Many of you will be familiar with the  legends which surround our beloved Jeremy Bentham and the alleged antics of his mummified and wax heads (two heads are better than one after all). According to UCL tradition these have been head-napped, ransomed and used as a football. For some further reading on this topic please see  “Fake News”

This, however is the story of quite another UCL head.

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During 2020-2021, when UCL was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, UCL Culture’s curatorial team worked with students from UCL’s History of Art with Material Studies (HAMS) on virtual work placements. These projects provide opportunities for students to gain practical curatorial skills to prepare them for their future careers while undertaking valuable work towards better understanding the collections.

Since September 2020, Sabrina Harverson-Hill and Tianyu Zhang worked together on two virtual curatorial projects to research UCL Art Museum’s Slade Collections in preparation for the Slade 150 anniversary. Sabrina focused on the register for Etchings & Engravings and Tianyu on the register for Lithography to animate the Slade’s historic prizes in printmaking. Here Sabrina and Tianyu describe a few of the challenges and rewards of their placements:

 

What has been your favourite stage of the placement?

Sabrina: From day one my placement with UCL Art Museum was unusual in that it initially began remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Andrea, the Curator at UCL Art Museum, however sent all the necessary material that we needed by post. I was to be working on the register of etchings & engravings in the Slade Collections. It is unique in that it contains within it handwritten entries of students from the Slade who won prizes for etching and engraving between 1937-1981.

My favourite stage entailed researching into my list of prize-winners, particularly those who had perhaps fallen into obscurity. This for me was one of the most exciting stages but also one of the most frustrating. I reached a lot of dead ends with female artists. This seemed mostly due to potential surname changes. Subsequently, there was frequently no trace of where they went on to after their time at the Slade. Having said this, it was all the more rewarding when nuggets of information about artists were found through online research. One example was discovering that Zelma M. Blakely and her partner Keith McKenzie both studied at the Slade. Interestingly, there was more information on Blakely, her life and work, than McKenzie. The pattern with these discoveries was usually the other way around.

 

Tianyu: My favourite stage is looking into the lives of the artists. The process of identifying their names from the hand-written logbook and looking up the names online, looking for every possibility and narrowing it down to the one person who attended the Slade has been a very exciting stage for me, and might lead to interesting research questions. For example, to what extent is Catherine Armitage a talented woman artist under the shadow of her famous husband Paul Feiler, or about the impact of the war upon the students and their study at the Slade, as some of them seem to have paused and resumed their study in 1940s.

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During 2020-2021, when UCL was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, UCL Culture’s curatorial team worked with students from the Institute of Archaeology’s MA Museum Studies on virtual work placements. These projects, which included archive transcription, documentation and object label writing, continue to provide opportunities for the students to gain practical curatorial skills to prepare them for their future careers while undertaking valuable work towards better understanding the collections.

Since September 2020, Karolina Pekala and Timea Deak worked together on two virtual curatorial projects focusing on aspects of the Petrie Museum’s internationally important archive.

Karolina: Beginning a placement at the Petrie Museum was definitely out of my comfort zone. As someone with a predominantly art history background, approaching Egyptian history and objects seemed intimidating until I began to learn about the collection through the task of transcribing negative lists.

The Petrie Museum archive contains a detailed handwritten list describing the photographic negatives in the collection. The information on this long list, describing hundreds of individual negatives, is vital for our understanding of archaeological photography and the publication process for early excavations. This project is a good opportunity for us to contribute to the documentation, and improve the accessibility, of the Museum’s archive.

The handwritten pages contained many names of objects foreign to me, prompting many Google searches. A particular set of objects I found fascinating are the ostraca: small pieces of limestone or pottery used for writing, drawing, or sketching. I was learning something new page by page, and now that museums are slowly opening, I am excited to visit and put the objects to their names.

Despite this being a remote placement, this experience has been enriching. I was especially interested to learn about Joan Merritt, the Petrie Museum volunteer behind the handwritten pages. Knowing that the digitisation of these lists is contributing to a bigger project and legacy is incredibly rewarding.

