Project Curator – National Photography Collections

As part of an on-going investment into our curatorial expertise, we are now looking for a Project Curator in photography. Our ambition to curate at a national scale and develop our research priorities has seen us provide more investment to our collections.

The National Trust has outstanding collections in photography, across a wide range of properties. As the Project Curator you will use your experience in the field of photography and your expertise in curation and collections management to raise the profile of our excellent collections, a significant number of which are un-catalogued.

You will raise the profile of our photography collections, developing and supporting cataloguing and conservation programmes, research projects and contributing to publishing, exhibition and display projects. It’s an ambitious plan and we need you to have significant experience to help us achieve our goals.

What it’s like to work here
Our properties include around 250 historic sites open to visitors; (comprising 145 accredited museums) they are internationally renowned for their beauty and the significance of their historic collections. However, we continually seek to improve their research and interpretation, raise standards of curatorship and presentation, and develop innovative approaches to providing sustainable access to visitors, scholars and researchers. We also look for new ways to develop our staff and volunteers knowledge, skills and confidence, to engage our visitors with the fascinating stories which these collections can tell about our houses and their former occupants.

National Trust photographic collections reflect the development of British photography from the 1840s to the present day and we look after over 80,000 photographs across hundreds of sites. Our photographic archives and collections are important and widespread, and often held at the properties where they were created and displayed, maintaining their contextual significance. They are wide-ranging in terms of process, format and subject matter.

They include nationally and internationally important collections, such as the Fenton Collection and photography by William Fox Talbot at Lacock. There is also work by Julia Margaret Cameron, Dorothy Wilding and Olive Edis, the remarkable collection of photographs of and by & George Bernard Shaw, as well as the astonishing survival of home, studio, darkroom and photographic archive of renowned Liverpool photographer, Edward Chambre Hardman.

What you’ll be doing
The remarkable breadth of our collections in this area, made or acquired for properties over many centuries, provides opportunities to develop priorities for essential cataloguing and effective collections care. We also envisage that the breadth of our collections will allow the development of research projects that look at commissioning, makers and artisans, the evolution of techniques and styles at different periods, or a focus on developing individual subject specific data sets in response to the opportunities provided by external partnerships or technical analysis. You will be expected to share initial ideas for research proposals and partnerships as part of the interview process.

You will provide leadership to our existing group of external specialists and contractors, as well as with our regional teams, ensuring that they have the necessary knowledge and skills to develop innovative interpretation. You will lead for the development of our interpretation in this area to meet our standards of conservation, access and presentation. You will provide expertise to clients within the regions and our central office, supporting and leading projects.

Who we’re looking for
This is a hugely important and influential role within the Trust and beyond. In order to be successful in the role you will need to have:

• Expertise in the field of photography, with either an appropriate qualification (Master’s Degree and or Doctorate) or equivalent experience
• A wide understanding of photography, including where the best collections are held, locally and internationally
• Strong leadership and communication skills and the ability to manage a number of stakeholders across a national remit
• Experience of managing effective projects with both research and public outputs for different audiences
• Knowledge of how to set up external research partnerships effectively
• Undertaken research and been published to an academic level in the subject of photography
• Experience of curating exhibitions, displays and interventions
• Significant networking and influencing management skills

The package
Benefits
Read more about the benefits we offer to support you here.

Benefits include flexible working whenever possible plus free parking at most locations. You’ll be entitled to discounts in high street stores and cinemas, National Trust shops and NT cafes, and have free entry to NT properties for you, a guest and your children (under 18).

Your health and wellbeing is important to us and is supported through generous annual leave and the option to buy additional days (minimum contract length applies), a cycle to work scheme, subsidised health cash plan and confidential access to a free support service 24 hours a day should you need it.

Your future financial health is helped by an employer matched – up to 10% of basic salary – contributory pension scheme and you can further your career with training and development tailored to you.

All of this and the opportunity to give something back to your community with up to 5 days of paid volunteering per year!

For further information and to apply, please follow: https://careers.nationaltrust.org.uk/OA_HTML/a/?_ga=2.259571535.479835119.1552382544-988792090.1543503726#/vacancy-detail/77952

Closing date: 31st March 2019
Interview date: 9th April 2019

Image: A Kodak No 3 Folding Brownie Model A, c.1910 from the Fenton Collection. Copyright: National Trust by Damian Hughes