Dr Jane Wildgoose in King's Digital Lab
Jane Wildgoose is an artist-in-residence at King’s College London. Working in collaboration with Neil Jakeman, Senior Research Software Analyst in King's Digital Lab, Jane will be developing a project exploring the nature of collecting in the digital realm.
Jane Wildgoose is taking stock of her collection at The Wildgoose Memorial Library (WML), an ongoing accumulation of reference material that informs Jane's work as an artist and writer. The WML is undergoing a period of physical renovation and, in collaboration with Neil Jakeman and King’s Digital Lab, Jane is taking her work reflecting on the nature of collecting, collections, and their legacies, into the digital realm. The project will focus on selected WML items which, although acquired through conventional and legitimate channels, may be seen as ethically problematic today.
Using the affordances of digital technology, Jane and Neil will gather intelligence about the status of these items: as once-living creatures, as trophies, as curiosities, and as specimens. Together they will create a virtual 'strong room' in which the items can be stored. But rather than hiding them from the public gaze, they will make them the subject of debate about problematic histories of collecting, the potential for multi-faceted interpretations being associated with objects in collections, and their on-going place (and status) in the world.
Project team
Neil Jakeman is a Senior Research Software Analyst in King's Digital Lab, based in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities. He has contributed to the digital research agenda at King’s since 2011, first in Digital Humanities and latterly as Research Software Analyst in KDL, leading digital creativity themes and development.
Dr Jane Wildgoose is an artist/researcher who investigates the history of collecting while reflecting on the emotional charge that may linger in objects in collections. As Keeper of The Wildgoose Memorial Library she oversees her own collection dedicated to memory, remembrance, and the on-going legacies of colonial-era collecting in museums.