This call connects with UCL’s Bicentenary, 200 years since UCL’s establishment as the first University in London. In response to this anniversary, the UCL Culture Lab is focusing on the future of collecting within university museums.
The Culture Lab is a teaching, sharing and exhibition-making space located in Stratford, East London that practices curatorial possibilities using UCL Collections and contemporary material culture. Building on UCL’s long tradition of object-based learning and collections-based research, it is a space for academics, students, artists and community members to work with collections and archives to creatively share what matters to them through public exhibitions.
Focus of the Residency
The Culture Lab is one of UCL’s newest exhibition spaces and currently doesn’t have its own collections. The Curator in Residence will work with the Culture Lab staff to develop an approach to contemporary collecting for its new teaching collections. Given the complex legacy and history of some of UCL’s collections, we are animated by the question of how we can learn from the past and create teaching collections in more ethical, engaged, and participatory ways.
We are committed to embedding a community-led approach to collecting at the Culture Lab which will continue to be refined over the coming years.
Through this work we want to unpack and ask:
- Who decides what to collect and not to collect?
- Who such collections are for?
- How can the Culture Lab teaching collections be relevant, engaging and meaningful to UCL East staff and students and the local communities living in the neighbouring boroughs?
- How can sound and stories be collected, centred and shared?
We will also interrogate how collections are defined, be they objects, stories or sounds etc. as well as the ethics and frameworks of care needed for contemporary collecting.
With support of Culture Lab staff, the Curator in Residence will:
- Develop and run a pilot project on community-led collecting with one or more community partners in East London. These can be existing or new partners.
- Develop and run two events relating to Future Collecting, which will involve UCL staff, students and community partners. One event will form part of the UCL 200 programme.
The Culture Lab is one of two spaces managed by the School for the Creative and Cultural Industries (SCCI). The second space, the UCL Urban Room hosts events, exhibitions, workshops and engagement with students, researchers, artists and community members. The Memory Workshop is a project inside the Urban Room with technical kit for digitisation, playback and sound recording including a mobile cargo bike that can take this kit outside of the university. During the residency the successful applicant will have the opportunity to work across both spaces, working with the Urban Room Curator and making use of the Urban Room facilities.
The Curator in Residence will receive a stipend of £10,400 for 8 weeks work (or part time equivalent) and a workspace on the UCL East campus. Additional budget will be available for the organisation of events, community engagement activities and workshops.
Visit UCL East (UCL East | UCL East - UCL – University College London) to find out more about life on the campus and the programmes offered at UCL East.
Criteria/eligibility
The Residency is open to applicants at any career stage, creative practitioners, collections professionals and independent researchers. A museum background is not essential; we welcome applicants with a community-led practice and interest in museums.
Applicants need to ensure that they are eligible to work in the UK before making arrangements. UCL will undertake Right to Work checks for successful candidates. Please use the UK government website to check what documentation you need. UCL is unable to support visa applications.
The criteria which will be used to assess your application are:
- Experience of facilitating workshops with community groups
- Experience of organising events in a cultural heritage or arts setting
- The feasibility and potential of the proposed approach to community-led collecting
- Whilst you do not need to have prior museum experience, some experience and interest in thinking about and engaging with collections is desired (collections can be diversely defined- e.g. material objects, archives, sound, digital assets etc.).
How to apply and deadlines
The deadline for applications is 11:59pm Thursday 5 February 2026.
Applicants should send the following documents to CultureLab_forms@ucl.ac.uk
- Completed application form
- Curriculum Vitae
You will receive an automatic receipt on submission. If you do not get this, please contact s.byrne@ucl.ac.uk. Please note that we can only accept documentation sent with your application. Any evidence submitted after the closing date will not be reviewed by the panel.
Any questions on the Residency, please contact Sarah Byrne, UCL Culture Lab Curator and Manager (s.byrne@ucl.ac.uk)
Applications will be shortlisted in mid-February, and up to 5 candidates will be asked to interview in late February.
Feedback will be provided to shortlisted candidates. We regret that, due to volume, we cannot usually provide detailed feedback other than this.
We aim to be as flexible as possible around the dates and duration of the Residency, however these will need to be agreed in advance with Culture Lab staff, as will any changes during the term of the Residency.