Ciara Phipps, Museum Placement Award Winner 2013

By Ciara Phipps

In 2013, Ciara Phipps and Discovery Museum, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums were awarded the Museum Placement Award.

I was generously awarded the Costume Society Placement Award during my Master of Practice work placement year. I am a postgraduate student studying Art Museum and Gallery Practice at Newcastle University and I chose to undertake a 9 month work placement at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne as part of my MPrac course. I asked to work specifically with the costume and textiles collection at the museum due to my love of costume history. This collection had been recently de-installed from its permanent gallery so I started my placement by undertaking a large storage and documentation project, updating object records and packing away the de-installed items. I worked with two costume and textile volunteers at the museum on this task and gained a great deal of knowledge and information about the collection from these two volunteers.

This documentation and storage process allowed me to handle and research the collection on a daily basis which was really invaluable experience. I became more confident in my documentation skills and my ability to handle and pack away costume and textiles. I was able to research the collection as I was documenting and packing it away which was not only fascinating but essential to work I would later be undertaking.

I then moved on to writing informal collection-based blogs for the museum website, in order to generate some interest in the costume collection in store. I used my research from the documentation process as a means to develop and deliver monthly costume store tours in order to increase the accessibility of the collection.  I also provided object-focused sessions for various community groups to develop awareness of the collection at the Discovery Museum and the nature of costume collections in general. Not only was this was a great opportunity for me to better my communications skills, but it gave me the chance to select and research items of costume to display in the store for the tours, based on the themes and eras I would be covering. As well as responding to costume-related enquires regarding donations to the collection and research visits to the store, I spent some time with the conservation team learning how to safely mount costume onto mannequins. This experience provided me with in-depth object handling and costume mounting skills which will be invaluable to my future in museums working with costume.

By undertaking my placement at the Discovery Museum and working on the costume collection, I was able to enhance the accessibility of an in-store collection, and actively tried to encourage and generate repeat visits to the costume store. This placement award has supported me during my time at the museum and has allowed me to build on my skills, knowledge and experience of costume collections. It has been a fantastic experience and I am extremely grateful to the Costume Society for providing this opportunity.

Ciara Phipps is now working at the Beecroft Gallery, Southend on Sea, as Touring Exhibition Co-ordinator for the bathing suit collection.