Project Details
Overview
This is an AHRC IAA Project. £19,900 awarded
In 2022-24, the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit project undertook practice-based research to address key questions in fashion exhibition-making in museums and galleries.
The project co-produced and evaluated three exhibitions: Inspired: The Art of Making Historical Fashion at Bankfield Museum (Halifax, January-December 2024), The Drag Show at Beecroft Art Gallery (Southend-on-Sea, July 2024-July 2025) and Unpicking Couture at Manchester Art Gallery (July 2023-November 2025). We included aspects of our exhibition-making process in the exhibitions at Manchester Art Gallery and at Bankfield. Both exhibitions included what we termed a ‘process wall’, which included original and duplicated mind maps, mood boards, schedules of works, ground plans, drawings and notes from partner sketchbooks, and creative responses to the exhibition process in the form of a 10-minute speculative fiction ‘documentary’ and a development script/storyboard. The project culminated in an exhibition at London College of Fashion of our exhibition-making work (September 2024-January 2025)
The toolkit emerges from the four exhibitions. The approaches we used and our reflections on the process have informed the development of this toolkit and have been tested by our Advisory Board, the external visitor evaluator and in a Knowledge Exchange workshop held in October 2024 with 20 curators who are members of the Dress and Textiles Specialists (DATS).
Where Jeffrey Horsley’s expertise - 40 years working as a museum and gallery exhibition-maker – was focused in the project on exhibition-making itself, my own research input was around the role of experimental approaches to documentary video. By combining observational documentary methods with speculative fiction and an engagement with the work of the curator as organisational labour, I sought to investigate how the moving image can do more than represent and communicate curatorial practice – it can also generate curatorial knowledge. By using a creative ethnographic attention to the embodied materialities of fashion exhibition, I explored the intersections of humans and other-than-humans within organisation-specific institutional systems.
Impact was built into the Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit project design. From the inclusion of interviews with participating curators at the three partner institutions, to the co-produced, practice-as-research model of exhibition making, to the built in use-tracking of the toolkit itself, the overarching aim of the project has been to produce research that has use value for the cultural sector. But Impact extends beyond project end dates and it is imperative – particularly as State sector funding for cultural organisations continues to shrink – that we maximise the value of research projects that claim to benefit the sector. The existing Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit partners - Bankfield Museum, Beecroft Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery – and the group of curators who participated in the October 2024 Toolkit beta testing workshop and the curatorial communities who participate in DATs and The Costume Society are eager to access and use the finalised Toolkit, to receive support in that use and to contribute their reflections on Impact to the research sector.
There is evidenced need in the museums sector for more exhibition-making knowledge exchange between curators to support their work within resource constrained museums and galleries. By building on our completed research and initial engagement and knowledge-exchange activities, we can begin to generate and measure Impact.
This IAA project proposes to undertake a year-long study to understand how:
1)non-specialist curators in museums and galleries are using the toolkit in their exhibition-making
2)the use of the toolkit is impacting on museums and galleries practice in the UK
3)the Toolkit can be amplified internationally
The study will involve:
Focus Group Workshops: One in-person and one online focus group workshop with curators who participated in the October 2024 Toolkit beta testing workshop at London College of Fashion + other curators to be recruited through the DATS, Museums Association, and international Costume Society distribution lists
Curator Interviews: Two online interviews (4 months apart) with each of the team at Bankfield Museum, Beecroft Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery plus up to 15 UK and 5 international curators from other institutions, to discuss their use of the Toolkit and to identify how it has Impacted on their exhibition-making practices.
Senior Team Interviews: One online interview each with Head of Collections, Head of Visitor Services, Head of Education/Outreach, Head of Technical Services at Bankfield Museum, Beecroft Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery, to reflect on exhibition evaluations from Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit project exhibitions and institutional use of the Toolkit to explore potential impact beyond Curatorial teams.
Conference Participation: Paper to be submitted for consideration for the annual Museums Association and/or DATS conferences (October/November 2025) and to be submitted for consideration by the Museums Journal, as the key publication for museum practitioners
In 2022-24, the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit project undertook practice-based research to address key questions in fashion exhibition-making in museums and galleries.
The project co-produced and evaluated three exhibitions: Inspired: The Art of Making Historical Fashion at Bankfield Museum (Halifax, January-December 2024), The Drag Show at Beecroft Art Gallery (Southend-on-Sea, July 2024-July 2025) and Unpicking Couture at Manchester Art Gallery (July 2023-November 2025). We included aspects of our exhibition-making process in the exhibitions at Manchester Art Gallery and at Bankfield. Both exhibitions included what we termed a ‘process wall’, which included original and duplicated mind maps, mood boards, schedules of works, ground plans, drawings and notes from partner sketchbooks, and creative responses to the exhibition process in the form of a 10-minute speculative fiction ‘documentary’ and a development script/storyboard. The project culminated in an exhibition at London College of Fashion of our exhibition-making work (September 2024-January 2025)
The toolkit emerges from the four exhibitions. The approaches we used and our reflections on the process have informed the development of this toolkit and have been tested by our Advisory Board, the external visitor evaluator and in a Knowledge Exchange workshop held in October 2024 with 20 curators who are members of the Dress and Textiles Specialists (DATS).
Where Jeffrey Horsley’s expertise - 40 years working as a museum and gallery exhibition-maker – was focused in the project on exhibition-making itself, my own research input was around the role of experimental approaches to documentary video. By combining observational documentary methods with speculative fiction and an engagement with the work of the curator as organisational labour, I sought to investigate how the moving image can do more than represent and communicate curatorial practice – it can also generate curatorial knowledge. By using a creative ethnographic attention to the embodied materialities of fashion exhibition, I explored the intersections of humans and other-than-humans within organisation-specific institutional systems.
