Share social Sciences, Humanities & Arts Researcher Education (share) Network: 28th February 2013, Southampton University Case-Study: How scholarly research into Sir Charles Eastlake,

SHARE - Social Sciences, Humanities & Arts Researcher Education (SHARE) Network: 28th February 2013, Southampton University

Case-Study: How scholarly research into Sir Charles Eastlake, the first Director of the National Gallery, has been made available to the public, via more traditional approaches (e.g. public lectures and publications), indicating how the Gallery measures the effectiveness of its outreach and impact.

Dr Susanna Avery-Quash is Research Curator in the History of Collecting & Display at the National Gallery. Her research focusses on the history of the development of important private and public art collections, especially the institutional history of the National Gallery; the trends in the taste for various periods of art and particular artists; and the evolution of the art market.

Recently, a large part of her research has concentrated on Sir Charles Eastlake, artist, connossieur and arts administrator, best remembered within the Victorian art world for his roles as President of the Royal Academy and first Director of the National Gallery. Over the last few years she has used a variety of channels to promote interest in Eastlake across diverse audiences.

PUBLICATIONS:

1. A two-volume annotated edition of The Travel Notebooks of Charles Eastlake (Walpole Society, 2011), amounting to over 1,000 pp of text. This was a typically scholarly publication which included an introductory essay about the notebooks, a transcription of the primary source, reproductions of the illustrations, appendices which included a listing of all the collectors, dealers etc whom Eastlake encountered on his annual continental travels, and two different indices, one of which included the current locations, where known, of the paintings mentioned by Eastlake.

2. Co-authored with Professor Julie Sheldon, Art for the Nation: The Eastlakes and the Victorian Art World (London, 2011). This came about on realising that there was scope for a more general biography about Eastlake which would include discussion of the achievements of his able wife, Elizabeth (nee Rigby), and also that the publication of a more general book about Eastlake might help to ignite interest in the more scholarly Eastlake publication.

Arising from this research have been a number of more specific publications, which touch on a range of subjects relating to Eastlake and his artistic and more public contribution, including on the reaction of Eastlake to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and on Eastlake’s private art collection and on his private art library, as well as on a newly-discovered album of drawings by Lady Eastlake. In all these articles the footnotes mention both 2011 Eastlake publications.

EXHIBITIONS: One way to draw public attention to the exciting fruits of new research is through exhibitions. The Gallery has hosted a number of exhibitions about its own institutional history, including two about Eastlake, each of the latter with a different emphasis for the different audiences. Both of the Eastlake exhibitions stood in a symbiotic relationship to the earlier academic publications and many of the topics raised in the books were teased out in the exhibition visually, by means of carefully selected exhibits; for instance, in both exhibitions a different Eastlake notebook, pertinent to one of the paintings on show, was displayed alongside other relevant archival and bibliographical material.

1. Art for the Nation: Sir Charles Eastlake at the National Gallery, The National Gallery, Room 1, 27 July – 30 October 2011: This exhibition illuminated the achievements of Eastlake, who was once described as ‘the Alpha and Omega’ of the Victorian art world. During his Directorship, Eastlake professionalized the Gallery and established policies for the acquisition and display of paintings, which are still influential.

2. In Pursuit of Art: Charles Eastlake’s Journey from Plymouth to the National Gallery, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 22 September – 15 December 2012: This exhibition investigated Eastlake’s artistic development in his birthplace of Plymouth and the role of his family in the promotion of the arts there, as well as Eastlake’s own pioneering activities within the Victorian art world, notably as first Director of the National Gallery. The press and marketing teams worked hard to ignite interest in the city council and among the local press. The mayor and several councillors attended the Private View and there was a flurry of press and radio interest.

LECTURES: For both exhibitions, public lectures were organised.

The National Gallery asked Julie Sheldon and Susanna Avery-Quash to give a Sainsbury Wing Lunchtime Lecture (50 minutes with powerpoint) to launch the exhibition and to promote the book. They spoke to virtually a full house. During September 2011 Dr Avery-Quash gave a number of 10-minute talks in front of pictures in the exhibition to introduce it to visitors at the Gallery.

