Interior of a room with figures by Ariaene Brouwer. © Victoria & Albert Museum.

The Victoria and Albert Museum has ventured into new territories for the museum world with the launch of podcasts – mini audio-visual guides that can be downloaded and played on iPods, MP3 players or desktop computers – as part of its Every Object Tells A Story (EOTAS) project.

“There are often audio guides for special exhibitions, but there tends to be a paucity of guides for existing collections,” said Susan McFarland, Every Object Tells A Story Site Editor, “so this is a way to bring them to life.”

Moreover, you don’t have to be in the museum to hear the podcasts, which currently number six. All you have to do is download them, for free, and you can listen to anecdotes relating to the Paintings Gallery at the V&A – an artist-model love affair, a Victorian art collector or the exotic investments of a Pre-Raphaelite are all on offer.

L'Immensite by Gustave Courbet. © Victoria & Albert Museum.

The podcasts include an image of the paintings and there are two ways to access them. If you use iTunes or have a Google account, you can download them by copying and pasting http://www.everyobject.net/web/data/podcasts/eotas_2.xml into the subscribe box. Alternatively, you can listen directly by clicking here (takes you to another website).

If you put the files on a portable device, you can then take it with you to the gallery and listen to the podcast while looking at the featured paintings. For more information and detailed instructions, head to the website www.everyobject.net/interactive.

“I had the idea about three months ago,” Susan told the 24 Hour Museum about jumping on the podcasting bandwagon, “but it took a while because we’d never done it before and we had to get equipment.”

Smerelda Bandinelli by Sandro Botticelli. © Victoria & Albert Museum.

The stories are bite-sized accounts, like those gathered in the EOTAS online archive of people’s stories about objects they treasure. The podcasts, unlike the archived stories, are all personal stories by experts (so far).

“It’s assistant curators, curators, researchers from the Courtauld – and Nicola’s a conservator,” explained Susan. In her podcast, conservator Nicola Costaras talks about her excitement when she discovered a rare panelmaker’s mark on a 400-year-old painting by Adriaen Brouwer.

The Paintings Gallery is the first to be the subject of podcasts, but the idea will be taken elsewhere in time, funding allowing. It was also chosen as it’s one of the few galleries that won’t be touched by the massive refurbishment currently happening at the V&A.

“And all these objects are in two rooms,” said Susan, “so it’s easy to follow around, rather than having to say ‘turn left at the grand piano’.”

EOTAS involves a partnership between the V&A, Tyne & Wear Museums, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Brighton & Hove Museums.

Every Object Tells a Story!