Jen Kavanagh

Contemporary collecting is crucial to ensure that museum collections stay relevant for their communities, and working in collaboration with audiences and experts to conduct collecting projects can be incredibly rewarding. I have experience of developing and delivering collaborative collecting initiatives at a number of organisations. These include:

• Tattoo art contemporary collecting with four tattoo studios in London for the Museum of London

• COVID-19 collecting strategy development for the Francis Crick Institute, in partnership with Emily Scott-Dearing

• Diverse contemporary collecting programme as part of London Underground's 150th anniversary commemorations

• Punk collecting in collaboration with members of the public for the Museum of London

• Detailed collections audit of Brian Haw protest material, featuring 790 objects, at the Museum of London

• Telegram collecting project with five partner museums for the Information Age gallery at the Science Museum

• Sensitive collecting of 7/7 bombing content at both London Transport Museum and Museum of London

Outcomes of these projects include both exhibition displays and additions to permanent collections. As a result, I have experience of advocating for collaborative initiatives at collection board and exhibition committee level.

Collaborating with other freelancers is something I really enjoy and I feel can offer excellent outcomes for clients. Following the completion of the COVID-19 collecting work for the Francis Crick Institute, Emily Scott-Dearing and I received this feedback:

“The Francis Crick Institute has been actively working to combat Coronavirus through various activities since the start of the pandemic. Our team had a strong desire to document and share the Crick’s efforts around COVID-19. However, with so much happening, so much uncertainty, and small and already busy team, we needed a strategy to ensure our work was going to be effective. Emily delivered a strategy that will help us cut through the noise and collect stories and objects in a way that is meaningful and streamlined, and Jen delivered creative ideas that will help us to collect while also engaging our staff and the public in our COVID-19 response, along with a toolkit of information we can use to guide our collecting practise. The final result delivered both a clear theoretical approach while being enormously practical. 

Throughout the project, Emily and Jen were exceedingly organised and clear in their communication, and responded to any unexpected circumstances with flexibility and fairness, ensuring we got the best value of their time. Most importantly, they took the time to really investigate and understand what our needs and expectations were, so that they could deliver something that would really work for our team and our circumstances. The result was so good, we asked them to present to our wider team, as we thought their work was relevant to us all! I would highly recommend Emily and Jen.”