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 worked at the Beecroft Gallery, Southend on Sea, as Touring Exhibition Co-ordinator for the bathing suit collection.

Ciara Phipps is currently the Director of Southend Museums and the Treasurer for the Dress and Textiles Specialists network.

Curator's Report: Kylea Little, Keeper of History and Work, Discovery Museum, Tyne and Wear Museums

Ciara Phipps began her MPrac placement with Discovery Museum costume and textile collection in November 2012. Ciara was tasked with managing the costume collection during her Discovery time which includes over 10,000 items. In particular she was tasked with wrapping up the closure of the Fashion Works gallery in Discovery Museum, and with promoting use and awareness of the collection alongside day to-day curatorial responsibilities. During her MPrac Ciara has rehoused the collection that was removed from the permanent gallery Fashion Works in September 2012. She worked with costume volunteers to condition check, pack and update storage locations for hundreds of collection pieces.

Ciara has carried out a lot of work into promoting the use of the collection, including the research required in order to create and deliver a monthly store tour. This has allowed her to build and develop on her verbal communication skills. These tours have been open to the general public and have been well attended so far; they have also widened the current audience of the costume store and have improved the accessibility of the collection. The legacy of these tours is the creation of a script that will be rolled out for other history team members, and the Front of House team, to use.

It is our ambition to continue to offer regular store tours based on the work that Ciara has prepared. Ciara has also been working on a specific set of sessions for an outreach project working with older women from the West End of Newcastle. These sessions will be more focused on specific garments and will require in depth research into items ranging from 1930-1969.

Using social media to promote awareness of particular areas of the costume collection was a key aspect of Ciara’s work programme. She has written seven blogs for the Tyne & Wear Archives Museum (TWAM) website covering a range of themes from 1950s fashion, posts on menswear 1800-1900, menswear 1900-1980, the history of the heel, and Biba. She has written a piece for the Curator’s Choice website on a court shoe from a local department store called Bainbridge.