Meet Inga Fraser, Senior Curator at Kettle’s Yard

Q: Hi Inga, you joined the team at Kettle’s Yard in 2023. What attracted you to the role, and what excites you most about working there?

A: Above all, it was the fact that Kettle’s Yard is not a traditional museum; the paintings, sculpture and other objects are not behind glass or Perspex but are on open display. As a visitor you can dwell in the domestic scale spaces that founders Jim and Helen Ede created and spent time contemplating their extraordinary collection. As a curator of primarily twentieth-century art, it is unusual to find artworks from this period displayed with the freedom usually only achieved in the display of contemporary artworks. I couldn’t turn down the privilege of being able to work in these spaces, and what I find most exciting about the role is figuring out how the liveliness that was central to the original conception of Kettle’s Yard can be sustained as time passes.

Q: You’ve held curatorial roles at some of the country’s leading cultural institutions. Could you tell us a little about your career path and what led you to Kettle’s Yard?

A: Studying in London for my bachelor’s degree meant that I was introduced to the city through its museums, galleries and libraries. (These institutions are still how I navigate in the city!) My first museum job after my degree was as a cataloguer at the National Portrait Gallery, and so I came to know the scope of that collection, the artists and their subjects in intimate detail and decided to focus on artists’ use of photography in the dissertation I wrote for my History of Art master’s degree. Afterwards I worked as an Assistant Curator with the twentieth century and contemporary collections at the NPG, supporting the Lucian Freud and Man Ray exhibitions alongside displays on Patrick Heron and other artists, and researching film and video works in the collection.

Next, I moved to work as Assistant Curator of Modern British Art at Tate where I worked on major retrospectives of Barbara Hepworth (2015) and Paul Nash (2016) as well as smaller displays. I was lucky to have had some incredibly knowledgeable, personable and inspiring colleagues at both NPG and Tate, and working on these large-scale shows and writing for the catalogues meant that I came to know the artists’ practices inside-out. I loved the research-element of exhibition making, and so when the opportunity arose to pursue a PhD, I took it. I studied at the Royal College of Art and also taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art during the writing up phase. The Kettle’s Yard role was advertised shortly after I submitted my final draft and was working as a freelance curator at Tate, so it was perfect timing.

Q: As Senior Curator of House and Collection, what does a typical day look like for you, and how do you balance the care of the house and collection with research and public engagement?

A: When I’m on-site at Kettle’s Yard I mainly focus on the care of the house and collection. This often involves a lot of meetings with colleagues to plan short and long-term conservation measures (we work with incredibly skilled freelance conservators based in Cambridge) but also meetings with colleagues planning work around the house and collection – for example events or educational visits. Part of my role is to connect with the wider University. Kettle’s Yard is one of several University of Cambridge Museums, and we also have a close relationship with the History of Art department.

Of course, Kettle’s Yard’s first visitors when the house opened in 1957 were mostly undergraduates, and we still offer students free entry to the house as well as the opportunity to loan a work of art for their student accommodation through the Art for Students scheme.

In terms of research, we have begun commissioning articles on previously unexplored aspects of the house and collection for the website – for example the writer Hassan Vawda looked at Kettle’s Yard in relation to Jim Ede’s interest in religion and spirituality. Since starting I have been gradually updating and expanding the information we hold on art and artists in our collection, culminating in the publication of two new books which will launch in Spring 2026: a new house guidebook and a sister publication which collects letters to and from the artists the Edes were friends with and whose works are on display in the house. In terms of public engagement, we launched a new series of gallery displays in the Edlis Neeson Research Space at Kettle’s Yard, intended to explore artworks that aren’t usually on permanent display.

I brought together all the works by Barbara Hepworth with related correspondence from our archive for one, and another focused on a wonderful series of photographs by the artist Mari Mahr. We also launched a new magazine for our supporters, the Kettle’s Yard House Bulletin which has given us space to share news, features and specialist perspectives on the house and collection. The next issue is dedicated to ‘fashion’, for example!

Q: When you think about Kettle’s Yard’s collection, is there one object or artwork that particularly inspires you, and why?