Timea: Attempting to piece together the life of a man long gone can be a challenging endeavour at the best of times! Doing this from the writings of others only adds an extra dimension to the challenge. Yet, this was what we tried to do as we scoured trough the archives for information on Flinders Petrie.

The aim of this project was to find out more about how Petrie, and his excavations, were portrayed in the media. For this project, we drew upon our research skills to collect digital newspaper clippings which mention Flinders Petrie and produce a searchable list of these documents for future study, which will be an important addition to the Museum’s digital archive.

No great scandal was unravelled through this exercise; however, we did stumble upon articles from which we could glean aspects of Petrie’s humanity. A 1938 article in the Washington Post describes a bizarre discussion concerning the size of Petrie’s head. It seemed that the archaeologist indulged this discussion himself, perhaps even finding it humorous. Flinders Petrie revealed that, over the many decades of his life, his head had never seemed to stop growing, and seemingly struggled to find the perfect hat to fit him comfortably! Such gems reveal no great accomplishment or secret side to Petrie, but they remind us that he, too, was human.

On the 16th September, we took part in #AskACurator day on Twitter – we lined up four of our curators and gave you a chance to put them on the spot and ask everything you’ve ever wanted to know.

Missed it? Fear not, we’ve compiled their best answers right here.

First up was Tannis Davidson, Curator of the Grant Museum. Tannis cares for one of the oldest natural history collections in the UK including our famous glass jar of moles and 8,000 mice skeletons.

 

Easy one. Killer whale. I’d enjoy the lifestyle swimming with my pod in the waters off British Columbia.

— Grant Museum of Zoology (@GrantMuseum) September 16, 2020

 

For decades! The alcohol in the preservative will evaporate over time – it helps to have a good seal for the jar. It depends on the solution – we use 80% IMS spirit which requires topping up every 5 years or so. That said, we have specimens sealed with fluid from 100 years ago!

— Grant Museum of Zoology (@GrantMuseum) September 16, 2020

 

Difficult to choose! Perhaps the silky anteater because it has been in the collection since the beginning (1827) and it is possibly much older and might be the missing type specimen of this species. pic.twitter.com/ZNIcZef5Wx

— Grant Museum of Zoology (@GrantMuseum) September 16, 2020

 

Hi Lea! Some great advice here: https://t.co/mPJQp07YhW. It can be helpful to people in the sector (online conferences, museum social media) and get yourself out there!

— Grant Museum of Zoology (@GrantMuseum) September 16, 2020

 

I always liked collecting things as a child which grew into an interest in museums, archaeology, palaeontology. I worked on field projects and sought jobs in museums which led to new skills, and better jobs. It was a long and winding road!

— Grant Museum of Zoology (@GrantMuseum) September 16, 2020

 

What’s the oldest specimen in the museum?

The oldest specimen in the museum is the fossil worm Ottoia from the Burgess Shale in Canada (500 million years old). pic.twitter.com/X5V0JuAjc6

— Grant Museum of Zoology (@GrantMuseum) September 16, 2020

 

Regarding the museum’s jar of moles:
1. People travel from far and wide to visit it
2. We don’t know why we have it (might be a research collection or was meant to be used for dissections)
3. It receives postcards from other museum animals

— Grant Museum of Zoology (@GrantMuseum) September 16, 2020

(If you’re wondering, the last postcard the moles received was from the Wall Street Charging Bull.)