In Plymouth Dr Avery-Quash gave a private lecture to the Friends of the Museum the day before the exhibition opened (which is now going to be published by The Old Plymouth Society) and gave a public lecture on the day the exhibition started. This was the start of a series of 4 lunchtime lectures. They accommodated 100 people and all 4 were sold out. Details of the lectures were posted on a very effective website set up by the PCMAG.

PODCASTS: To tie in with the exhibition, Dr Avery-Quash was interviewed for a podcast. The podcast in question - episode 58 (August 2011) – included a feature on: What Eastlake did for us: the legacy of the National Gallery's first Director. (The interview remains download-able via the National Gallery’s website).

VIDEOS: To promote the 2011 National Gallery Eastlake exhibition, Dr Avery-Quash produced a 5-minute video about Eastlake’s seminal role in professionalising the National Gallery which remains available on the ‘National Gallery Channel’ part of the Gallery’s website. She also made at that time an audio slideshow on the life of Sir Charles Eastlake, focussing on his decade as Director of the National Gallery from 1855, for BBC News. Again this is still available, via the Gallery’s website, on an external link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14401139.

OTHER ASPECTS OF THE PUBLIC OUTREACH PROGRAMME (for the Plymouth exhibition): There was a heavy involvement of a group of students from Plymouth University, known as ‘The Young Explainers’ for the 2012 Eastlake exhibition at Plymouth. The Young Explainers’ response was a programme of events that was designed to engage with a broad range of audiences and to complement the series of public lectures organised by the Museum. The students’ overall mission statement, echoing the intentions for the exhibition, was to ‘convey a positive message about Eastlake, his importance in the national art world and the fact that he was a local man’.

One group concerned itself with primary research, which was useful across the entire programme of events, in particular for the lecture Dr Avery-Quash gave on Eastlake’s artistic roots in Plymouth and the role that his family and its circle played in promoting the arts in the city in the early nineteenth century. A second team produced a series of ‘Art Bites’ or short lunchtime talks, presented by one or two speakers within the gallery space itself, which highlighted themes from the exhibition through particular exhibits. Another associated event, arranged by a third group of students, presented local junior-school children with an imaginative ‘acted tour’ around the exhibition. A fourth group’s aim was to take the message of the exhibition outside the walls of the Museum. Walking Trails – one for Fresher university students and one for families - were devised to provide informative and enjoyable talks on Eastlake and the role of Plymouth in assisting his artistic education. Finally, a ‘Marketing Team’ supplied the text that publicized the Young Explainers’ forthcoming activities in the Museum’s events brochure, and a colour-printed magazine (‘Zine’ for short), containing formation and images aimed at introducing the life and times of Eastlake in an entertaining and creative way to families.

The public response to the programme was overwhelmingly positive. Visitors were thrilled to be offered such a range of projects at different venues aimed at a variety of age groups and levels of experience and knowledge. People commented on the high quality of the activities on offer and were amazed that they were all free. Sample comments on feedback forms included: ‘excellent, informative and most enjoyable’, ‘a good way for students to show us what they’re learning’, ‘inspirational – students were great’, ‘brilliant event, you must do it again’, and ‘will be back’. All the events were full to capacity and while numbers for the Art Bite talks and Walking Trails were limited, extra people did turn up on the day and were accommodated. All in all 174 visitors (the ‘full house’ total) participated in the lunchtime talks, historic walks and school trip. Of these, most were under 18 years old, with a good number also from the 50+ age bracket. Given that 16 of these visitors had never been to the Museum before (mostly children or new students) the Young Explainers clearly succeeded in reaching new audiences. The blog proved a hit too: there were approximately 2,200 ‘views’ during the exhibition’s run, from 37 different countries, with particularly strong interest being shown by bloggers in the USA and France.

To promote this successful venture Dr Avery-Quash wrote a short piece what it achieved, which is now online on the PCMAG’s website, and is to be printed in the National Museums and Galleries History Group newsletter. A copy is attached below in case it is of interest to any attending today’s conference on Impact and Outreach.

CONCLUSION

This case-study has shown how a venture which began as a straightforwardly academic exercise, the production of an edition of the notebooks of Sir Charles Eastlake, ended up having impact well beyond that very particular sphere: a scholarly publication led to the writing of a more popular biography, and to two exhibitions, one of which engaged the wider community to a quite considerable degree, by means of related lectures, podcasts and videos and other outreach activities.

