What does the Senior Curator of Photographs do?
January 25, 2008 About my museum jobMy Job at the Museum of London, by Mike Seaborne, Senior Curator of Photographs at the Museum of London
I am part of the team that looks after the Museum’s collections relating to the history of London from the beginning of the 18th century to the present day. I have special responsibility for the collections of historic photographs, which altogether amount to the best part of half a million items! The oldest photograph in the collection dates from 1845 and is a view of the old Hungerford Bridge taken by William Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor of the negative-positive process of photography. Our newest photograph was taken last week!
My job involves recommending new photographic acquisitions, researching and cataloguing the collection, answering enquiries and undertaking special projects, such as exhibitions. At present, I and the rest of the team are busily engaged in creating a whole new gallery for the Museum, called Capital City, which will offer a completely new look at London’s history over the past 300 years. I am particularly involved in developing a large database of photographs from the collection which will be available for public access both in the new gallery and on the Museum’s website. Our target is to have at least 2,000 photographs in the database by the time the gallery opens in late 2009/early 2010.
I am a photographer as well as a curator and another important part of my job is to go out and photograph present-day London both for the collection and for exhibition or publication projects. I am particularly interested in London’s urban landscape and how it reflects social and economic change. Recent projects I’ve worked on have included social housing, shopping centres and the area of the Lower Lea Valley which is being redeveloped for the London Olympic Games in 2012.
How did I get my job? I suppose I was simply in the right place at the right time. Before I joined the Museum in 1979 I had spent a year working at the Fox Talbot Museum of Early Photography and a another year as an industrial archaeologist using photography to document sites of industrial-historical interest. Here at the Museum I am fortunate in being able to combine my interest in history with my own work as a photographer.
My page on the Exploring 20th Century London site is at http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/server.php?show=conInformationRecord.149. I also have work on the Urban Landscape site.