Interview with Heather Mayfield by Emily Rees

Mayfield, Heather; Rees Koerner, Emily

doi:10.60875/y81j-j588

Interview with Heather Mayfield by Emily Rees

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2025-05-05_HeatherMayfieldInterview_Transcript_FINAL.pdf

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Mayfield, Heather

Rees Koerner, Emily

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May 5, 2025

Abstract

In this practitioner interview, Heather Mayfield, former deputy director of the Science Museum, spoke to Emily Rees about her career at the Science Museum Group, which spanned over 30 years. Unlike many other curators, Heather’s background was not academic; her experience in the museum world was acquired through practical means, with a strong focus on temporary exhibitions. Having begun working with the Wellcome collections in the late 1970s, Heather moved to the newly opened National Photography, Film and Television Museum (now the National Science and Media Museum) in Bradford in the 1980s, before returning to the Science Museum, where she was curator on the gallery Food for Thought: the Sainsbury Gallery. Heather and Emily discussed the legacy of this gallery, including the curatorial approaches, its reception, and its place within museum history (it was the subject of Sharon Macdonald’s now seminal ethnography Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum). Heather talked about the importance of directors at SMG, in particular, Neil Cossons, who became director in 1986, following the departure of Margaret Weston, and arguably revolutionised practices at the Science Museum after it moved from an arm of government run by civil servants to oversight by trustees. An important shift identified by Heather is the focus on contemporary science in the 1990s – which she conjectures was led by the trustees – and resulted in the creation of the Wellcome Wing in 2000, home to the flagship permanent gallery Making the Modern World. This practitioner interview offers insight into the varied career of one museum curator, but it also tells the story of the Science Museum – and the wider Science Museum Group – in a time of transition, when museum practices, personnel and funding models changed, paving the way for the Group in its current guise.