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As part of the reflective essay for this module I wanted to draw on my previous experience of choosing a museum artefact research in depth from a list given to us as part of AT5043 (2017-18): Researching Museum Collections. As someone currently awaiting an amputation the 19th-century surgeons amputation kit was a definite draw for me to investigate. While I don’t intend to rehash the entirety of my report submitted as part of the assessment of that module, I think it does speak to some of the theory that I read about for the reflective essay for ED553E with regards to free choice learning, self-directed learning, experiential learning, and self reflection (Falk, Dewey, Kolb, and Schön in particular).

Here is the amputation kit I studied (ABDUA: 36872)

it belonged to Prof Alexander Dyce Davidson, MA, MD, Professor in Materia Medica at the University of Aberdeen in the late 19th century (b. 1845, D. 1886). This kit was donated by Sir Alexander Ogston, KCVO, who taught at the University in various fields in ophthalmology before serving extensively as a military surgeon in the Egyptian War of 1884 and the second Boer War at the turn-of-the-century.

The kit contains several source all of which are damaged in one way or another and two amputating knives with a small short straight ‘bistoury’ knife. The kit has an engraving on the front dated 1870 which would have been around the time that Dyce Davidson was working at the Aberdeen Royal infirmary as a professional chloroform list and I surgeon.

This assessment let me indulge my detective side as there were several points that didn’t quite add up. The University Museum record stated that the handles for the tools were made of bakelite but this was not created until 1907 by which time Dyce Davidson had been dead for 21 years. Following on from this, if the handle was made from vulcanite (aka ebonite) then conservation measures would be required as it contained sulphur compounds which can react with oxygen water to produce sulphuric acid. Personally I think the handles were probably made from ebony which can have very plastic look to it.

I did a lot of investigation trying to find the manufacturer of the amputation kit although this was difficult as there were several different manufacturers marks present on the tools in the case, which itself did not have any indication as to who made it. On the basis that there were more tools from Maw and Sons, London, and the likeness between this kit and the illustrated version in the Maw and Sons catalogue, I inferred that it was this manufacture who produced the kit. Obviously this leads to questions such as why tools from other manufacturers were present; I assumed that this was a “working” kit due to the mismatch tools and wear evident on them and that there must have been a reason for substitution of the original matching tools with those from other surgical  supply stores.

As part of this assessment we had to consider personal reflection on the artefact that we have been studying and it occurred to me that it was highly unlikely that any other amputees-to-be had studied this kit. This gave me a connection to the artefact that is obviously very personal and unlikely to be replicated by other visitors, which occasionally made it difficult to research as I was effectively investigating an artefact used to dismember people who had non-functional or damaged limbs, as I do.

I was really engaged with this topic to the extent of discovering the error with the material composition of the tools, and also that the date of birth given the Dyce Davidson in some sources was incorrect -at least judging by the date on his gravestone which I tracked down. I spent a long time researching this artefact and unlike other assignments where occasionally I have had to grit my teeth to get through the less interesting parts, I was self-motivated and looked forward to my research sessions.

I haven’t gone into great detail about this report as obviously I don’t want to self-plagiarise previous work but hopefully this gives some illustration to the benefits of allowing adult learners to choose artefacts that resonate with them.

My personal educational story is mentioned throughout the e-portfolio but in brief, I learned to read and write before I started primary school at the age of 5; my mother is very intelligent and literate and as I pestered her whenever I saw her with a book because I wanted to read too, she taught me to read using flash cards and story books. As a result, I found early schooling rather tedious while I waited for other children to catch up with me, but for all my advanced reading and writing, I was borderline remedial at maths[1] and simultaneously loathed and feared numbers.

I took the 11 plus and got into a grant-maintained single sex grammar school. The curriculum was standard for the 1990s, with a choice between French, German or Latin for languages, History or Geography for humanities, and Art and Design or Design and Technology for the creative subjects. Science was taken as a double award, and joined English (and English Literature), Mathematics and Religious Studies as mandatory subjects.

