Department: Collection Management
Hosts: Alyson Rolington, Head of Collection Management, and Christopher Higgins, Registration Manager
Almost every tangible aspect of the art museum’s exhibition process has an inherent environmental cost, and Jenna was keen to explore opportunities to promote change and mitigate the negative environmental impact of fine art transit.
Through collaboration with Tate colleagues, Jenna developed a process-oriented (also called practice-led) research approach focused on practitioners’ experiences and processes. The heart of her research consisted of an extensive programme of interviews and conversations with collections colleagues at Tate and across the museum and galleries sector within the UK and Europe, as well as relevant stakeholders from other fields. In addition, Jenna looked closely at policies and publications across the UK and international museum and gallery sector, as well as wider industry materials.
Jenna Shaw onsite at Musée national des beaux-arts in Québec City installing artwork from the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 2022.
Through the research process Jenna became interested in expanding her focus to include multiple types of sustainabilities (such as biodiversity, social sustainability, financial sustainability and accessibility), rather than focusing exclusively on carbon footprint and environmental sustainability. As a result, in September 2024, Jenna convened the sixth event in the Delfina Salon’s Art and Ethics Series, What Do We Mean When We Talk About Sustainability: Collections and the Climate Emergency.
Jenna’s research sought to understand the history, current and ongoing realities, specifically at Tate and more generally within the wider UK museum and gallery sector. Her final internal report identified pressure points and made a series of recommendations for Tate.
Directly following the completion of her Fellowship, Jenna presented on her research at the annual UK Registrars Group meeting hosted by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Registrars as Researchers: Exploring Sustainability in Touring Exhibitions and Collections
In November 2024 Jenna presented on the project, together with Tate Registration Manager Christopher Higgins, at the European Registrars Conference (ERC) in Rome.
The ERC is a biennial conference for Registrars across Europe, North America and beyond come together to discuss current issues, share best practices, discover new innovations and explore future developments in the sector.
One of the key themes of the conference was ‘Sustainability’. Jenna and Christopher’s presentation, Registrars as Researchers: Exploring Sustainability in Touring Exhibitions and Collections, discussed both the research carried out by Jenna and the experience of hosting the Fellowship at Tate, as well as encouraging the practice of Registrars as researchers.
Biography
Jenna is a collections management and museums professional specialising in registration, exhibitions and fine art transit, with an academic grounding in cultural heritage management and archaeology.
Currently a freelance registration and collections sustainability specialist, she has over fifteen years’ experience working with modern and contemporary art, large-scale sculpture and archaeology and history collections, and has worked in the United States, Ireland and Turkey. Previous roles include Head Registrar at the American Federation of Arts, New York, Registrar for Outgoing Loans at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and Senior Registrar at the Minnesota Historical Society.
She was a founding chair of the National Collections Program Working Group on Virtual Couriers and co-author of an NCP position statement on virtual couriering released in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution. She has presented on object-centred approaches to fine art shipping, courier transit and virtual couriering at the Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists and MuseWeb conferences (2021) and is a member of the ARCS Committee for Global Partnerships.
Jenna holds a master’s degree in Museum Studies and Cultural Heritage Management from Koç University, Istanbul, and has completed coursework in Museum Law and Administration at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St Paul, MN. She is a former Fulbright Scholar to Turkey, undertaking research focused on cultural heritage and working as a university lecturer.