Archive for the ‘Museums’ Category
Tate Modern, Tate Britain, redevelopment, rotunda, £45million
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on August 27, 2010 at 10:50 am
Not content with adding a whole new wing to Tate Modern, Tate are now planning to undertake some major redevelopment work at their Millbank site. Tate Britain isn’t exactly shabby, but they’ve identified a number of key areas where they could do with updating or revisiting how the gallery works, especially in terms of visitors.
In an article on Museum [Insider] I’ve written up the details of what’s planned. They’re spending £45million on works in different parts of the building – so this is more a joined up project with lots of little projects combined into one. 9 galleries at the south end of the building will be redeveloped – and to be honest they need doing. The rotunda and entrance will be transformed and a new education entrance created. There will also be a new cafe – of course – and terrace, to cater for the growing numbers that have been visiting Tate Britain in recent years.
Planning permission for the project is granted and work is expected to start in early 2011. Watch this space for more….
Arts and Crafts, ebook, museum fundraising, museum interpretation, Museum [Insider], redevelopment, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on August 11, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Opened in 1899, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery is a magnificent example of Arts and Crafts architecture. But now, the world’s first purpose-built portrait gallery is undergoing a £17.6 million refurbishment and redevelopment. The gallery is closed to the public and is due to reopen to the public in November 2011.
Behind-the-scenes photographs and information about the development of the project – including details of the redevelopment of the building, the works in progress, fundraising and ideas about interpretation – are available in a new article on Museum [Insider] today.
This piece is going into the next version of the new Museum [Insider] ebook, the second volume of which is published in early September.
East Belfast, Eric Kuhne & Associates, Titanic, Titanic Quarter, Titanic Signature Project
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on August 6, 2010 at 9:13 am
There’s a huge development project underway in East Belfast, transforming the dock area into a £7billion leisure and accomodation zone called the Titanic Quarter. And there’s going to be a new museum – all about the Titanic – at the heart of the development.
The Titanic Signature Building will contain a world-class visitor attraction telling the story of the history of the fated ship, but also of the ship-building industry in Belfast and the seafaring folk who herald from the city. Eric Kuhne & Associates have designed the new building, which will open to the public in March 2012.
There’s an in-depth article about the Titanic Signature Building live on Museum [Insider].
e-book, Event Communications, Giants Causeway, Heneghan Peng, National Trust
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on July 20, 2010 at 6:40 am
At long last, works are commencing on the visitor centre at the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland. The project has taken an age to get off the ground after the previous structure on the site burned down in 2000. The National Trust is now spending £18.5 million on the new centre, designed by architects Henghan Peng and with interpretation by Event Communications.
I’ve been watching this story for a while, since visiting the site a few years back. There’s a piece about the new visitor centre live on Museum [Insider]. This will also be one of the chapter’s in the forthcoming e-book about museum and heritage development project, which we’ll be officially announcing next week.
Causeway Museum Service, Colearine, Coleraine Borough Council, Market Yard, museum, museum without walls, Museum [Insider] e-book
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on July 12, 2010 at 6:19 pm
The Causeway Museum Service in Northern Ireland has been operating very succesfully for year without one key element – a building. The service provides temporary exhibition content and outreach projects for a variety of venues but has, hitherto, not had a place it can call home.
That’s all about to change with the requsitioning by Coleraine Borough Council of the old Market Yard, an abandoned market place in the centre of the town. It will be redeveloped and a new museum placed in the centre, revitalising the town and bringing the story of the area to life in a permanent display. There will also be temporary exhibition areas and a community space where locals can get involved.
I’ve spent the last year or so looking at museum development projects, but this is perhaps one of the most ingenious I’ve seen, given that it turns the audience engagement model on its head. Rather than creating a huge building and then spending a lot of time effort and money on getting people in to see objects, Causeway have found the people already, engaged them successfullu and are now going to use that good will to bid to the HLF for money to complete a building for them. There’s a piece all about it – including an itnerview with the designers HKD – on Museum [Insider].
This is one of the pieces that will be going into the new Museum [Insider] e-book, coming out shortly. It’s a review of some of the projects I’ve written about in the last 18 months for the online magazine. It’s being edited right now – we’re digging around again on some of the older stories to bring them right up to date. The collection of articles – plus new material, exclusive to the book – will be issued for sale in about a month. Much more to come on that in the near future.
HMS Victory, Mary Rose, Mary Rose Trust, new museum, Portsmouth, Vasa Museum
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on July 9, 2010 at 7:46 am
Do you remember the Mary Rose being raised out of the water in the 1980s? It’s taken the conservators at the Mary Rose Trust quite a while to get their heads around exactly how to treat and preserve the wooden hull of the ship, which had lain undisturbed for over 500 years, and what sort of structure they want to keep it in on a long-term basis.
But now work is underway at the site in Portsmouth, near the HMS Victory, where the Mary Rose will reside in a purpose-built museum. They’re still working on the hull, spraying it almost continually with chemicals to prevent it from cracking. Once it’s installed in the new museum – shaped like a boat – it’ll need to be dried out very slowly, over a period of years, and should be completely ready by 2016. The museum opens before that though.
It’s reminiscent of the excellent Vasa Museum in Stockholm, one of my favourite museums in the world, where visitors can get up close and personal with the ship on display there and also learn about the lives of the people who lived and worked on board.
There’s a new article about the Mary Rose on Museum [Insider]. This is one of the articles that will be making it into Museum [Insider]‘s first e-book, penned by yours truly, which we’re expecting to launch in about a month. Plenty more coming on that soon…
Canterbury, Canterbury Beaney, Dr James George Beaney, FutureBeaney
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on June 22, 2010 at 9:18 am
The Canterbury what?
The Beaney Institute in Canterbury (named after its benefactor Dr James George Beaney) has had a museum at its town centre site for around 100 years. It’s about to have a major overhaul, to bring the building and museum up to date. In addition to an extended library and building conservation they are also adding an additional wing, full of lovley new gallery spaces.
There’s more about their project on the FutureBeaney website. And, as always, there’s an article about it on Museum [Insider] by yours truly.
architects, Battrle of Bannockburn, interpretation, landscaping, National Trust for Scotland, Scottish Heritage
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on June 3, 2010 at 3:58 pm
The Scots are getting ready to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn (1314) in a few years. The two organisations which look after the battlefield (Scottish Heritage and the National Trust for Scotland) have combined forces on a project which will see the site reinterpreted for the public by the time of the anniversary.
The onsite heritage centre will be redeveloped, along with landscaping work in the area, conservation of key battlefield sites and new signage for the whole place. Architecture, lanscaping and interpretation contracts are all out to tender at the moment, but there’s a full review of the plans live in an article about Bannockburn on Museum [Insider]
Berlin Wall, eastern Europe, editing, European Commission, exhibition, Fall of the Wall meets Stonewall, gay pride, London, photography, pride march, rainbow flag, Stonewall, writing
In Museums on June 1, 2010 at 12:21 pm
I’ve just started some editorial work on a really fast-burn exhibition project for the European Commission offices in London. It’s a photographic display opening in a few weeks called Fall of the Wall Meets Stonewall.
It’s a collection of pictures from gay pride marches across eastern Europe where the right to hold such marches has not been around as long as we’ve had it in the USA or the UK – in fact that fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Soviet influence were huge catalysts for the development of gay rights in eastern Europe so there’s been a huge swathe of activity in this area in recent years.
What’s interesting about some of the photographs is that many of the scenes of the marches are the same as those we see in photographs of anti-government protests and marches in the 1980s. A photograph of the rainbow flag waving in front of Ceausescu’s palace in Bucharest is a perhaps a peculiar image for those who can remember what live was like under Romania’s totalitarian state and definitely a pleasing one for gays and lesbians in Romania today.
I’ve been working with the exhibition’s curator to some up with an interpretation plan for the show. I’m going to be writing the copy for the panels and editing the labels/captions for the individual photographs. A bit of a learning curve for me, but great fun!
The exhibition is open 9-18 June at the European Commission offices, near Victoria.