For various personal reasons I despised my school and barely went. My attendance hovered around 50% for several years, prompting visits from the Educational Welfare Officers. I was playing truant, not to go out with friends, but to sit in my room and read; often non-fiction textbooks or literary classics. I still very much wanted to learn, I just didn’t want to learn at my school. Despite my frequent absences I did reasonably well at GCSE level, getting A*s and As in subjects I liked, and Cs in those I didn’t. I completed my 6^th Form at the same school, but only managed to get two A-Levels in English and Sociology (I missed my History exam due to personal issues).

I hadn’t planned on going to university as I had my eyes fixed firmly on a career with Dorset Police, completing work experience there in the late 1990s, but on finishing school it turned out that my unaided vision was too poor. At a loss as to what to do, I took a ‘gap year’ during which I worked in pubs and clubs, before starting a degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of North Wales. Bangor. I dropped out in my second year as I couldn’t afford the fees and living expenses, and entered the heady world of financial administration and mortgage advice.

For a decade or so I put numbers in boxes for a succession of banks, building societies and financial firms before having an early mid-life crisis as I turned 30, deciding to quit my job and go back to university to do subject I found really interesting. I applied to Reading University but got turned down due to not being academic enough (with only two A-levels) but fortunately I was accepted to the Institute of Archaeology, UCL to do a BA (Hons) over three years. Due to divorce and a serious accident it ended up taking me five years to complete this degree but I achieved a first and several awards for my dissertation.

There are many things in my life I’m truly proud of that finishing this degree is one of them. When I started the degree and had a husband and two working arms, neither of which made it to the end of the course with me. UCL were amazing and so supportive through both my crises and I am glad that I repaid that trust with my results. I don’t claim to be anything special, just an example of someone who does relatively poorly at school but finds the motivation and discipline as an adult to complete a course for self-improvement and enjoyment.

[1] See here for an example of my prior negative experience of mathematics at primary school.

The day is finally here.

As mentioned previously I was not 100% fit on the day as I had had my shoulder fiddled with recently and was in a lot of pain. However I was determined to enjoy the day and spend as much time with the public as possible. I decided to join Meg on Team Cup and Ball and helped set out all the craft materials. We had made our own cup and ball sets as demonstration pieces for the public to look at. I drew a polar bear online in keeping with the Inuit theme and drew a penguin on the other side not realising that polar bears and penguins do not inhabit the same environment. Every day is a school day.

I was so impressed with the storytelling area. They really did outdo themselves not just with the decoration but also the matching game, storybooks, badges, and the quiz – not to mention the stuffed arctic fox which I coveted immensely. It did seem a little incongruous having an Arctic winter wonderland on the hottest weekend of the year but not to worry.

 

The event started at 11 and we had no idea how popular it was going to be given the blazing sunshine outside. The gossip said that the activities on the lawn outside Kings were very popular but we were unsure how many people would actually filter up to see us and want to spend time inside. Initially we had our first visitor very soon after “opening” and surprisingly they were children. We had young man and his carer make a cup and ball successfully and he seemed very happy with what he had made. They also toured the other stations and spent some time talking to the object handling crew as we had linked the cup and ball game to the polar bear rod and hole Inuit game. I am fairly certain that this artefact is actually physically impossible to win at although that might just be my poor hand eye coordination and general cynicism showing.

Several groups of parents with small children came through over the next couple of hours but we were never what you would call busy and rarely had more than one family at a time at the various crafts stations. It looked like the weather had put the kibosh on our event as people wanted to be outside in the sun (understandably). The storytelling which had originally been planned as a signup activity instead happened on an ad hoc basis as the expected “class” size of 15 to 20 children never materialised.

We had a couple of masks in a display case next to the mask making activity but it didn’t seem that there was much interaction between those visitors who chose to make masks and the case itself. Perhaps the masks could have been closer to the activity table or some kind of indication that the two were linked. The object handling seemed very popular and people were respectful of the artefacts and handled them carefully. The links between the artefacts on the trolley and the various stations were explored and it seemed like the visitors were quite keen to ask questions without prompting.