Unlocking Eastlake: A Stroke of Genius

A case-study of the events programme of the ‘Young Explainers’ Group ( a collaboration between Plymouth University students and Plymouth City Council’s Arts and Heritage service) to accompany the exhibition: In Pursuit of Art: Charles Eastlake’s Journey from Plymouth to the National Gallery (Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, 22 September-15 December 2012)

The Context

For three years, the ‘Young Explainers’ programme has been up and running at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. On the Museum’s web-page it describes itself as a ‘work-based learning experience’ where university students (of any discipline, though largely art-historians, and at any stage in their studies, though mostly undergraduates) have the chance to see ‘behind the scenes’ at the Museum, and can ‘receive training from museum staff’, which might involve helping to ‘deliver short public presentations connected to the exhibition programme or collections’, or to undertake museum outreach work in local schools. It is clear that with these privileges come responsibilities: the students are given their own budget with which to devise, manage and publicise their events.

This voluntary programme has, to date, produced five projects that have been successful in a variety of ways. In 2009, in connection with the Museum’s Darwin’s Voyage of Discovery exhibition, inspired by the association of The Beagle with Plymouth, the Young Explainers organised a day-event. At a marquee in the city centre, they set up various stands, each taking a different approach to Darwin’s work. These were designed to be engaging and interactive for young children in particular. In relation to the 2009/2010 exhibition, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Acquisition of Genius, the Young Explainers’ activities included writing a Gallery Guide, creating a short animation film and putting on a series of lunchtime lectures at the Museum. They also organised another special one-day event called ‘Living Reynolds’. Visitors were able to drop in to the University’s Levinsky Building and participate in various activities: children were encouraged to be creative by making military paper hats and taking part in other activities, while older visitors could learn more about Reynolds from talking to the students, who had transformed themselves into characters from Reynolds’ paintings. For the occasion, some of them had developed lively dialogues that were enacted with a professional actor playing Reynolds. The students also performed in character at a private event for a hundred members of the Friends of Peninsula Arts in the evening. In 2010/2011, as part of the Plymouth Pictured: City through a Lens project, BA Media Arts students worked with local archivists, a professional film maker and the BBC to produce films for the Museum's in-house Learning Team and for the BBC Olympic Big Screen. Later in 2011 the Young Explainers launched a programme of events to complement British Art Show 7: In The Days of the Comet, which included the production of a series of three newspapers in collaboration with Young Plymouth Arts Centre, an animated film and a large-scale event for young people called ‘Cosmic Wonderland’ to emphasize the galactic theme of the show.

When I suggested to the Museum an exhibition about the National Gallery’s first Director, Sir Charles Eastlake, who, like Reynolds, hailed from Plymouth, I was clear from the start that any programme of events, planned to run alongside the exhibition, would benefit from the energetic and imaginative involvement of the current members of the Young Explainers group. This has proved to be the case and the programme (running from 22 September to 22 December 2012) has been, arguably, the most diverse and extended to date, aided in some measure by the employment of the most up-to-date technologies and social networking media. Having had the privilege of assisting the Young Explainers with the conception and management of the 2012 programme, I thought it would be useful to draw attention to the results, in the hope that they might stimulate similar dynamic and resourceful initiatives within the UK’s museum community in the future.

The Programme of Events for ‘Unlocking Eastlake’

The Young Explainers’ response to In Pursuit of Art: Charles Eastlake’s Journey from Plymouth to the National Gallery was a programme of events, which they christened, ‘Unlocking Eastlake’. Seventeen students got involved and devised numerous activities (some were involved with more than one activity) for a broad range of audiences that would sit alongside and complement - but not repeat - the series of public lectures (illustrated lunchtime talks in the Attrill Gallery) organised by the Museum team and supported by the Friends of the Museum, and the educational events arranged by the Museum. Apart from talks for an adult audience, there were drawing classes, musical entertainment, and events for visiting school parties.