Henry VIII, ATS Heritage, audio guide, Lambeth Palace, Lambeth Palace Library, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Elizabeth I, Charles I, Gutenberg Bible
In Museums, new content on May 26, 2010 at 9:55 am
My latest audioguide is now live at Lambeth Palace Library, London. It accompanies an exhibition called Treasures of Lambeth Palace Library which is being held in the palace’s magnificent Great Hall. Interestingly, everyone entering the space gets an audio handset so it’s likely that a much higher percentage of visitors attending the exhibition listening to my script than you’d get at other museums or galleries.
The exhibition marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of the library at Lambeth Palace and features some of the greatest treasures from the collection,which has been added to by each Archbishop of Canterbury since 1610. Some of the stars of the show include Elizabeth I’s prayer book, Henry VIII’s handwriting, Charles I’s gloves he wore on execution day and the first Gutenberg Bible to come to the UK.
There are some amazing things in there and I had a great time researching and writing the script, which was then produced into the finished audioguide by my colleagues at ATS Heritage. Plus I got to interview Archbishop Rowan Williams as well, who you can hear on the guide.
Tickets are £8, which you can book online here. The exhibition is open until 23 July.
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on May 24, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG) are hard at work on their new public galleries. The project – which is costing nearly £10 million – will see an overhaul of their existing building and the creation of new gallery spaces, telling the story of the history of Birmingham.
It’s a similar project to the one taking place at the Museum of Bristol, which also seeks to tell the story of the history of the city. I worked with the Bristol team recently on the text that will sit alongside the interpretation of their story and I wonder if I should perhaps see if BMAG are interested in finding out more about museum text in a similar way.
In the meantime, there’s an article all about the developments at BMAG on Museum [Insider].
Dulwich OnView, British Museum, multimedia guide, Yang-May Ooi, Fusion View, Italian Renaissance Drawings, podcast, Steve Slack, audio guide, writing
In Dulwich OnView, Museums, new content, what i'm reading on May 21, 2010 at 9:17 am
My friend Yang-May Ooi, the writer and blogging expert who taught me much of what I now about blogging, interviewed me recently for a podcast on her website.
Fusion View is Yang-May’s blog which offers her musings on life in the UK – and especially our little corner of south London – often compared with life in Malaysia where she was born. She describes it as ‘personal reflections with a cross-cultural flavour’. There’s everything on there, from recipes and reviews to videos of local sights and interviews with people from all walks of life.
Her library of podcasts is growing rapidly and one of her most recent entries is an interview with me about my work as a multimedia writer. Taking the British Museum’s current exhibition about Italian Renaissance Drawings as a starting point, we explore the process of creating an audio guide and how we turn the content into the little box visitors borrow from the museum when they arrive on the day.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Haus der Musik, Stephensdom, Museums Quarter, Florence, Uffizi, Academia, Duomo, Basilica San Lorenzo, Museo del Bargello, Birth of Vennus, Palazzo Vecchio, Dante, museums, art galleries, Vienna Philharmonic
In Museums on May 17, 2010 at 11:20 am
I’ve not updated this blog in a week or so as I’ve just been so busy, going to so many museums.
Last week in Vienna we visited the Kunsthistorisches Museum (a holy grail for any art historian or museum lover) and the Haus der Musik (an award-winning visitor experience about the science and art of music production). We also visited the conservation work going on at St Stephensdom and climbed the tower there. The Museums Quarter in Vienna is quite amazing – so many institutions all crammed into one small area!
Then, after an overnight train ride to Florence, we visited the Uffizi to see their amazing collection including Birth of Venus, et al. (Remember to book your tickets online in advance) and the Academia Gallery (to see David and some other great Michelangelos. Another city, another tower – this time of the infamous Duomo. And another Cathedral – the art inside the Basilica San Lorenzo is like a museum in itself. Also worth seeing in Florence – and with shorter queues! – are the Museo del Bargello (a former prison and now home to a collection of European sculpture) and the stunning interiors of the Palazzo Vecchio. But I’d suggest skipping Dante’s House – it’s just some text panels on a wall and a gift shop.
Phew, with all those museums, plus a trip to the Vienna Philharmonic I’m still catching up with myself. And also plenty of fine European food. Right, off to the gym to burn it all off, and where I won’t think about museums for at least an hour!
application, bid, English Heritage, Heritage Lottery Fund, planning, Wrest Park
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on May 1, 2010 at 10:02 am
Wrest Park in Bedfordshire has submitted plans to the Heritage Lottery Fund for consideration which will see the site undergo a major upgrade of the visitor experience.
The English Heritage site – consisting of a Grade 1 listed stately home and outstanding historic gardens – is a recent acquisition for the charity and needs plenty of attention.
There’s detail about what they’re planning in an article live on Museum [Insider].
Heritage Lottery Fund, Museum [Insider], Preston Hall Museum, Stockton-on-Tees
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on April 26, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Preston Hall Museum in Stockton-on-Tees has been awarded £7 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund for a major redevelopment project. And they’ve been quick off the mark, spending plenty of their cash on new and exciting things. The museum’s site is home to a street of Victorian shops, which have been preserved as a living history centre and these are already being redisplayed. There’ll be loads more happening on site this summer – the final reopening of the museum will be in 2012.
If you want to know more, there’s a piece on Museum [Insider] today.
And on the theme of M[I], there’s exciting news afoot. Can’t say much about it now, but I’m working on a new project with them that’s going to be brilliant. More to follow soon …
app, application, Ashmolean, ATS Heritage, audio tour, download, iTunes
In Museums on April 23, 2010 at 8:24 am
You can now download a full audio tour of the Ashmolean museum in Oxford – scribed by me – from iTunes.
The tour is delivered on handsets in the museum building, which you have to give back at the end of your visit, of course. But now you can buy the content in advance, listen to it in front of the objects and keep it afterwards. That way you can always listen to one of my scripts wherever you are – if you must!
It’s been provided by the producers of the audio tour, ATS Heritage, who I’ve also worked with on a tour for Lambeth Palace Library.
The app is yours for £2.99 from the iTunes store.
British Museum, Fra Angelico, Leonardo, Lindsay Duncan, Michelangelo, multimedia guide, Raphael
In Museums on April 22, 2010 at 9:54 am
The British Museum’s new exhibition on renaissance art opens today. Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance Drawings is housed in the round reading room at the centre of the museum and features 100 drawings from the great artists of the time – Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael etc. (Alas no Donatello.)
In addition to the interpretation in the exhibition there’s also a multimedia guide to the show – basically an audio-guide with a screen so they can show you images at the same time – written by yours truly. It takes visitors around some of the star objects in the show.
Most of the drawings in this exhibition aren’t large. But these handheld guides allow visitors to get right up close to the pictures, and to make detailed comparisons on screen between what they see in front of them and other pictures in the show, indeed in other museums.
One of the golden rules of writing audio is: don’t write about what the visitor can’t see. But in this case we can write about what they can’t see as we can put it right infront of them on a screen. And on that note, there’s also an audio-described version of the script recorded for visually impaired visitors, using the main script, but with extra levels of visual description.
If you want to hear some of the guide, the lovely people at the British Museum have provided the Director’s introduction and five of the stops to listen to for free online here. And you get to hear the dulcit tones of Lindsay Duncan reading the script.
The exhibition is open until 25 July.
Museopunk, newcurator, ning.com, Pete
In Museums, what i'm reading on April 19, 2010 at 11:19 am
I just had an email from the enigmatic blogger newcurator, who I follow from time to time. Whoever he is, he’s got a good eye for a story and a witty turn of phrase and I always enjoy reading his provocative posts. I’ve also been enjoying following his forum, Museopunk, where people from the museum sector share ideas about museum futures.
It turns out that Ning.com (the service that runs Museopunk) will be closing its free service. Boo!
But, Pete says: “I’m not done with forums. I hope to get a new one set up soon.
I suggest going here and signing up to the newsletter. Big plans afoot so that’s the best place to find out.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed here. I hope the discussions can continue on the new format.”
