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Journal papers by Ellie Miles

Journal for Maritime Research, 2017

ABSTRACT In the first half of the nineteenth century, nautical melodramas were a popular genre o... more ABSTRACT
In the first half of the nineteenth century, nautical melodramas were a popular genre of performance in London’s theatres. During his lifetime, Thomas Potter Cooke (1786–1864) was known as the last and best of stage sailors, and his portrayals of the British sailor became archetypal for many theatregoers. Cooke’s contemporary critics speculated about how his experience at sea informed his performances, which his audiences took great pleasure in. Cooke performed his most popular roles hundreds of times, and portraits of him in character were produced by and sold in London’s stationers. Examples of these ephemeral prints survive in museum collections, and are a useful source of information about the visual significance of performance. This article examines Cooke’s theatrical career and its critical reception. By using contemporary printed ephemera, this article explores how the developing theatrical culture in London both drew on and established ideas about British sailors and the navy. It reflects on how Cooke’s time at sea was used both by critics and the man himself in constructing a narrative beyond the stage. This article examines the pleasure that audiences and critics took in engaging with his Cooke’s embodiment of the British sailor, both on stage and off.

Exhibition (Spring 2016) Vol. 36 No. 1, Apr 20, 2016

This article first appeared in Exhibition (Spring 2016) Vol. 36 No. 1, and is reproduced with per... more This article first appeared in Exhibition (Spring 2016) Vol. 36 No. 1, and is reproduced with permission.

Museological Review, 2015, issue 19 pp22-32

Using three case studies from the Museum of London, this paper explores the museum work of peopli... more Using three case studies from the Museum of London, this paper explores the museum work of peopling the past, and the complexities of such projects. This paper looks at how museums change, and the ways that these changes are shaped by human and nonhuman actors within and beyond the museum.
The Galleries of Modern London argue for the professional organisation of community history: a peopled history shaped through curatorial authority. The galleries advocate a model of the museum that extends beyond co-existing communities, peopling the past with some community voices, and including the curators’ perspective.
This paper comes out of doctoral ethnographic research carried out surrounding the creation of the Galleries of Modern London, using this insight to reflect critically on the museum’s contribution to on-going debates about museum representation. Looking at how London’s public past has been peopled, the paper explores how ‘museum work’ gives museums character and life.

"This article explores the Pleasure Gardens, as they were re-made at the Museum of London. Using ... more "This article explores the Pleasure Gardens, as they were re-made at the Museum of London. Using an embedded, ethnographic perspective at the museum, the article explores the re-making of the gardens and looks in detail at how and why the museum chose the gardens to explore London’s history as a
changing city. The Pleasure Gardens display required an ambitious combination of objects and display technologies, such as historic costume, film projections, Philip Treacy hats, object reproductions, specially-made mannequins and a soundscape, and this article discusses the production and composition of these components. Reflecting on the gardens’ place in London’s history, the article identifies what the gardens offer contemporary understandings of the city’s past and the role of pleasure in public history.

Key Words

Pleasure Gardens, Vauxhall, museum display, Museum of London, costume, Philip Treacy "

This article reflects on the process of digitising a collection of almost 1800 Victorian Valentin... more This article reflects on the process of digitising a collection of almost 1800 Victorian Valentines cards. The Museum of London’s card collection is only a fraction of an individual’s extensive collection of greetings cards. This article argues that the work of documenting and photographing the cards revealed information about the nature of collecting. There have always been inconsistencies between professional and personal collecting activities: the museum acquired just part of the collection because the entire collection was so vast it was considered unmanageable. Collections online and digitisation work has suggested several points about the nature of the collection as context and this short article discusses some of these ideas.

The waterways of London are an essential component of the city, with the River Thames playing a p... more The waterways of London are an essential component of the city, with the River Thames playing a prominent role in the heritage, history and identity of place. The upcoming 2012 Olympics are highlighting the Lea Valley waterways in east London as another important part of London’s waterscape, expanding London’s global presence as a ‘water city’. As part of the Creative Campus Initiative, we undertook a project based on the broad themes of water, London and the Olympics that would give voice to the changes taking place. The result is London’s Olympic Waterscape, a 20-minute film comprising both ‘expert’ interview material discussing broad themes and developments and an embodied record of our engagement with the Olympic area during a brief period in the construction process. The present article is about the journey we took through and around the east London ‘Olympic’ waterways as we attempted to capture this transitional moment on video.

