#museum spaces

[museum-spaces]

I am officially burnt out and transitioning out of the sector asap. As a result the slow death of this blog is coming to an end. If anyone wants to use the handle for museum stuff, send me a message. Otherwise it will remain dormant forever.

[sexypinkon]

Closed doors, forgotten history

PROF EMERITA Bridget Brereton is concerned the National Museum and Art Gallery remains closed.

Sexypink - In May last year Professor Emerita Bridget Breteton laments the status of museums in Trinidad and Tobago. It is almost a year on and the issues remain.

[museum-spaces]

I love Ianto. He is currently curled up in my employee's office (with permission) ignoring me because I didn't let him lounge in the sun 10 minutes ago.

Sorry bud, I have to work on a Scope Document.

[museum-spaces]

today among the horifying objects I have come across at Camel Town, I present a murcury thermometre.

here you can see it next to my Scale Pin which I hapoened to be wearing at work today.

you can see the murcury run in the video (I think I ramble on about how cool quicksilver is in the video fyi)

all in all, not half as bad as it could have been: still sealed in glass and its protective tube id quite sturdy. I ended up writing "Caution Murcury" on the tube and leaving it at that. Its also noted in the inventory so whoever takes over from me will have a little warning at least.

I was in a massive grump today - still am a bit - but I have another interview lined up, had a pretty good one last week, and still have to hear back from 2/3 maters programs I applied to.

Grinning and baring Camel Town will have to do for the next little while.

[museum-spaces]

found a box of rocks yesterday.

White lie, found it early in October.

OPENed a box of rocks yesterday. Inside was 3 large worked rocks (one bowl shaped and two that looked like pestles to my unpracticed eye) and a small container and then a plastic bag/liner with more rocks.

The container had 90 broken fletched darts (what most people would call arrow heads).

the bag had 323 bits of fletched rock, 1 bone, and 1 partial fossil.

total of 418 bits of First Nation history with absolutely no care taken. No documentation. No indication of respect.

I layed them all out like so

and then rolled the foam up into tubes which I numbered the outside of.

I also subdivided them as much as I could by type (micrblade, fletched darts, fletched disks). It took me 3 hours to get through the box.

They are now in the collecrion "archaeology unknown year" but that's as specific as I can get.

[museum-spaces]

1500 follower 'special'

Hello Nerds,

Like I said a few days ago, we have broken 1500 followers on here. Which is baffling. However, it did make me want to reach back into my roots from 2019 when I made this blog; accessible museum reviews.

This is still a major challenge in my life because... I run the only museum in town and it would NOT pass any of my criteria for access - working on it but multi-year project to just get ramps in.

On the 17th, though, I had a work lunch in Vancouver. Ianto and I were engaged with the do or a training session until a little after 3pm, then we had our own time until about 5pm when our friend and ride picked us up. So I decided to do some googling on duckduckgo to find an exhibition that we could attend in the area. Unfortunately before I did that googling I saw a sign advertising 'National Geographic's Beyond King Tut' at the Canada Place convention centre which was practically across the street from where we left our trainer. So we went there.

Firstly, I assumed there would be some artifacts and/or replicas on display. There was not. This is the way it was set up; 1. walk into a 'theatre' with a short intro video, then a door opens up and you enter a corridor that takes you through 3 'stories'. 1; finding the tomb, 2. the life of Tut, and 3; Tut today. Then you get to the pop up gift shop and then you're done.

Going just of the name of the thing 'beyond tut' I was excited to learn new things about the Boy King. So Ianto and I went into the theatre and watched the intro thing. Already the soundscaping sucked balls. Everything was too loud. I put my NCHs on without playing any media. First red flag; the video introducing King Tut and his tomb showed many many shots of the Pyramids. For those of you who aren't aware King Tut was entombed at the Valley of the Kings just outside of Luxor, or ancient Thebes. The Giza plateau is a whopping 634 KM away or 7 and a half hours by car. So... not looking great on the accuracy of information or the deepness of exploration. But... moving on.