 

Next up, Curator of the Petrie Museum Dr Anna Garnett was taking questions. She looks after over 80,000 artefacts in the Petrie Museum, including the world’s oldest-known piece of clothing. Here’s what you wanted to know –

Ooh good question! For me it’s the ancient city of #Amarna – home of king Akhenaten, Queen Nefertiti (and #Tutankhamun) and a bustling population of ancient Egyptians more than 3000 years ago. I’m lucky enough to work there as well, which is a lifelong dream for me! #AskaCurator pic.twitter.com/dGuNGioQ6I

— Petrie Museum (@PetrieMuseEgypt) September 16, 2020

Yes! The ancient #Egyptians invented so many things – ancient paper, surveying equipment, medical procedures and remedies, and toothpaste! Which was apparently made from ox hooves, ashes, burnt eggshells and pumice! #AskaCurator pic.twitter.com/REmOxfhyd4

— Petrie Museum (@PetrieMuseEgypt) September 16, 2020

They were! The teeth of the ancient Egyptians often show that they were ground down, partly because of all the grit that would have ended up in their flour and bread. This would have been very painful and affected everyone in society – even the pharaoh! #AskACurator

— Petrie Museum (@PetrieMuseEgypt) September 16, 2020

I’m always so amazed when I’m surrounded by so many incredible objects! It’s never boring. We care for over 80,000 objects at the Petrie so I always spot something that fascinates me. The whole collection is also available online, for digital exploration! https://t.co/9vg6ReMpFS

— Petrie Museum (@PetrieMuseEgypt) September 16, 2020

The ‘Tarkhan Dress’ is something visitors love to see! It’s a linen tunic that was worn by a child or teenager around 5000 years ago & it’s the oldest known, most complete garment in the world. Mind-boggling! https://t.co/Si1SNAUZBt #AskaCurator pic.twitter.com/gjTd77S6lV

— Petrie Museum (@PetrieMuseEgypt) September 16, 2020

What’s your favourite Petrie Museum object? I wrote a blog about some of my favourites when I first became curator in 2017, and they still are! Especially these pottery sherds, broken and repaired in ancient #Sudan more than 4000 years ago https://t.co/9vg6ReMpFS #AskACurator pic.twitter.com/BBXuadtM8E

— Petrie Museum (@PetrieMuseEgypt) September 16, 2020

(erratum – the correct link is here)

Hannah Cornish then jumped in to talk to us about the UCL Pathology Museum, Jeremy Bentham’s Auto-icon. She also looks after our Science collections, including one of the world’s first medical x-ray images.

The first question for #AskACurator today is a corker. No, we don’t have any burps in jars, but we do have some specimens showing illnesses that might cause burping such as oesophageal reflux and stomach ulcers. https://t.co/AR5wmHwTNP

— Hannah Cornish (@HannahLCornish) September 16, 2020

(In fact, not only do we have a stomach ucler in the collection… we have 53, according to the database.)

 

Jeremy Bentham was a prolific writer, and if there wasn’t a word to express what he wanted to say he made one up. He gave us maximise and international, but my favourite is circumgyration, which he didn’t invent, but used to describe his daily jog around the park #AskACurator https://t.co/FPhBP9rmh2

— UCL Culture (@UCL_Culture) September 16, 2020

Finally, Subhadra Das – writer, broadcaster, comedian and museum curator at UCL Culture – came in to talk about museums and decolonisation, race and empire.

 

How exciting! Part of me wants to write a whole essay to answer this, but I think the most important thing is: have a very clear idea and belief in your research, message, and what you are trying to achieve. That way, whatever the challenges, you can keep going.

— Subhadra Das (@littlegaudy) September 16, 2020

Also, find your people. I couldn’t do what I do without the solidarity of @museum_detox, and there is no greater joy as a curator than that moment where the story you are telling connects with someone who has been really needing to hear it. All power to you!

— Subhadra Das (@littlegaudy) September 16, 2020

Funny you should mention it… https://t.co/DRjNcTCmB3

— Subhadra Das (@littlegaudy) September 16, 2020

Also, I’m mindful of pretending I do all of these things at the same time, I definitely don’t. All my work is twist on storytelling and engaging with audiences, be it through teaching, exhibitions or podcasts. Most of the time I’m on the sofa drinking tea, as I am right now.

— Subhadra Das (@littlegaudy) September 16, 2020

That is so kind, thank you! I learned from the best, @GoldingTG, who worked FoH for many years @PetrieMuseEgypt. Then @steve_x encouraged me to do @BrightClubLDN and it’s been a lot of practice ever since. Have probably done 500 tours of the Galton Collection in my time!