I wonder what his big plans are?! If you’re into museums and fun ideas being shared on the Internet, then sign up to his list and see what happens!
dossier exhibition, execution, Lady Jane Grey, National Gallery, Paul Delaroche, Room 41
In Museums on April 13, 2010 at 1:13 pm
I went today to see the current exhibition in the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery – Painting History: Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey. As per norm, it’s an impeccably turned out exhibitions with sensitive lighting and a real attention to detail. In fact I was particularly impressed with the deisgn concept of a truly theatrical space with luscious curtains and dark wooden seating.
The show takes as its starting point the painting of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche, which normally hangs in Room 41 (one of my favourites in the NG). Although we don’t meet the picture of Lady Jane on her way to be executed until the fourth room of the display, we are introduced to the themes and background to the painting’s conception in advance, helping to build some tension and expectation.
In the most part the text is informative and flows nicely (apart from the occasional panel or label) and tells a story as we move through the space. But, again as per norm, the text is far too small even for me. For some reason the NG have stopped handing out free guides to the exhibition with all or some of the exhibition copy – that would’ve been nice.
But other than that, I now see a picture I’ve never really contemplated all that much before in a new light, which is a real success for an exhibition, I reckon.
It’s part of what is becoming known as a ‘dossier exhibition’ which is when museums or galleries take pieces from their collection and explode all the art history they can into one exhibition, focussed on a single work. There are plenty of loans-in to this exhibition, but using a NG centrepiece manages to keep the costs down in a recession. Clever thinking.
It’s open until 23 May. Drop me a line if you’ve also seen it. I’d love to hear what you think.
fourth plinth, National Trust, Seaton Deleval Hall, Trafalgar Square
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on April 8, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Until about a week ago I hadn’t really heard of Seaton Deleval Hall, never mind knowing how to pronounce it! It’s another glorious architectural gem in Northumberland – one of the finest examples of the English Baroque. The country house and extensive grounds and parklands were saved for the nation a few years ago and have now passed into the hands of the National Trust.
There’s a new piece about the plans for the site on Museum [Insider]. What impressed me most about the project is the Trust’s recent, and ongoing, consultation with members of the public about what they’d like to see at Seaton. While parts of the hall will be displayed in the traditional National Trust style with historic rooms finely decorated with furniture and antiques – what I call ‘manor manner’ – some of the property is to be used in a different way.
The central hall at Seaton was ruined years ago by fire and is now a unique open space in the middle of the building complex. The idea is not to conserve the space back to how it looked in the 18th century, but to allow local artists and community groups to suggest what they might like to do in there. A music concert, an art exhibition, a meeting space. The Trust liken the project to the fourth plinth idea in Trafalgar Square where different artists are asked to respond to the space in different ways. Great thinking National Trust – we’ll look forward to finding out more about how the space is being used.
Bletchley Park Trust, Enchanted Palace, Heritage Lottery Fund, Heritage Trends, Kensington Palace, Museum [Insider], Project Tracker
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on March 27, 2010 at 2:12 pm
I’ve had two new pieces published on Museum [Insider] in the last week or so.
The first is about the Bletchley Park Trust, who are at the start of a major redevelopment of the visitor experience at their site after receiving development funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The money is there to help them develop plans and submit a full HLF bid in the next two years. The article describes their plans and outlines the funding news on the project. There are also some contracts up for grabs at the moment, which M[I] subscribers can see using the Project Tracker tool.
The other article is a commentary piece about cross-cultural collaboration, inspired by a recent visit to the newly opened Enchanted Palace exhibition at Kensington Palace. They’ve achieved wonderful things there and created a very special exhibition through working in collaboration with a theatre company and group of fashion designers. The piece calls for more of this kind of collaboration. Working with unlikely partners can yield fantastic results.
The commentary piece is the first in a new stream of articles I’ll be writing for M[I] about heritage trends. I’ve got my own column – and there’s a picture of me on the homepage. Very exciting!
Arthur Miller, Audrey Hepburn, Cecil Beaton, contextual information, Igor Stravinsky, Irving Penn, labels, museum text, National Portrait Gallery, panels, portraits, The Indian Portrait 1560-1860, Truman Capote, Woody Allen
In Museums on March 24, 2010 at 9:51 am
I visited the National Portrait Gallery last week to see their two temporary exhibitions. I found them to be quite different.
Irving Penn: Portraits was a beautiful show with a great wealth of sitters from this eminent 20th-century photographer. From Cecil Beaton and Truman Capote to Woody Allen and Arthur Miller (via Igor Stravinsky and Audrey Hepburn), it’s a rollercoaster through the who’s who of the second half of the last century.
But while the pictures are all wonderful, I felt as if it was lacking some story. I got a sense of how his portraiture changed over time, but only in a very basic way – he stopped taking full-length photographs and moved away from grimy settings to intimate close ups. Other than that, the context was pretty weak.
Each section is introduced by a piece of panel text on the wall – not reproduced in the booklet, alas – and then it’s just the pictures with their sitter’s name and sometimes a one-liner in the book. Not knowing much about Penn, I even had to leave the exhibition space to check when he was born on the title panel, as it wasn’t included in the show! But that said, I had a lovely time in there and saw some beautiful things, very elegantly displayed, given the number of images in a small room.
By comparison, The Indian Portrait 1560-1860 was the polar opposite. This exhibition sets itself a prospect to the visitor in the title. My main question as I entered the space was – why those dates? I’ve still no idea. The material all fits in that date range, but there’s no explanation of why.
Here, my search for contextual material and story was not necessary as the very clear visual language of the space let me know what I needed to do, how the pictures were grouped and clearly showed me where the contextual information was. But alas, the interpretation of the paintings stopped there.
These aren’t the easiest paintings to access if you’re not used to looking at them. They’re so incredibly detailed in places and have wonderful depictions of life – at court and in myths and legends. The labels – now thankfully present – seemed to spend most of their time talking about contextual history though, and not what we can actually see in front of us.
But again, I had a great time in there, delving into the history of Indian portrait painting and spotting the trends and differences between periods, styles and artists. They’ve secured some amazing loans in, which is testament to the lobbying power of the NPG.
It’s just a shame that in one of these exhibitions I was left craving context. And in the other – where context was present – I was still left wanting substance. The permanent galleries of the NPG are great at writing about what visitors can see in front of them. Perhaps some of that could filter into their interpretive text in exhibitions as well.
Dulwich OnView, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Tate Britain, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, Irving Penn, National Portrait Gallery
In Dulwich OnView, Museums, new content on March 19, 2010 at 9:56 am
After going to see the Henry Moore exhibition at Tate Britain a few weeks ago I’ve found myself spotting references to Moore all over the plac.
He’s mentioned in the current temporary exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery about Moore’s contemporary Paul Nash. And there’s a portrait of him in the Irving Penn exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. (Alright, alright, I’m just showing off at how many exhibitions I go to. It’s a hazard of the job really.)
I also spotted a few of his sculptures about the place in London. Are we all left wanting Moore?
I wrote a piece about noticing these, and other, references on Dulwich OnView, which went live this morning.
The Moore show at Tate is well worth the visit. I used to not like Tate Britain shows that much as they were a bit over my head, but this one seems to have been curated, designed and the text written with the visitor in mind. Great stuff. Do go and see it.
Hadrian's Wall, Hadrian's Wall Heritage Limited, HLF, Romans
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on March 12, 2010 at 3:33 pm
There’s a new museum telling the story of the Romans in northern Britain in the planning in Cumbria .
It’s at Maryport, at the idyllic end of Hadrian’s Wall – the famous Roman frontier zone in the north of England. Overlooking the sea there is a spot called Camp Farm which, until recently, has been in private hands. But thanks to the clever folks at Hadrians’ Wall Heritage Limited – an independent organisation which seeks to cultivate contacts and collaboration along the wall – 150 acres of land have been purchased and are to be turned into a new museum.
The project has support to take it through to a formal HLF funding bid, which is sure to succeed. Details of the plans and the project are in a new article by yours truly on Museum [Insider].
I’ve had a bit of a break from writing articles for M[I], whilst I’ve been working on other projects, but we’re back on form now. Expect more to come out soon.