Recently a growing recognition of partiality in the museological representation of community iden... more Recently a growing recognition of partiality in the museological representation of community identity has encouraged museums to strive towards producing more inclusive narratives with a broad appeal (Sandell, 2002; McLean, 2008). Yet it is an indisputable truth that a narrative always remains the product of a conditioned selection process. Despite the use of multimedia and interactive elements, material culture displays tend to be static and, therefore, contrast with peoples’ multiple and transitional identities. Consequently a greater focus has been placed on raising awareness of the constructed nature of museum displays. Involving visitors in the production of exhibition content has also provided museum professionals with a clearer understanding of their contribution to meaning-making (Mason, 2005). This article outlines an approach to developing these ideas concerning visitor interpretation through exploring the creation of identity at the Museum of London. Additionally it documents the process by which Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA) students and the Museum of London sought to identify a means of conveying knowledge resulting from academic research.

Talks by Ellie Miles

Teaching an MA session about the work of contemporary collecting, exploring how museums deal with... more Teaching an MA session about the work of contemporary collecting, exploring how museums deal with potential acquisitions and the challenges of an unfolding subject matter.

Part of a panel of early career researchers discussing career development after a collaborative PhD.

Part of a panel discussing career experiences post-PhD

Sascha Priewe, Curator of Chinese and Korean collections, and Ellie Miles, Interpretation Officer... more Sascha Priewe, Curator of Chinese and Korean collections, and Ellie Miles, Interpretation Officer, will talk about the recent refurbishment of the Korea Foundation Gallery. This work was undertaken with support from the National Museum of Korea. The gallery re-opened on 17 December 2014.

Public museum talk, presenting objects in the museum foyer.

Nine minutes of stand up comedy about Victorian Valentines cards

Public session, presenting objects from the Museum of London's theatrical ephemera collection inc... more Public session, presenting objects from the Museum of London's theatrical ephemera collection including nineteenth century tinsel prints and theatrical portraits.

Journal for Maritime Research, 2017

Exhibition (Spring 2016) Vol. 36 No. 1, Apr 20, 2016

Museological Review, 2015, issue 19 pp22-32

Key Words

Pleasure Gardens, Vauxhall, museum display, Museum of London, costume, Philip Treacy "

Part of a panel of early career researchers discussing career development after a collaborative PhD.

Part of a panel discussing career experiences post-PhD

Public museum talk, presenting objects in the museum foyer.

Nine minutes of stand up comedy about Victorian Valentines cards

This one-day training session was a pilot, designed to open up museum resources to community grou... more This one-day training session was a pilot, designed to open up museum resources to community groups. The interactive training session aimed to provide attendees with resources and advice about using digitised museum collections in their projects.

In 1942 an exhibition opened at the London Museum, entitled ‘New Movements in Art’. The exhibitio... more In 1942 an exhibition opened at the London Museum, entitled ‘New Movements in Art’. The exhibition – curated by Margot Eates – was the first display of Modernist art by a major museum in the UK, and included works by Nicolson, Hepworth, Moore, Sutherland, and Nash (Stephens, 2012). Eates – a writer, curator and lecturer – was a central figure in London’s wartime and post-war Modernist art scene: she was Acting Keeper of the London Museum during the Second World War, whilst also working as a curator at Tate. Country Life found this arrangement curious, and in April 1942 noted: “War has produced some strange transpositions among museums and picture galleries, in the temporary absence or pre-occupation of their male Directors.”

Eates’ legacy is often conflated with that of her partner, the prominent art critic E.H. Ramsden. In our discussion of Eates’ work we will shed light on the visibility of women as museum workers, and how this can change even in the case of women in very prominent positions. Using Eates’ papers, still kept at Tate, the paper will tell Eates’ story, examining how her work, and that of her colleagues, was represented, reported and discussed.

This paper examines the creation, reception, and legacy of the exhibition and investigates the devaluing of Margot Eates’ role in the sphere of cultural production and intermediation during the wartime period. The paper will also reveal Eates’ role in maintaining the production of politically-engaged Modernist art at this time, by acting as a centre point for the network of artists who left London during the war.

