Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities

Host organisation: Travelling Gallery

Project title: Art on the Move: Using visitor comments books to explore audience experiences of a mobile gallery

Project description

The Travelling Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in a bus, unique to Scotland. Since 1978 the gallery has been taking contemporary visual art to every part of Scotland so that people from every background and community have the opportunity to engage with inspiring and experimental art practices. We use our exceptional reach to break down some of the barriers in visiting a gallery, engaging audiences in their own surroundings, visiting local high streets, community centres, libraries and schools.

Touring 3 contemporary art exhibitions a year, we have consistently recorded visitor feedback throughout this time, collating a collection of comments books from exhibitions in the gallery from1995 to present day.

We are interested in looking at our visitor comments to extrapolate what is special about the gallery’s model for visitors and whether a different model would serve the same purpose? The gallery is about to enter into a pivotal and crucial time in its history. In 2028 the gallery will be 50 years old, and our current vehicle will be 20 years old. We know the current vehicle is coming to the end of its life and that this research would help us better understand what is important or valuable about the service to our audiences, as well as what concerns them, as we decide how the Travelling Gallery service might look in the future.

Whilst we are aware that that visitor comments come loaded with bias we are interested in coding these comments and breaking them down into; emotional, aesthetic, practical, cultural and sociological responses, as well as understanding what the commentary or interactions relate to; experience, an exhibition or artwork, geographical location, or the vehicle for example. We are interested to know what our visitors have shared that is relevant to understanding our service, both past and present, and how that might help shape our future.

Some references we acknowledge as a starting point for this research include:

• What the books say – the usefulness of visitor books as a research source
• Accessing audiences: visiting visitor books | Museum and Society
• Museum Management and visitor books there might be a link
• Understanding Visitor Comments: The Case of Flight Time Barbie
• Do Visitors Get It? A Sweatshop Exhibit and Visitors' Comments

Outputs

We would like to understand what common threads stem from our visitor feedback. Do the visitor comments demonstrate meeting a need be that on an individual or societal level. What benefits or challenges are people experiencing and sharing when visiting the gallery? Do any of the comments have a specificity to the gallery being mobile; either directly or indirectly?

Utilising over 30 years of visitor comments what can we learn from our visitors, and have there been any significant changes in feedback over the years; for example as we have moved into a more digital society, is our model still relevant and necessary?

The gallery also holds a significant collection of daily reports (again from over 30 years) written by its members of staff who have accompanied the galley when out touring. Can we also draw out themes/evidence from these too? These reports have never been looked at as a body of evidence or data on the galleries work, however these reports often contain anecdotes from staff on specific visitor experiences or reactions to the gallery and exhibitions, and the interactions and conversations which take place in the gallery. What can we learn from this anecdotal data that might add richness and examples to our understanding of the benefits and challenges of a mobile gallery service?

In person/remote/hybrid

Hybrid.

The internship can be a blend of both in-person and remote. Some tasks will require the intern to be based at City Art Centre to access documents and our archive as well as work alongside the team but there will also be opportunity to complete work remotely.

Benefits to the researcher

The Travelling Gallery is a unique model for a contemporary art gallery and one that is not replicated in the same way anywhere else in the world, and certainly not with the consistency of years. We are proud that for almost 50 years the Travelling Gallery model has made Scotland world leaders in providing the basic opportunity for all citizens to engage with contemporary art. The researcher will have the opportunity to embed themselves for a short period of time within the team and organisation to learn more about the work we do, and the model of a mobile initiative, as well as gain an insight into our work through our audience feedback.

The work undertaken by the researcher will be hugely beneficial to the organisation and used either as a starting point for further enquiry, and or to support our future strategy and work.

The opportunity may be of interest to someone with an interest in anthropology or sociology; cultural or visitor studies; arts management and or gallery/art engagement.

Key relationships

The researcher will work closely with the Travelling Gallery staff team comprising of the Curator; Learning & Engagement Officer; Administrator and Operations Coordinator, and Driver/Operator. There may be the opportunity to also speak to some of our regular partners as well as previous members of staff.

We would like to encourage the researcher to visit the gallery on a number of occasions across a variety of geographic locations and across both public days and educational (school) visits in order to understand the context of the comments and reports as well as the mobile model itself. We believe additional first-hand observation will support the research.

Subject areas

This opportunity would be relevant to the following subject areas:

Visual Arts; Curating; Museum and Gallery Studies; Museum Policy & Management; Cultural Geography; Art History; Policy, Arts Management and Creative Industries; Archives; Information and Knowledge Management.

Person specification

A1. Knowledge Base

• Essential: Research methods – Practical application; Information Seeking.
• Desirable: Subject Knowledge; Research methods – theoretical knowledge; Information literacy and management.

A2. Cognitive Abilities

• Essential: Analysing; Critical thinking; Evaluating.
• Desirable: Synthesising.

A3. Creativity

• Desirable: Inquiring minds; Intellectual insight; Innovation; Argument construction.

B1. Personal qualities

• Desirable: Enthusiasm; Perseverance; Integrity; Self-reflection; Responsibility.

B2. Self management

• Essential: Preparation and prioritisation; Commitment to research; Time management.

B3. Professional & career development

• Essential: Responsiveness to opportunities; Networking.
• Desirable: Continuing professional development.

C1. Professional conduct

• Essential: Respect and confidentiality; Appropriate practice.
• Desirable: Ethics, principles and sustainability; IPR and copyright.

C2. Research management

• Essential: Research Strategy; Project planning and delivery.

D1. Working with others

• Essential: Collegiality; Team working; Collaboration.
• Desirable: Influence and leadership; Equality and diversity.

D2. Communication & dissemination

• Essential: Communication methods; Communication media.
• Desirable: Publication.

D3. Engagement & impact

• Essential: Society and culture.
• Desirable: Public Engagement; Policy.

---

First published: 28 September 2026