Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery
Key projects during my role at Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery, Truro.
March 2021 - 2025
Permanent exhibitions: Main, Nature and Mineral Galleries 2024 - 2025
With Headland Design, I led the interpretation strategy for the 2024 - 2025 transformation project, leading on co-creation and inclusive interpretation through consultation, advisory panels and multi-sensory engagement. We created 18 audio points and 3 films and a co-designed 'Discovery Trail' with the Sensory Trust and community groups. The Mineral Gallery was awarded the 2025 Cornwall Heritage Award for Innovation and was shortlisted for the Museums and Heritage Best Permanent Exhibition of 2025.
Temporary exhibitions
I have co-curated temporary participatory exhibitions at Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery, including interpretation design and writing, curation, artist and community liaison, exhibition installation, private views and other events programmes.
Exhibitions have included the 2023 first Truro Open exhibition, with over 200 exhibiting artists. Portraits of St Petrocs, a fundraising exhibition curated by Adam Drouet, 15: A history of Pride in Cornwall curated by Queer Kernow and Cornwall Pride; People, an exhibition curated by Helen Trevaskis, Gavan Goulder and St Petrocs; Lepidoptera, a ceramics exhibition exploring butterflies and moths at risk with Bridget Macklin; Survival, an exhibition by Curious School of the Wild.
Prehistoric Survival in the Wild in partnership with Curious School of the Wild
Engaging with Royal Cornwall Museum's prehistoric collections, a group of young people from Curious School of the Wild (aged 8-19) have been exploring ideas of prehistoric survival and resourcefulness. Using museum objects and our natural environment, these young students have explored to reduce barriers to the outdoors and discovered how prehistoric societies survived, and how we can survive in the wild using our local environment.
Using the museum's prehistoric artefacts as a starting point, students had the opportunity to take part in many creative practices with local artists, creating artwork and soundscapes, as well as cooking and producing this Survival Guide with local film makers. From making a prehistoric bedroll with local sheep wool, to making cereal from natural ingredients and creating water vessels with a local ceramicist, students were well able to use these elements to curate their own exhibition in the museum - 'Survival', demonstrating to a wider audience their findings.
Partners included Cornwall Museum Partnership, National Lottery Fund, Arts Council England, Cornwall Council, Lightbox Film Company, Ollie Campbell and Beth Somerville.
Monday Museum Club in partnership with Memory Matters, 2021.
Monday Museum Club is an ongoing group for people with mild - moderate dementia that incorporates Cognitive Stimulation Therapy and museum engagement methodologies. Eight individuals living with dementia visited the museum every Monday for sessions to improve their health and wellbeing. Following a successful pilot in 2021, the groups has kept running for 4 years. The project was shortlisted for the Cornish Heritage Wellbeing Awards.
More info in the Royal Cornwall Museum 2021 Impact Report here.
I Sew We Grow in partnership with Threads of Survival, Truro Fabrics and Imagineif
I Sew We Grow was an community and outreach project alongside an exhibition by Threads of Survival. A sewing drop in group met every week for a period of 6 weeks to create a community quilt. Sewing packs were also made up with the instruction to sew a square in response to the pandemic and in support of the NHS. Over 50 squares were created by members of the public, adults with additional support needs at Work Your Way and adults with mental health conditions as part of a creative health and wellbeing group. These were displayed at the Threads of Survival exhibition at the Royal Cornwall Museum and will become part of the national Threads of Survival quilt collection once they have been stitched together.
Llama Life Drawing in partnership with Llama Lland
As part of the Festival of Drawing summer exhibition and engagement programme, we invited llamas from Llama Lland to the museum on a weekly basis as life drawing models. These events were free and open to all.