British Library, dinner party conversation, English language, Henry VIII, Points of View
In Museums on March 5, 2010 at 3:25 pm
At the moment I’m writing up a really interesting piece of work for the British Library.
They’re opening an exhibition in November about the English language. It looks like it’s going to be another success story for the BL, who have really raised their game in terms of temporary exhibitions in the Paccar gallery in recent years. Henry VIII was a triumph and there are just a few days left of Points of View, the current exhibition about the birth of photography.
This new exhibition is presently in concept design stage and I’ve been working for them, as a consultant, on finding out whether the public ‘get’ the prospect of the exhibition or not. So I recruited and chaired some focus groups – which we held earlier this week – and asked members of the public for their opinions on the proposals as they stand at the moment. And it turns out that they really like them.
It’s going to be a great show, with lots of thought having gone into representing the English language in all its forms – spoken, written, recorded etc. English is a truly international lanauage so it’s got appeal for people all round the globe, and indeed for international audiences right here in London. It’s also a changing language with a long and interesting history and the exhibition will explore this, as it continues to change.
Perhaps the most exciting part will be the areas looking at accents and dialects. I won’t give anything away now, but expect to have fun in this exhibition, and to learn loads of those great facts for dropping into dinner party conversation.
Did you know 95% of all communication in English does not fit into the ‘standards’ that we have set ourselves for how the language should be written or spoken? Great stuff.
V&A, curious specimens, Strawberry Hill, Walpole, Mary Delaney, conference, royal collge of surgeons
In Museums on February 27, 2010 at 4:34 pm
I’ve just booked to go to a two-day conference at the V&A called Curious Specimens. It looks fantastic but I’m a bit nervous about going on my own, so I hope someone will decide to come with me and hold my hand. Here’s the low down:
It’s linked to their Strawberry Hill exhibition, which I’m desperate to go along and see when it opens on 6 March.
They say: “Focusing on the extraordinary acquisitions of Walpole and the English bluestocking, Mary Delaney, papers will discuss collections, collectors and their circles; objects remarkable for their curious modes of production; crafts of collecting such as Delaney’s ‘paper foliage’ collages and Walpole’s extra-illustrations; what Walpole called ‘the genealogy of objects of virtu’, including the lives of the copy and the fake in Enlightenment collections; intersections and tensions between antiquarian, aesthetic and scientific cultures of collecting and between the collection and the museum. Speakers include Adriano Aymonino, Stephen Bann, Craig Hanson, Janice Neri, Lucy Peltz, Alicia Weisberg Roberts, Stacey Sloboda and Michael Snodin.”
My word, V&A speak is pretty much inpenetrable isn’t it? I think they mean it’s about why 18th-century collecting was so bonkers. Sounds like a laugh to me – cabinets of curiosity and all that.
Thursday 15 April (17.00-18.30) at the Royal College of Surgeons
and
Friday 16 April (10.30-18.00) at the V&A
It’s only £36 full price, and that includes a wine reception and lunch! What a bargain.
44 Scotland Street, advert, Alexander McCall Smith, BMW, British Museum, Expressions of Joy, Hadrian, happiness, Hot Chip, London underground, No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, One Life Stand, Tea Time for the Traditionally Built
In Museums, happiness on February 15, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Have you ever seen an advert and wonder if it was written specifically with you in mind? Two adverts on the London underground have caught my eye this week.
The first is an advert for Alexander McCall Smith’s new book Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, the latest in his No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. (I quite liked the first of these books, but I must say that I prefer the 44 Scotland Street series.) Anyway, it struck me as another example of people using happiness as a marketing tool. Advertisers do it again and again – it’s a clever idea to associate your brand with making people happy. Another recent example of this is the current BMW campaign Expressions of Joy.
The other advert to catch my eye is for Hot Chip’s new album One Life Stand. The album art features a giant head of the Roman emperor Hadrian, found at Sargalassos in south-west Turkey. It was discovered in 2007 while we were working on the content development for an exhibition about Hadrian at the British Museum. We managed to secure a loan of the head to the BM for the display, less than a year from when it came out of the ground. It was pretty big news and I remember seeing this image over and over at the time, so it was a real bolt for me to see it again on a tube poster.
It’s funny what triggers the mind, eh?
art gallery, dulwich, Dulwich Picture Gallery, restaurant, St Valentine, Valentine's Day
In Dulwich OnView, Museums, new content on February 12, 2010 at 1:09 pm
You can’t have failed to notice that it’s Valentine’s Day this weekend. To be honest, I really can’t see the point in all the bother we put ourselves through each year. I don’t want to spend a fortune on a mediocre, over-priced meal just for the sake of it. And you have to sit in a restaurant full of other couples who are also concerned about how socially awkward the whole thing is. I like to celebrate when there’s a need to celebrate. And as a rule I tell my beloved how beloved they are as and when I want to, not when St Valentine dictates.
That said, you may still want to make a gesture to your better half at this time of year. My personal recommendation would be to take your partner along to a local museum or gallery and look at something lovely together. If you’re feeling flush, then why not splash out on afternoon tea in the cafe as well and help to generate some revenue for the arts.
To this end I took a look at what I might go and visit in my local art spot, Dulwich Picture Gallery. There’s an article all about what I found there on Dulwich OnView today.
Enchanted Palace, Historic Royal Palaces, Kensington Palace, Prince Charles
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on February 3, 2010 at 8:42 am
There’s a huge redevelopment project taking place at Kensington Palace - I wrote about it last year for Museum [Insider]. After getting a green light from project planners, the work is now underway. But the project received a minor setback when one part of the plans was rejected by the local authority. There’s a new piece on MI now with an update about the ongoing controversy and Prince Charles’s involvement in the project.
I’ve also been invited to the press view of the new exhibition at Kensington Palace in March. It’s called Enchanted Palace and it looks like it’s going to be just brilliant. Full report to follow….
National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth, Royal Naval Museum
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on January 18, 2010 at 2:53 pm
The Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth (recently rebranded as part of the National Museum of the Royal Navy) is planning to rework their displays about the modern Navy. The twentieth century galleries will be brought right up to date in 700 square metres of exhibition space. They are in the process of appointing a design company to work on the concept and future tenders about the build will be out in due course.
There’s an article about the background to the project live now on Museum [Insider].
Dulwich Picture Gallery, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Dutch Italianates
In Dulwich OnView, Museums, new content on January 15, 2010 at 9:45 am
There’s a beautiful group of paintings in Dulwich Picture Gallery called the Dutch Italianates – that is Dutch artists painting in an Italian style in the 17th century. There’s a strong emphasis on landscapes, and it’s known that Dutch artists were indeed there in the Italian countryside at the birth of Italian landscape painting.
The pictures have been on loan recently to Oklahoma City Museum of Art, where they were displayed in a special temporary exhibition. They’re on their way back to Dulwich now. Dulwich OnView has published an interview with the Gallery’s Director Ian Dejardin about the paintings. He talks about the influences on the Dutch artists in Italy, their significance in art history and his favourite paintings in the collection.
We published the interview in two parts, with illustrations from DPG’s collection (part one – part two). Or you can read the full transcript of the interview on OCMOA’s website.
audio tour, British Museum, i-phone, multimedia guide, random access
In Museums on December 9, 2009 at 9:46 am
The British Museum’s new multimedia guide has gone live with the public. It’s a random access tour, which means visitors choose which objects they want to learn about as they wander the Museum, rather than following a set tour. Although there are some short tours on there, if that’s what you’d like to do.
I’m particularly excited as I have written just over half of the content for the guide. It’s like a conventional audio guide to a museum, but in addition to a sound only tour, visitors also receive a handset with a screen on it – about the size of an i-phone. At various points around the Museum, the guide will refer you to an image or some moving footage on the the screen.
One of the golden rules of writing audio material for museum guides is not to refer to something that isn’t there. There’s no point saying:
‘There’s a vase similar to this one in the Louvre in Paris, with a thicker base’.
What you can say is:
‘Take a look at your screen now and you’ll see a vase, similar to this one, from the collection of the Louvre in Paris. Can you see how the shape is slightly different at the bottom? That’s because….’