This paper discusses the London Transport Museum’s recent history of contemporary collecting, ide... more This paper discusses the London Transport Museum’s recent history of contemporary collecting, identifying some of the challenges around the subject and presenting the experimental work that is taking place at the moment. As a world city, London is the site of global processes enacted across the city’s specific infrastructure, including its transport network. Finding ways to collect this globalised locality is crucial, and has prompted thought and experiment around how the museum actively collects and represents the experiences of BAME Londoners, women in transport and LGBT+ transport workers. Collecting the story of contemporary transport in London means we have been trying to find the answers to some long-established questions about what constitutes the contemporary, and whether we can find other useful models for the nature of collections, objects and curators. This year the London Transport Museum began exploring a distributed model of collecting, which invites a network of people to take on the work of curating the city to continue to diversify the voices and experiences represented in the collection. The paper will reflect on the benefits and challenges of operationalising a distributed model of the museum’s collecting work, in a spirit of openness, as befits its experimental nature.

Geography PhD students have taken a leading role in collaborating with museums, as we saw in last... more Geography PhD students have taken a leading role in collaborating with museums, as we saw in last year’s Historical Geography Research Group publication 'Collaborative geographies: the politics, practicalities, and promise of working together'. Reflecting on the findings of this volume as well as our own past experiences as AHRC CDA students we will use this key note to reflect on the conference theme of ‘co-production’ in relation to collaboration in museums.

A CDA should have collaboration embedded in it from the beginning. Proposals are designed between two different supervisors who eventually form a support team around the student and project. However, can we say that a collaborative PhD is co-produced and if so, what are the tangible and intangible results we should be expecting from a successful CDA? For example, does a resulting exhibition or website show that something has been successfully co-produced or are there less concrete examples, such as knowledge exchange or a contribution to the research culture of an institution? We would also like to consider whether there is more to do further this co-production in museums: follow-on funding or embedding research museum forward programmes, for example.

Despite both being in museums (the Museum of London and the Science Museum) our experiences of the CDA scheme were very different. Ellie was an embedded researcher following the development of the new Galleries of Modern London, and working on the installation. Alison worked on an object biography of the BBC’s first radio transmitter and curated a temporary exhibition to mark 90 years of BBC radio. Identifying useful experiences and methods, the paper offers a discussion of the ways in which collaboration best serves both museums and the students who study them.

Finally, 2013 marked a significant development in the way the collaborative doctoral scheme operates with the introduction of the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships Scheme. This new scheme gives some museums the authority to select which proposals will receive funding with, for example, the Science Museum Group offering eight PhD places a year. In closing this paper and with the hope of prompting further discussion about this scheme, we will reflect on what this new development means for the future of the collaborative PhD and how geographic thought can continue to be embedded in museum practise.

"Thomas Potter Cooke (1786-1864) was described as “the last and best of stage sailors” and was ce... more "Thomas Potter Cooke (1786-1864) was described as “the last and best of stage sailors” and was celebrated for his starring roles in popular nautical melodramas in nineteenth century London. These performances were reflected in Cooke’s appearance on the theatrical souvenir penny portraits published at the time. By looking at Cooke’s theatrical career and how he is depicted in penny portraits this paper will explore how one actor came to characterize notions of the sailor, navy and nation in nineteenth century London.

The heroic leads of nautical melodrama characterized popular ideas about naval heroes in the 1800s, and these were entangled with Cooke’s experience of serving in the navy: “Having served as a cabin boy with Nelson’s fleet at Copenhagen” recalled one theatre manager erroneously in 1881, “it is little wonder that [Cooke’s ] personification of a British sailor excelled and surpassed all others”. The press reinforced Cooke’s connection with the navy, and breathlessly recounted his dramatic experiences at sea. Theatre reviewers discussed Cooke’s performances of naval characters like ‘Union Jack’ in heroic terms, presenting Cooke as a personification of a national ideal.

Although successful in the genre of nautical melodrama, Cooke had a second line in playing supernatural monsters and villains. Cooke’s first renowned role was that of a Vampire; his characterization of Frankenstein’s monster was the first on the stage, and drew praise from Mary Shelley. This paper will explore how narratives of the navy and nation were embodied in Cooke’s career. Frankenstein’s monster was not the first composite man Cooke played, and this paper will explore how Cooke came to embody the national naval hero."