Impact was built into the Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit project design. From the inclusion of interviews with participating curators at the three partner institutions, to the co-produced, practice-as-research model of exhibition making, to the built in use-tracking of the toolkit itself, the overarching aim of the project has been to produce research that has use value for the cultural sector. But Impact extends beyond project end dates and it is imperative – particularly as State sector funding for cultural organisations continues to shrink – that we maximise the value of research projects that claim to benefit the sector. The existing Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit partners - Bankfield Museum, Beecroft Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery – and the group of curators who participated in the October 2024 Toolkit beta testing workshop and the curatorial communities who participate in DATs and The Costume Society are eager to access and use the finalised Toolkit, to receive support in that use and to contribute their reflections on Impact to the research sector.
There is evidenced need in the museums sector for more exhibition-making knowledge exchange between curators to support their work within resource constrained museums and galleries. By building on our completed research and initial engagement and knowledge-exchange activities, we can begin to generate and measure Impact.
This IAA project proposes to undertake a year-long study to understand how:
1)non-specialist curators in museums and galleries are using the toolkit in their exhibition-making
2)the use of the toolkit is impacting on museums and galleries practice in the UK
3)the Toolkit can be amplified internationally
The study will involve:
Focus Group Workshops: One in-person and one online focus group workshop with curators who participated in the October 2024 Toolkit beta testing workshop at London College of Fashion + other curators to be recruited through the DATS, Museums Association, and international Costume Society distribution lists
Curator Interviews: Two online interviews (4 months apart) with each of the team at Bankfield Museum, Beecroft Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery plus up to 15 UK and 5 international curators from other institutions, to discuss their use of the Toolkit and to identify how it has Impacted on their exhibition-making practices.
Senior Team Interviews: One online interview each with Head of Collections, Head of Visitor Services, Head of Education/Outreach, Head of Technical Services at Bankfield Museum, Beecroft Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery, to reflect on exhibition evaluations from Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit project exhibitions and institutional use of the Toolkit to explore potential impact beyond Curatorial teams.
Conference Participation: Paper to be submitted for consideration for the annual Museums Association and/or DATS conferences (October/November 2025) and to be submitted for consideration by the Museums Journal, as the key publication for museum practitioners
Project Aims
This project aims to generate, track, collect and analyse data pertaining to the mid-term use of the AHRC-funded Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit (March 2022-December 2024) in order to understand how:
1) non-specialist curators in museums and galleries are using the toolkit in their exhibition-making
2) the use of the toolkit is impacting on museums and galleries practice in the UK
3) the potential to mobilise use internationally
The Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit comprises a 60pp PDF and 21 online videos. It is designed for curators who make exhibitions using collections of historic dress, textiles, costume and fashion. It is aimed at a wide range of curators, from generalists to historic dress specialists and at curators who are new to exhibition-making as well as those who’ve made their careers making exhibitions.
The work of curators is increasingly public-focused and that work often involves exhibition-making. Yet, with decreased public-sector funding and resources, the UK’s important fashion collections are often on limited or inadequate display. Coupled with this, curatorial roles are becoming more generalist, with museums and galleries needing curators to look after collections that span archaeological to zoological collections. Non-specialist curators may find themselves caring for collections of 18th-century South Asian flat textiles, 19th-century corsets and damaged silk dresses, early 20th-century fashion industry synthetics and menswear – and developing exhibitions using these collections.
The potential for collections in small and medium-sized museums and galleries remains untapped. The Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit invites curators to approach exhibition-making as a creative practice, to try new approaches and techniques, and to consider the real constraints faced everyday as potential opportunities and solutions. Fashion objects can be used effectively to activate collections of fashion and historic dress, and to activate collections more broadly. Moreover, by responding to organisational values, strategies, and plans such exhibits can help to deliver organisational goals.
The toolkit aims to impact on how curators make exhibitions and to impact on the museums sector in challenging economic times by helping curators effectively, sustainably, and creatively activate collections to attract and retain new audiences.
1) non-specialist curators in museums and galleries are using the toolkit in their exhibition-making
2) the use of the toolkit is impacting on museums and galleries practice in the UK
3) the potential to mobilise use internationally
The Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit comprises a 60pp PDF and 21 online videos. It is designed for curators who make exhibitions using collections of historic dress, textiles, costume and fashion. It is aimed at a wide range of curators, from generalists to historic dress specialists and at curators who are new to exhibition-making as well as those who’ve made their careers making exhibitions.
The work of curators is increasingly public-focused and that work often involves exhibition-making. Yet, with decreased public-sector funding and resources, the UK’s important fashion collections are often on limited or inadequate display. Coupled with this, curatorial roles are becoming more generalist, with museums and galleries needing curators to look after collections that span archaeological to zoological collections. Non-specialist curators may find themselves caring for collections of 18th-century South Asian flat textiles, 19th-century corsets and damaged silk dresses, early 20th-century fashion industry synthetics and menswear – and developing exhibitions using these collections.
The potential for collections in small and medium-sized museums and galleries remains untapped. The Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit invites curators to approach exhibition-making as a creative practice, to try new approaches and techniques, and to consider the real constraints faced everyday as potential opportunities and solutions. Fashion objects can be used effectively to activate collections of fashion and historic dress, and to activate collections more broadly. Moreover, by responding to organisational values, strategies, and plans such exhibits can help to deliver organisational goals.
The toolkit aims to impact on how curators make exhibitions and to impact on the museums sector in challenging economic times by helping curators effectively, sustainably, and creatively activate collections to attract and retain new audiences.
| Status | Active |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 22/09/25 → 31/05/26 |
Funding
- Arts and Humanities Research Council: £19,900.00
UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This project contributes towards the following SDG(s):