This added freedom meant the guide was great fun to write. The handset comes with a stylus, so I could even direct visitors to little interactive games and give them a variety of different commentaries from which to choose.
It seems like ages since I finished writing the content for the guide, but that’s because since my job finished there’s been a lot of other people involved. Aside from checking and editing my scripts, and translating the final text of over 200 commentaries into ten languages (yikes!) the Museum’s staff have also had to program all the interactive and multimedia elements into the handsets.
Yesterday the multimedia guide underwent the ultimate litmus test – my mother took the guide and, after a while of figuring out how the interactive map works, found it quite straightforward to use. And she seemed pretty impressed with the multimedia elements.
Now we’ll just have to wait and see what the public think! Do let me know if you’ve used it, and what you think of it.
Antwerp Fashion Museum, Belgium, Delvaux, handbags
In Museums on November 25, 2009 at 8:08 am
Saw a great exhibition this weekend at the Antwerp Fashion Museum all about the Delvaux fashion house, Belgium’s leading manufacturer of luxury handbags. I know, handbags, who’s interested in that, right?
It was actually a really cleverly thought through exhibition with a great design, which allowed visitors to wander through the history of the company at their leisure. I saw just as many ladies gawping at the bags as I did chaps looking intently at the striking design of the space (and the photos of pretty models). And it was about much more than just bags – the way in which fashion has responded to changes in the way we travel, technology, surrealism, with changing materials. And even how branding and advertising have morphed over time, yet still staying true to the principles of the founders of the company.
Charles Delvaux owned a luxury travel goods business in Brussels (founded 1829, the year before the revolution which led to Belgian independence and thus older than Belgium itself!). Over the last 180 years they have gone on to produce travel goods – most famously bags – of incredibly high quality.
The exhibition used one of my favourite interpretive devices – the timeline – to great effect, placing key handbags in line with the development of the company.
And here’s a great way of displaying all the individual components which need to be individually cut to make one simple-looking bag.
The show gave me not only a sense of how these bags are made and the respect Belgians have for the brand (the royal family carry them) but also of the way a design house has interacted with European design history since the early 19th century. Well worth a visit.
(Open until Feb 2010, Entry €6.)
Dulwich Picture Gallery, quiz
In Dulwich OnView, Museums, new content on October 27, 2009 at 9:32 am
It’s that time of year again when Dulwich Picture Gallery gets ready for the annual Gallery Quiz. Teams of six compete in the grand setting of the Gallery – surrounded by beautiful paintings in the famous enfillade – and see their scores projected onto a large screen at the end of the Gallery. There’s a piece promoting the quiz live on Dulwich OnView today.
Design Museum, local authority, Museum [Insider], planning permission, relocation
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on October 26, 2009 at 11:07 am
I’ve been writing quite a few pieces for the online magazine Museum [Insider]. The articles are usually about huge development projects taking place in the heritage sector – often around the construction or renovation of museum buildings. Museum [Insider] tries to get the inside word on what’s going on and give its readers an edge in the competitive world of tenders and contracts.
Some trends have started to become apparent in the way in which some of these projects are managed. Something that has struck me of late is the way many ambitious building projects don’t get planning permission approved when they are first submitted to their local authority. Someone always comes along and voices opposition to the scheme. But after a small redesign and resubmission, the plans often get waved through.
It’s happened quite a few times on various different projects. I’ve picked it up and explained my theory on how it happens in the most recent article about the plans behind the relocation of the Design Museum’s headquarters.
Ancient Europe, Bonnie Greer, Nick Griffin, Question Time
In Museums on October 23, 2009 at 11:16 am
Last night’s Question Time on BBC1 caused quite a stir, primarily because of the presence of Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party on the panel. He is an odious man and managed to show himself to be the complete and utter fool everyone knows him as, on national television. I’m pleased the BBC allowed him to be on the show. Giving him the chance to spout his nonsense in a primetime public arena, means we can all now openly criticise him for not only being misguided, but also wrong and stupid.
It was great to see Bonnie Greer on the panel as well. And well done to her for recommending that Griffin visit the British Museum to brush up on his ancient history. Watch the video of Bonnie putting Nick Griffin right on his history.
I worked on the interpretation for the Ancient Europe Gallery (Room 51) at the BM, to which Bonnie Greer referred. Do pop along and see the display if you’re interested. We used a moving map to show the migration of settlers onto the UK mainland after the last Ice Age. And there are objects in the display from the first hunter-gatherers and famers who inhabited Britain. Perhaps you’ll spot Griffin in there, brushing up on the history of migrating peoples.
Ashmolean, Barbican, British Museum, Bunker, Exquisite Bodies, Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill, HMS Belfast, Life at Sea, Moctezuma, Modern Art Oxford, Museum of Natural History, Pitt Rivers Museum, Power of Dogu, Revolution on Paper, Tower of London, Wellcome Collection
In Museums on October 22, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Phew, it’s been a bit of a hectic week for museum-visiting Steve.
I’ve been working hard, honest, but in the last seven days I’ve managed to visit:
The Wellcome Collection to see Exquisite Bodies, an exhibition about 19th-century anatomical models, some of which were pretty gruesome and explicit. But a good show, now sadly closed.
Bunker exhibition at the Barbican Centre. It’s an imaginary WW2-esque bunker (of indeterminate location) where visitors are free to wander the network of rooms, filled with props, dust and a working underground postal train!
The British Museum to see their Power of Dogu exhibition – a lovely group of ancient objects from Japan which haven’t really been displayed before in this country. Great interpretation (well done Claire E.)
The Life at Sea exhibition on board HMS Belfast, which gets people of all ages imagining they’re in the Navy.
The British Library for their great interactive sound exhibition about 20th-century speeches, called The Sound and the Fury. And I can’t resist a visit to Magna Carta whenever I’m there too. As the Americans would say, it’s just so old. And it’s important too.
A behind-the-scenes look at the new Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, which opens on 7 November. I’ve been working with them over the last month, writing the new audio tour for the museum. It’s looking fab back there – such a creative and well thought out museum space. While in Oxford I checked out an old favourite – the Museum of Natural History and the recently re-opened Pitt Rivers Museum, which looks much the same but is greatly improved in terms of getting round the building. Yes, I saw the shrunken heads. Yes, they’re still really cool.
Also in Oxford I made a trip to Modern Art Oxford to see the Karla Black exhibition. When I look at modern art I generally don’t like to say ‘I could’ve done that’. It’s a rather crude and simplistic assessment of someone’s work. But sherbert on the floor and a giant condom full of custard really don’t do it for me.
Yesterday I was at the Tower of London to see the crown jewels, beefeaters, ravens etc. And also to see Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill in the White Tower. It’s not been made by HRP, but by the Royal Armouries. And it shows. There’s some great film of shiny armour and clashing swords. Real Tudor video and everything.
And this morning I put my nose around Moctezuma at the British Museum. It’s got some fab objects never seen before outside Mexico, and a real twist in the tale – hard to achieve in a narrative museum exhibition. The BM also opened another Mexican-inspired - Revolution on Paper, which features some really striking posters and political art (along with other things which inspire me less.) I always marvel at the size and breadth of the BM’s prints and drawings collection. It’s just huge.
I think I might need a period when I don’t visit any exhibitions. I’ve definitely got museum fatigue!
audience consultation, British Library, Points of View
In Museums on October 19, 2009 at 5:14 pm
I’ve just started a really interesting piece of work with the British Library. They have two spaces at the St Pancras site which they use for temporary exhibitions. They have plenty of ideas about what they want to put on in that space – almost too many, in fact. So, I’m going to be working with them to them decide which ones to run with. I’m going to be running some interviews with members of the public and also chairing some focus groups for them, with targetted audiences, analysing visitors’ initial reactions to the exhibition ideas and trying to gauge whether there is a ‘market’ for some of their ideas more than others.
It’s going to be happening throughout November, so I’ll be spending a lot of time in their lovely building. And probably their cafe too!
They have a lovely looking photography exhibition opening next week called Points of View.
