For the Record:[un]official voices at the V&amp;A

Linda Sandino

doi:10.5334/jcms.1011208

Abstract

This report gives an overview of the historical and affective value of oral history recordings drawing on my current research on curators at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The interviews demonstrate the changing definition of the title ‘curator’ over time, but show how this is achieved through the medium of the oral history interview, a context which enables a form of self-reflection that throws light on the interviewees’ individual and collective identity as curators working together in and for a specific institution. In telling of their lives, curators’ agency is extended to encompass the construction of, what the philosopher Paul Ricoeur termed, their narrative identity, a temporal category captured by this research ‘for the record’ (amongst other uses). The interviews reveal the entanglement of the ‘unofficial’ and ‘official’ persona of the curator. Nevertheless, is it possible to disentangle this distinction? Is it even necessary? Or, is the personal voice the medium for reflecting and transmitting the multilayered snapshots of experience, and that what engages is this very quality of the life lived as a story?

Highlights

The UCL Paul Mellon seminar series ‘Voices in the Museum’ (2011) provided the opportunity to discuss and disseminate the current life history research on curators at the Victoria & Albert Museum
I draw on the analogy with theatre since it conveys how mostly unknown individuals, who invisibly direct the performance of the objects in their collections, are responsible for creating publicly perceived ideas about museums
The embodied intimacy of the context of audio recording as memory-work is used to explore how curators think about their life in the Museum: why they have undertaken certain projects, their attitudes to their collections and their institution and the emotional engagement of a life dedicated to objects

Summary

Linda Sandino*

This overview of the historical and affective value of oral history recordings draws on my current research on curators at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Questions about the changing definition of the title ‘curator’ over time and about the way the oral history interview as a medium demonstrates this are raised. In telling of their lives, curators’ agency is extended to encompass the construction of their narrative identity. The entanglement of the ‘unofficial’ and ‘official’ persona of the curator is revealed. Is it possible to disentangle this distinction? Is it possible to disentangle this distinction? Is it even necessary? Or, is the personal voice the medium for reflecting and transmitting the multi-layered snapshots of experience, and that what engages is this very quality of the life lived as a story?

Introduction

Preserving the Voice

Summary