Alumni Check-In | Elizabeth Cytko
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| Kate Wolforth, MMSt. (1997-1999) has been Manager of Collections, Exhibitions and Technical Services at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery in St. John’s, NL since 2014. |
Kate Wolforth is the Manager of Exhibitions, and the Collections/Exhibitions Program Supervisor at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery . She graduated from the Museum Studies program in 1999. Kate keeps the show running, maintaining schedules, and ensuring that the exhibition changeover is completed smoothly.
What is your favourite memory from your time in the Museum program?
The other students and all the discussions we had. Just having the time to think, talk, read, and we had some good debates. It was a really small program in the late 1990s. We only had about 13 students. Everybody was just so passionate and happy to be there. I enjoyed my internship as well. I did my internship at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. I worked with the education department doing all kinds of things. I developed an exhibition for kids and I worked on their summer camp program. I learned a ton – this museum was very supportive of interns at the time.
Is there anything you wish you had done while you were in the program?
I wish I had put myself out there more. I didn't publish anything. All the time that I spent writing papers for courses and I didn't turn any of [the papers] into a journal article while I had the time to think and write. Yes, so that's probably my biggest regret.
Can you give me a brief overview of where you work?
I work at The Rooms, which is the major provincial facility in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Rooms is home to the provincial art gallery, museum and archives. We manage all of the important objects related to this place. It's a really exciting institution - especially if you're someone like me, who likes art, but also likes history. This place has a truly fascinating past and a very vibrant culture. It’s a great place to live and work.
What does a typical day entail at your job?
A lot of my work is sitting at a desk, writing emails to people, buying things… it could be any administrative job. There's also the interesting part where we're working with an artist to develop a commission or sculpture, and you're trying to get plans together for exhibitions and reading over texts that the curators create. That kind of thing is what's really fun. We change over exhibitions every three months. Even when you're finished an exhibition, you're going right into another one. There's not really time to relax!
Definitely, people from the mainland don't know exactly how far we are. It takes seven to ten days of shipping from Montreal or Toronto, and I have to allow for the fact that the ferry might shut down. In wintertime, we can have weeks sometimes when the ferry doesn't cross and we have no other link. If something's really urgent, I try to ship it by air, but in general our shipping costs are very expensive. So again, when we're doing tours of exhibitions from here, people in central Canada are used to sending things out for a few thousand dollars; it can be tens of thousands of dollars for us to send an exhibition. We have to make a special request in wintertime for the transport trucks to find a spot on the ferry where they can plug in so that they can keep things at a regulated temperature. Transport is probably the biggest issue and also access to colleagues.
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| The Rooms presented SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft of Nunatsiavut in Fall 2016. It is currently touring across
Canada and is set to open at the Art Gallery of Windsor in October 2019. Photo courtesy of Kate Wolforth |
A current exhibition we are touring right now is called SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft of Nunatsiavut, curated by Dr. Heather Igloliorte. It is a very challenging to tour because it involves 40 artists and 80 artworks. All of those artists required a contract, all of those objects have to be tracked and installed in each venue. We found, after we developed it, that there weren't a lot of venues that could take a show that big. It's a beautiful show. We're so proud that our institution was able to put it together and tour it. It has received huge, wonderful accolades. It was a bit of a beast, challenging but worth it.
Do you have any tips for negotiating (with suppliers/team/other museums)?
Clarity of communication is probably the biggest recommendation. Make sure emails are straightforward, say what you want to do and why, because we're all really busy. Be clear about what your limits are. When you’re not clear up front it generally leads to trouble down the line. We’ve tried to make sure our contracts are airtight pieces of legal language.
What are some of the greatest risks you have taken in your career?
Every time you move jobs: I've left jobs that I really enjoyed for other opportunities, when I felt it was time to make a change. It's always a risk when you take a new job, because you don't know exactly what you’re going into. So far, I’ve been very lucky – the jobs I’ve moved into in my career have given me opportunities to grow and learn.
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| The current major summer exhibition at The Rooms Future Possible: Art of Newfoundland and Labrador from 1949
to Present is a comprehensive look at the art history of the province. Photo courtesy of Jordan Blackburn |
I think we all need to think more about environmental sustainability in everything we do. Exhibitions, in particular, can be very wasteful and I think that's something that people need to think about more and more. There need to be different design strategies, different ways of producing materials, and just different ways of doing exhibitions, that isn't so wasteful, that's a direction we need to go in. It is hard to do when people are used to doing things in the same way.
We also need to consider how museums can help people connect in meaningful ways. I think we're all connected to our phones - we're all connected digitally – but we’re all craving real, meaningful connections and experiences. When we do surveys asking why people come to The Rooms, they tell us “we're coming for peace”, “we're coming for calm”, “we're coming to get away”, “we're coming to escape.” When I was doing museum studies we were taught that people come to museums to be social with each other and to learn, but that's not what we're hearing from visitors now. People want to get away, so that kind of changes the way you think about how you design your spaces. All that stuff changes when the goal is to help people relax and find peace. I think that people can learn anything now from their phones, they can learn all the basic facts, anything they want to know, they can look up on Wikipedia. What they come to museums and galleries for is an immersive experience, some way to just be totally enveloped in some other reality. I think that's something that we're going to have to do better.
What is your advice for becoming a great leader?
Recognizing that you're only as strong as the people around you, always thank other people around you; always give credit where credit is due. I think that's really important. Generally we're all moving so fast and we don't get to hear from people about how well we've done. Within our team, I always try to make sure that if we get a compliment from a visitor, it's passed along to the person who actually did the work. If someone's done a good job, they should hear about it, because it motivates them to keep going.
What advice would you give to museum professionals entering the sector today?
I think just be really flexible. Take opportunities when they come. Sometimes you think you might not be interested in something, but try it anyway. You never know what you might learn from that experience. I think in museology, you have so many opportunities to try lots of different things. I've switched back and forth between art and heritage, and I've had a really rich career because of that.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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