A344, English Heritage, National Trust, Stonehenge, Wiltshire Council
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on October 15, 2009 at 11:05 am
In many ways, I don’t want to get started on Stonehenge. It’s been a long, hard struggle for the many organisations involved, but after nearly twenty years of wrangling and non-decision making it looks like English Heritage and their partner organisations (such as the National Trust) are ready to move forward with Stonehenge.
Years ago, it was agreed by the many stakeholders that the A344 road should not pass so closely to the stones for reasons of conservation. It’s been a long time in the planning, but everyone has now agreed that the road will be moved and how visitors will interact with the stones there. Plans submitted to Wiltshire Council now indicate a bespoke visitor centre, set into the hillside, 1.5 miles from the stone circle. There visitors will be able to learn about the historic landscape in which Stonehenge sits – it’s huge and stretches for miles – and then get into road trains which take them up to the stones.
The reason it’s taken so long os that there have been so many people involved in the decision-making process. Plus, with changing governments who see it as more or less of a priority than their predecessors, it’s been difficult to get any real leadership.
Everyone is now hoping that the plans are passed by Wiltshire Council. They will, of course, be undertaking their own consultation on the plans. But if they get the go-ahead, the visitor centre could be open in time for the Olympics.
There’s a piece analysing the plans and giving more context to the Stonehenge debacle on Museum [Insider].
Dulwich OnView, Dulwich Picture Gallery, online writing
In Dulwich OnView, Museums on October 12, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I’ve had a great day today, working with Dulwich Picture Gallery and a couple of local schools. The Gallery are running a project which sees sixth-formers from two schools coming together to create a local online magazine about cultural life in the area. There’s an arts focus of course – it’s being paid for by an art gallery – but it’s thought that it will reflect more than just DPG.
They are using the free software from WordPress we use for Dulwich OnView and which I also use for this site.
I taught a session about online writing – how that differs from writing for traditional media and some helpful hints about writing in the world of the blogosphere. We’ll be following their progress on Dulwich OnView. Their magazine is due to go live in about a month of so.
arts quarter, Great Yarmouth, St Geroge's Chapel, theatre
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on October 1, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Great Yarmouth is working on a really exciting project to turn a listed, but ignored, church building in the town centre into the hub of a new cultural quarter. It’s going to be turned into a theatre space, which will hopefully attract visiting production companies. They have big money for it, and big aims too. They also intend to renovate other lsited buildings in the area and get loads of arts organisations to move in.
Exciting times. There’s an article about the renovation of St George’s Chapel on Museum [Insider].
In Museum [Insider], Museums, happiness, new content on September 30, 2009 at 1:01 pm
So, it’s six months today since I left full-time employment and went it alone as a freelance writer. What have I achieved and what will the next six months have in store?
I’ve realised that I know a lot of things now I didn’t know in April. And they aren’t things I necessarily expected to learn as I went along. That’s what’s been so much fun about this lifestyle I’ve chosen for myself – things change, work (paid and unpaid) comes along and networking is still as important as ever. And the nature of writing for the web is continually evolving as well – new technologies and tools come along. I didn’t even know what twitter was six months ago!
The great thing about publishing quite a lot of online material is that I’ve been able to see the results of my work pretty much instantly, and I’ve also been able to solicit feedback from others about what I’ve been writing. Other projects are yet to be published, but will come into the public domain in the next few months.
A quick summary of my first six months as a real writer:
I co-authored the content for the British Museum’s new multimedia guide (like an audio guide but with pictures, video and interactive games). I also wrote an audio-described tour of the Parthenon galleries at the BM for visually impaired visitors. Both of these will go live in December 2009.
For the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, I’m writing a new audio tour for the entire museum. That’s a work-in-progress at the moment, but I need to move fast on it as it opens to the public in late November 2009.
A lot of web articles have appeared all over the place. I wrote 23 features articles for Museum [Insider], the online magazine for suppliers to the heritage sector in the UK. There were also 14 new articles for Dulwich OnView, an online magazine about life in and around south London. And using this website as a promotions tool, I’ve created exactly 100 posts – the latest one just this morning.
There were a few random pieces of work as well. I’ve written content for a local film-maker’s website; edited text for the Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery website; scribed some pieces for an international travel blog; chaired a strategic direction workshop for Kingswood House and even edited an academic conference paper on the nature of discipleship amongst the evangelical Christian movement in the UK!
I continued work on my ongoing research project into the nature of happiness and what it means to us today. It’s had to take a bit of a back seat for the moment while I focus on paid work, but the idea is to start firing a book proposal off to publishers in the near future. My research notes find their way on to this website every so often.
Up next, I’m going to be doing some consultancy for a large heritage venue in London – secret as yet, but news coming soon. I’ll be soliciting responses from their visitors about ideas for potential future exhibitions. The regular pieces for M[I] and DOV will continue as well as some happiness research and there’s some more audio writing in the pipeline. And I’m going to teach a workshop on online wrting for a local school.
What will the next six months yield? Will I have a book deal? Will more people read me?
Who knows, but I’m certainly having a ball right now.
King's College London, museum studies, Musum of Jurassic Technology
In Museums, what i'm reading on September 30, 2009 at 10:21 am
We had a great meeting of the King’s College London museums reading group yesterday. It’s a forum where academics working in social aspects of museums studies – and educational theory – get together with professionals from the museum sector and discuss the latest papers relating to our work and research. We take a different topic each time – this latest gathering was devoted to four studies of motivations amongst museum visitors.
We read:
The effect of visitors’ agenda on museum learning (Falk, Moussouri, Coulson, 1998) – still one of the most quoted papers on motivational theory. Breaks down the idea that education and entertainment are not indeed opposite ends of the visiting spectrum, but are actually continua which run in parallel.
Motivational factors and the visitor experience: a comparison of three sites (Packer, Ballantyne, 2002) – an Australian study which moves on to the next step and calls for ‘a common theoretical foundation for interpretation in museum other informal learning settings’.
Personality and motivation in visitor satisfaction (Yalowitzm 2002) – a PhD summary comparing cognitive and sensory needs and experiences in three Coloardo visitor attractions.
Accessing and incorporating visitors’ entrance narratives enchances guided museum tours (Tsybluskaya, Dodick, Camhi, 2009) – a great piece of research looking at getting museums visitors talking about a subject before they encounter it, in order that a guided tour might dwell on their expectations.
We talked around these and other pieces of research and ended up looking at examples of museum practice which take us out of our comfort zone – which challenge not only our motivations, but also our expectations of a visit. I’m so pleased we got to discuss the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, a long time favourite of mine where the very notion of a museum is broken down. I’ve flicked through the guide book again this morning and I still don’t really understand what it’s all about. It’s just brilliant.
Henry W Pollard and Sons, Museum of Somerset, Taunton Castle
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on September 24, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Building works are well underway at Taunton Castle, where the Museum of Somerset will find it’s new home in early 2011.
They’re using a local builder called Henry W Pollard and Sons. While working on the project, renovating the Great Hall, buolding workers discovered a piece of graffiti from the last time the building was tended to in 1934. It turns out, Pollard was the contractor then as well, so the firm is now looking back into its archives to see if they can identify who it was. What will they find on the site in another hundred years, I wonder.
There’s a piece about the development project at the Museum of Somerset and deails of the architects, designers and contracts coming up there on Museum [Insider].
Dulwich OnView, Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery
In Dulwich OnView, Museums, new content on September 18, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I’ve been working the Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery for about seven years, helping them to slowly broaden the appeal of the Gallery and to widen the demographic of the membership. We’ve been running different types of events and trying to create an image of the Gallery that is less stuffy and traditional than most people might initially think. Numbers are up and the kind of people visiting the Gallery is slowly starting to change. I’m not saying we’ve reinvented the wheel there, but we’ve been taking baby steps.
One of the ways of getting the message out has been the community online magazine Dulwich OnView, for who I write regular articles about life in and around south London.
I also recently helped them to rewrite some of the content for the Friends’ online presence on the Gallery site. It’s all online on the Dulwich Picture Gallery website.
new museum, Southampton, Titanic
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on September 13, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Southampton City Council are to build a new museum on the site of their present magistrates court and police station which will tell the story of the city’s maritime and naval history. But rather than dwelling on the comings and goings of ships and boats over the centuries, the story will be dominated by the ill-fated ship, Titanic. Many of the souls lost at sea on the ship were staff and crew members from Southampton, a fact sometimes overlooked when interpreting the story. A similar exhibition, with private money, is also being planned in Belfast, where the ship was built.