— UCL Culture (@UCL_Culture) September 16, 2020

In addition to diversifying the stories and themes they tell, I think being allies is really important here. Part of it is encouraging and making room for non-white professionals, and part of is acknowledging non-academic knowledge and expertise.

— UCL Culture (@UCL_Culture) September 16, 2020

Subhadra highlighted some museum projects that are working to address the topics of decolonisation, race and empire:

Excellent question, and I’m pleased to say the answer is lots! @NHM_London are addressing this, including some brilliant work on Black History tours by @NatHistGirl https://t.co/dUMQqRY4SK

— UCL Culture (@UCL_Culture) September 16, 2020

@HornimanMuseum are way more than an overstuffed walrus. @jcniala and @JohannaZS doing great work with the African collections there. https://t.co/8pNQl5BPPt

— UCL Culture (@UCL_Culture) September 16, 2020

@ActivismLearn and @EconomicCurator are doing important reflective and reflexive work @LSELibrary on their institutional history of eugenics.https://t.co/U4kXDNNzT3

— UCL Culture (@UCL_Culture) September 16, 2020

My fellow @artfund Headley Fellow @profdanhicks and @laurabroekhoven are making some pretty monumental changes @Pitt_Rivers https://t.co/eVLY5y3Ma3

— UCL Culture (@UCL_Culture) September 16, 2020

@britishmuseum are starting to take steps to recontextualise their displays. As @DavidOlusoga says, this is an important start to address the erasure of colonised and enslaved people. https://t.co/Y8iLVXwT9m

— UCL Culture (@UCL_Culture) September 16, 2020

There are lots of other examples, probably lots I don’t know about, so do share them here! My time for today is up, thanks for your questions and conversations and see you next year!

— UCL Culture (@UCL_Culture) September 16, 2020

That’s all for #AskACurator 2020 – until next year!

This blog was written by Conservator Graeme McArthur from the UCL Culture Collections Management Team.

The closure of UCL’s campus during lockdown has provided new challenges for UCL Culture’s Collections Management team. We are responsible for taking care of the world-class collections of artworks, ancient artefacts, zoological and pathological specimens, instruments and scientific equipment held by the university. We make sure that these objects and specimens are available for use, study and exhibition by ensuring they are properly stored, handled, displayed and documented. But carrying out this important role usually requires us to be on site!

Usually we carry out regular programmes of cleaning, auditing and conservation as well as environmental monitoring and pest control. We work closely with our curatorial colleagues to agree new acquisitions and prepare objects for loan for exhibition in the UK and abroad. Our lovely team includes Collections Managers, Conservators and four Curatorial and Collections Assistants.

So how have we cared for our collections during lockdown? Well the very first thing we did was produce a risk register to highlight areas of concern when nobody is physically present in our museums and collection spaces. Here are some of the things we’ve been keeping an eye on.

Pests!

Some of UCL’s collections are an excellent food source for the larvae of insects such as beetles and moths. This is especially true of the feathers and fur that are prevalent in the Grant Museum of Zoology. It is vital to know if there has been a pest outbreak as soon as possible, by the time someone notices moths flying around there could already have been significant damage.

Image: A drawer full of feathers and other organic material in the Grant Museum, many pests would consider this to be a drawer full of food!

To this end we have sticky pest traps throughout all of our collection spaces. These will not remove a pest threat but enough will blunder onto them to give us an indication that there is a problem. Traps are placed on the edges of rooms where pests tend to run around as well as near particularly vulnerable materials. Of course to tell us anything these need to be checked regularly which became a problem once the UCL campus closed.

Image: Pest traps and the all-important grabber to position them behind furniture.

Environment

Understanding the environment in museums and object stores is vital to the long-term preservation of our collections. Extremes in light, temperature and humidity as well as rapid changes can all cause permanent damage. We have all seen what can happen to book spines if left next to a sunny window, but this can be stopped with something as simple as closing the blinds!

