Responsible for: Contemporary collecting; Scottish collections from late 20th Century to today.

Research interests: Contemporary collecting; diaspora, migration and who makes Scotland home; craft and industry across past and present, including a focus on sustainable and re-used materials; participatory practice in museums, including cultural responses to Scotland’s past; material culture studies related to identity, belonging and authenticity.

Trained as an archaeologist and with a background in art, design and community engagement and outreach, Mhairi joined the Department in 2023. Mhairi leads the department's contemporary collecting programme, focused on documenting the impact of social, cultural, political and environmental change in twenty-first century Scotland. There is a strong emphasis on collecting material to represent what is distinctive about Scotland today in a global context, mindful of the differences within and across the country. Another key focus of contemporary collecting is on objects embedded with a sense of place, and on objects which link to existing collections to reflect how the past continually shapes the present.

The Contemporary Collecting programme is constantly evolving and involves experts from across the museum who make up the Contemporary Collecting Working Group. Our contemporary collecting is focused on documenting the impact of social, cultural, political, economic and environmental change in twenty-first century Scotland. Objects are collected which build on our extensive existing collections, and which help us to understand who we are as a nation, also representative of regional difference and diverse lived experience. Stories of migration and emigration are additional key themes, collected along with objects which are representative of Scotland’s role on the international stage and those which help us to understand what makes Scotland distinctive in a global context. Another key focus is how Scotland’s traditions, landscape and sense of place are a continual inspiration for communities, craftspeople, designers, industry, and enterprise today at home and beyond.

As an archaeologist Mhairi was part of international teams who excavated and surveyed sites across the UK and Syria. In her research, Mhairi has frequently collaborated with thinkers, makers and doers to reveal archives in museum collections, and is passionate about increasing access to our hidden heritage and histories. Interested in materialities of identity, belonging and authenticity, she has worked with communities, artists and designers to understand the biographies of objects from the past and present.

After completing her doctorate on the Iron Age materialities of the South-East Scottish Iron Age at Bradford University funded by the AHRC, she was Glenmorangie research officer at National Museums Scotland. She worked with artists and craftspeople on a series of commissions bringing to life star objects in the museum’s collection displayed as part of Creative Spirit. An AHRC funded post-doc as part of the ACCORD project at Glasgow School of Art, took her across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland to create open-access visual 3D digital models of remarkable heritage sites together with various communities, artists, and heritage professionals.

While at V&A Dundee, Mhairi developed the Scottish Design Relay project as part of the ‘2018 Year of Young People’ in partnership with heritage organisations across Scotland, and helped to curate the new permanent Scottish Design Galleries. She curated numerous temporary exhibitions and was one of the co-curators of the critically acclaimed ‘Tartan’ (which was on display from April 2023 until Jan 2024 at V&A Dundee).