Contemporary Cornish Life

The Museum will continue to adopt a ‘for folk, by folk’ ethos in its collecting activities. There are  two key goals for future collecting, falling under the umbrella of Documenting Contemporary Cornish Life:

1. Diversify away from nostalgia and nostalgia-focused audiences
2. Challenge stereotypes, including Cornish.

What story does the object tell?

All collecting, especially those items offered for donation, should demonstrate a clear connection between the museum’s mission, research and engagement programmes and audience development. This enables the Museum to generate new and interesting stories about Cornish life today and in the recent past. The Museum will collect digital and material culture that meet the following criteria:

• Have good provenance – a connection – to person, place, event, institution in Cornwall (it must have a story to tell)
• Meet under-represented Cornish Life criteria
• Confirm our commitment to everyday Cornish identities, cultures and histories
• Are immediately available for research, education or display.

Engagement-led collecting

The Museum will actively collect or commission digital and material culture produced as a direct consequence of its activity and programming. As an example, in 2022 as part of the annual Helston Makes It festival, the Museum collected a ‘Perry knife’ made by Philip Crewe in the Museum inspired by his ancestor’s story of living in Helston Workhouse.

Engagement-led collecting will help the Museum develop a new framework within which to reconsider themes and connectivity within existing collections, particularly to reframe them as precious and distinctive source material and inspiration for makers and creatives.

Digital first

In 2023, in recognition of space, resource and environmental limits, the Museum began a pilot to collect with a digital first attitude.

As an example, we curated Overrated Cornwall, an exhibition-led contemporary collecting project in collaboration with artist Sally Mitchell of Mevagissey, supported by Feast Cornwall. Her digital graphic artworks explored themes of over-tourism in Cornwall using humour and visual nostalgia for vintage holiday posters. These artworks are now part of the Museum’s collection.

Since 2018 the Museum has been the annual host of Cornwall’s Animation Festival in collaboration with Falmouth University. The power of animation and film in documenting contemporary Cornish life and thought has inspired us to recognise that much of cultural value in contemporary Cornish Life is born digital. A digital first approach to contemporary collecting will better enable the Museum to achieve its goal of communicating with its collections to new and global audiences outside its walls.

The Museum is developing an ethical approach to digital preservation and commits to documenting and caring for digital collections in the same way as physical objects, for the long term.

Geography

The Museum will to continue to collect items, especially physical ones, from the area defined by the Helston and South Kerrier Community Network Area. However, the Museum’s geographical remit will extend to the whole of Cornwall if the item in question is particularly well-provenanced and of importance to Cornish heritage. In exceptional circumstances, and particularly if the item is digital and speaks to an important subject, the Museum may consider collecting from further afield, such as from Cornish diasporas and relations.

Themes and types

The Museum does not set any subject or type-related limits and judges new acquisitions on a case by case basis. The kind of material and themes the Museum wishes to actively collect includes:

• Original digital photographs, film, audio documenting Cornish life and thinking
• Original digital animation and artwork documenting Cornish life and thinking
• Cornish issues, e.g. living, working, landscape, language, protest, transport, money, health
• Cornish folklore and folk art across periods; materials and making
• Cornish intangible heritage, especially music, sport, performance
• Exceptional objects from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (based at the Museum)
• Late 20^th and 21^st-century costume, designed in Cornwall.

The Museum will not collect:

• Human or animal remains
• Geological specimens only if at risk of permanent loss to the public
• Large and working objects.