Karl Mercer

Why did you decide to become a freelancer?

There’s a sad necessity to it! Permanent roles are highly competitive and it can be a struggle for people with my lived experience to obtain one. Freelance projects often come to fruition because an organisation is looking for a different or outside perspective.

But mainly it’s about the beauty of flexibility. Being an autistic individual, having control over my own schedule and the ability to decide what work I do and when is an incredibly valuable thing for managing my disability.

What would you say are the benefits of working in a museum consultancy rather than in a museum?

As mentioned, freelancing and consultancy is great for management of your time, tasks and work/life balance.

For me, though, a key benefit is it allows you to be selective in what you work on, who you work for and how you approach your work.

As a freelancer you are not contractually bound to projects you don’t agree with or partners you have an ethical problem with.

It is hugely important to me to be able to work according to my own ethical compass.

How has the cost of living affected freelancing in the sector?

I am only just starting out so find it difficult to assess. I know the cost of living is limiting the scope of my opportunities since I lack the funds to really travel around and move for temporary work.

What skills do you think are most important for freelance or consultancy work?

I think adaptability is the main transferable skill or ability. Having an interest in multiple topics and angles is vital, and those multiple perspectives are a huge benefit to museums and organisations hiring freelancers.

It is a sad reality that the sector tends to attract the same kinds of people from the same kinds of backgrounds. Freelancer opportunities open up the sector to other perspectives, e.g. I am autistic and can bring my outside-the-box thinking and lived experience of an alternative neurotype to museum work and interpretation.

What do you wish someone had told you about being a freelancer?

That it’s okay to say “No!”

I’m a highly ambitious person and have a tendency to push myself to work hard. In many ways, driven by my life and lived experience, I feel like I’m playing catch up.

While the time management and self-control of freelancing are two of the benefits, it rather requires you having the ability to say “No!” and give yourself that time and space to rest and recover between jobs. This is particularly important if you are working in potentially triggering or emotionally sensitive areas of culture and heritage.

What should museums be doing to support the wellbeing of freelancers in the sector?

The value of freelancers to the sector is that ability to get people with wildly different lived experiences and have them put together projects, displays and exhibitions which broaden our interpretation and diversify collections. It is simultaneously an improvement of the quality and depth, and improvement of access to, our cultural capital to the wider population.

Provide more small opportunities to freelancers and you’ll get massive improvements in your museums.

Just be brave and dare to do something different.