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Job title and reference: MAGNET Touring Exhibitions Co-ordinator (ref: CCE10.23)

Salary: £31,340 per annum (£31,980 per annum after probation)

Hours of work: Full time, 3 year contract. 35 hrs per week: Monday-Friday

The Horniman Museum and Gardens is a unique attraction in south east London where world cultures and the natural world are brought together for everyone to enjoy. The Museum holds internationally important collections of anthropology and musical instruments, as well as a popular natural history gallery and Aquarium. The 16 acres of beautiful Gardens feature a tropical Butterfly House and offer stunning views across London.

MAGNET (the Museums and Galleries Network for Exhibition Touring) consists of 12 museums working on the premise that it is more sustainable for museums to pool resources in developing exhibitions to tour amongst them. The network, led by the Horniman, has just been awarded 3 years’ funding from Arts Council England and Art Fund to develop three exhibitions tour, and formulate a long-term sustainable business model.

As Co-ordinator of the project, you will work with partners to help organise the exhibition development, delivery and evaluation processes; help in the management of funder relationships and reporting; set up and document all group meetings, decisions and discussions; help ensure processes and protocols are in place and being used; and communicate with all on a regular basis.

You will have experience in developing touring exhibitions and have a great facility for collaboration and communication.

The closing date for completed applications is 10am on Friday 2 June 2023. Interviews will be held on Tuesday 4 July 2023 in person at the Horniman in south London.

The Horniman is an equal opportunities employer and we value and celebrate diversity. We want to better represent the communities in which we work but recognise that there is still much work to do in this area. We welcome and encourage all applicants and particularly encourage you to apply if you are from a community that is often disadvantaged by society or of ethnically diverse background.

How to Apply

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JOB DESCRIPTION

Job title MAGNET Touring Exhibitions Coordinator

Section Exhibitions and Design

Reports to Chief Executive and Content Director

Responsible for No responsibility for staff

Hours of work Full time, fixed period of 3 years

Background and main purpose of the job

In 2020 Art Fund and the Horniman Museum and Gardens formed a strategic partnership to develop and deliver on an innovative 18 month pilot project. This project saw 12 museums from around the UK come together to form the Museums and Galleries Network for Exhibition Touring (MAGNET). MAGNET was initiated to explore the premise that it is more sustainable for museums to pool resources in developing exhibitions to tour amongst them, than to develop single-use temporary exhibitions on their own. Building on the learnings of a pilot, MAGNET partners aimed to co-curate a series of collections-based exhibitions with high-quality inter-disciplinary content designed to tour nationally.

Art Fund provided seed funding for this pilot, which realised a first exhibition, ‘Hair: Untold Stories’ co-created by the Horniman, Tullie House and Museums Sheffield. Hair opened at the Horniman in Dec 2021 and ran until June 2022, and toured to Tullie House (Sept 2022–Jan 2023) and then Sheffield (Weston Park, Feb–2023). The pilot also saw members of the wider network develop proposals for three future exhibitions on the themes of The Anthropocene, Colour and Gender.

The MAGNET project has now been awarded another three years’ funding from Arts Council England and Art Fund to allow the network to further develop and tour the three exhibitions mentioned above, and to develop a sustainable business plan beyond this period, including further touring exhibitions.

The Coordinator is pivotal to the network. They will optimise the activities of the network and make it easy for partners to take part. They will bring partners together; help in the management of funder relationships and reporting; set up and document all group meetings, decisions and discussions; help ensure processes and protocols are in place and being used; communicate with all on a regular basis and help organise the exhibition development, delivery and evaluation processes.

The postholder will be skilled at developing relationships and administration across the network, and able to work under their own initiative to lead on strategies.

Section description

The postholder will be hosted in the Horniman’s Exhibitions and Design Section, which is responsible for the management and delivery of the museum’s temporary exhibition programme, the maintenance of permanent galleries and the delivery of 2D graphic design across the site and externally for marketing purposes. They will report to the Chief Executive and Director of Content at the Horniman, Nick Merriman, who is the project lead.

Main responsibilities

• Review the governance structures for MAGNET, ensuring they are fit-for-purpose; and that network partnership agreements, policies and protocols are in place, and making recommendations to the Steering Group for improvements if required
• Facilitate the work of the partners to create a strategy for future touring exhibitions, including exploring paid-for family focused exhibitions commissioned from commercial providers
• Feed lessons learnt from the trial development process into future exhibitions
• Manage the budget, and ensure that there are financial protocols around the disbursement and tracking of the MAGNET budget onto partners, including reporting on over/under spend
• Commission project evaluation reports as required
• Work with MAGNET partners and project lead to develop a sustainable business model for MAGNET towards the end of the project, including proposals for at least three further exhibitions

• Drawing on the resources developed in the first phase of MAGNET, build a library of resources for developing, managing and evaluating MAGNET touring exhibitions and share with all partners
• Develop a series of streamlined protocols and agreements to facilitate loans and exhibitions across MAGNET. These should include loan agreements, contracts, facilities reports, courier and transport arrangements etc. Legal advice may be sought.
• Work with strategic partners Art Fund (who have their own complementary regional touring project ‘Going Places’) and TEG to develop the tools and library of resources for replication of the network model and training provision
• Facilitate knowledge sharing across the network and beyond, identifying opportunities in the network for professional development, including undertaking a Skills Needs Analysis
• Develop a strategy for evaluation and dissemination of learnings and best practice to the wider sector
• Represent the project in talks, lectures and conferences

• Manage all aspects of the project including administering the MAGNET budget and other tasks set out above
• Liaise and develop relationships with all network partners, including developing, coordinating, minute-taking and running workshops either online or ideally in person
• Co-ordinate and administer (including setting up meetings, taking minutes) the MAGNET Steering Group which oversees the network
• In conjunction with the Horniman’s Head of Fundraising write project grant reports for Art Fund and Arts Council, a final report outlining findings from informal evaluation, and recommendations from the project to develop any future funding bids.
• Work with the Horniman and partners’ digital teams to update and manage the web and social media profile for the project.

