As well as being accessible to the public, this is your collection. Students at ECA can use it to inform their work and research through online resources, visiting in person, or taking part in one of the many projects and exhibitions that the team run to explore and display our objects.
The Collections include, among other things, art, musical instruments, rare books, and archives. A major part of it, housed at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA), is the Edinburgh Cast Collection, which comprises 265 plaster casts of antique, Renaissance, and Gothic statues, bas reliefs, and architectural passages.
Some previous ways that ECA students and staff have interacted with the Collections include the acquisition and debates around the future intentions of Sir Eduardo Paolozzi’s Tottenham Court Road mosaics; researching and displaying items from the Torrie Collection; and the calibrating and installing of Katie Paterson’s Timepieces in the ECA Main Building. Certain student work is also selected to become a permanent part of the Collections at the annual ECA Degree Show.
Collections staff include specialist curators and archivists who are also involved in research and teaching at ECA and the wider University. Staff in the Centre for Research Collections also assist with enquiries, access, and other services offered at the University's Main Library.
