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Archive for the ‘new content’ Category

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A Castle Fit for a King (once again)

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on June 2, 2011 at 10:15 am

King John’s Castle in Limerick is preparing to start work on a major redevelopment project.  Built by the nasty King John of England almost 800 years ago, the castle has not been performing quite as well as it could do as a visitor attraction and heritage centre. So Shannon Development – a regional developement agency in south-west Ireland – has received 5.7 million Euro in funding to work on the site, improving the visitor offer and facilities, including reworking the interpretation of the site.

I spoke with the project manager at the castle and wrote the piece up for an article on Museum [Insider]. The site is planned to stay open during the redevelopment work, which is expected to be complete by summer 2012.

 

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Museum Gallery Interpretation and Material Culture

In new content, what i'm reading on May 31, 2011 at 1:13 pm

Hot on the heels of the new Museum [Insider] book, I’ve published again, just a week later! And just like the last one, this is just as niche and almost as costly.

I have a paper published in a new book called Museum Gallery Interpretation and Material Culture, published by Routledge. The book is an edited version of a conference I spoke at a few years ago with my colleagues David Francis and Claire Edwards from the British Museum. The three of us wrote our paper up into a chapter of the book, which appears alongside other people, including museum interpretation guru George Hein, who we got to share a stage with during a Q&A at the conference – a definite career highlight so far!

Our paper discusses how museums might create an object-centred interpretive approach to interpretation and how that is balanced with a more traditional story-led approach. We had undertaken some research at the British Museum and reported our findings here.

It’s quite a wide-ranging book:

1. Introduction . Juliette Fritsch

Part I: Situating Interpretation in the Museum Context
2. “The Museum as a Social Instrument”: A Democratic Conception of Museum Education. George E. Hein
3. Invoking the Muse: The Purposes and Processes of Communicative Action in Museums. Paulette M. McManus
4. Interpretation and the Art Museum: Between the Familiar and the Unfamiliar. Cheryl Meszaros, eds. Jennifer J Carter, Twyla Gibson

Part II: The Role of Interpretation in Art Galleries
5. Towards Some Cartographic Understandings of Art Interpretation in Museums. Christopher Whitehead
6. Art for Whose Sake? Sue Latimer
7. The Seeing Eye: The Seeing “I”. Sylvia Lahav

8. Part III: How Can We Define the Role of Language in Museum Interpretation?
Juliette Fritsch

Part IV: Interpretation, Personal Experience, and Memory
9. “I loved it dearly”: Recalling Personal Memories of Dress in the Museum. Torunn Kjolberg
10. Welcome to My World: Personal Narrative and Historic House Interpretation. Mariruth Leftwich
11. Narrative Museum, Museum of Voices: Displaying Rural Culture in the Museo Della Mezzadria Senese, Italy. Marzia Minore

Part V: Evidence-Based Practice
12. An Evaluation of Object-Centered Approaches to Interpretation at the British Museum. Steve Slack, David Francis and Claire Edwards
13. The Other Side of the Coin: Audience Consultation and the Interpretation of Numismatic Collections. Effrosyni Nomikou Part VI: Interpretive Strategies for Specific Audiences
14. Designing Effective Interpretation for Contemporary Family Visitors to Art Museums and Galleries: A Reflection of Associated Problems and Issues. Patricia Sterry
15. Interactive Gallery Interpretation for Design Students: Help or Hindrance? Elizabeth Dyson
16. Empower the Audience! How Art Museums Can Become Enriching Creative Spaces for a Wider Audience through Deliberate and Strategic Use of Experience and Learning Theories. Karen Grøn Part VII: Process and People
17. “Reading the Walls”: A Study of Curatorial Expectation and Visitor Perception. Sarah Ganz Blythe and Barbara Palley
18. “Education is a department isn’t it?” Perceptions of Education, Learning and Interpretation in Exhibition Development. Juliette Fritsch

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Museum [Insider] Looking Ahead: Handbook of Future Museum and Heritage Projects 2012 to 2017

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on May 25, 2011 at 11:20 am

I’m pleased to announce the publication of my new book with Heritage Solution Ltd, the publishers of the online magazine Museum [Insider].

