I have been constantly inspired by working at museums… and today on International Museum Day 2017 I’d like to share a video I created whilst working at Manchester Museum a couple of years ago.

I was working on a collection of crustaceans, but had the opportunity to explore so many other uses of the museum. One rainy afternoon in Manchester, I was fascinated to meet poet Helen Clare and see her creative process. She arrived at the museum with the aim of creating a poem, and I filmed her journey. Firstly, she made a list of words inspired by the museum. From these words, she chose the word ‘migration’. She then made a list of words related to the idea of migration. From this final list, she chose the word ‘belonging’. I took a walk around the museum with Helen, and she sought inspiration from the public display cases. We came back to the entomology department where she created a poem based on all her observations of migration and belonging in the museum. See the process in my video below, ending in Helen’s recital of her poem.