• Define the model for each of the three exhibitions under development with the lead partner for each exhibition.
• Work with the lead partners to ensure robust planning is in place for each exhibition and lessons and resources are learnt from the pilot and shared between the different partners, including contracts/MOUs and loan agreements, future touring plans, evaluation, and finance and provide other support as practical.

General responsibilities

• Act in a professional manner and uphold the Horniman’s Code of Conduct
• Follow and promote safe systems of work and observe health and safety regulations
• Any other duties that may be required to ensure the effective running of the section

Job activities may vary and evolve over time to meet business needs.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Minimum Shortlisting Criteria

• A high level of literacy and numeracy (E)
• Significant and demonstrable experience in the developing or co-ordinating touring exhibitions in museums or galleries (E)
• Experience of successfully developing or working with networks or partnerships in the museum or cultural sector (E)
• Excellent budget and project management skills (E)

Additional Shortlisting Criteria

• Proven ability to work successfully on own initiative (E)
• Experience of working in a museum/gallery exhibitions or interpretation role (E)

Further Selection Criteria – to be tested at interview

Knowledge and experience

• Knowledge of the context and resources of UK museums outside London (D)
• Computer literate, with knowledge of MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook and virtual conferencing software (E)
• Experience of evaluating projects (D)

Skills and abilities

• Ability to communicate effectively and build relationships with a broad range of colleagues internally and externally (E)
• Ability to work with close attention to detail and to maintain confidentiality (E)
• Ability to work professionally and tactfully, to represent the museum with a high level of integrity and professionalism, to adhere to Museum policies and to support management decisions in a positive, professional manner (E)
• Ability to assess and manage multiple competing priorities and work well under pressure: excellent time management, problem solving and analytical skills (E)

Personal attributes

• An empathy with the Horniman mission and an interest in its exhibitions, activities and events
• Commitment to equality and diversity
• Willingness to work flexibly to achieve corporate objectives
• Commitment to own learning and professional development

Circumstances

• Basic DBS check required
• Occasional travel to the MAGNET partners will be required including overnight stays
• Some evening or weekend working required on occasion

Appendix

The MAGNET Project

The 2017 Mendoza report discussed ways museums could develop “a new ‘partnership framework’ to extend their reach throughout England in a more strategic way”. In recent years regional museums have faced significant challenges to achieving this; they report a lack of affordable touring exhibitions of sufficient quality to meet their audience development objectives, meet public expectations and generate revenue. Budget cuts have reduced their ability to generate their own exhibitions, such that those accustomed to four exhibitions p.a. are now reduced to delivering two, of lower quality. This has created a risk-averse situation, stifling innovation and hindering the ability to serve new and existing audiences, introduce exciting artistic works and objects, and generate sustainable revenue.

A primary goal of MAGNET is to improve the quality of exhibitions, which will in turn attract audiences and revenue. Partner feedback has highlighted a lack of in-house curatorial expertise and available budget to display collections in the best way possible and allow risk and experimentation when programming. We want to make the collections of the whole network accessible to the public in a meaningful way, and by pooling resources we can offer high-quality, co-curated exhibitions to attract audiences and shine a spotlight on collections.

The aims of MAGNET 2.0 are a further development of the pilot aims. To:

• Test new funding and delivery models for quality touring exhibitions sector-wide, embedding collaboration as a cost-effective and sustainable way of working.
• Encourage experimentation and risk in exhibitions, in subject matter and approach (co-curation, co-production etc).
• Allow museums to pursue their ambitions for audience engagement and diversity in meaningful ways through exhibitions, making a wider breadth of cultural experiences available to more people.
• Build skills across the sector, e.g. remote collaboration, sustainable exhibition-making practice, collaborative work on learning, commercial and digital. It will provide us with a forum for the learning process, uniquely working as a peer group to evaluate our projects collectively.
• Raise the profile of regional collections amongst audiences, placing them in the context of a great national dispersed public collection.
• Offer potential for shared development of learning and outreach programmes.

Current MAGNET partners

Current MAGNET members comprise the Horniman (lead), Bristol Museums, Royal Albert Memorial Museum Exeter, Hampshire Museums, Norfolk Museums, Derby Museums, Sheffield Museums, Manchester Museum, World Museum Liverpool, Tyne and Wear Museums, Tullie House Carlisle, and Brighton and Hove Museums. The majority of the partners are based outside London, allowing for a rebalancing investment agenda across the UK.

The MAGNET network will create a compelling shared vision, build trust and longstanding relationships between partners and provide a powerful cementing of those relationships. To date, work between Museums, on areas such as loans and exhibitions has been quite transactional. MAGNET will allow these museum partners to work more relationally, collaboratively and ambitiously - not retreating into survival mode or regional/local identities and concerns, but focused on a sustainable collective future.

May 2023