A: When I first visited Kettle’s Yard, I was captivated by a sculpture, Mermaid by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915). Carved in white marble in 1913, the figure twists out of and back into the stone, presumably following the shape of the material that the sculptor was able to obtain. The detail on the hand and face is just gorgeous, and I find the way Gaudier-Brzeska has conveyed the weight of the figure and the feeling of sinking into water irresistible. Directly carved into the stone, the piece offers a sort of time travel through tactile senses, linking our perception of the work today with its making over a hundred years ago.

Q: Is there a recent exhibition, display, or event that you feel especially embodies the ethos of Kettle’s Yard?

A: I loved curating the current Research Space display, ‘In the presence of a common object’, which was prompted by two new acquisitions – polaroid photographs taken at Kettle’s Yard in the 1980s by the artist Dorothy Bohm. Jim Ede actually began his career as a photographer’s assistant at the National Gallery in London and he took a particular interest in photographic images of the house for his 1984 book on Kettle’s Yard, ‘A Way of Life’.

Practically, by staff at Kettle’s Yard, photography has always been used to fix and document the placement of works of art and furniture in the house. Yet as I looked back through the archive at exhibitions that featured photography at Kettle’s Yard, it was striking how photography – when used by artists – sought the opposite result: to undo or reimagine a fixed perspective of the world. This tension between time stopped and time passing, and the need for multiple perspectives is everywhere in the house, as well as in the photographs I selected for the display. The title is borrowed from a text by the philosopher Iris Murdoch who argued that humankind needs to move beyond a singular, subjective view of the world in order to live well. For Murdoch, contemplating art and nature were key to finding common ground with others, and of course Kettle’s Yard is a great place to do this!

Q. Engaging students, young people, and local communities is an important part of your role. What approaches or strategies do you use to make the house and collection meaningful and accessible to such diverse audiences?

A. I am lucky to work alongside a well-established and hugely knowledgeable Community and Learning team who have sustained engagement with schools and local communities in Cambridge. Shortly before I started, Kettle’s Yard convened its first Community Panel, and we were awarded funding for a series of workshops with the panel led by the artist and curator Shama Khanna.

They explored Kettle’s Yard and other spaces in Cambridge through the lens of the natural world. As well as the living plants and cut flowers that you will find in the house that are carefully tended to by members of our Visitor Experience team, there are many other organic objects that sit alongside works of art at Kettle’s Yard including shells, dried plants, bones. Thinking through the significance of these natural objects, their provenance and how they create balance in the house offers a way into the collection accessible to all. It is something the Community Panel have sought to bring into an upcoming exhibition they have co-selected, Handpicked: Painting Flowers from 1900 to today, which opens in April.

Q. Looking ahead to Kettle’s Yard’s 70th anniversary in 2027, what ambitions or questions are guiding your thinking about the future of the house, collection, and programme?

A. In 2027 we celebrate 70 years of the Kettle’s Yard house and collection, and my big question is to ask how Kettle’s Yard can continue for another 70 years as an ‘open house’, with many objects subject to ongoing wear and tear. I am working on a number of research and engagement projects that seek to extract the principles that lay behind the original founding of Kettle’s Yard – ideas of intimacy, friendship and dialogue for example – concepts which can be thought of as in need of ‘preservation’ as much as material objects in the collection going forward, and should shape our long-term conservation plans. I am also curating two monographic exhibitions focusing on collection artists in the galleries. These will be really special shows that enable visitors to explore the stories behind some of the most celebrated artworks at Kettle’s Yard.

Q. Finally, we’d love to hear about the artwork you keep at home, what drew you to it and what does it mean to you?

A. A lot of visitors tell us that they have modelled the interiors of their own houses on Kettle’s Yard, but this is not the case for me! Despite having moved into our house in 2019, my partner and I have not yet gotten round to putting up any pictures beyond a few paintings that our daughter brought home from nursery… Although maybe this is not so far removed from Kettle’s Yard as both Jim and Helen Ede loved art by children and there are works by their grandchildren Jane and Quince on display in the house today, and many more elsewhere in the collection and archive!