Gemma Burns Email and Phone Number

V&A Wedgwood Collection

Employed to assist the curatorial team at Abbot Hall, Lakeland Museum, Blackwell, the Arts & Crafts house, and Windermere Jetty Museum. My responsibilities and achievements included:- Observing best practice in health and safety, collection care and management during a site decant and redevelopment.- Improving the storage and access to the works on paper collection and undertaking research to inform future display and programming. - Performing collection store audits, documenting mass object moves on Modes, resolving historic discrepancies and locating missing information. - Successfully supporting and co-leading on exhibitions: managing object lists, writing interpretation, coordinating loans and installation/deinstallation. - Providing administrative support by responding to enquiries and image reproduction requests. - Producing weekly collection-related content for Lakeland Arts’ social media.- Reviewed and improved collection insurance documentation to inform the insurance policy.

- I assisted Arc with the implementation of their exhibition programme as part of a placement organised through the University of Manchester. - I facilitated the running of process-driven art workshops with vulnerable adults.- I curated and installed exhibitions of the work produced in workshops at the centre. - I assumed technical duties that involved framing, mounting, and wrapping works for exhibition. - I helped to organise and market events by creating press releases and using social media engagement.

- I assisted with the University’s Open Days and Interview Days by guiding students around campus, answering parent and student queries, and liaising with staff members.- I represented the University at a History of Art Conference in London which was organised for sixth-formers interested in pursuing a degree in Art History at the University of Manchester.

- I assisted the front of house team in a visitor experience capacity across Lakeland Arts' cultural sites. My responsibilities included; admissions, retail and stock replenishment; customer service, invigilation and volunteer management. - I also facilitated the organisation of group visits, gallery talks, private views, a dementia workshop and other public engagement opportunities.

- I provided curatorial and administrative support for Lakeland Arts’ extensive collections which include fine art, applied arts and social history. - I gained experience of dealing with incoming loans administration and the management of exhibition object lists. - I assisted with the installation and deinstallation of exhibitions and produced research which informed object labels. - I assisted the curatorial team in an audit and condition check of the history collection including works on display and in storage.- I researched and curated a display of works in the collection by Celia Paul and Lucian Freud. - I assisted with the opening of the Windermere Jetty Museum, a new heritage venture for Lakeland Arts. This involved organising objects for installation, conservation cleaning and managing internal object moves for the collections management system, Modes.

- I supported front-of-house, curatorial and education staff at a teaching museum connected to Kendal College that specialises in natural and social history and archaeology. - I cared for the collections through conservation cleaning, managing object moves and updating records on the collections management database (Modes). - I gained experience of working with partners to organise events in the museum and wrote a successful funding application for more geology cabinets from the Geologists’ Association. - I helped to make parts of the collection more accessible through the completion of a project to upload a library of museum objects to a web platform linked to Modes.- I frequently assisted with the marketing of the museum through web content and social media.

- I voluntarily assisted The Whitworth’s head curator in label writing for their exhibition, ‘Goya and Hogarth: Prints of Darkness’, which was on display from July 2018 until August 2019.

- I assisted the Castlefield in its aim of developing emerging artists through exhibition opportunities and encouraging a wider public interest in contemporary art. - I helped to organise and install exhibitions and acquainted myself with administrative requirements.

- I sold tickets for the cinema, theatre, adult education courses, and music events, both over the telephone and at the counter. - I dealt with customer queries, booked tables in the restaurant, liaised with the house managers and technical staff about events, and sold artworks exhibited in the gallery.