Collected Works

2026

Collected Works is a photographic study exploring the impulse to acquire objects, a familiar but often overlooked behaviour that reflects wider patterns of accumulation. This project examines collecting as a meaningful and valuable cultural practice, but also a compelling lens through which to examine the values, desires, and habits that drive consumer culture and, by extension, environmental degradation. Photographs of a range of private and institutional collections ground the study in contexts recognisable to a broad audience. Bringing together imagery and conceptual framing, it invites the viewer to reflect on the value of carefully assembled objects, but also to reconsider how consumption shapes and affects the world.

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A man with long white hair examines a large gilt-framed portrait painting in a museum storage space, with photography lighting equipment beside him

Portrait painting in store. Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness, 2025.

A man arranges Simpsons merchandise and toys at a shelf beside a large Homer Simpson figure dressed as Santa Claus

A close view of Simpsons merchandise: figures, board games, and boxed collectables densely arranged on shelves

Simpsons toys and merchandise. Private collection, Barrow-in-Furness, 2025.

A hand points at the surface of a large landscape watercolour painting lying flat on a table

Turner watercolour undergoing restoration. Abbot Hall, Kendal, 2025.

A hand holds an aged handwritten document, its ink faded and paper worn with age

17^th century manuscript. Cumbria Archives, Carlisle, 2025.

A conservator leans over an old manuscript document on a white table, working carefully with tweezers and tools

Conservation tools — a scalpel, spatula, eraser block, and tweezers — laid out beside an aged manuscript on a white table

Manuscript undergoing conservation. Cumbria Archives, Carlisle, 2025.

Shelves holding bound volumes of The Clarion newspaper from the 1910s to 1930s, alongside stacks of deteriorating periodicals

Bound volumes of The Clarion and The Times. Private collection, Barrow-in-Furness, 2025.

Floor-to-ceiling white shelving units packed with hundreds of small plastic toys, figurines, and miscellaneous objects in every colour

Toys and figurines, mostly plastic. Private collection, Barrow-in-Furness, 2025.

A woman wearing gloves handles a piece of decorative ceramics beside a display cabinet filled with porcelain figurines and tableware

Porcelain and ceramics collection in store. Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, 2025.

A marble bust of a man on a stone plinth in a cluttered museum store, with a taxidermy bird diorama and sheet-draped sculptures behind

Marble bust in store. Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, 2025.

A taxidermy deer head covered in a translucent plastic sheet in a natural history museum store

Taxidermied deer in store. Kendal Museum, 2025.

A man in a teal t-shirt stands in a dense archive storeroom lined with flat archival boxes on metal shelving

Archivist in archive. Cumbria Archive, Carlisle, 2025.

A shelving unit crowded with vintage household product packaging — soap powder boxes, razor blades, and other branded tins and packets — with boxes of comics below

Vintage household goods and comics. Private collection, Barrow-in-Furness, 2025.

An open wooden specimen cabinet drawer revealing rows of pinned entomological specimens, with binders stacked on top

Pinned entomological specimens. Kendal Museum, 2025.

A taxidermy animal head with large horns, partially covered by a translucent plastic sheet, against a grey wall

A taxidermy animal covered in a plastic sheet, its horn protruding, in a dimly lit natural history store

Multiple taxidermy specimens loosely wrapped in plastic sheeting on a shelf

A taxidermy animal shrouded in plastic sheeting beside a glass display case, resting on a wooden floor

Taxidermied southern African antelope. Kendal Museum, 2025.

A row of dressmaker's mannequin torsos wrapped in translucent plastic bags hanging in a dark storage space

Mannequin torsos. Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, 2025.

Unframed paintings stacked on wooden racks in an art store; the foremost shows two figures under a yellow light

Paintings in art store. Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, 2025.

A curator holds an abstract painting in a gallery art store, surrounded by racks of framed and unframed works

Curator and painting in art store. Abbot Hall, Kendal, 2025.

A collector holds up a large Morrissey concert poster reading The Boy Racer, 27th November — Morrissey on Tour with David Bowie

The same collector unrolls a large Morrissey tour poster in a kitchen

Morrissey poster. Private collection, Carnforth, 2025.

A typed museum catalogue card

Specimen attribution sticker. Kendal Museum, 2025.

The back of a picture frame covered in exhibition labels and handwritten inscriptions

Exhibition labels on back of painting. Abbot Hall, Kendal, 2025.

A gloved hand slides a small black-and-white photograph of two men standing beside hanging fish across a worn wooden table

Archive photograph. Cumbria Archive, Carlisle, 2025.

A woman sits in an armchair gesturing expressively, with a tall glass cabinet of Barbie dolls and doll-related memorabilia behind her

Sindy dolls. Private collection, Lancaster, 2025.

A vintage blonde doll seated in a red toy convertible car on a plastic storage box

Sindy doll in toy car. Private collection, Lancaster, 2025.

An elderly woman examines a small object from a box of mixed brass hardware and watch parts in a cluttered garden shed

Brass hardware and clockwork parts. Private collection, Lancaster, 2025.

An open antique music box with a decorative cherub illustration on the inside lid and a metal disc on the turntable

Antique music box. Private collection, Kendal, 2025.

A man stands in his sitting room surrounded by a collection of antique wooden music boxes of various sizes, with a tall ornate clock against the wall

Music boxes. Private collection, Kendal, 2025.

Rows of glass display cases stacked on metal shelving in a natural history museum store, containing geological and natural history specimens

Natural history specimens in museum store. Kendal Museum, 2025.

Five men in work clothes and high-visibility vests sitting inside a bus, talking during a break

An elevated view inside a large industrial workshop with several vintage double-decker and single-decker buses in various states of restoration

Volunteers and bus collection. Barrow Transport Group, Barrow-in-Furness, 2025.

Two men stand talking beside a partially stripped vintage bus body in a workshop, one in a hi-vis vest, the other in a brown work coat

Bus restoration workshop. Barrow Transport Group, Barrow-in-Furness, 2025.

A person's feet in sandals beside a display case containing a pair of ornate white beaded flat shoes on a wooden floor

Ornate shoes. Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, 2025.

Dozens of dust-coated cast-iron shoe lasts of various sizes packed into a wooden crate

Cast-iron shoe lasts. Private collection, Kendal, 2025.