Project Archivist

The role

The Project Archivist will be appointed for 18 months on a part-time basis (50%). The role is attached to an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project ‘Colonial Reels: Histories and Afterlives of Colonial Film Collections’. This three-year project (1 April 2024-31 March 2027) is led by Dr Jacqueline Maingard, Associate Professor in Film, University of Bristol. The project is researching the colonial film collections of four partner archives, British Empire and Commonwealth Collection (BECC), British Film Institute (BFI), Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) and Wellcome Collection. The project is also working with contemporary African and Indian filmmakers/visual artists calling for access to films and footage taken in and of British colonies.

What will you be doing?

The Project Archivist will work primarily with the Principal Investigator and two Co-Investigators, and with archivists in the partner archives, particularly the BECC and the RAI, to identify films and film footage for possible digitisation. In the first three months in the role, the Project Archivist will become acquainted with the archives, their collections, and their archival protocols, and begin the selection process. Thereafter, they will work alongside the project’s Digitisation Officer, who is based in the Theatre Collection, University of Bristol, for one year, in order to scope the films and catalogue the selections. Digital copies will be created by the Digitisation Officer. The Project Archivist will remain in the role for a further three months to complete catalogues and records. The role will include some travel (mainly London and possibly Cambridge), normally not exceeding a short stay of one to two nights.

You should apply if

You meet the qualifications required and have further training, education or experience of working in film archiving, or related experience that you could apply to the role, including for example, cataloguing film collections; film technologies across analogue and/or digital forms; film preservation and formats; an interest in film history and/or British colonial history; and knowledge of current debates in relation to decolonisation and access to archives, especially film archives.

Additional information

For informal enquiries please contact: Jacqueline Maingard, j.maingard@bristol.ac.uk

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