Reframing Vivien Leigh: stardom, archives and access

This project examines for the first time how the legacies of screen star Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) are archived and curated by a range of public institutions in the South West of England. Fragments of Leigh's star image have been preserved within scattered museum and archive collections which position her as a global star with local roots, reconnecting her to the South West where she began her married life and fledgling acting career. The project will take public and academic audiences behind the scenes of these local star archives to illuminate new, unseen histories of the Leigh's life and career as one of the twentieth century's most iconic female stars. It will do so via the completion of a new 95,000-word scholarly monograph (to be published with Oxford University Press) and a range of interactive digital resources and public engagement events that will bring archival film histories to new audiences.

Vivien Leigh's summer 2017 anniversary celebrations and the highly publicized opening of her personal archive at the V&A in 2013 testify to her sustained popularity with contemporary audiences. They also testify to the power of archives to reach non-specialist users. The project takes this intense contemporary focus on memorialising Leigh as its catalyst. It foregrounds original scholarly interrogation of Leigh's collections through collaborations with a range of institutions and archivists who have shaped her legacy for distinct regional audiences. These include The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum (BDCM) and its curator Phil Wickham; The Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) and archivist Shelly Tobin; Topsham Museum and curator Rachel Nichols, and the Victoria & Albert Museum's (V&A) Theatre & Performance curator Keith Lodwick, who is the leading specialist on Leigh archives in the UK. By collaborating with these organisations and individuals, the project will illuminate new stories about the meanings and uses of Leigh's stardom for South West audiences and connect these meanings to Leigh's presence as a European star in Hollywood. It will produce detailed new research around museum artefacts that tell of her uniquely South West connections - including costumes, correspondence, scrapbooks and memorabilia - and the curatorial stories that have resulted in their acquisition and regional significance, connecting them to global Hollywood narratives.

The project has 4 core goals:

1) to foreground new histories of Leigh's archival legacies by interrogating her archival memorialisation in the South West (disseminated through an academic monograph, a public event and public talk, international conference presentations and creation of new digital resources [see 'Dissemination']);

2) through archival research and digital humanities methods, to explore the uses of Leigh's archival legacies for archival institutions and examine the specific meanings of women's star heritage for different communities and audiences (disseminated via project podcasts and Story Map resource);

3) through interview work and co-curation, to foreground the role of the archivist in shaping histories of women's screen stardom (disseminated via project podcasts and public events);

4) as a result of the research process, to host a public exhibition and academic symposium, and to complete the final chapters of a scholarly monograph titled Reframing Vivien Leigh: Stardom, Gender and the Archive.
In achieving these goals, the project will give both academic and non-specialist audiences the means to access archives in physical and digital forms (see 'Case for Support' and 'Pathways to Impact'), and presents new ways to conceptualise women's film histories by placing the archive and archivist front and centre. It will facilitate new access to the way star legacies are forged within regional spaces, producing rich new understandings of the connections between local history and global Hollywood narratives.

The following will benefit directly from the research:

1. Collaborating museums and their curators (Tobin and RAMM, Nichols and Topsham Museum, Wickham and BDCM) will benefit from the research and digital outputs, which will instigate change by bringing increased visibility and new forms of access to their collections and curatorial practices. The impact of my project is enabling them to further their educational mission and connect their curatorial practices to outreach. By creating new digital resources for documenting and disseminating archive-based research, the project will create a legacy of the preservation of South West film heritage for future generations of users. The project will use and adapt digital methods for showcasing holdings and curatorial processes that are not easily displayed long-term in physical, permanent exhibition spaces, which has the potential to impact upon the future policies of collaborating institutions for audience engagement and user experience.

2. South West publics will benefit from the digital outputs and exhibitions to give an increased awareness of regional film histories and new access to archival materials. They will benefit from the research by being able to take part in a 2-day public exhibition and academic symposium event hosted at the University of Exeter's Digital Humanities Lab. This will be promoted via the participating museums, via the Vivien Leigh Circle fan club network, and via social media - particularly by engaging South West-based media such as the Express & Echo and Exeter Living Twitter feeds to reach local publics. The exhibition will feature physical archival artefacts and a digital Story Map, allowing users to explore the interconnected histories and geographical journeys of Leigh-related artefacts. The exhibition event will be open to the public with talks from myself as project PI and the project RA, and a roundtable discussion and Q&A with curators from RAMM, Topsham and the BDCM. A segment of the exhibition will be curated by members of the public featuring fan memorabilia (see 'Pathways to Impact' for further detail). South West publics will further benefit from the project by being able to attend a public talk given on the research held at the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum in Exeter.

3. Public audiences beyond the South West will benefit from new access to the interactive digital outputs of the project which will give an increased awareness of histories of female stardom. The new StoryMap resource will help bring visibility to South West film heritage for wider audiences, and the promotion of this resource through social media platforms can reach audiences who are not currently engaged directly with South West museums. Broader public audiences will further be able to read about the project research and findings on the project Omeka site and blog output, and use these outputs as a pathway to access and interact with the StoryMap resource. I will bring audiences to the Omeka site by strategically cross-promoting it with a network of selected online platforms (see 'Pathways to Impact').

4. Other museums and archives beyond the immediate project partners who will be able to incorporate aspects of good practice from this research. They will benefit from the project by being able to review the digital outputs of the research as good practice case studies for developing their own curatorial and public engagement practices. I will exploit social media platforms to make the outputs visible to relevant UK museums and archives.