STAFF ONLY

Staff Only examines the spaces, systems, and labor that sustain museums, archives, and historic houses beyond public view. Though cultural heritage institutions differ in scale, resources, and mission, they share persistent challenges of limited storage, understaffing, aging buildings, and financial constraints. What unites them further is a sustained commitment to caring for the objects they hold, even when that work remains largely unseen.

I am a trained archivist and work professionally within museum and archival environments. My access to these types of spaces shaped this on-going series, allowing me to photograph these sites not as places of mystery or spectacle, but as active workplaces defined by routine, adaptation, and responsibility. The images in this series, taken from 2017 to the present, are from multiple institutions in the Hudson Valley and beyond, documenting areas that are essential to operations but rarely seen. All locations and staff are anonymized, and sensitive or identifying materials have been excluded. Staff Only considers the concept of the museum backspace as an archive in itself: a record of constraint, care, and sustained commitment that shapes how cultural objects endure.

The images focus on thresholds, improvised and standardized storage, objects in transition, and acts of maintenance such as cleaning and handling. Together, they trace how preservation unfolds in practice rather than ideal form. Throughout the series, purpose-built systems exist alongside ad hoc solutions. Repurposed rooms and temporary holding areas reflect the realities of space and resource limitations, while long aisles of shelving signal institutional aspirations toward order and longevity. Architectural boundaries and reflective surfaces recur, reinforcing the divide between public encounter and institutional care. Doors, corridors, and mirrors frame what is accessible and what remains concealed, underscoring how preservation depends on quiet, repetitive labor intended to stay out of sight.



Presented as a cohesive body of work, Staff Only emphasizes form, texture, and light, and invites viewers into these internal spaces in order to consider the processes and care that enable the public-facing museum experience. The series holds up these hidden spaces not as background, but as quiet records of institutional life that shape how collections are preserved, displayed, and experienced.