The Waddesdon Files: A Five-Year Collaborative Project for MA students

The University of Buckingham partners with Waddesdon Manor (the Rothschild Collection) to create an exciting opportunity for students studying for MA Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors and MA Art Market, Provenance and History of Collecting qualification.

A dynamic new partnership between The University of Buckingham’s History of Art Department and the collections staff at Waddesdon Manor, generously funded by the Rothschild Foundation, has created a five-year collaborative project between two taught MA programmes, under the title The Waddesdon Files.

Both the MA Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors and MA Art Market, Provenance and History of Collecting courses engage with themes that are inherent to Waddesdon Manor, its history and the Rothschild collections; making The Waddesdon Files a natural progression of an existing relationship between the two organisations.

The Waddesdon Files will take the form of a website designed by Legend Times Press, showcasing content created by the University’s postgraduate students. Each year – between 2024/5-2029/30 – the participating students will create entries, thematic essays, blogs and podcasts under the supervision of course tutors Dr Lindsay Macnaughton and Dr Adriano Aymonino, alongside the collections staff at Waddesdon Manor. This will serve to highlight unexpected areas of the collection with new research, or explore better-known elements in fresh ways or within different contexts, with the aim of presenting them to a wider audience via a digital platform.

The Waddesdon Files will also draw on the assessed outcome of a new module – dubbed the Objects Interpretation Project – shared between the MA Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors and the MA Art Market, Provenance and History of Collecting, which focuses on key transferable skills for jobs in the arts and heritage sector including practical tasks, contact with museum collections and group work.

Pippa Shirley, Director of Waddesdon Manor, said:

“We have known and worked with the University of Buckingham for many years and I’m delighted that this project will strengthen our existing friendship and long-standing relationships. Partnerships between museums and academia with tangible outputs exist for doctoral students, but currently not in the same way for MA students. The Waddesdon Files will create an innovative and groundbreaking model for other pre-PhD collaborations in the sector, as well as encouraging vocational skills in object analysis, cataloguing and research which will stand them in good stead in the arts and heritage professional sectors.”

She added: “The Collections team at Waddesdon believes that the project will help draw in the much-needed next generation of specialists and encourage exploration and interpretation of the collections in diverse ways by suggesting new and alternative object histories, and offering access to parts of the collections that may not yet have received in-depth attention”.

This practical project, with key vocational elements and integrated networking options, is part of The University of Buckingham’s wider mission to make its taught MAs more inclusive and increase the employability of graduates. The project coincides with the launch of restructured curricula for the two taught MA programmes, and with the launch of a new MA in Migration History: People, Objects and Cultures in September 2024. The University’s programmes include vocational training and updated methodological approaches to the study of historic objects and interiors.