Museum of Miniature Found Objects

The Museum of Miniature Found Objects is proud of the expertise and enthusiasm its staff brings to the field of museology. To keep the public in touch with the valuable work they undertake, the MMFO is presenting a series of interviews with staff members. This week, the MMFO talks to Rita Berg:

MMFO: What's your role at the museum and what does it involve?

RB: I work as the Keeper of Semi-Perishable Found Artefacts. When we receive a donation from a member of the public, it's my job to check it against the Criteria for Receiving – these are very important principles and were laid down by Sir Gideon Hythe-Gommerly in 1759, when the MMFO first opened its doors. So I feel a living connection with history each time I carry out a check!

MMFO: What's the best thing about working at the MMFO?

RB: I meet scholars from all corners of the world, who come to study our collection. We curators are quite an international tribe, you know!

MMFO: What's the worst thing?

MMFO: I'm responsible for accessioning donations. When I've catalogued an item, I take it down to the Storage Depository and it's really labyrinthine down there – a maze, in fact. Once I got trapped. I wasn't able to find my way out and I was locked in overnight!

MMFO: Which person, dead or alive, would you most like to meet?

RB: Sir Gideon Hythe-Gommerly, of course!

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Found objects:

= badge: 2.47pm, Tuesday 24 September 2013, Holloway Road, north London;

= Florival bottle top: 2.11pm, Monday 15 October 2018, Place Saint-Job, Brussels;

= frog: 9.03pm, down escalator to Piccadilly line, Holborn Station, 7.12pm, 1 October 2019, central London;

= green & blue organic form: 9.23am, Tuesday 22 October 2013, Holmdale Terrace, north London;

= green car: 4.47pm, Monday 30 July, Clissold Park Café, north London;

= orange animal form on books: 5.17pm, Tuesday 14 July 2015, Goswell Road, central London;

= torso of man: 4.27pm, Thursday 30 May 2019, Queen Elizabeth’s Walk, north London;

= yellow car: 3.16pm, Monday 10 December 2018, Hay’s Galleria, Battle Bridge Lane, London Bridge, south London.