Inside the corridor I was greeted with digital screens and even more bad soundscaping. I honestly couldn't understand a word of the audio and only remember it as a 'noise' I don't know if it was music or words or sound effects to go along with the information in each corridor. The corridors were also incredibly dark. The only source of light were the screens and the floor/walls were black. If not for Ianto I would have lost my balance.

Story 1; your very basic rundown of events; carter running out of money, practically stumbling across Tut, finding a new financial backer and that's about it. That was spread across 3 or 4 screens and in between them were screens displaying historic photos, and modern images of Tut's gravegoods. But they weren't static photos. Instead they were covered in digital rocks that would crumble away to reveal a hidden treasure. Which is a neat idea... but these ones had Noise of Crumbling amidst the rest of the Noise and were on a very short loop.

The only new information I left that story with is that Tutankamun was the first example of modern egyptological finds that remained in Egypt's control. Up until that point all found items left the control of the Egyptian government. These days Egypt has very tight control on their national past - visitors and archaeologists can't even share unauthorized photos from digs.

Story 2; the life and death of Tut. By this point I knew I already knew all the stuff already so I focused on blocking out the Noise and training Ianto with the steps our trainer gave us less than an hour before. There was one 'cool' space - they marked out on the floor the size of each of Tut's sarcophagi and on the 4 walls they projected the story of his journey into the afterlife. However, the soundscape of that room was so bad that Ianto asked to leave. After that I remember walking through hanging 'bandages' with depictions of a few of the amulets found wrapped in with Tut.

Story 3; I have no idea what this story was about. I retained nothing. Except right at the end before the shop there was a huge room with a river boat replica in the middle, a bunch of benches, and all the walls - and the sail of the boat - were projected storytelling with lots of beautiful areal shots of Luxor and the surrounding area. When we walked in all the benches were full but noone was interacting with the Obviously a Replica Boat. So Ianto and I walked over and sat on it. immediately everyone else who was standing sat on the boat too. I thought 'they need a sign for this thing' because the sale being a literal projector screen wasn't enough for the others to figure it out. Ianto and I watched the photos for a bit. The Noise was still there. And eventually the swooping nature of the video was too much for my brain. We went to the shop.

The Shop; typical. There were 2 things I thought of getting; a button up tee covered in hieroglyphs and a bracelet with a cartouche that said 'love' on it. In the end I got neither because I paid for a ticket to enter, the shirt was a poly blend and cost 80CAD, and the bracelet was poor quality and cost 25CAD. I would have bought an insulated cup as mine recently broke but the seal on them wasn't what I wanted.

We left after that, caught the seabus across the water and met up with our friend for dinner before driving home.

So; getting there; pretty easy. lots of parking and at least 2 proper terminals for city transit within 2 blocks of the place. Navigating in Canada Place is very simple.

Price; as expected. I paid just under 40CAD with tax which is what I expected for a Canadian show. BUT it is not financially accessible.

Mobility; it was 100 per cent level from start to finish. The only seating available was at the theatre start and the boat finish. If you can navigate steadily for the time in between which is self paced... you're good. I didn't have a measuring tape so the angles might not be right for people of shorter stature or who use chairs to get around but the font was large enough to read at a distance. In the shop I was pretty zonked but I noticed a few items such as clothing and bags set on hooks too high up, but I think the rest of the shop was okay. I am concerned about the light distribution throughout the corridors. Someone with low vision, depth perception issues, or migraine disorders might struggle there.

Auditory; I wore my very expensive noise cancelling headphones over top of my Flare Audio Calmer-tm- ear plugs and it was still too much for me. I am relatively able to just deal with noise for the most part so I would not recommend this to anyone who struggles with street noises or movie theatres. It is also very hard on auditory processing. Mine is generally pretty good except when tired or stressed. But like I said above; this was just Noise as far as I could tell.

scent; fine. there was packed incense in the store but other than People Smell there was nothing in the corridors.

Washrooms; located outside the actual display area in the halls of the convention centre. there are many gendered washrooms - 3+ stalls per room with multiple rooms - but only a single gender neutral accessible washroom for each set of gendered ones. Ianto and I tried to use one of those because... dog... but it was occupied and I needed to pee so we went into the ladies. The stalls were very very small. We made it work because Ianto is 50lb and I didn't have a bag or bulky coat but... it was very tight.

