The Curious Case of the Curator

“The last person I did an interview with was Dan Snow, so you’ve followed in some good footsteps.”

Julie Biddlecombe-Brown, Exhibitions Officer at Palace Green Library.

On a rainy, grey Wednesday morning, I had the chance to sit down for a chat and a cuppa with Palace Green Library’s talented Exhibitions Curator, Julie Biddlecombe-Brown.

Julie has been with Palace Green Library since 2010…nearly 9 years. During this time, it’s been her job to develop the spaces of the library into exhibition galleries and “fill them with different kinds of exhibitions on a regular basis”. Before I started volunteering with her, I myself wondered how Julie got to be in such a fabulous position. Having taken a degree in Archaeology and Classics, Julie completed a Masters in Museum Studies (deciding to work with objects in a museum context after “a very wet summer of excavation” …sounds familiar?).

The key to her success? Open-mindedness: “I had always seen myself working in a museum maybe on Hadrian’s wall, with Roman material, but after my masters I realised it’s very difficult to get a job in the museum you intend to get a job in”. This led Julie down a 15-year path working with community museums, telling local histories and stories, with a brief placement at the National Museum of Namibia.

As we discussed her experience working in museums, Julie told me one thing that stuck with me for the remainder of our chat: “People are the greatest investment in heritage that you can find”. Such a simple sentence was incredibly powerful to me; as somebody interested in archaeological heritage myself, I agree that preserving the past and all its wonderful finds really is at the hands of conservators and curators who share that same passion.

Inevitably, this led me to ask Julie where she sees the fate of museums in the next decade: “people will always be interested in authentic archaeological material, and I think that the future of curatorship is thinking creatively about how you make the best connections you can”.

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With a few sips of coffee later, and mulling over what I’d just been told, I had to ask: what advice would you give to someone who wants to be a curator? So here we have it, a few handy top tips…

1) Think it over: “Really think about it and get some experience because it’s a very, very competitive career…I would also say be really realistic: I knew this was the path I wanted to follow, and it’s a very fulfilling career, if it’s right for you, however it’s very hard to get into.”

2) Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer: “If you want to work in the sector you need to be thinking ahead and getting some voluntary experience so you can demonstrate to an employer that you have some experience and know what you’re doing, rather than the theory of having undertaken a course”.

3) Do look at Masters degrees (though not essential, they’re a particular advantage to have): “There’s lots of museum studies courses- and I think they’re good for many reasons. Look particularly at the ones that give you practical experience as well as your museum theory because an employer, at the end of the day, will want to know that you can actually do the job.”

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As our chat drew to a close, I was dying to hear about Julie’s experiences working at PGL. From the exquisite, to the fascinating, to the purely chaotic, being a curator is undoubtedly hectic. One of Julie’s favourite experiences has been PGL’s most recent work with our very own archaeology department on the Bodies of Evidence exhibition: “everyone reading this will probably know the story, but we found human remains under the café of the Library and after analysis they were found to be the soldiers from the 1650 Battle of Dunbar. These soldiers marched to Durham, were imprisoned, and up to 1700 of them died. It’s been an amazing privilege to be able to tell that story”. I myself saw this exhibition, and I can only attest to how informative, innovative and frankly accessible the exhibition was. Curators are storytellers, and boy do PGL tell a good story.

When I asked her what she’s learned from her time as Exhibitions Officer, she simply told me: “Do not set yourself too much to do! I always see the potential for how fantastic an exhibition could be, but there literally aren’t enough hours in the day or people in our team. That’s a lesson I’m continually trying to learn…”

I wish Julie every success in attempting to learn this lesson, as it's certainly one I'll bear in mind.