The students’ overall mission statement, echoing my own intentions for the exhibition, was to ‘convey a positive message about Eastlake, his importance in the national art world and the fact that he was a local man’. One group (five students) concerned itself with primary research, which was useful across the entire programme of events, in particular for the lecture I gave on Eastlake’s artistic roots in Plymouth and the role that his family and its circle played in promoting the arts in the city in the early nineteenth century. With the aim of furnishing answers to a list of my queries, the students undertook research at a variety of locations from the local Record Office and libraries to the city churches, examining baptismal certificates, correspondence, diaries, newspapers accounts and historical maps and church plaques. In addition to these activities, they made a photographic record of their findings, including places associated with the young Eastlake, which were used not only as comparative illustrations on wall panels in the exhibition but also as visual material for related lectures and the website.

A second team of nine students produced a series of ‘Art Bites’ or short lunchtime talks (each lasting about twenty minutes), presented by one or two speakers within the gallery space itself, which highlighted themes from the exhibition through particular objects on display. The series started with ‘Eastlake’s Scholarly and Artistic Achievements’ and other presentations focussed on ‘Eastlake and Napoleon’, ‘Eastlake and his circle’, and ‘Eastlake and the Gallery Revolution’. One of the four talks was delivered in full period costume! While the talks were aimed at the Museum’s visitors, this group of Young Explainers also prepared MP3 downloads (digital files containing audio data), each a few minutes long, for the benefit of people unable to attend in person.

Another associated event, arranged by a third group of students, introduced ‘Eastlake and Friends’ to the ‘under ten’s’ age-group. It presented local junior-school children with an imaginative ‘acted tour’ around the exhibition, led by five students dressed up as Eastlake’s assistants (it was explained that Eastlake himself was away on official business, buying pictures for the nation!)

A fourth group’s aim was to take the message of the exhibition outside the walls of the Museum. Walking Trails were devised to provide informative and enjoyable talks on Eastlake and the role of Plymouth in assisting his artistic education. The six students involved hoped that walking round the historic sites would help bring local history to life. One trail was devised as a ‘Freshers’ Tour’ and was scheduled for the first week of the new academic year. It started with a presentation by me in the exhibition and ended at The Hoe overlooking Plymouth Sound, where Napoleon had been held captive on board H.M.S. Bellerophon, an event that had given the young Eastlake, then an aspiring young artist, a chance to paint his likeness. The tour finished the afternoon, more informally, at The Minerva, the oldest pub in Plymouth and situated close to where Eastlake was born, where the audience enjoyed a talk about Eastlake and Napoleon by one of the students, over a pint of local ale! A ‘Family Tour’ took place six weeks later, in early November, when the weather was still clement. It was led by three costumed actors, portraying Eastlake and Napoleon, as well as a local sailor, who regaled the walkers with tales of life on board the Billy Ruffian (as Bellerophon was affectionately referred to by the local population). To enhance the maritime feel, a local band was enlisted to sing sea shanties when the walking tour reached a stopping-point at the local lighthouse, Smeaton’s Tower, now occupying a spot in one of Plymouth’s city parks, The Hoe. Once again MP3 downloads of both Walking Trails were created to provide an informative audio tour along with a map. As with the MP3 ‘Art Bites’, these recordings were planned to have a ‘shelf-life’, that is beyond the closing date of the exhibition.

A final set of students formed themselves into a ‘Marketing Team’. Six supplied the text that publicized the Young Explainers’ forthcoming activities in the Museum’s events brochure, and another (a Graphic Design with Typography student) designed a colour-printed magazine (‘Zine’ for short), containing information and images aimed at introducing the life and times of Eastlake in an entertaining and creative way to families. The children’s activities included an Eastlake-related crossword-puzzle and quiz, as well as instructions about how to make a Victorian gentleman’s stove-pipe hat of the type that Eastlake would have worn, and a pull-out ‘Eastlake’s Family Adventure Map’, which could be used on the walking trails round Plymouth or independently of them.

The project was ‘broadcast’ throughout the running of the exhibition by a blog that was managed by two students, who acted as Editor and Blog Co-ordinator. It served not only to keep the teams up-to-date on the progress of the other groups, but also, and even more importantly, it facilitated interaction with the public, who were able to send in comments and feedback via the blog, Twitter and Facebook (the management of Twitter and Facebook was the responsibility of another pair of students).