High humidity can promote mould growth and corrosion whereas low humidity can cause organic materials such as wood to shrink and crack. Knowledge of the materials in the collection allows us to make an informed choice on how we want to the environment to be, though it is not always possible to keep it that way.

Thankfully even though we have not been able to work on campus during this period we are lucky enough to have a system where data is sent to us remotely. We have sensors in all of our collection spaces and we can look at this data even whilst working from home. Without people in spaces and with lights off and the blinds closed the environment has been very stable. It is easier to keep objects safe when they are not seen or used for research, but then there wouldn’t be much point in having them!

Image: A day of environmental data from the Petrie Museum.

Flooding and leaks

Many of the UCL buildings are prone to the occasional leak. Most of the collections are well protected inside cases or cupboards, but even so if left for too long a leak can potentially cause damage. It is important to check the environmental data to look for an increase in humidity that could be caused by there being standing water in the room.

To reduce these risks, we have set up socially distanced fortnightly checks of all of our collections with two members of staff who can drive in to campus. This allows us to check all of the pest traps so any outbreaks can be discovered as soon as possible. Sometimes traps become so crowded that they need replacing so we can see what new pests have become stuck.

Image: Spiders caught in our pest traps

Unfortunately, the pests caught on traps tend to attract spiders who are actually very helpful in reducing pest numbers.

During our fortnightly visits we checked all the spaces, cupboards and drawers where objects are not visible to ensure there were no other problems.

Image: Revealing a beautiful papyrus from the Petrie Museum storage

Adapting our ways of working

Working from home is an unusual situation for our team as we don’t normally spend most of our time in front of a screen! We have had to refocus to other areas, however this has allowed us to work on projects that there would not normally be time for. One of these is improving the collections database that is used as the base for our online catalogue. Over many years data has been entered in an inconsistent manner with fields being used differently by individuals and throughout different collections. We have now standardised how the fields should be used and begun to ‘clean’ the old data to remove inconsistencies. Once this is complete it will be more useful for us, the researchers and general public who use the online catalogue.

The campus has been eerily quiet during the checks but we are looking forward to welcoming back UCL students, staff and the general public in the near future!

Image: UCL campus

This blog was written by UCL Culture volunteer Melissa Wooding.

Today’s specimen of the week highlights one of the world’s longest animal migrations at 6,000 miles¹– completed by an insect!

This beautiful insect has an internal biology including a sundial ² compass ³, and a gene enabling it to suppress its own ageing and increase its own lifespan 8 times⁴… all inside a brain the size of a single sesame seed⁵.

It’s time to give this mind-boggling butterfly its due moment in the spotlight:

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This blog post is written by Lisa Bull, UCL Museum Studies 2019-20

UCL Art Museum is home to an impressive collection of French and British satires from the eighteenth and nineteenth century. This collection is the result of a generous gift by Professor David Bindman made possible through the Cultural Gift Scheme and it forms the basis for a series of exhibitions on visual satires chronicling the French Revolution. The new addition to this series will be Witnessing Terror: French Revolutionary Prints 1792-4 due to open at UCL Art Museum in January 2020.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries satire was the key means to spread news. Satire was and still is an effective means of stimulating debate due to its accessibility. Their intention to have a clear message and the relatively quick method of production meant they could be enjoyed by many. They are often aimed at ridiculing an individual, policy or group in society but while retaining an important moral message. Satires are still a key form of media utilised in most news forums, but here in the twenty-first century social media has filled this gap and is essential for us to keep in touch with current affairs.

My role is to help catalogue the works by British satirists in this collection, such as William Hogarth, James Gillray, Isaac Cruikshank, Thomas Rowlandson and Charles Jameson Grant. (more…)

Today’s specimen of the week comes from UCL Pathology Collections. The Collections are displayed at the UCL Pathology Museum at the Royal Free Campus of the UCL Medical School in Hampstead. The museum includes a medical teaching collection of nearly 3,000 specimens of human remains illustrating the history of disease. To open up these specialist medical displays to a wider audience, we’ve developed a trail of 10 specimens of well known diseases. As the museum only opens to the public for special events, we’re sharing the trail as part of the Specimen of the Week series.

