Fiona Green, Collections Facilitator for Art, talks about her current projects for CoCA.

My job is to make the art gallery collections more accessible for everyone and in particular I am working closely with Helen Walsh, the Curator of Ceramics on our new Centre of Ceramic Art (CoCA).

I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss some of the projects that I am working on at the moment.

We have just launched a digitisation project to help get more of our collections online.

We have quite a vast amount of archive material mainly from Bill Ismay’s estate but also items that link to the Milner-White and Anthony Shaw collections.

The project will include photographing these objects and creating new records for them on our record management system Adlib.

Our digital team work hard to ensure that any updates on Adlib are quickly pushed through our systems to ensure our online collections have the most relevant and up to date information and images on them.

My mission is to get all our archival material created online within the next few years in the hopes of encouraging research and further learning into ceramics history and collections.

Next year myself, Helen and the YMT communications team will be busy touring the country promoting the Centre of Ceramic Art for when the gallery re-opens next year.

We are wanting to visit the big ceramic and craft fairs and events to provide teasers of the new Centre via a slideshow of some of the work that is currently ongoing, to provide opportunities for visitors to handle some of our interesting pieces and to generate interest in the wide range of workshops, learning programmes and family-fun events that will be available when the gallery opens.

The big pack has already commenced in preparation for the move next year.

We have two main ceramics spaces in CoCA along with objects being used by artist Mark Herald in his interpretation of YMT’s collections exhibition which means we have approximately 2000 ceramics to wrap and safely box up.

Several of our art gallery guides are helping us in this mammoth task out in the cold storage unit where we house our ceramic collection so cups of tea and biscuits have been flowing!

For the protection and conservation of our objects this is an important process, we have to ensure that each separate object is comfortably packed with acid-free tissue paper and bubble wrap and stored safely but productively in padded crates waiting for transportation day.

We have to carefully label each box too with a list of each object inside and instructions as to which exhibition they will be placed in to ensure a smooth and organised unpack.

In order to help make the art and ceramic collections more accessible I have had several meetings with community art groups in the York area and work closely with Gaby Lees, our Assistant Curator for Arts Learning and Territories Coordinator in order to plan a range of life-long learning, family and community activities and events for CoCA when it opens next year.

I won’t spoil any surprises just yet but one volunteer project that runs across YMT in general, and some of you may already be familiar with it, is Hands on Here.

This project is designed to be run by members of the community, providing other visitors with information and handling sessions of our collections.

I will be overseeing these sessions for CoCA and hope that visitors may want to participate. We can choose a theme that you are most interested in and I will help you to design a talk and/or handling session around this theme to encourage other visitors to take an interest in your interests!

As you can see this is a busy time for everyone at the gallery organising and preparing for the big opening next year.

I hope to see some more of you next year when the gallery re-opens but in the meantime if you would like to volunteer visit York Museum Trust website for more information or get in touch with me.