Tara in the Museum

Undertaking the Museum Association’s associateship and this is my online log of activity and reflection around museum topics and visits. Dont police my spelling, I really can’t be doing with all the formal business you know.

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August - Journal thoughts pt.1

Kindness as a strength is not negating or changing the perception that strength is what’s valued. It’s still classing kindness as a strength rather than as an absence of it. 

Find the people who’re better than you and learn from them. 

Stop believe you’re limited - the overachieving underachiever. It’s a remanant from another time. You hide your weaknesses behind your strengths and end up not really ,living anywhere upwards - instead skimming across. You freak out when it feels like you could fail or be seen through your weaknesses - but weaknesses don’t really exist they’re just opportunities to learn and your closing off from them and periciving a weakness is not something others will see. Those who are above you never look down on you, they will only wish to help you. Your need to be independent and successful is instilling a fear of being perceived as weak or “less Than”. Hiding behind your strengths to make excuses for your weak points - your comfortbility at being a big fish in a small pond is stopping you being able to develop the skills needed. In bararting yourself and seeing defaults they’re being perpetuated. Change your mindset. You aren’t limited, get rid of the immaturity. Show up to the world in a calm way and be ok with not being great.

Make a 28 before 28 list

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Disappointed at a lack of Front of House representation here - it’s a key museum role!

If you'd like a career within museums and heritage but are unsure what opportunities are available, take a look at these popular roles for i

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Notes on staff skills - Museum + Heritage Summer series

'blended engagment'

chatting sessions - making sure you have relevant but non-set agenda - you can spend too much time always driving 'towards stuff' - non-structured time is v improtant. Feels like that quote 'be crazy for two hours a day'

volunteers are often here for thier free time - you have to make it enjoyable to an extent in terms of socially being open and giving them a wholesome space. But it does still need to be guided. also opens ideas

my thoughts -

CPD - it would be good to know what the direction and hopes of our staff are but also campaigning for FoH as a job as is, its not always a jump to somewhere else.

Eloise Moody - https://www.eloisemoody.com/work/the-caretakers

 📷 The Caretakers — Eloise Moody The Caretakers, Starting on Monday 13th July 2020, made with the support of Metal. A new audio-based artwork that takes audiences behind the closed doors of UK arts organisations to find fresh perspectives in suspended collections. www.eloisemoody.com

can be a great idea to have this guide around which sees the collection or space through a new singular unique persepctive. especially with no sight. understanding of roles and understading of what each person does promotes recognision and value of thier works. SMART targets learn the SOP's upskilling volunteers and students - inclusive language having a tangible with them (volunteers) that allows them to show what they have done. Young people given freedom to write on what they want, attracted more views online, and young people flocked to young people. embed vocational practice in. https://www.powderham.co.uk/  📷 Powderham Castle & Grounds: Historic Visitor Attraction in Devon Discover the official website of Powderham Castle, a 600 year old manor near Exeter and The Home of Devon Enjoy the dog-friendly castle & grounds. Enquire for your perfect castle wedding today. www.powderham.co.uk derry tydeman from here

simon mentioned this - https://www.channel4.com/programmes/kathy-burke-money-talks

 📷 Kathy Burke: Money Talks - All 4 Kathy Burke explores society's obsession with the pursuit of wealth and our relationship with money. Who has it? Who doesn't? And does it really make us happy? www.channel4.com

from the past one - https://www.euroclio.eu/project/contested-histories/

 Contested Histories – EuroClio – Inspiring History and Citizenship Educators About the Project. The IHJR's project on Contested Histories in Public Spaces is a multi-year initiative intended to address controversies over statues, memorials, street names and other representations of disputed historical legacies in public spaces. The objective of the Contested Histories project is to provide decision-makers, policy planners, educators, and other stakeholders with a set ... www.euroclio.eu

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Notes from Representing the Reality, Museum + Heritage summer series

intelligence can't be classed by objects - i.e hume with a spear would not survive in a landscape etc. - instead it should be assessed by wider context.

thoughsts - by removing the obejcts from thier home to a new context you ahev severed the connection from the object and its people

it can reinfornce predejuice/racism

looking like a castle is superoir to a hut etc.