This paper looks at ways that museums of urban history, have employed technology as ways of conve... more This paper looks at ways that museums of urban history, have employed technology as ways of conveying new narratives of cities, with particular reference to the Museum of London. Using ‘Streetmuseum’, a Museum of London iPhone app, as a case study, this chapter reflects on the new ways that museums are using geographical space and technology to change the stories that they tell. Silverstone has identified museums as sites of ‘perambulatory rhetorics and narratives’ (Silverstone 1995: 173), where stories are told through space. Changing display technologies have offered the museum ways of expanding the circuits of these narratives. Streetmuseum connects the collection with the city beyond the museum’s walls, using augmented reality technology on smartphones, allowing visitors to map their location and then overlay an historic image.Using Scazzosi’s arguments about the re-writing of landscape as palimpsest, this paper looks at the complex relationship between old and new museum space (Scazzosi, 1994: 339). Streetmuseum was intended to advertise the Museum of London, not replace it. Using embedded research carried out during the re-making of the Museum of London this paper argues that the post-museum remains in hyphenation with its predecessors, offering ever more nuanced layers of interpretation.

Once you put the objects into the actual, real cases, you get things cropping up you could never ... more Once you put the objects into the actual, real cases, you get things cropping up you could never anticipate. Things like strange shadows… things that really couldn’t be anticipated until the case was all in and lit (installation co-ordinator, interview, 28/05/10) Installation is the work of changing the museum from building site, to work shop, to public space. Despite extensive planning, the process remains a surprising activity. Although choreographed and rehearsed, there are unanticipated outcomes and objects often seem altered as they are added to cases. Even when case-layouts have been drawn up and movements rehearsed, something more than purely practical changes when objects are encased. This paper argues that the moment of installation marks a point when objects acquire an enhanced symbolic and narrative significance. This paper uses the mysterious moment of transformation to respond to Jane Bennett’s discussions of ‘thing-power’. This paper uses material from ethnographic research working on the installation of the Galleries of Modern London. Using field notes, photographs and interviews, this paper explores how the purely practical act of putting objects into cases can have surprising effects. The uncanny effects of installation reveal much about the object but they also provide a significant insight into the nature of the museum.

The Museum of London has been working on a major re-display of its collection, re-telling the sto... more The Museum of London has been working on a major re-display of its collection, re-telling the story of London since the great fire in 1666. Using £20million and the lower floor galleries of the existing building, the ‘Galleries of Modern London’ project will be the museum’s first attempt to talk about London right up until to the present day. My research involves collaborating with the museum, to look at the ways that global cities have been represented in museums; and the Galleries of Modern London in particular.

Collaboration is integral to my research; the museum’s support has given me the chance to become embedded in the museum. I have been able to reflect and analyse the making of the galleries first hand; working on the new galleries being the clearest example. The presentation will discuss the type of research that the collaborative structure has enabled me to carry out and why collaboration is so important to my PhD.

Whilst urban history museums like the District 6 museum and the Tenement museum reflect one way o... more Whilst urban history museums like the District 6 museum and the Tenement museum reflect one way of peopling the past, the Museum of London deliberately takes a different approach. This paper takes three case studies from the Museum of London to talk about the practical work of peopling the past, and the complexities of such projects.

The Galleries of Modern London make an argument for the professional organisation of community history, a peopled history retaining curatorial authority. The galleries advocate a model of the museum -- and the city -- which extends beyond co-existing communities, peopling the past with some community voices, but with the curators voice as well.

This paper comes out of ethnographic research carried out surrounding the creation of the Galleries of Modern London, using this insight to reflect critically on the museum’s contribution to ongoing debates about museum representation. This paper uses theory and practice to reflect on how London’s public past has been peopled.

The Galleries of Modern London, which opened in Spring 2010, tell the story of London from 1666 t... more The Galleries of Modern London, which opened in Spring 2010, tell the story of London from 1666 to the present. The galleries are the largest project undertaken at the Museum of London since its opening. A £20 million re-development saw the museum's treatment of later London history completely re-imagined, as the museum made its first attempt to tell the story continuously from the Great Fire to the contemporary city. My research project explores the way global cities are represented in museums and the Galleries of Modern London in particular. As an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award project, and involves working with the museum throughout my research to study how the Galleries of Modern London have been produced and received.