It’s got a snappy title -

Museum [Insider] Looking Ahead: Handbook of Future Museum and Heritage Projects 2012 to 2017 is a look at over 100 projects taking place in the museum, gallery and heritage sector over the next five years. Each entry has a write up detailing what the project entails and what contracts are likely to be offered in the future, along with project data and the all important names and contact details of the key people to speak to.

There are also five introductory articles detailing where I think the museum sector is right now in terms of private business. It’s true that times are tough for the heritage sector right now – jobs are being cut, as are annual budgets. But this book lists the staggering £1.8 billion worth of work that’s out there and gives you the knowhow to go about securing some of it for yourself. It’s the word from inside the museums – the Museum [Insider].

As a market intelligence publication about a specialised industry this isn’t perhaps a book that you’ll buy for the bedside table, but if you’re interested in obtaining a copy, then take a look at the M[I] website.

In the meantime, I want to say a big thank you to the lovely people at Museum [Insider] for publishing a second title with me. Cheers, guys.

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Completing Kettle’s Yard

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on May 21, 2011 at 7:04 pm

The ‘to do’ list of museums I want to visit has been growing over time, but I’ve just put a new one at the top of the list.

Over the last couple of years I’ve written about dozens of museums and galleries around the country which I’ve not visited in person. If I’m writing an article about a new museum being planned in Scotland there’s actually little point in me going up there to see a building site – in fact it’s much more beneficial to speak with people working on the project on the phone. There are loads of new museums opening this year, but one I really want to go see when it’s done (next year) is Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge.

This charming little property was once home to Jim Ede, a veteran of the art world who would, at one time, welcome students from the local University into his home for a cup of tea and the chance to look at his collection.

The house is now a public building, and has been operating at maximum capacity for some time. After various physical interventions on the site the museum has now realised that it cannot continue to operate efficiently in its present form, so are planning to make some alterations and ‘complete’ the site -  at a cost of £5 million.

I’ll definitely be there next autumn to see what’s happened.

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Multimedia guide to Petworth House

In Museums, new content on May 13, 2011 at 1:28 pm

My latest app is now live in the iTunes app store. It’s a multimedia guide to Petworth House in West Sussex for iPhone and iPod Touch.

It was great fun to make – we visited a few times over the winter months to interview members of staff there and take still shots. We made another visit in the Spring with our presenter, Rob Curtis, to film the interior and exterior shots and footage of him interviewing the National Trust staff who work there.

The guide takes visitors around the house, moving from room to room. Rob welcomes you into a room, gives you a quick overview of what’s important or interesting and then leaves you to browse a few options which we’ve placed on the screen for you. So you can go at your own pace and take as much or as little in as you like.

The guide is £3.50 if you turn up at Petworth House – they’ll loan you a handset for the day. Or, if you’re a die-hard National Trust fan, you can even download it from iTunes for £2.99 and save yourself 51p. Plus you get to keep it afterwards too!

I worked on the guide with the lovely people at ATS Heritage, who I’ve written guides for before at the Ashmolean, Lambeth Palace Library and even a guide to a Stannah Stairlift factory.

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Online gallery for Bradford

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on April 25, 2011 at 10:39 am

It’s only a few years since the National Museum for Film, Photography and Television in Bradford was rebranded as the National Media Museum. They realised that the ‘new’ media were expanding so rapdily that they couldn’t just keep on adding more and elements on to the end of the name – the ‘National Museum of Film, Photography, Television, Cinematography, Print Journalism, the Internet, Social Media and Text Messages’ would just be too unwieldy.

