Hi Ed
To answer your questions:
1) Yes, people work freelance or are employed as a curator in which case you'll need an MA in Museology or similar and a degree in a relevant subject.
2) Most who write freelance for museums are ex-curators, so see 1). It's a hard field to get into. Even with 15 years' curatorial experience it still took me 1.5 unpaid years to find my first piece of work. It's generally contract work, so you find a contract on the internet and apply for it as per usual job interviews and you get the work. Lots of job applications! Lots of networking and travelling to networking meetings and museum meetings to meet people who might one day need a consultant.
3) Pay entirely depends on the contract. It could be dire or average. Have a look in the Museums Journal - it has jobs and you can see (and laugh in a hollow way) at the pay. People work in museums for the love of it - a bit like nursing or teaching.
The thing is, you need to know a lot about 1) the subject you are writing for and 2) how to write text for museums, which is quite different from say IT or journalism or book writing or marketing copy.
The other thing is that museums don't employ writers alone - they just don't have the cash. They employ freelance curators, so when writing it's because I'm mounting an exhibition for them. This year I've done Arab Race Horses, WW1 Hospital and the Cold War at Greenham Common, but they all wanted curators, not writers.
I hope that this helps.
Faith Carpenter
www.thecompanycurator.co.uk
On 26 August 2018 at 17:12 Ed Heel <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hello!
I’m interested in making a career change, from technical authoring in IT, and one area that I’m interested in is writing or editing interpretive content for museums, galleries and so on. So, I have a few questions, that I’d be grateful if you could answer, please:
- Do most writers work freelance rather than as employees? If so, would you normally start by working as an employee, to gain experience?
- How do you get started? What qualifications, training or experience are needed?
- What’s the pay like? Can you give any rough figures?
Any answers or redirections to further info would be gratefully received.
With regards,
Ed
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