the superoirity and inferioirty complex is ingrained in our curation, in our displays, in our langauge etc.

museums should be places that attract people to learn more about the collective human, if humans are going to survive, they must become part of this change. we cant change the past but we can change the consqeuences - museums can be a part of that meaningful change. - Geoff Palmer

time to start using the term slave - there are many types and many kinds of slavery. The broad use of the term means that they use it to negate or swaush other types of slavery. Really chattle slavery vs servitude, minors vs

slave is a loaded laden term and it needs to broken down, to not be a signifier for anger and resentment but that pull on the actual emotional real response - removing its political loading.

a diverse society requires diverse management. - geoff palmer

'The majority of the collection that I manage is not contentious in terms of how it was acquired, however I am looking at how we can better represent the paintings of military conquests and those considered heroes. Does anyone have any advice as to how this can be done sensitively but sensibly - specifically in terms of British Empire narratives? Amy, Collections Manager, Army & Navy Club.

There isnt anything senstivive about history - its either true or it isnt. Its about what people did, what wwere the political motives, you cant talk about sensativity - it allows historians to use sensative to twist history by saying 'X defended one black person' 'he did gradual abolition therefore he was a abolisihist - when in reality

people can take the truth - but i'd argue poltics and those in power with superiority cant take the truth.

Bring in different views, make sure you have the conflicts from either side represented.

its how you communicate these changes to your current group and to new groups that show how you're working.

The truth cannot be managed by sensativity

''I think if you want to accurately represent people, you need their voices, their opinions, their thoughts not just ours as curators or professionals. We cannot speaks for everyone. But how do you reach out to community groups, and how do you do it without sounding like we are saying "please educate us"?'' - a question by Hannah, national museum of the royal navy.

'musuems often pick people up and drop them.' You need to build up those relationships and do longer term projects. Work to develop relationships rather than picking them up.  - Damian Etheraads.

too many 'projects' and not enough longer commitment. -Myfanwy lloyd

These projects don't cost much, they take time and mindsets to change. - damian etheraads

What was so inferoir is now so superior we wont send them back? - geoff palmer

sensativity should be dealt with after we do the work - GP

pay people for thier time. Community connectors. No more free projects - damian believes he gets less funding for asking people.

Pay a fair wage or artists unions.

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Thousands of messages will be removed on Friday ahead of wet weekend

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Museum faces boycott in slavery links row

The Museum of the Home in Shoreditch faces a boycott by schools amid the row over its links to slavery.

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Exeter museum offers physical activity packs for ‘shielded, vulnerable or isolated’ people - Museums + Heritage Advisor

The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery is ensuring no members of its local community are unable to access content during lockdown

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I have thoughts but need to sit and think on it more

Mary Shelley's House of Frankenstein has opened in Bath, offering a modern, immersive take on the troubled author's life and work

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A Trip to the Tower

Before arriving I jotted down some of the thing I remembered from my visit as a child. My dad took me here and when I was walking through the entrance I found myself welling up from the memories of being in the shop, excitedly being bought a deck of cards and a knight toy. I remember also getting a beefeater teddy which I still have now and love very much. I remembered the thickness of the doors at the crown jewels - not the jewels surprisingly. I remember being told something about the witching hour and the battlement walk. I remember the graffiti on the wall, how I felt the realness, the aliveness of those distant historic people so keenly through their stone scratchings. I remembered being asked to play Anne Boylen by a guide in the chapel as he retold the story of Anne Boylens death. I made a note of these - those things were clearly important to me at 10, would they be now? What made these moments stick out? They were characterised by my participation, connection to my own interests (witches and such), by my shock at seeing something I knew (a door) being bigger/so different to what I could comprehend, or they had deep emotional reactions. They kinda ticked the boxes of the contextual model of learning. 

While walking I remembered facts about yeomen warders which I told to Barny (who told me I had, in fact, told him that before when the topic had come up a few years ago - clearly the knowledge had settled somewhere fairly solidly). Anyway, here’s me with Barry the Yeoman Warder. I told him a bit about the Museum of Freemasonry and he said he might pop by one day and asked for my name. Hope so, that would be bloody brilliant. 

