Meet our new Library and Collections Assistant

We're very pleased to welcome Zipporah Blake to the Society's London Office staff team as the new Library and Collections Assistant. Working closely with our Collections Manager, Stephanie Boonstra, Zipporah will focus on creating a new Lending Library separate to our core-Reference Only Library so that EES members can once again borrow some of our library holdings! They will also work on creating an EES Special Collections, comprising the earliest and rarest books in the Society's collections in order to preserve them for future generations.

Zipporah studied a BA in Art History at the University of Leeds and graduated in 2021. Her final year dissertation focused on disseminating the loss of the black maid Laure’s subjecthood in Manet's painting Olympia and the subsequent reclamation of her story by contemporary black female artists.

During her final year of studies at the University of Leeds, Zipporah started a collective with a fellow student called Box Checkerz. From this collective they created Buyer’s Remorse which aimed to decolonize arts education at their university, via creative complaining, workshops, memes and interviews.

Zipporah has previously worked at two contemporary art galleries, The Redfern as a gallery intern and Maximillian William as a communications assistant. She has also volunteered at the Black Cultural Archives as an archive assistant and as a Youth Advisor for the Imperial War Museum.

Zipporah Blake and Collections Manager Stephanie Boonstra browsing Amelia Edward's A Thousand Miles Up the Nile

EES members and library users will certainly get to know Zipporah over the coming months and we hope you will join us in extending a warm welcome!