Welcome to the Victorian Summer Project prepared by the MA Victorian Studies at Birkbeck.  This pedagogic initiative draws on the Pre-Raphaelites Online Network, which brings Birkbeck, Birmingham, Exeter and Purdue together with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Delaware Art Gallery, The Watts Gallery, the Yale Center for British Art, and the COVE Collective.

We are going to curate "virtual exhibitions" about the Pre-Raphaelites. Working in small groups, identify an exhibition theme and select eight objects through which to explore that theme. Each member of the group will be tasked with researching two objects. As a group, you will need to think about how you will introduce the collection and exhibition theme. Each group will produce a virtual exhibition on the COVE Editions platform.

Imagine you are a curator from one of the institutions participating in the Pre-Raphaelites Online (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Delaware Art Gallery, The Watts Gallery, Yale Center for British Art). For your exhibition you want to complement one of the Pre-Raphaelite objects in your collection with objects loaned from elsewhere. 

Now imagine that you work at one of the institutions participating in the Pre-Raphaelites Online (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Delaware Art Gallery, The Watts Gallery, Yale Center for British Art). Look through individual exhibition ideas that individual curators have pitched. Pick three, drawing on elements from more than one presentation, to complement one (or more) object(s) in your collection. Select or propose a title, and draft a rationale for your choice: it can be as short or as long as you want, but check out online exhibition blurbs for inspiration. 

The next step is to redistribute the curatorial team into groups each working on one of those three ideas as a team to develop it into an exhibition. You will be working to produce a title, an introductory section including an image and a text of up to 150 words introducing the collection and exhibition theme; add 8 further sections featuring an image and caption text of up to 100 words for each object.