Synopsis
Steering the core direction of the Museum of Youth Culture over a year, #DYC Object Lessons: Youth Culture Takes Shape radically shifted gears in the organisation’s mission, informing vital next steps in the path as this fledgling museum works towards opening doors on a permanent space in the coming years. Funded as part of the National Heritage Lottery Fund’s Dynamic Collections grants, Object Lessons sets out to build a cataloguing structure to house objects including upgrades to internal conservation infrastructure, teach staff conservation skills, hire two interns, and lay the foundations for a new kind of collection ready to store the UK’s youth culture history in all it’s many unique forms.
Project Partners
Objects of Subculture
The project saw the development of a new digital platform purpose built to showcase an increasingly diverse range of heritage materials. As Object Lessons set out to not only digitise but build on the Museum’s modest collection of objects, MOYC worked with the online DAM platform, ResourceSpace to develop an asset management system filtered by photographs and objects. Since launching the Spectrum compliant platform, The Subculture Archives has over 25 universities signed up via Shibboleth who are using it for educational purposes
with objects being downloadable by students for use within their studies. We can
report 87,740 digital asset views have taken place during the project duration.
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Threshold: Activating the Archive
| MOYC held x3 initial preparatory meetings with artist Sal Pittman throughout
the summer, including a visit to her previous show held at the London College of Fashion’s Mare Street Campus. Taking inspiration from Klanghaus’ 2018 exhibition ‘Concrete Dreams’ held at the Southbank Centre’s archives, of which Sal was a co-curator, she was invited by MOYC to create an immersive exhibition format from within the Museum’s office-cum-archive space. |
Exhibition Images in Situ
Sample of Sound Art by Joe Egg incorporating Oral Histories
| Entitled ‘Threshold’, the exhibition build took a total of 3 days, and then ran open to the public for 3 days plus a launch event. Sal was interested in exploring the way darkened spaces, analogue projections
and discreetly hidden oral histories could create an environment that mimics
the universal rites of passage we pass through as young people. For the project, Sal created two interpretive video pieces which were projected onto large custom built projection screens, she curated x6 carousels of slides which worked on an analogue slide-show mechanism allowing images to ethereally merge together with tech provided by Insight. Sal was inspired by the TfL lost property office, and used the museum’s existing racking to create an immersive showcase of all the objects received as a result of Object Lessons. A soundtrack was created by DJ and sound artist Joe Egg, and these were placed strategically around the office to maximise sonic impact.  Working with Sal was a highlight of the project as MOYC felt they really benefitted from handing over creative freedom to an external artist, allowing them to showcase heritage and expirment with creative tecniques in a way that they had never done before. MOYC will certainly like to work with Sal in a deeper way into the future, in a larger space more suited to exhibitions and with an organic flow of passers-by. The exhibition developed new approaches to how museums can display their object collection and utilise the archive space to create interactive exhibitions that enable audiences to more actively engage with archives. The exhibition ran from Thursday 12th October to Sunday 16th October and developed a steward/invigilation system to bring members of the public from street level into the secured office. Although this wasn’t ideal in terms of public accessability and footfall numbers, it certainly resulted in a unique experience and a more targeted attendance. The exhibition was later used to support school visits until it was eventually dismantled for conservation concerns. |
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Archive
Internships
| Interns for Object Lessons were recruited by Museum of Youth Culture social media
channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and a mailer) with support from Youth Beyond Borders agency. Due to internal staff
changes at OnRoad agency, MOYC identified an alternative similarly aligned
organisation to help with youth recruitment via Barak Ngoma at YBB. Despite efforts made to collaborate with a youth organisation, a key takeaway is that MOYC found the majority of applicants to have come from their own social media following. The two internship posts were advertised at London Living Wage at £21,400 pro rata. MOYC received a huge 112 applications, which were shortlisted to 10, focusing on those with engaging answers, an understanding of youth culture heritage, and from non-traditional education backgrounds. 8 online interviews were conducted and best candidates were voted by the team. The remaining 2 originally shortlisted were either unresponsive or too late to come back. After extensive interviewing the museum decided on Yeliz Zaifoglu for her passion for contemporary youth culture and a background working for a photo lab, and Marshall Lawrence for his expertise in social media promotiom. Ali Nasreldin was selected as a third backup option, with a deep philosphical understanding of the nuances of youth culture and self-expression. Unfortunately within a week of the internship starting, Marshall dropped out and the team were grateful to Ali for being available for the position in time for the start date. DOWNLOAD LIST OF 112 APPLICATIONS |
| Training for interns was conducted on a weekly basis over 5 days and they
received an additional 3 days of specialist conservation training at the
Herbert Art Gallery and Museum.
Interns proved to become a real asset to the MOYC team, working with great rapport and a thirst for knowledge within the heritage sector. Interns were provided with a strict schedule at the beginning of their posts, however this was loosened over the following three months to allow each invidual to thrive within an area they did best in. Yeliz’s work became focused within the archive, helping build a Spectrum compliant object cataloguing structure, contributing to heritage meetings and overseeing a major reschuffle of photographic slides into a new format - work left over from a previous NHLF project before the pandemic. Both interns learnt quickly during training sessions, asking questions and handling the sensitive nature of personal histories with care. Ali went on to focus further on the inclusive narratives and archival curation element of the project, helping support MOYC’s social media team with heritage materials to promote the project. Yeliz will be staying with MOYC into 2024 on a part-time contract managing their heritage asset intake and Spectrum compliance. |
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