I remembered lots of facts about things as we passed, I told stories to Barny of traitors gate. He was rather unhappy with the interpretation - as was I. It’s a little lacklustre, and didn’t really answer questions. This one is right by traitors gate, and is the first thing you encounter when walking up from the entrance. Barny went over to it expecting it to answer his interest in Traitors Gate but instead it spoke about something that wasn’t as clearly signposted. The traitors gate post was further up along the railing, but I think this should have been swapped around. I love the multiple languages, and as an international attraction thats probably more important than extended text. However, on most of the panels there was ample space for another sentence or two, but then again, it clear that the readbility will be impacted down by the different languages. The pictures are great, they are dynamic but on more than one occasion I wanted to write down to reference the image and find it online later but they were only marked with copyright. 

The text panel below worked for me. I think I like panels that reveal something, and that link into the wider context of the world. 

This was really unhelpful as a text panel to me. The handle was so interesting looking like mushrooms and was so surprising and unusual yet the panel did not address any of the uniqueness of the item. It mentioned a person, not that much about them tho, all in all I learned nothing from this panel. Left me feeling very disappointed, so was Barny. 

I loved this, the panel text felt interactive. A nice simple way of engaging just by changing the tone of writing! Nothing too fancy but it felt link the museum was engaging with the visitor. 

Big fan of the use of symbols to show the time periods the interpretation text was talking about. These were in every room of the white tower, and illustrated the location of where you are. Loved it.  

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Magnum Billionaire pop up

an influencer who cooks food (started following him when he had only a few followers on the tiktok, now he’s a starrr boy), anyway he posted about this pop up which was taking place across three days in July. I sent this to anya and then sent she booked us tickets, by Friday we were on our way into the pleasure sensorium.

Anya works in marketing and was interested in this from her side, and I was interested in it (once, ice cream) because of its seeming merge of interpretation and promotion. Here was a pop up that was using all the techniques of interpretation to deliver a narrative through a project building brand identity and awareness but ultimately selling its product. I imagine its doing a bunch of what museums would like - gaining revenue, increasing awareness, X and offering good interactIves.

The vague idea was that the product had been broken down into its componets and at each stage on your journey you learned more about how sound, texture, smell and sight all change the way you taste and experience things. Each room was well designed with an interactive and its own room host - the host encouraged us to engage with the interactive and explained the science behind it all. They also offered to take photos and engaged us in conversation while also leaving enough space for us to chat with ourselves. They made it comfortable to talk between groups too.

Each rooms theme came with a wall panel of text and an interactive. Upon entering the pop up we were given a black bag with a pot of chocolate bits, some Biscuit crumbles in a test tube, a gold envelope with gold stickers and a questionaire. As well as hand sanitiser.

they played sounds in room one which played different sounds and made different taste profiles happen in your mouth, followed by a room with biscuit textures on the walls, and a bouncy floor - these textures produce a haptic seasoning effect, effectively changing the perception of texture in your mouth dependant on external texture. Then it was a room with plush seats and gold looks

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One in the Wellcome Collection...

And we also have one in the Museum of Freemasonry

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In contrast to the Pitt Rivers removal....Tsantsa in the Wellcome Collection

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This painting is on display on the saloon wall in the Wellcome Collection's main exhibit. I had an intense reaction to this painting, its absolutely exquisite. I wanted to know more about the painting - what it's name was, who it was depicting, the representation of a black woman as Mary and from that is it modern emulating old or authentically old, who painted it, where could I find more?

The annoying thing about the saloon wall was that, yes there were numbers, but no text panel. Dan and me searched around but couldn't find any panel, so we sought out an assistant and asked. He took us round the back of the panel (to near the entrance) and suggested the large print guide. He helped me search for the section (was a large guide!) and we found it. Felt a bit strange to have numbers but no panel nearby, nor a sign to say 'you can find out more here x' or even have the guides on this side rather than round the back.

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This made me think

the text panel made me see prosthetics and the approach to prosthetics differently. I felt my mind expand a little more here, approaching something Ive not had much experience in and thus have a mainstream thought on and pushing the bounds. I wonder how this text panel would translate / come across if it was written in the standard closed caption style without attribution nor active language?