The Caretakers, Starting on Monday 13th July 2020, made with the support of Metal

A new audio-based artwork that takes audiences behind the closed doors of UK arts organisations to find fresh perspectives in suspended collections.

The Caretakers invites you to inside 6 museums in the last month of lockdown. Your hosts are those who have been caring for the collections in our absence- security and buildings teams. They’ve spent time making audio recordings of themselves talking while alone during their shifts. I have been working closely with them to create the audio and also to shape it into this series which you can now hear.

I knew that this project had all the ingredients to be good but I couldn’t know it would be quite so special.  Through the eyes of these Caretakers, we are allowed a rare glimpse, not just into the closed museum spaces, and the quiet collections, but into the lives and reflections of the people who find themselves often the sole inhabitants of these usually thriving places. Each piece feels intimate and personal- a gift. You want to listen carefully because you might never get this chance again. What they say is beautiful and interesting and moving and funny. But you can also hear each person thinking, you can hear them sigh and you can hear them laugh as they share their thoughts with you while they go on their patrols, as they sit in chairs they’ve never tried before or as they find themselves in grand echoey rooms on a Thursday afternoon all alone.

Everything is about to change again- museums are getting ready to reopen. Thank you Marta, Alex, Steve, Ciara, John and Gum - our Caretakers – who let us in.

Twitter and Instagram @caretakertales