Jen Kavanagh

Capturing and presenting community voices is so important for ensuring our collections are representative, diverse and engaging for our visitors. I have experience of working on a range of oral history projects. These include:

• Metropolitan Police: Recording everyday experiences of police officers and staff for the Met’s heritage service, 2024-26

• Elizabeth Line Stories: Interviews with 40 people involved with the Crossrail project for London Transport Museum, 2023-24

• Billingsgate Fish Market: Documenting the working lives of market workers for the National Maritime Museum, 2024

• Cadet Voices: Capturing experiences of former St John Ambulance Cadets with the Museum of the Order of St John, 2022-23

• Caribbean Garden Heritage: Interviewing Caribbean diaspora gardeners in London for the Garden Museum, 2021

• Bow Street Police Museum: Collecting stories of former Bow Street officers for the Metropolitan Police heritage collection, 2020

• Echoes of Holloway Prison: Supporting a project on the history of Holloway Prison with Islington Museum, 2018

• Fighting for our Rights: Managed a HLF funded oral history project with Kingston Centre for Independent Living, 2016-18

• Thames Festival Trust: Supported the collecting of interviews for Thames Festival Trust's 'Life Afloat', 'Boatyards' and ‘World’s Oldest Boat Race’ projects, 2016-18

• Punk London: Conducting interviews with punks for the Museum of London's Punk London programme, 2016

• Tattoo London: Contemporary interviews with London-based tattoo artists for the Museum of London, 2015

• Information Age: Conducting interviews with former manual telephone exchange operators for the Information Age gallery at the Science Museum, 2013-14

I am available for bespoke oral history training, having delivered workshops for a range of museums and organisations including:

• Staff and volunteers at organisations including the Science Museum, London Transport Museum, Islington Museum and London Museum (formerly the Museum of London)

• Community volunteers at the British Museum, Thames Festival Trust, Tamil Information Centre Kingston and the Muslin Trust

• External practitioners who are undertaking independent oral history projects

Feedback from attendees:

"I enjoyed Jen's presentation style and it was good that she had many of her own examples to draw on."

“The training was thorough, relaxed and interesting. The group exercise was helpful. All of the session was helpful really! It was good to know that you don't necessarily need to be knowledgeable about the subject to interview someone.”

“I enjoyed that Jen went into every aspect of oral history interviews: from finding candidates and pre-interview prep to managing files. It's great to be aware of the process overall.”

- Curators, London Transport Museum

“Thanks again for the training. It really was a great starting point for our interviews. I definitely feel a lot more confident with how to approach the interviews and may practice on some of my relatives!”

- Volunteer, Tamil Information Centre