On networking: some career reflections

It’s funny how you remember some small events for years. I vividly recall early in my career being overawed at a conference by how confidently a senior colleague met and talked to people. How would I ever make it in this world? Years later, of course, I realise that she simply knew lots of these people, from moving institutions, meeting at events and making connections.

I still remember this moment every time I arrive at an event and am delighted to meet unexpected colleagues and friends. ‘Networking’, which of course this is, has always had slightly slimy connotations for me, of approaching someone merely to get something out of them. Yet, in fact, the best kind of networking is simply meeting people of like mind and discussing shared interests.

I’ve been reflecting on this again recently thanks to my current Honorary Research Fellowship at Birkbeck. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to MA students studying art history, curating, museum cultures and collections management, taking them on a tour of the Palace of Westminster to talk about ‘working collections’, and leading a class on ‘What is a curator?’ based on my career experience.

For the latter, I talked about the ubiquity of the idea of ‘curating’ today and how I think its spread is both positive and negative. It’s great that people know about and appreciate the idea of being a curator, but the emphasis on selection and presentation ignores the care of a collection, which is, for me, at the core of curatorial work. We are training audiences, and in many cases students, not to think of curating as about collections.

Advocating for the importance of collections is at the core of what I do at Parliament. When people ask me what it’s like to work there, I always say that it’s endlessly useful to need to argue for why the institution should care about and for collections. It’s easy in museums to forget that not everyone sees that principle as a given.

In talking to the Birkbeck students, I pulled out threads to exemplify what I think is important about being a curator. Strategy and advocacy was one theme, alongside research and writing, curatorial roles focused on collections, and a career founded in internships and short-term contracts. In looking back at the various roles that I’ve worked in my 18 years in museums, ‘art in unexpected places’ is the narrative I’ve found, often advocating for art outside of the usual spaces.

I also use this thread to show the students how easy it is to make a career trajectory look coherent in hindsight. In fact, pulling out four key pieces of advice for working in museums, ‘follow the opportunities’ is my number one. Without exception, my most rewarding career moments have been where I’ve taken an opportunity for which I almost didn’t apply while fixating on another one that took me nowhere.

Number two, perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who has pursued art history through history and history of science, is interdisciplinarity. But for me, that is the key to seeing the unusual perspectives in collections and connecting them differently with people. Indeed, ‘people and objects’ is my third key piece of advice, as without people stories objects lose their life, and what’s the point of them if no one is engaging? Indeed, early in my career, I made this argument, perhaps rather naively, to a room full of delegates at an MA Conference. I also said that I thought all curators should spend time working front of house, which I still believe.

Advice number four is the importance of networking. I used to include using social media here, as a unique way to make and maintain professional contacts. But I’ve yet to find a new platform to give me the same online network that Twitter did as an early-career curator. I miss the professional connections and friendships that Twitter allowed me to build in the good days, particularly now childcare means that I make fewer in-person events than I would like. Perhaps sharing this advice online will help some early-career contacts in the way others helped me. I’ve certainly appreciated the chance to reflect on my career thus far and the network of threads that brought me here.