Collecting the Boundaries of Art in the Science Museum Group

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This project proposes a new perspective on the role of arts within a science institution. It will investigate a two-sided question: how have museums like the Science Museum Group thought about and conceptualised art; and how have the histories of such institutions, and their collections, shaped how the discipline of art history has conceived of visual cultures of science. The project is intentionally interdisciplinary, bringing museum studies and histories of collecting to bear on the boundary between history of science and history of art. Focused on archival research, particularly museum files, the work offers a timely and significant contribution to work at SMG to develop a vision for art across the group. It provides opportunity for a student to work in a curatorial capacity across the SMG museums, contributing to collections history and policy development, as well as to future acquisitions and commissioning. The student will be expected to spend time at both Birkbeck and the SMG museums, while being based at the Science Museum, as well as becoming part of the wider cohort of CDP funded students across the UK. They also have the potential (funding depending) to spend time working with the Curator of the Art Collection at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC, to do a comparative study of a comparable collection.