Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (SGSAH) Internship
Starting after March 2019, flexible end date. Paid through SGSAH (more info)
Funded by Arts and Residency Funding Council and the Scottish Funding Council.
The Fruitmarket Gallery is at a turning point in its almost forty-five year history, embarking upon an exciting redevelopment project that will both upgrade the existing building and extend into the neighbouring building to double the Gallery’s floorspace. Whilst these developments are about looking to the future of the Gallery and its audiences, they also offer opportunities to think about the history of the organisation and its exhibitions. The proposed start date of this project aligns with the closure of the building for redevelopment. The exhibition hiatus afforded by this closure gives the organisation a chance to look back and take stock, giving the archive the attention it often misses out on due to the continual forward momentum of the programme.
The Gallery has an accessible and well-used online archive dating back to 2004, the start of the current Director’s tenure (fruitmarket.co.uk/archive). However, information on the Gallery’s exhibitions dating back to its foundation in 1974 is only partially digitised, with much of the paper archive physically held offsite, making it less accessible to the public. There is also a wealth of knowledge amongst staff (past and present) and partners (artists, curators, organisations), which has not been collated or formalised. There is great potential to share more of this information with our audiences.
This brief asks the doctoral intern to focus attention on a section of the archive of their choice, with a concentrated approach, and devise ways in which to make this material accessible and relevant to the public.
The Doctoral Intern may direct the exact form of their outputs, but must think about ways in which to make the section of the archive on which they are focussing on alive, relevant and useful to multiple groups of people. This might mean digitisation, highlighting items for display, interviews (with artists, staff past and present, staff from partner organisations), discussion/focus groups with academics or members of the public, online and/or journal publishing, and so on.
The intern will also provide a short report on how the research methodologies and outputs used might be developed further in order to broaden and deepen knowledge of and access to other sections of the archive in the future.
The programme is open to arts and humanities PhD students in Scotland, regardless of funding source. Any doctoral researcher that meets the following criteria can benefit from this programme:
- You are registered at a SGSAH member HEI;
- You are in 2nd or early in your 3rd year* (full time equivalent) at 1 October 2018;
- You are studying an arts and humanities discipline. The AHRC’s subject coverage is here;
- You are eligible to work in the UK;
- You have not already undertaken an internship or residency through SGSAH’s programme.
*You are not eligible if you are within 6 months of the end of your study period or writing up.
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