The Curators’ Lives archive is a collection of oral history interviews with V&A museum professionals from the past (and present). This archive is a door into various museum collections and departments and it allows us to see how the various departments of the V&A have changed, evolved, and merged over the years. In some cases, it also highlights how departments have ceased to exist, such as the Circulation department.

Circulation was a department unlike any other as they were not limited to the collecting of one particular aspect of art and design, like textiles or ceramics. The purpose of Circulation was the creation of travelling, or so-called circulating, exhibitions to be sent to art colleges, museums and institutions across the UK, and even on occasion travelling internationally. The Curators’ Lives archive, while not an archive specifically of Circulation staff, offers great insight into the running of this department, how objects would be packaged and transported, as well as the vast array of exhibitions that they created.

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