Jilliane Mortimer

Gallery Cleaning 101 is an ongoing project emerging from my work as a Collections Management Technician at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Working alongside my colleague Brenda Breed, I help clean more than 128 galleries each month to maintain our collection.

​

Through photographs, instructional materials, and stickers created for participating staff, I document the tools, routines, humor, and relationships that sustain this largely unseen work. What began as a recurring maintenance task has developed into a collective practice centered on knowledge sharing, recognition, and care. The project considers cleaning not only as preventative conservation, but as a form of coordinated labor through which community is built.