Voices of the Royal Pavilion & Museums.
A staff-led museum podcast presented and created by me, which tells stories about the objects, collections and buildings of Royal Pavilion & Museums Brighton & Hove (RPM) through the voices of the museum staff and volunteers themselves. Voices is available on all major podcast platforms.
“Highly recommend. Informative and entertaining. I gained a new perspective on the work of cultural institutions and how their work goes beyond the walls of their buildings.”
— Apple Podcast review, 22 March 2020
Voices of the Royal Pavilion & Museums aimed to be a platform for employee self-expression, seeking to encourage creativity through staff storytelling. The microphone was used to empower staff and volunteers to reflect, consider and create alternative narratives about the buildings, objects, collections and histories of the museum service. The podcast sought to position RPM’s five sites as intrinsic to the staff themselves – as part of their identity and shared history as citizens within the community of Brighton and Hove. The podcast series was a polyvocal exercise, comprised of the multiplicity of voices which make up RPM.
Featuring episodes that span different aspects of the museum service such as the Pavilion gardens, the ghosts of Preston Manor, LGBTQ+ histories and RPM’s unique workforce development programme, the podcast is an opportunity to enable a greater range of staff voices to be heard, whilst building courage in using technology in new, exciting and different ways.
Lavender Jones, volunteer at RPM. Hear Lavender in Episode 4: The Ghosts of Preston Manor and Episode 10: Frogs & Formaldehyde
The ‘Garden Room’ of the Royal Pavilion gardens. Hear Robert Hill-Snook, Head Gardener speak on Episode 5: The Gardener
Dr Helen Mears, Keeper of World Art at Brighton Museum and Sarah Lee, freelance arts consultant and co-founder of Brighton & Hove’s Black Heritage Network. You can hear Helen and Sarah in conversation on Episode 6: Reframing South Coast Colonialism.