In honour of Skin Cancer Awareness Month this May, today’s specimen of the week is a malignant melanoma of the eye.

Melanoma is a cancer — an uncontrolled growth of cells — that usually develops in the pigment-containing cells of the skin. The main cause of melanoma is over-exposure to ultra-violet light rays, either directly from sunlight or artificial sources like tanning beds.

Melanoma most commonly occurs in people with lighter skin, particularly white people living in tropical or subtropical climates. The highest instances of melanoma are in Australia and New Zealand.

If detected early, a melanoma can be surgically removed before it spreads to other parts of the body. Sadly, that wasn’t the case here.

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In January 2019, we were delighted to receive a grant of £110,000 from the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund for our project proposal: ‘Petrie and Edwards: Gateway to the World of Egyptology’. The aim of this project is to completely redesign the Petrie Museum’s entrance gallery to create a much more welcoming entrance to the Museum. The current entrance is somewhat cramped and cluttered, with much of the space occupied by an office. There is very little room for visitors to dwell and, more importantly, the layout is completely inaccessible to wheelchair users. The scope of this project is to remove the office infrastructure and use the expanded gallery space to make the entrance more accessible. While our access route for visitors will remain available via the DMS Watson Science Library next door to the Petrie Museum, this project will create a much clearer pathway through the Museum for visitors to reach the entrance gallery.

Here, visitors will find a clear introduction to the Petrie Museum’s world-class collection that will celebrate the life and work of the Museum’s founders, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie and Amelia Blanford Edwards, as well as other lesser-known characters who are integral to the history of the Petrie Museum. These new displays will also promote critical engagement with the collections, and the history of the Museum, through the presentation of new research. Modern, conservation-standard cases will provide opportunities for expanded, fresh interpretation and allow us to develop new object displays.

These displays will integrate images and documents from the Petrie Museum’s internationally important archive and personal items that have never been displayed before, including Petrie’s excavation satchel and tools. The space will continue to incorporate our Audio Described guide to the Museum, made in collaboration with VocalEyes and available for free download, so the new displays will also be accessible for our visually impaired visitors.

With this project, visitors will have the opportunity to explore a new ‘gateway’ space where they will acquaint themselves with Petrie, Edwards, and other characters from the history of the Museum, before moving into the main galleries to see the stunning results of Petrie’s excavations. We will also enhance visitor orientation as part of this project, including new signage, which we hope will make finding the Museum much more straightforward.

Over the coming year we will present more information on the project in the Museum, which will include new temporary panels in the entrance stairwell to make visitors aware of the upcoming changes to the space. During the period when the major entrance refit will be happening later in 2019, we will be closing the Petrie Museum for a short time to allow this work to happen safely. We will post updates on this closure period in due course, to support visitors planning their visit around this time.

We hope that this project will significantly improve the overall visitor experience by offering an accessible introduction to the collection that explores historical and contemporary issues and facilitates engagement for all. So watch this space!

Anna Garnett is the Curator of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL

 

This blog is from Graeme McArthur, Conservator at UCL Culture.

UCL’s Whistler Room, located next to the Octagon Gallery, is so named because it contains murals painted by the artist Rex Whistler, who studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and whose career was sadly cut short by the Second World War. These were originally completed in 1935 for a private residence on Gower Street; however by 1959 the house was due to be demolished. The murals were saved by literally cutting them out of the wall and removing them to their current location. They are part of  the UCL Art Museum collections and therefore come under the care of UCL Culture.

The murals are painted in oil on top of house paint, supported by around 2cm of the original wall plaster with an auxiliary support of wood battens and plaster of Paris. Unfortunately the change in environment and support has caused severe stability issues. Ongoing conservation has been required since 1960 as the house paint layer keeps cracking and flaking away from the plaster beneath. Glazing was added in 1963 to try and alleviate these issues, but although it protects the surface from physical damage it has not improved the environment.

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