And as a result of the new name the museum has decided to create a new suite of galleries devoted solely to the story of the Internet – it’s inception and development along with the impact it has had on our lives. I suppose this wouldn’t really call for a traditional museum display with objects in boxes – what objects would they use that tell the story well anyway?! In fact, it’s going to be much more interactive – indeed the museum wants the new displays to blur the boundary between museum content and online experience.

We’ll wait and see what they come up with – I’m sure it will be something clever. In the meantime there’s an article all about it live on Museum [Insider] now.

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I’m a Museum Person, officially

In Museums, new content on April 12, 2011 at 8:18 am

The lovely people at Museumist  – the online forum for debate, discussion and display of all things museum-related – have kindly featured an interview with me on their blog. The regular column I’m A Museum Person features interviews with people from all around the world, asking them the same set of questions.

I was asked about why museums matter; what makes up an ideal exhibition and my favourite museum memory. There’s also a quiz for each interviewee to complete based around identifying which museum is in which international city. I think I need to do some revision as I didn’t do that well!

The blog is run by a group of museum enthusiasts in Philadelphia, PA.

My full interview is online at museumist.com.

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I’ve fallen in love with a building

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on April 4, 2011 at 6:58 pm

I think I might have fallen in love with a building I’ve never even visited. It’s the home of the novelist Sir Walter Scott in the Scottish Borders – Abbotsford House.

Scott designed and built this place and worked here for much of his life. It’s undergoing a massive overhaul over the next two years, to restore parts of the historic structure and to build a new visitor reception centre nearby. I was researching it recently for an article on Museum [Insider] and ended up falling for the place.

Take a look at their website and you’ll see what I mean – tall towers with turrets, a cutesy walled garden and the most amazing study a writer could ever wish to work in.

And best of all is the news that when the upgrade to the building is complete in 2013 they will have turned some of the former private rooms into five-star self-catering accomodation, so you can go and stay there. Or, more precisely, I can go and stay there.

I’m booking as soon as they announce prices! Anyone want to come with me?

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New courtyard for V&A

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on March 28, 2011 at 4:03 pm

Yesterday the Victoria & Albert Museum announced who is going to design the new courtyard they are planning to build. Amanda Levete Architects are the successful studio. It’s going to be a great, iconic space for the V&A – along Exhibition Road – that will also bring together many of the disparate areas of the museum. Being down in the bowels of the building can sometimes be a little confusing, and this will make it all make sense.

The project also includes the construction of a new dedicated temporary exhibition centre underneath the courtyard, which is even more good news for visitors – if you’ve been to a show there recently, you’ll know that it can get a little confusing dipping in and out of that corridor half way through the exhibition space.

There’s an article about all of this and the V&A’s FuturePlan project live now on Museum [Insider].

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Is 2012 really only about sport?

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on March 11, 2011 at 11:43 am

Are you more excited about the Olympics or the royal wedding?

Everyone’s talking about 2012. The schedule has been announced for the Olympic Games and the news on TV seems to be giving us almost daily updates on progress at the site in east London. It’s almost as if we’re wishing the rest of 2011 away, in favour of a year of sport.

The museum world is tapping into this sporting enthusiasm too, of course. There are exhibitions and events planned across the country next year celebrating local sporting heroes, Olympians and our nation’s proud sporting heritage.

But I’ve spotted that for museum 2012 isn’t necessarily all about the rackets, balls and running shoes.

It’s interesting to note that museums are getting behind the theme of the monarchy as inspiration for exhibitions and development projects.

The National Maritime Museum and British Library are hosting exhibitions on a royal theme. Kensington Palace will be telling stories about Queen Victoria and the Tower of London is undergoing a redisplay of the Crown Jewels. The National Portrait Gallery has a touring exhibition and the Royal Pavillion at Brighton is hosting some regal outfits for a temporary display.

So while international visitors are gawping at sport on the track and field, they can also take in a little of this nation’s USP – the monarchy.

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