Hello! My name is Kaitlyn Walker-Stewart and I am a Scottish girl currently living in London. I come from a contemporary art background having studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, and I am currently studying my Masters degree in Museum Cultures with Curating at Birkbeck, University of London.
My art practice focuses on female representation in mainstream media, such as film and television, and the concept of celebrity. It takes the form of both performance and moving image work and I conduct research in my studio, creating my own props and filming a lot with green screen. When it comes to Museum studies I am interested in experimental forms of museums, such as online and temporary, which don’t conform to traditional forms and definitions of the Museum. Needless to say, Girl Museum excites me a lot in terms of form, mission, and content!
Outside of work and studies I love musicals, watching films and television, and recently I have got back into gaming. Having been an avid gamer as a girl and teen, I have now gone so far as to stream games for fun online! My dream job would be to work as a curator or exhibitions manager in a gallery or museum, specifically focusing on live performance exhibitions and events.
There are a lot of museums which I love, but one of my favorites is the Museum of Innocence in Istanbul. It is a unique museum that is based on a book written by Orhan Pamuk, and its contents contain a collection formed on the fictitious story of the book. The idea of a museum that showcases objects formed from a fictitious story excites me a lot, as it demonstrates the creative potential of museums to be playful with what they can display.
Unfortunately, girls face a multitude of issues today. One which I think is a big issue, and that also aligns with my lived experience, is how girls are socialised from a young age by the media to falsely believe what being a girl is, and what girls can achieve. Whether it be through sexist advertising gendering children’s toys, or girls not seeing themselves represented in more adventure and action-based stories. I aim to promote more of a balance for the girls in my life, and assist them in understanding that they have so many options to explore in life, and not just one route in girlhood!
-Kaitlyn Walker-Stewart
Junior Girl
Girl Museum Inc.