There’s a piece about the planned museum and news of who’s working on the project on Museum [Insider].
Birmingham City Council, Birmingham Repetory Theatre, brown roof, Library of Birmingham
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on September 10, 2009 at 8:39 am
I published an article about Birmingham’s new library, set to open in 2013. It’s going to be huge – utterly enormous.
Set on Centenary Square in the middle of the city – the site of much regeneration work of late – the new nine-storey library will share a building with the Birmingham Repetory Theatre. There’ll be an amphitheare out the front and the top of the building is a ‘brown roof’ which means it’s covered in plenty of living things to attract other living things to live there.
If it gets the go-ahead from Birmingham City Council (it should do – they are the client after all) it will become the second most expensive heritage building project in the country, next to Tate Modern’s extension. If it all goes ahead, I’d even consider a trip to Birmingham to have a nosy!
British Film Institute, Inglorious Basterds, national Film Collection, nitrate-based film, Quentin Tarantino
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on September 3, 2009 at 10:27 am
The British Film Institute is building a new film storage facility to house the National Film Collection. It’s a high-tech building keeping the nitrate-based film at low temperatures and humidity.
If you’ve seen the movie Inglorious Basterds (saw it yesterday and very much enjoyed it, despite Quentin Tarantino’s messing with history) then you’ll know that the film is highly combustable – some of the characters conspire to blow up a cinema full of Nazis by setting fire to a pile of nitrate film.
There’s a piece about the companies involved in the archive building project on Museum [Insider].
Heritage Lottery Fund, Hugh Broughton, Maidstone Museum
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on August 26, 2009 at 8:50 am
You might not think it, but Maidstone is a hotbed of cultural funding.
The town has had 53 grants to date from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which have seen over £8.4 million invested there. And now they are asking for more, for a huge redevelopment of Maidstone Museum. Fair play to them, I say – the money is there for the taking (after a long and complicated application process) so good luck to them.
The designs look great – the usual swathes of glass and steel, but sensitively balanced with the charming exisiting red brick building. and they plan to uncover previously unseen Tudor walls inside the building. It’s all been designed by Hugh Broughton architects, who are a small, but award-winning practice.
They are due to hear back from the HLF in September about their current application, which is detailed in my recent article on Museum [Insider].
British Museum, UAE, Zayed National MUseum, Sheikh Zayed, Louvre, Guggenheim, Bedford Museum, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on July 28, 2009 at 10:33 am
News broke this weekend that the British Museum is to work on a new museum for the United Arab Emirates. Saadiyat Island, a natural island along the coast of Abu Dhabi, will be home to the new Zayed National Museum, which will reflect the life and achievements of Sheikh Zayed (1918-2004) – a major player in the establishment of the federated UAE.
Unlike the Louvre and Guggenheim projects currently underway on the island, this will not be an outpost of the British Museum, rather a partnership project delivered in conjunction with the museum. The BM is acting in an advisory role as a consultant. There’s an article about the new Zayed National Museum on Museum [Insider].
I also had a piece published there last week about the work taking place in Bedford City centre as they begin an HLF-phase 1 project to link Bedford Museum with its neighbour the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery.
Arnolfini Gallery, Banksy, Bristol, Museum of Bristol, SS Great Britain
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on July 20, 2009 at 9:09 am
Hot on the tail of their Banksy exhibition promotions, the council-run museum service in Bristol is now set to open their new flagship Museum of Bristol in 2011. It’s housed in a reconditioned harbourside building in the emerging arts quarter of the city, not far from the SS Great Britain and the Arnolfini Gallery.
Read all about the plans and see lovely pictures of what’s going to be going on inside the build on Museum [Insider].
British Museum, electronic media, formative evaluation, Museum Practice, Museums Association, Museums Journal
In Museums on July 14, 2009 at 11:59 am
I’ve had a letter printed in the Summer 2009 edition of Museum Practice (MP) magazine. MP is the sister publication of Museums Journal (MJ), both of which are published by the Museums Association in the UK. While MJ is a monthly magazine devoted mainly to news, reviews and the strategic direction of the museum sector in this country, MP is a more reflective, quarterly publication which aims to highlight best practice across the sector and give lots of practical examples of work going on around the world.
My short letter was in response to a series of pieces in the Spring issue about technoligical advances in interpretive media in museums. I just wanted to make sure people were aware that while we are all keen to develop new and exciting means of interpreting museum objects for visitors, it’s important to bear their skills and needs in mind. And that it’s possible to quite easily and cheaply evaluate this with visitors.
If you’re a member of the Museums Association and have a log-in you can read the letter here.
We did some really straightforward, but incredibly worthwhile, formative evaluation of electronic media at the British Museum before I left there earlier this year. And now I’m freelance I’m still available to carry out evaluations using questionnaires, surveys, focus groups and observed visitor study sessions.
Do get in touch if you’d be interested in hearing about my work in this area.
ACE, AIM, DCMS, heritage sector, HLF, Museum sector
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on July 8, 2009 at 10:59 am
The professional museum sector in the UK is a baffling place. There are so many organisations working at strategic and managerial levels across the museum and heritage one may quite legitimately suggest that, while there is certainly a lot of broth, there are perhaps a few too many cooks.
One might ask how many quangos, directives, strategic reviews and government agencies do we need to run a succesful arts sector.
I’ve worked in the museum sector since 2001 and have, over that time, now built up a reasonable knowledge of who does what at a strategic level in the UK. But as a supplier to the sector it must be very confusing to see all these organisations out there. Do you know your AIM from your ACE. Or your DCMS from your HLF?
I wrote a piece recently for Museum [Insider] which reviews the top organisations (and their many acronyms) and provides an overview of who’s who.
2015, Science Museum
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on June 18, 2009 at 4:57 pm
The Science Museum is 100 years old this week. Big news.
What’s bigger news is that they’ve just unveiled their plans for what the museum is going to look like in 2015. It’s a huge project which basically involves sticking lumps on the existing building. There’s going to be a domed blob protruding out the front of the building, through the glass, and a huge golden inverted take-out tray on the roof for a new gallery about Space. The whole thing opens in 2015, so there are, doubtless, plenty of jobs coming up there in the next few years.
Take a look at the images of the what the build will look like and read about it on Museum [Insider].
Lost Southwark, south London, local history, Cuming Museum
In Dulwich OnView, Museums, new content on June 12, 2009 at 10:40 am
There’s a new exhibition of paintings, etchings, drawings, maps and all sorts of 2D material chronicling the history of Southwark life and architecture at the Cuming Museum in south London. Popped along to see it last week and to write a piece of Dulwich OnView about it. Lost Southwark is definitely worth a look if you live in south London and are interested in local history.
Anna Cutler, Gillian Wilson, Tate Modern, TM2
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on June 10, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I wrote a piece a few months ago about the proposed developments at the back of Tate Modern. Turns out Tate got planning permission for the new extension which will rise eleven storeys high from the back of the existing building.
I went back to Tate Modern last week to interview Anna Cutler (Head of Learning) and Gillian Wilson (Curator of Interpretation) about what they’re up to now. We chatted about the content planned for TM2 and the interpretive thinking about their audiences that’s going into the project. Their plans sound really exciting – there’ll be a wider variety of interpretive devices in the TM2 – something for everyone.
The resulting article is live on Museum [Insider] now.
Commonwealth Institute, Design Museum, Kensington, relocation
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on June 4, 2009 at 8:25 am
There are plenty of rumours around at the moment about the Design Museum and their potential change of venue in the not too distant future. But who knows what’s fact and what’s merely flotsam and jetsam on the museum industry drinks circuit?
Gossip ferret here had a little look around and wrote a piece about the potential move to the former home of the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington for Museum [Insider].
