ODSECS 33: Tatjana LeBoff

Title: Glitz, Glamour, Grind and Grit: telling Georgian stories through immersive experiences at Bath Assembly Rooms

Abstract:
“The chairs are order’d, and the moment comes, When all the world assemble at the rooms.” -- Charles Molloy Westmacott, The English Spy, 1825
The Bath Assembly Rooms in Bath, as the above quote suggests, were a place of congregation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. People were the purpose of the Assembly Rooms, connection and sociability their everyday business. Whilst for some this was a place of entertainment, dancing, music, fun and play, for others it was a place of work, business, drudgery and toil. Behind the glamour and glitz of the Assembly Rooms’ façade, lies the grit and graft of those working to keep the Rooms and the Company fed, lit, heated and amused.
But how to bring the research of the stories of these people and the building to life for twenty first-century visitors? How do you bring authenticity and interest into a space which is now largely devoid of the furniture and collections which would have framed the balls and concerts which once took place there? And how do you find relevance and showcase links to the past for our visitors today?
Join Tatjana LeBoff, Project Curator for the Bath Assembly Rooms and the National Trust, as she talks about the research, experience design, architectural design and community work the National Trust are doing to create a newly designed immersive visitor experience.

Bio:

Tatjana LeBoff is the Project Curator for the Bath Assembly Rooms (National Trust), having previously held contemporary curatorial positions at the Barbican, London and Pembroke College, Oxford. Her interests lie in the interplay between art, design, fashion, architecture, society, food and the lived environment, exploring how social and individual identities are constructed, conveyed and reformed. With a focus on how complex concepts can be communicated to a wide audience through curation, dynamic displays, diverse narratives, participatory activity and multidisciplinary collaboration, the experiential and emotive value of art and heritage is paramount to her curatorial practice.
She is currently leading a curatorial project at the Bath Assembly Rooms creating a new visitor experience which reimagines the building during its Georgian heyday. Additionally, she is a co-editing a new collection on the Assembly Rooms and Bath, entitled Bath and Beyond: The Social and Cultural World of the Georgian Assembly Room, which will be published by Routledge as part of their Studies in Eighteenth-Century Cultures and Societies series in the near future.