After the exhibition closed, a feature about it, including the full Young Explainers’ programme was put permanently on-line, as a lasting tribute to all that was achieved.ⁱ

The Management of the Programme

An initial meeting was convened in Autumn 2011 between prospective Young Explainers and representatives from the National Gallery (me as Guest Curator, and Mary Hersov as National Programmes Manager), staff from the Plymouth City Museum (Emma Philip as Curator of Fine Arts, and Sara Norrish as Arts & Heritage Engagement Officer for Young People) and teaching staff from the Faculty of Arts, Plymouth University. I presented the key themes of the exhibition and the students had the chance to comment and ask questions. As a result of this brain-storming session, the Young Explainers were in a good position to see which avenues might be most worthwhile to explore for an events’ programme.

By this point – and as a lead-up to the Young Explainers programme starting in earnest - the students were given about ten training sessions that were run by various members of the Museum’s staff. These ‘how to’ tutorials (each lasting an hour) covered a range of topics including writing texts for exhibitions, organising walking tours, public speaking and marketing. The idea was to give the students a better idea of what was involved in joining the Young Explainers group so that those who did sign up were not daunted by the eventual time commitment or by the diverse and responsible nature of the work involved. These sessions were given free of charge by the Museum to the University, in a gesture of goodwill, to get the project started on a sound and collaborative footing.

To maintain momentum, a Project Manager was elected from among the students on the Young Explainers programme, who then had responsibility for co-ordinating its various strands. Simultaneously, a timetable was established by the Engagement Officer and Project Manager: meetings were scheduled to take place once a fortnight but these were made weekly at peak periods of activity. It was the Project Manager’s job to write and distribute the agenda for these meetings, while another student took notes and distributed the minutes. The system was set up to be as professional as possible and it achieved that goal.

As a result of their training sessions and update meetings, the students were able, by early July 2012, to submit a comprehensive and feasible proposal. This eight-page document provided an ‘outline of projects and methodology’ with related sections on ‘contingencies’ and ‘personnel’ as well as a timetable and budget. The Young Explainers were given a working budget of £1,500, and had to allocate money from it for the various projects and for a fund to cover student expenses, such as travel. The estimate proved to be more or less accurate: ultimately, £800 was spent on costumes, workshop materials and the shanty band; £500 on printing the magazine; and £200 on student expenses. The funding came partly from the Museum and partly from the University.

Once formal approval for the programme and its budget had been granted by staff at the Museum, University and the National Gallery, the students spent time, largely during the summer vacation, researching and preparing their particular activities. Then, from the late summer - in the lead-up to the opening of the exhibition - the Young Explainers received ever-increasing amounts of supervision. The Engagement Officer calculated that over a six and a half month period when the Young Explainer programme was officially running, she clocked up 718 contact hours with the students (in addition to which she spent further time emailing/telephoning and with one-to-one mentoring when required), while I assisted from London, via email and telephone. In fact my contact is on-going because one of the Young Explainers has chosen to use the Eastlake exhibition in Plymouth as a case study for her final year dissertation about the modern touring exhibition and its impact. The input of time and expertise by the Engagement Officer (and me) was regarded as a worthwhile ‘exchange’ or ‘barter’ for the time invested by the Young Explainers and witnessed to the fact that all parties involved – the Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Plymouth University and the National Gallery – were cognisant of the mutual benefit to be derived from this pooling of resources or ‘co-production’.

Towards the close of the exhibition’s run, an evaluation exercise was started, in which both staff and students participated. Staff at the Museum compiled lists of visitor numbers and a summary of comments from the feedback forms completed by members of the public. Meanwhile, the Young Explainers were asked to submit assessment-forms and time-sheets, and those who did (less than half, in fact) were awarded a ‘letter of professional judgement’ as an official record of their participation. Furthermore, the students were given the option of letting their time on the Young Explainers programme to be taken into account as part of a scheme called ‘The Plymouth Award’, which is run by the University and designed to acknowledge all extra curricula activity. One student additionally completed an ‘Insight Profile’ which has been uploaded on to the University website.ⁱⁱ