That said, there are a lot of washrooms and we might have been able to walk for 2 minutes to an empty accessible stall.

I give this display a 2/10 for interesting museum experience... but for access;

It was not truly accessible for me, so for autism and related 3/10 - the shop was nice if expensive but for overall accessibility 5/10 because it is quite mobility friendly and they didn't make a fuss at all about my service dog.

[museum-spaces]

I know nothing about running a museum and am curious what you found. Something stolen? Illegal? Immoral? I understand that you can’t/won’t say what you actually found but could you give us a similar example of what it could be? Thanks

hello Anon, what a perfectly timed question. I have an update;

I found something that is commonly found in museum collections but, imo, does not belong in museums. You have likely seen things similar to this at every museum bigger than a house museum you have ever been to. The question of if they are stolen is hard to answer at this point because we don't yet know where they come from. This particular thing is estimated to be over 500 years old, but when/how they were acquired and brought to us -probably- constitutes theft. Depending on when it entered the museum it might be legal, but currently it is either illegal or socially unacceptable to accept things like this into museums like Camel Town.

it is 100 per cent unethical - can't speak to the morality as that is an individual determination.

It would be like.... going to a zoo and finding a taxidermy of /your/ beloved pet dog that you had buried in your back yard and thought was still in your backyard. sort of.

anyway; now that we know the lower range of age for these things, the next steps are much easier; 500 years ago there were only first nations people in this area, which means that this thing goes back to the local nation. easy. the hard part is all the steps between today and then.

[museum-spaces]

bah formatting. alt is in the images.

if you couldn't tell from the barrage of cases here photographed, the museum is the proud owner of 4 new pretty glass cases. 2 of them have 2 glass shelves, glass top, and 3 glass sides - one solid wood. and 2 of them have 1 solid shelf/floor space, glass top, and 3 glass sides. the other side of one is mirrored, the other is solid coloured, but i think that that is a vinyl sheeting i can peel off.

all four have storage spaces below the 'floor' of the case yippy, the space is even permeable so I can do some environmental controlling inside the cases without it being super obvious.

i am so excited, we took charge of four NEW – to us – cases yesterday. They are all glass and shiny and not – as – covered in tape and all of them are smaller than any single case in the museum – other than the two newest ones.

My employee asked her two sons to help us truck them across the street. We used a hand cart (4 wheels) from the lady we bought them from. So we took them across the street then the two strong men – as i am a weak person – hoisted them inside – 2 to the back ‘church’ area, one into our NEW basket gallery, and one to an isle where it fits.

2 of our beautiful glass cases fit exactly into a little gap that i want to fill. Well... one will fit in that space, but two are short enough to go into it. If that makes sense. Today I’ve been scratching tape off them – not half so bad as the cases that were already here though - and washing one out real well for the baskets.

One of the new ones is going to be filled with baskets that are small and delicate, one for geological things, and hopefully one for Japanese history. I am not sure yet if that fourth one will work out. If it doesn’t that’s okay.

All of these cases have storage space which is lovely. I can create small long boxes for two of the cases, and the other two have big voids below the shelf.

we now have about 2 cases too many for the space we are working with, however, as we dismantle more of the dioramas and change the floor plan up I am sure we will need them all again.

the only dark spot on our day was when one of the cases smashed into the corner of an older case and a big ol chunk of glass popped off. we covered it in card with a warning and I swept up the shards asap... but.. ugh. I had plans for the glass in that case lol.

However, that is not the fault of the volunteer movers who were paid in iced coffee, it is the fault of me for not ensuring they had enough space to get through.

I also had an iced coffee... and three other coffees... and was feeling a little bit... wired for the whole afternoon. It was a lotta fun, i gotta say. I can't wait to start planning things out for these new cases.

new cases mean that we can re-lay whats in a few of our more inaccessible cases and because of their dimensions, we can also ensure that our space is accessible for mobility tools... we don't have a ramp and i can't do anything about that yet. But I CAN make our floor space better.