The workshop presentation will discuss the type of research that the collaborative structure has enabled me to carry out and the implications of collaboration on my PhD research. Studying work means I have developed a highly flexible methodology, designed to accommodate opportunities that arose to work firsthand on the Galleries of Modern London. This has meant developing a qualitative approach encompassing staff interviews, semi-structured visitor interviews, accompanied visits, observation of meetings, writing exhibition text and installing objects in order to study the work of city museum making.

Studying the work of the museum means constantly negotiating and revising: in this instance a met... more Studying the work of the museum means constantly negotiating and revising: in this instance a methodology can’t be a guidebook or a dry research prescription. This paper looks at how my methodology has altered throughout my research, as I learned more about qualitative methods. This paper contributes to discussions of mixed method qualitative research, by using my experience with the Collaborative Doctoral Award scheme. This structure has helped me achieve a depth of access which has presented its own interesting challenges. Participating in the project I am studying means ongoing revision of my methods. During the Museum of London’s Galleries of Modern London project, I took on a role at the museum, helping to install objects into the re-made gallery space. This phase of work will provide a case study to discuss some of the issues facing new researchers using mixed methodologies. The paper will argue for the importance of reflexivity, collaboration and revision in qualitative research, suggesting that a methodology should offer the researcher a space to focus their research ideas, rather than a rigid template or formula: a structure but not instructions.

The Collaborative Doctoral Award scheme provides a way to link the rich experience of museum work... more The Collaborative Doctoral Award scheme provides a way to link the rich experience of museum work, to the body of museum theory. My methodology is based on the access available to me with the level of engagement established with my partner institution. Exploring how global cities are curated, I am working to produce an in-depth study of the making of the Galleries of Modern London. This paper will focus on one phase of my research to discuss the complexities associated with my position as a CDA researcher. During the museum’s work I took on a role working at the museum as the galleries installing objects into the re-made gallery space. Studying the work of the museum means constantly negotiating and revising: in this instance a methodology can’t be a guidebook or a dry research prescription. The writing of the methodology has become part of the methodology itself. Working on the galleries has allowed me to delve deeper into the project, to find out more about how museum narratives change after the physical phase of work should have taken over. My experience of participation in the project I am studying will offer the session an interesting case study of the immersive qualities of collaborative research.

In order to explore the relationship of visitors with the museum’s representation of civic identi... more In order to explore the relationship of visitors with the museum’s representation of civic identity, support their critical engagement with the displays and give them a tool to express their own ideas, we are currently formulating a project with the Museum of London within the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards Scheme around the new Galleries of Modern London to be opened in Spring 2010. The project is based on four PhDs carried out with the Museum of London as partner institution. The idea is to translate some of the main concepts that each one of us is exploring in her PhD to contemporary museum practice. Some of the issues that are going to be thus addressed by the project are: aspects of the construction of civic identity; the usefulness of integrating museological and historical approaches to the past; visitor contribution to the interpretation of museum narratives; interaction between audiences and the museum environment in the formation of cultural identities.

Every year more than six million visitors come to the British Museum, and for the first time in 2... more Every year more than six million visitors come to the British Museum, and for the first time in 2013–14, more than half (54%) of these people reported that they took a photograph during their visit (Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, 2014).

With more than three million people taking photographs at the museum’s site in Bloomsbury, it is no surprise that when Instagram announced the top ten geo-tagged photo locations in the UK, the British Museum was fifth on its list (Furness, 2014a). A quick search of the photo-sharing site Flickr reveals that every day more than 50 images are uploaded by its users and tagged with the text 'british museum'. Although newspaper columnists have voiced concern at the behaviour of visitors taking photographs in museums, even suggesting photography in museums should be banned (Christiansen, 2014), we know relatively little about visitor photography in the context of a museum visit.

These are the words of Baron Ferdinand Rothschild (1839-1898, whose modest phrasing suggests work... more These are the words of Baron Ferdinand Rothschild (1839-1898, whose modest phrasing suggests works of art 'drift' to the public almost of their own accord. But Ferdinand knew that this was actually a very deliberate process. He ensured that the Renaissance artworks that he and his father had carefully collected were bequeathed to the British Museum: He discussed his collection with curators at the museum, made legal arrangements for the bequest, and had the collection recorded in photographs. He felt so keenly that the objects should be available for the public at the museum that he stipulated in his will that all the objects would be:

Research on Display: A Guide to Collaborative Exhibitions for Academics Edited by Laura Humphreys

A short essay for the #FutureMuseum project (Museum iD). Written with S. Priewe.