My life in boxes

Boxes have been an unintended running theme of this blog over the past years. From the design itself (see below) to discussions of conferences, theatre staging and storage decisions, I seem to keep coming up against them. That's become more true than ever in the last months as I've packed up my life in Cambridge - desk, kitchen, books, spoons and all - and moved back to London. You don't realise how many things you have until you have to box them up and carry them. Now at least I have the joy of unpacking and rediscovering my things.

But I also feel that I've been opening and closing boxes in a more abstract sense. In preparation for moving life and work to Greenwich I've largely 'packed up' a lot of the activities that shaped my interactions with the museum sector, some since before starting this blog. I've finished my ICOMON work at the British Museum, I've signed off as Electronic Media Editor for the Journal of Museum Ethnography, I've finished my stores work for the Whipple, I've handed over as convenor of the Things seminar, and I've (almost) put my PhD to bed.

Instead, I've opened some small London-based boxes that I hope will take me in interesting new directions: I've joined the 100 Hours Project, and I've started to write for the Apollo Magazine website. And, most importantly, I've opened a very large and exciting box in the shape of becoming Curator of Art at Royal Museums Greenwich. After a week on the job, I'm just beginning to get to grips with quite how much I have to learn!

One box that's remaining firmly open is this blog, which I hope will continue to provide me with a space in which to think about all things museum, but this seemed a fitting moment to reflect on where it's got me so far, with some appropriate 'naval' gazing. It's kind of like that phrase from the Sound of Music 'where the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window,' but with more boxes.

A reminded of the design this blog had back in 2013 using blogger