National Railway Museum
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on May 26, 2009 at 8:16 am
The National Railway Museum (York) opened in the 1970s and hasn’t really had much of an overhaul since. The great hall, the central exhibition space where the huge exhibits are stored, is due to have a revamp soon. HLF have awarded them £200,000 to firm up their proposals, but it’s thought the full project will cost in the region of £20m. There’s a piece about it on Museum [Insider].
audio guides, Museums and Heritage show
In Museums on May 14, 2009 at 10:04 am
Off to the Museums and Heritage Show this afternoon at Earl’s Court.
There’s a session on the Cultural Olympiad I’m thinking of attending. I can’t decide whether I’m excited by the CO, or if it’s going to end up being a mish-mash of badly planned, over-funded and underwhelming programming. It could so easily be excellent. And I’m hoping for the latter, of course. We’ll see.
And then off to see the lovely King’s museum learning reading group. We’ll have some geeky chat about audio guides and pull some academic literature to pieces.
What a fun day ahead.
British Museum, First Emperor, Hadrian
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on May 7, 2009 at 7:31 am
My old stomping ground, the British Museum, are set to open a brand new wing in 2012. It’s going to house their new state-of-the-art research and collections management centre, plus a new puspose-built exhibition suite. That means they’ll be able to move out of the Reading Room and return it back to a library, which will please many. The BM has proven in recent years that it is just as capable of putting on blockbusters as the National Gallery and Tate, and that they need a space large and well-serviced enough to do just that. First Emperor and Hadrian were such huge successes and it’ll be great to see them build on that.
As ever, I’ve written a piece about it for Museum Insider. Take a look if you’d like to know more.
Chinese Ceramics, British Museum, Grayson Perry, Sunday Times
In Museums, what i'm reading on May 6, 2009 at 11:23 am
Oooh exciting news from my former employer the British Museum. Turns out Grayson Perry went to see the new Chinese Ceramics gallery – the last major project I worked on before I left in April – and he really likes it.
There’s a piece about it in the Sunday Times. Thanks Grayson.
Glasgow Guggenheim, Kelvingrove, Riverside Museum, Zaha Hadid
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on May 2, 2009 at 10:07 am
Turns out Glasgow is having even more investment pumped into its arts scene. After the huge success of Kelvingrove, the old museum of transport is now being transformed into the Riverside Museum. Heralded as the ‘Glasgow Guggenheim’ - because of the striking design of the building (Zaha Hadid) – it will open to the public in 2011.
I’ve had a bit of a root around for some info and there’s a piece now live about it on Museum [Insider].
British Museum, Chinese Ceramics, Sir Percival David
In Museums on April 29, 2009 at 8:15 am
As a writer, it’s great when the hard work pays off and you can read your work in print, or online. But having worked in museums over the last few years, I’ve also been able to see work to which I have contributed up on the wall in an exhibition. It’s always sad when it gets taken down at the end of the run, but then there’s always the next project coming along to get me excited.
Last week, the British Museum opened a new permanent gallery of Chinese Ceramics, housing the Sir Percival David Foundation collection of Chinese ceramics. I’ve now left the official employ of the BM, but went back to visit the new gallery recently. It looks absolutely fabulous – over 1700 objects are on display in the same room. That’s a lot, but the sensitive display allows visitors to examine every piece in the collection either visually in the display cases, or virtually on a touch-screen which we built in-house. It was a great project to work on and I’m proud of my contribution towards the team effort as an interpreter. The touch screens, which are linked to the museum’s collection database, are pretty forward thinking. Other venues will be watching to see how well they work.
And best of all, it’s a permanent gallery, so the text won’t get ripped down in six months. Do go and see for yourself, or ask for a guided tour.
There’s no link to an article about it. I just wanted to show off.
Catherine Parr, Hampton Court Palace, Henry VIII, Kensington Palace, Queen Victoria
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on April 21, 2009 at 8:01 am
Had a grand day out last week at Hampton Court Palace, nosing around their new Henry VIII display. 2009 is the 500th anniversary of Hennry’s accession to the throne and as such they are theming the year’s programming around him. The palace is set up as if it were his wedding day (wife no. 6, Catherine Parr). Visitors are invited to the wedding party and costumed actors are parading around the place the whole day. Great fun.
Whilst there, I also interviewed someone from Historic Royal Palaces about the planned redevelopment of the visitor experience and interpretation at Kensington Palace, due to open in 2012. The first tranche of work is focussed on Queen Victoria, who spent her early years at Kensington before she became queen.
There’s a piece on Museum [Insider] with some exclusive details about what they’re planning.
museum, Southend-on-Sea
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on April 16, 2009 at 11:20 am
It looks like Southend-on-Sea is to close its museum and art gallery and roll them into one shiny, new arts venue right by the seafront. The plans look pretty exciting and they’re certainly enthusiastic about it in the town.
Here’s a new piece about it on Museum [Insider].
ceramics, V&A
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on April 9, 2009 at 2:23 pm
The ceramics galleries at the V&A have been closed for a while for a major redevelopment. The new galleries are going to be completed in two phases, with the first suite set to open in September 09. They promise to be stunning.
I’ve written a piece about them which went live on
Museum [Insider] today.
Tate Modern
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on March 31, 2009 at 2:22 pm
It’s almost as if the Tate brand can’t stop expanding. St Ives, Liverpool, Tate Modern. Now planning proposals are in to build a huge extension on the back of the Bankside site, to create vast new public spaces and areas for display. As ever, I’ve written a piece about it on Museum [Insider].
Dundee, V&A
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on March 27, 2009 at 1:08 pm
The V&A in London is perhaps going to follow suit with other national museums and open a branch in the provinces. Tate went to Liverpool and St Ives; the Imperial War Museum went to Manchester; and the National Maritime Museum went to Falmouth.
Now the national museum of art and design is considering opening a branch in Dundee. The proposed idea is wouldn’t be owned by the V&A, but it would take blockbuster exhibitions from there and show them to a Scottish audience.
Plans also propose close collaboration with local artists and universities, with artist in residence schemes planned to run continuously. It’d be a great addition to the Scottish arts scene.
There’s a new piece about it on Museum [Insider].
Barbara Hepworth, Hepworth Wakefield
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on March 21, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Wakefield is to get a new multi-million pound art gallery devoted to the work of iconic British sculptor Barbara Hepworth. I wrote a piece about the development and what we can expect there for Museum [Insider].
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on March 6, 2009 at 1:06 pm
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford was the first ever public museum (opened 1683). It’s had a long and prestigious career. But the current building is not fit for purpose in the 21st century, so they’ve decided to give it a face lift. From the outside it will look pretty much the same, but the interior is in the process of being extensively overhauled, including the interpretation.
Here’s an article I wrote about the transformation of the museum for Museum [Insider].
Edinburgh, Museum of Scotland, Royal Museum
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on February 25, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I was in Edinburgh at the end of last year and visited a few of the museums there. The Museum of Scotland is a wonderful place, recently redeveloped with a new interpretation strategy and a great display technique involving placing star objects in the middle of open spaces and forcing people to look at them.
Next door is the Royal Museum, currently under development itself. I’ve written a piece about the planned changes to the building for Museum [Insider]. There’s also a short film of what the new building will look like. I look forward to going back and seeing what’s happened.
Dulwich Picture Gallery
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on February 16, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Here’s a piece published today on Museum [Insider] about forthcoming plans at my local, favourite museum Dulwich Picture Gallery.
The Gallery will celebrate its bicentenary in 2011 and there’s news here of how they intend to celebrate with an ingenious exhibition idea – borrowing twelve masterpieces from other art galleries around the globe and displaying them in the enfillade, one a month. So, you have to go back twleve times in one year to see them all. Good idea.
Here’s the piece.
Museum [Insider], Robert Burns
In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on February 5, 2009 at 7:37 pm
I’ve just started writing articles for the new online magazine Museum [Insider]. The aim is to provide online information for suppliers to the museum and heritage industry about what’s going on inside our nation’s museums. From tenders and contracts to features articles and inside news, the idea is to give access to news about developments in museums to those in the private sector. Anyone can read the bulk of the content on the site for free, but only those paying for the subscription service get access to the juiciest details.
My first piece about the developments at the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum has just gone live on the site.
