About the writer: Miriam Mallalieu

Miriam Mallalieu is an artist whose practice balances sculpture and storytelling, but also includes film, print and publication. Her doctoral research What does a museum think it is? Research and practice at the intersection of knowledge, interpretation and organisation (Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, 2018-2022) focused on ideas of ‘making sense.’ Through a methodology that she describes as ‘provocation through disruptive taxonomy’ she uses processes of reorganisation, repetition and deconstruction to draw attention to the structures by which things are understood. Her current project explores how objects in museum collections are changed through their context. Key issues include implications of active and passive objects, questions of significance, value and narrative, subjectivity and politics of collection, and how all of these contribute to form a structure that holds claim to universal or encyclopaedic representation.