It’s been rather quiet lately
On this blog at least. But the Mary Greg project continues to send ripples out across the pond.
At MAG, the Learning Team have been working with the Mary Greg Collection ‘on tour’, thanks to a travelling case made by Karl and Kimberley Foster of Hedsor, and the work of educators Joanne Davies and Amanda McCrann. I hope Joanne’s going to put something up about this project soon.
The collection is also out there in Mouseion, an exhibition in the School of Museum Studies at Leicester University, curated by Alex Woodall and including work by Hazel Jones, both contributors to this blog. Alex was one of the team at MAG who worked on the original Mary Mary project and is now a PhD researcher at Leicester, investigating material approaches to art museum interpretation. The exhibition looks at artists responding to museum collections.
Back in May, Sharon Blakey showed collaborative work made with weaver Ismini Samanidou in response to the collection, in Pairings II at Stroud International Textiles. Last year, Sharon and I presented a paper about the project at the international conference Pairings: Conversations, Collaborations, Materials at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Research continues in partnership with MMU, through Hazel and Sharon’s ongoing investigations and my own. I have just embarked on a PhD which will focus exclusively on Mary’s collection, looking at material across different museums as well as Manchester and exploring different notions of value within the institution of the museum. Hugely exciting, very daunting, and two weeks in, not entirely sure where to start. But looking forward to sharing research over the coming months and contributing to the revitalisation of this space. More to come…
Liz
So excited to see this post and that the website is up and running again, Liz. Can’t wait to catch up and hear all about your research. I keep finding books that you must read – on female collecting and so on… Will send you a bibliography when I have a minute. Mouseion is going really well: do come and have a look. Michael’s Mary greg inspired Noah’s Ark collages, and his Moths in the Lumber Room also feature and look fantastic. And Karl and Kimberley have created an installation too.