Responses to the Programme: general public, students and staff

The public response to the programme was overwhelmingly positive. Visitors were thrilled to be offered such a range of projects at different venues aimed at a variety of age groups and levels of experience and knowledge. People commented on the high quality of the activities on offer and were amazed that they were all free. Sample comments included: ‘excellent, informative and most enjoyable’, ‘a good way for students to show us what they’re learning’, ‘inspirational – students were great’, ‘brilliant event, you must do it again’, and ‘will be back’. All the events were full to capacity and while numbers for the Art Bite talks and Walking Trails were limited, extra people did turn up on the day and were accommodated. All in all 174 visitors (the ‘full house’ total) participated in the lunchtime talks, historic walks and school trip. Of these, most were under 18 years old, with a good number also from the 50+ age bracket. Given that 16 of these visitors had never been to the Museum before (mostly children or new students) the Young Explainers clearly succeeded in reaching new audiences. The blog proved a hit too: there were approximately 2,200 ‘views’ during the exhibition’s run, from 37 different countries, with particularly strong interest being shown by bloggers in the USA and France. Though the blog had a high readership, the most usual way for the visitors to hear about the events was through Museum information or by word of mouth.

As for the students, those who stuck the course – and thus committed themselves to 30 hours of their time - found the experience stimulating (many put in far more labour, with the student Project Manager giving up a staggering 202 hours of her own time: the grand total of student time invested over the 6.5 months of the Young Explainers programme ‘proper’ was 874 hours). From the comments on their blogs and assessment forms it is apparent that they enjoyed learning new facts about a local hero and about their city, liked pooling resources with their peers as well as working with experts, and relished the chance to see their projects find expression in a series of public events. Many said that during the Young Explainers programme they felt more like ‘young professionals than just students’ and that, as a result of it, they felt ‘better prepared for life after university’.

The University, as a result of the partnership forged with the Museum, was able to be in contact with a wider community than simply its usual scholarly one, while museum curators were once again reminded of the potential benefits of working alongside students - in addition to their peers from among the University teaching staff.

Interest in the Young Explainers project has already been shown beyond Plymouth. Just before the public events programme got under way, The Guardian ran a piece about universities that offered students ‘real life experiences of the arts sector’, in which Plymouth University’s Young Explainers scheme was featured.ⁱⁱⁱ Then, as the Eastlake exhibition was drawing to a close, the student Project Manager was invited to talk about the Young Explainers’ programme to a regional seminar for arts and culture in order that she could share her experience of providing successful creative opportunities for 11-19 year olds.

Some Concluding Thoughts

It has been gratifying to witness the truth of the old adage, ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’ in the development of the ‘Unlocking Eastlake’ project in all its manifestations. The essential ingredients that guaranteed its success were first and foremost focussed the existence of groups of motivated and collaboratively-minded students and teaching and museum staff, who were willing to give over much time and to pool resources for a common cause. In the case of the current partnership, it was a distinct advantage that Plymouth’s Museum and University are located so near to each other – literally across the road. Furthermore, past experience has proved beneficial. This year’s students and staff were able to work together more professionally than ever before, thanks to the decision at the outset to produce and work to a robust brief (which included the appointment of a project manager), which in turn enabled a more considered events’ programme to be formulated. The students found it helpful that their brief outlined which elements of the programme were to be considered essential (both in terms of its content and management), while it still left enough room for their own imaginative responses - one such result being the innovative and eye-catching ‘Zine’, a jaunty phrase from which magazine was even quoted by a reviewer of the exhibition in the Museums Journal!

It is hoped that the activities outlined above, which comprise the ‘Unlocking Eastlake’ programme of the 2012 Young Explainers cohort, might act as a model for ways of bringing about creative and imaginative interaction between museums and universities in the future, and that it might encourage these bodies to tap into the energy and enthusiasm of the local student population to the benefit not just of those institutions, but, more importantly, of the public at large. At a time when there is so much talk of integrating universities and their local communities and of the need to invest in the country’s emerging young professionals, the ‘Young Explainers’ scheme seems an effective and imaginative way of advancing such aims.

Dr Susanna Avery-Quash

(Research Curator in the History of Display & Collecting at the National Gallery, and Curator of In Pursuit of Art at the Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 2012)

i^ http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/eastlakeresources.html

ii^ https://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/0665/Pages/JoanneLees.aspx)

iii^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2012/sep/10/art-students-careers-advice-support?INTCMP=SRCH