Job: Collections Officer at Ipswich Museum

 Ipsiwch Museum are looking for a 9-month maternity cover for their Collections Information Officer.

 

They are seeking an enthusiastic and experienced person to take on the role of Collections Information Officer in their Collections & Learning Team at Ipswich, to help update and manage data about their varied and extensive collections and bring them to life for a wide range of audiences.

Application closing date: 24/05/2021

Salary: £23,874 to £30,459

Contract type: 9-month fixed term post (maternity cover)

 

Read more and apply here.

Job: Vacancy for Lead Curator: Reimagining the British Museum

 Lead Curator: Reimagining the British Museum Project

Collection Projects and Resources
Full-Time
Fixed-Term (24 Months, end date 21 June 2023)
£48,169 per annum
Application Deadline: 12pm on 19 March 2021

The British Museum is seeking an innovative and critical thinker to lead curatorial and research teams in the delivery of an exciting and complex new project to place global collaboration at the heart of the Museum’s new masterplan. The Reimagining the British Museum project will develop new curatorial approaches to interpreting the collection and developing the narratives that will underpin a comprehensive redisplay of the galleries.

In this role you will manage a dedicated curatorial team who will work with curators and other specialists across the organisation as well as individuals and groups around the world to develop curatorial briefs for new suites of permanent galleries. You will deliver pilot projects such as displays, and digital or other public programmes to test and evaluate different collaborative methods and narrative approaches, producing a clear plan and framework for how the Museum will collaborate globally in the development and delivery of its masterplan. Working beyond your own area of expertise or scholarly discipline, you will provide the right environment to stimulate new thinking and debate while balancing the need to meet challenging deadlines.

The start date for the project and this post is planned for late June 2021.

Further details on the British Museum website. 

Ipswich Museum seeks World Art Consultants

Ipswich Museum is seeking consultants to ensure that Ipswich Museum’s important World Cultures Collections are better understood, documented and readily accessible to facilitate use in new displays and decolonisation programme. To contribute towards a smooth, well-documented programme of ‘decanting’ collections in advance of building works.

 

There are 6 packages of work 

Package 1.        Specialist Overview/ report on the World Cultures Collection as a whole

Package 2.        Improving storage and basic documentation – World Cultures collections from Oceania, Indian sub-continent, North America and elsewhere

Package 3.        Improving storage and basic documentation – African Collections

Package 4.        Collections documentation research

Package 5.        Further specific specialist collections advice

Package 6.        Participation in networks with source communities

 

Regarding package 6, participation in networks with source communities, it is the intention of Museum Staff that current contacts and work in the previous 5 packages will inform and connect us with the appropriate activity, in particular the consultant should include recommendations of projects and contacts that would be useful to the work they are outlining.

Please contact James Mellish, Heritage Project Manager, Ipswich Borough Council for more information on the roles and the tendering process. 

James.Mellish@ipswich.gov.uk

Ipswich Museum Decolonisation Consultant

				Ipswich Borough Council are currently out to tender for the provision of a Decolonisation Consultant for Ipswich Museum. This post and the work is to support the stage 2 application for funding from NHLF for the redevelopment of Ipswich Museum. This opportunity is available in the `Current Tenders` area of Suffolk Sourcing.Interested parties are invited to express their interest to gain full access to the tender documentation.  The deadline date for submissions of the tender is 1200hrs 16 June 2020. Please note late returns may NOT be permitted.

Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Researcher: The Restitution of Knowledge - artefacts as archives in the (post)colonial museum, 1850- 1939 Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

Applications are invited for the position of Postdoctoral Researcher on the project The Restitution of Knowledge: artefacts as archives in the (post)colonial museum, 1850- 1939, based at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, and led by Professor Dan Hicks (Oxford) and Professor Bénédicte Savoy (Technische University, Berlin). The position is funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), and is a fixed-term position for 30 months, running from 1 August 2020 to 31 January 2023. 'The Restitution of Knowledge' is a major new transnational UK-German collaboration combining historical and curatorial approaches to understand the status of collections from the continent of Africa in European museums as colonial legacies. The project seeks to intervene in current dialogues about restitution by generating and sharing of knowledge about the ongoing histories of colonial loot. The project combines digital scholarship, provenance studies, and military history to expand public understanding and debate around incidents of colonial plunder, joining the dots between museum collections and these violent histories. The Restitution of Knowledge thus revaluates the status of anthropological museums as places filled not just with objects but also with historical knowledge of conflict, violence and loss. It explores how Europe's “world culture” museums might be reframed as places of cultural memory, at which research can start to support restitution processes, from remembrance and the sharing of knowledge to the physical return of property. The successful candidate will hold a PhD in anthropology, history, archaeology or another relevant discipline, completed before 1 July 2020. The post will start on 1 August 2020, or as soon as possible thereafter.  The closing date for applications is 12.00 midday on Thursday 11 June 2020. Interviews are likely to take place week beginning 15 June 2020. Applications are particularly welcome from black and minority ethnic candidates, who are under-represented in academic posts at the University of Oxford. Please visit the University of Oxford website for more details.

Jobs: Collections Assistants at MAA, University of Cambridge

The Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology (MAA) is hiring nine full-time Collections Assistants for an ambitious and complex project to relocate all collections in offsite storage to a new facility in central Cambridge.

The University of Cambridge is supporting the relocation of MAA's off-site collections stores to a former Cold War bunker; with refurbishment works to be complete by the end of 2020. Over 5 years the Project Team - a Move Manager, Collections Team Coordinator and Collections Assistants - will inventory, hazard check, and make digital images of approximately 250,000 archaeological and ethnographic artefacts; pack appropriately for removal and storage; and ensure their safe transport and rehousing in the new store. Our goal is to ensure that the collections are both appropriately stored and made physically and intellectually accessible: to researchers, students, stakeholders and audiences in Cambridge and worldwide, through visits to the new store and online through MAA's catalogue.

Details of the nine positions can be found at the University of Cambridge Jobs pages: 

This will be a really intensive project with challenging objectives, and team cohesion in a respectful working environment is a priority. MAA and the University of Cambridge Museums are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion within our institutions and across the sector, and we particularly welcome applications from black and minority ethnic candidates as they are under-represented within the Museum and the University. We welcome applications from individuals who wish to be considered for part-time working or other flexible working arrangements.

The closing date for applications is Monday 2 March 2020 with interviews expected to take place on 13 and 17 March. It is hoped that the successful candidate will take up the appointment on 20 April 2020.

Freelance Opportunity: Buxton Museum

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery is looking for help to identify ethnographic material and for advice on potential restitutions.  They write:

These objects were purchased between 1940 and 1988, and were part of the Derbyshire Schools Library Service collections.

We are looking for people who can help identify objects from:

·         Plains Indian (around 33 objects)

·         First Nations (around 10 objects)

·         Inuit (around 72 objects)

The objects are located in Buxton, Derbyshire. You will need to travel to view the objects in person.

With the support of the Esmee Fairburn Collections Trust funding, we are able to offer a fee of £250 a day plus reasonable travel expenses. Due to budget constraints we can only offer a maximum of two days’ work on the material. 

The work needs to be carried out between mid February and March. 

If you are able to help, please send a description of no more than 500 words detailing your relevant experience to Bret Gaunt at Bret.Gaunt@derbyshire.gov.uk by 5pm on Friday 31^st of January.