Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at Girl Museum? What goes into making the online museum that you know and love? Well look no further, because our team at Girl Museum have kindly offered to give us an insight into their lives and what they do to make the Girl Museum world go around…
Today’s interview is with our recently appointed Volunteer and Instagram manager – Chloe Turner! Congrats on the new role!
How did you get involved with Girl Museum?
I joined Girl Museum in August of 2015, terrifyingly two years ago – time flies! I had not long started my Museum Studies MA with the University of Leicester, so I tended to keep my eyes peeled on their incredible Jobs Desk website. Girl Museum popped up, and it sounded perfect for what I needed – being able to do it from home – and it was!
As the manager of our Volunteers and Instagram, what does a typical Girl Museum day look like?
A typical day for me is sitting on Instagram! Luckily, I tended to do that anyway with my personal account, so it’s no great change of circumstance to run Girl Museum’s Instagram. I follow lots of girlhood/feminist/news Instagram accounts that post great content to get inspired by during the day, and then in the evening I have a session on Hootsuite scheduling some content for the next couple of days. I of course keep an eye on the Girl Museum blog too to share the great blogs that the other Junior Girls write for us. I also write blogs for Girl Museum’s Girls In Podcasts series, so a typical day for me is also listening to podcasts to review while I’m on my commute. This month I’ve started working with the rest of the staff team in managing the Junior Girls here at Girl Museum, so I’m sure that will keep me busy now I’ve finished my MA. The team of Junior Girls all seem so lovely and dedicated so it’s going to be a pleasure helping to manage them during their time with us.
How do you think Girl Museum compares to physical museums? Can we have the same impact that they do?
Great question, but a tricky one! There really is something special about physical objects and it would be insincere to deny that, if they weren’t museums wouldn’t exist at all. BUT, Girl Museum somehow manage to make their digital exhibitions so easy and fun to navigate that the physical objects end up not being too sorely missed. Girl Museum has a great impact that it is accessible anywhere in the world. There are so many young girls who aren’t taken to museums growing up, so having a museum that they can visit from their own bedrooms that they can see represent their histories, that’s definitely a powerful impactful thing.
Do you have a favourite exhibition from the Girl Museum catalogue? If so, then why?
My favourite exhibition is entirely a biased one, both because I worked on it and because I now work in my full time job in that topic. Mädchen Des Kindertransport is my favourite exhibition because I got to research the Harris House Case Study, and it was my first experience of researching a primary document to do so. With the Manchester Jewish Museum, I looked at the Harris House diary, an incredible diary written by the Kindertransport girl refugees living in Manchester. Also, I now work at the Wiener Library in London, a Holocaust library – so I’m probably pretty biased that that’s my favourite topic in history now!
That said, I also love the idea of the 52 Objects of Girlhood exhibit. I love the A History of the World in 100 objects from the British Museum – I listened to the podcast religiously and adore the book. Something about the format of having an in-depth but bite-size look at individual objects really appeals to me, it’s almost as if getting a guided tour of the best bits of history. 52 Objects of Girlhood feels like that too, and the way it’s global objects that are chosen shows how similar the experience of girlhood is throughout time and throughout the world are – I guess that’s the whole point of Girl Museum.
Did you enjoy this series? Want to see more of what goes on behind the computers of Girl Museum? Tell us in the comments what you’d like to see!
-Rebecca King
Junior Girl
Girl Museum Inc.