What do gallery workers do?

So, what does an Engagement & Collections Officer actually do all day? If you have ever wondered, I'm here to (hopefully) answer this.

Firstly, hey, I'm Cecelia and I work at the SOAS Gallery as the Engagement and Collections Officer. In my role, I manage a huge range of tasks from packing our collections artwork, installing exhibitions, and getting us ready to become a museum.

Working in a small team means I get to work across the entirety of managing a gallery. My role varies from more independent work, such as managing the storage of the 500 objects in the Artwork & Object Collection to collaborative work, such as putting on events and installing temporary exhibitions. 

This week I was tasked with photographing a new book which has just been published to coincide with our current exhibition - Pure Soul: The Jaina Spiritual Traditions. The book, Pure Soul, is a combination of material produced in the exhibition as well as new innovative research undertaken at SOAS. So I thought we can promote both the book and the show if I create some really nice photographs. Once the exhibition opens the promotion doesn’t just stop there, it’s my job to keep interest in the exhibition going. Especially a show such as this, which is on material not before exhibited at such a scale in the UK (its across three floors!).

Therefore taking some nice photographs of the book is a great way to engage people and hopefully someone will see this and think ‘I don’t know that much about the religion Jainism, maybe I will attend this show and discover more.’ Or likewise some audience members will have a good understanding already and will come to see the impressive display of historical and contemporary material from across the UK and India. That’s something very exciting in my job, that I get to show people really interesting things. 

For anyone interested in the technical side, there are photos below outlining how I went about it. The whole process took about 3-hours, from setting up to editing.

Taking the pictures

First I had to set up a full light box, so that I could take well-lit photos of the object (a good canvas is key).

Next is lining up the camera so everything is in shot and as you want it. You want to be able to do as little in post-production as possible, as this saves you time. 

I also played around and filmed me flicking through the pages, because, at the end of the day, books are meant to be held and used. Yes they are, again though we should see this. 

I use the Adobe Suite to edit the images and video, but you can use a range of free apps. I learnt most of this on YouTube.

But this is not the only way I promote the exhibition, I also conduct tours for visitors, explaining some of the material and why it was all brought together. I love giving tours as it’s a great way to connect to people and going back to my first point, it shows how varied the things I do every day. From working on my own documenting to getting to talk to a range of fantastic visitors.  

Pure Soul: The Jainia Spiritrual Traditions is available to buy at the SOAS Book Shop.