about each exhibit and can then relay them to the visitors.”
The residency also gave the museum’s community participation team a new way to use creative writing to explore the memories of people they work with, which Dixon says they wouldn’t have had the confidence to do before.
“Sharrock has equipped them with some ideas to share with groups in the community when talking about how life used to be,” she adds.
There are also plans for Sharrock to write a play to be staged in the community hall that is being built for the 1950s town as part of the Remaking Beamish project.
Successful residencies can lead to the creation of innovative or challenging work and shed new light on an institution’s collections, whether on open display or in storage.
For an artist, participating in, a residency can raise their profile, allow them to work with unusual objects, and help them learn new skills. They often also get access to a studio space.
Residencies can be an effective way of challenging preconceptions about contemporary art and connecting a museum with new audiences.
As part of its Prejudice and Pride campaign – a year-long programme of events marking 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality – the National Trust has been working with two national artists-in-residence.
Video artist Simona Piantieri and photographer Michele D’ Acosta have been looking at lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) heritage at the trust’s properties. They have made a series of films that explore the collections and prominent LGBTQ figures connected to Wightwick Manor, a project to reconstruct The Caravan, a queer-friendly members club set up in the 1930s, and the National Trust’s presence at the Pride festival in Birmingham.
One reveller who was interviewed for the video documenting Birmingham’s Pride festival said: “I have known about the National Trust since I was about six. My parents have been lifelong members. I hadn’t actually thought the National Trust is that inclusive but it’s good to see that they have got a presence at Birmingham Pride.”
Engaging audiences
Residencies can be used to help audiences process challenging material. For example, the Ditchling Museum and Art Gallery in Sussex appointed Alison McLeod and Bethan Roberts as writers-in-residence to interpret audience responses to its exhibition Eric Gill: The Body (29 April - 3 September 2017), which questioned whether visitors’ enjoyment of the art is compromised by his sexual abuse of his two teenage daughters.
Audiences were invited to share their views of the exhibition and reflect on whether they could enjoy the beauty of the work with knowledge of Gill’s biography. The writers used these thoughts to produce a final written piece, which was released in September.
“Art can help us to tackle difficult issues in new and engaging ways,” says Nathaniel Hepburn, the former director of Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, who has since joined Charleston as director. “This project will provide visitors with a different and potentially more accessible route into the key question of understanding how our knowledge of Gill’s private life affects our understanding and appreciation of his work.”
The Horniman Museum and Gardens in London has a residency scheme that is for artists who can are able to engage visitors with the museum’s displays to encourage participation with them.
Joshua Shaefer, who undertook a residency with the museum in 2016, used the opportunity to create a collection of false noses inspired by many objects, including masks in the anthropology collection, beaks, trunks and shells from the natural history collection, and a bronze bust of Frederick Horniman himself.
Legacies
Many museums evaluate how the work created during a residency is perceived by visitors and explore whether it has attracted new audiences.
Residencies often result in new artwork for the museum collections or published writings, although it is important to draw up an agreement clarifying whether the artist or the museum owns the rights to the work at the end of the residency.
Sally Dixon, the assistant director of partnerships and communications at Beamish Museum in County Durham, says there were a number of long-term benefits from hosting writer-in-residence Becci Sharrock in 2016.
“We would like to continue to develop some of the outcomes of the residency, particularly in terms of how Sharrock can work with us on engagement plans for each exhibit,” Dixon says. “We think she could help us in terms of making sure new staff remember the stories about each exhibit and can then relay them to the visitors.”
The residency also gave the museum’s community participation team a new way to use creative writing to explore the memories of people they work with, which Dixon says they wouldn’t have had the confidence to do before.
“Sharrock has equipped them with some ideas to share with groups in the community when talking about how life used to be,” she adds.
There are also plans for Sharrock to write a play to be staged in the community hall that is being built for the 1950s town as part of the Remaking Beamish project.
