100 Hours is an interdisciplinary project which over one year will use innovative and collaborative methods to realise new research directions for the study of material things in contemporary and historical society. The 100 Hours research team will focus closely and individually on a selection of objects – chosen from UCL Museum collections – and through discussions with specialists will create a series of innovative research ‘responses’. In harnessing the analytical power of individual ‘close looking’ and the intellectual versatility of collaborative research this project breaks new ground for the study of material culture: identifying future questions for object-centred research and offering methodologies capable of providing answers.
The project is lead by early career researchers, Leonie Hannan and Kate Smith, and advised by Margot Finn, Simon Werrett and Ludovic Coupaye and brings together a team of ten early career collaborators: Katy Barrett, Tullia Giersberg, Liz Haines, Elin Jones, Juliette Kristensen, Sarah Longair, Emily Marshall-Orr, Matthew Paskins, James Paz, and Florian Roithmayr. Collectively, the 100 Hours team represent 11 academic fields: History, History of Science, Anthropology, Geography, English Literature, Cultural and Critical Studies, Material and Visual Culture Studies, Philosophy, Fine Art, History of Art, and Design History and 13 organisations: the V&A, Science Museum, National Maritime Museum, British Museum, UCL, KCL, QMUL, RHUL, Goldsmiths, Cambridge, Princeton, Kent, the Shakespeare Institute, Birmingham.
The progress and findings from this collaborative research will be fully documented on this site and we invite you to visit 100 Hours and become a part of our community of material investigators.
100 Hours 