Generally speaking I feel like this event was successful although the weather and our out of the way location may have reduced visitor numbers. As someone who is not doing the exhibition course this year I found it very interesting learning about object selection, display, and public engagement. I did not manage to serve the whole day due to my shoulder giving me trouble but I was there for a few hours and did not implode at the presence of small children. While I certainly wouldn’t consider myself comfortable around them I did manage to hold a conversation at one point.

The inevitable feeling of anti-climax has now hit as we were so geared up for the main event during this module. For my essay I am going to write about adult learning and the relevance of museums to the typical working adult and I’m looking forward to reading more about this as it something that touches on my own study in this course. I am unsure whether I will continue this blog after ED553E is complete but I can say that I have enjoyed creating it even though my physical issues prevented timely upkeep.

Another field report.

We have been to the National Museum of Scotland before for one of our first term modules but I was looking forward to going back as I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibits.

This time we were to talk to the head of the learning team about the trials and tribulations of running a large team dealing with hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. However, somewhat irritatingly, we only had about 20 minutes to talk to the chap in charge and some of that was used for generic introduction to the museum and the kind of exhibits they had (which we didn’t need as we had already been there the previous term). I was disappointed that we had such a short time as we’d all come a long way and those of us staying the previous night had spent quite a lot of money to attend this field trip and we didn’t feel like we really got anything of value from talking to the learning officer. We didn’t even get see the learning suite or any of the materials they use for teaching visitors.

Anyway, we were then asked to go through the museum and look at various things in an educational context. One of the things that we noticed was that there was a very definite difference between the text panels for areas such as the natural history/stuffed animal section, and the geology area next to it. The geological specimens had very dense scientific text panels as you might expect, and which were placed at a high designed for young adults upwards. I very much doubt that a small child will get anything from this particular sector but there were lots of other things for small children to do.

One of the sections on the ground floor was heaven for small children as it contained lots of things to play with, touch, listen to, or make noise with. We had a play with the various exhibits on offer and agreed that small children would take a lot of enjoyment from interacting with them and hopefully retain some knowledge of what the exhibits were and where they came from. Outside of this section there was “magic carpet ride” where storytelling was done on signup basis. While we were there a session started and was well attended by 10 to 15 babies and their carers, and although I did not stay for the whole session, there were lots of singalongs and simple objects.

On the top floor there was a room with a giant fibreglass tree and lots of nature themed exhibits covering typical British wildlife. It was possible if you’re small enough to enter the tree and there were cutouts showing different animals in their habitats such as badgers. Lots of the stands in this area had interactive panels and games to play. This room didn’t seem as popular as the other sections which may be due to its location out of the way on the top floor.

After lunch we went to the National Portrait Gallery, which I’ve never been to before as its not really my kind of thing. I’m a bit of a Philistine when it comes to art. I do like paintings but more landscape or contemporary themes; I expected that I would struggle to enjoy room after room of portraits. We met with a lovely lady who runs the education side of things and we got to see the learning suite and a lot of the material that she uses during sessions. It was very professional and there had clearly been some money spent on the room. Bonus points to the National portrait Gallery for providing tea and coffee and loads of biscuits for us. There was a very definite distinction between the hospitality and time set aside for us at the National Portrait Gallery compared with the National Museum of Scotland.

The main theme that came across from this session was that the education team here try very hard to encourage people of all ages to think beyond the painting as a flat two-dimensional representation. We were encouraged to find a painting that we liked and to then position ourselves in the same stance as the subject (within reason). The aim of this was to fully engage us with our chosen portrait and we were also asked to use our other senses; for example, if the subject was painted standing in a forest we were to imagine what the tree smelled like and the sound of the wind in the leaves. Visitor engagement is very important to the team.

I was surprised that the team here are so keen on events for smaller children given that the subject matter of the majority of the museum probably wouldn’t interest children at all. There are sessions run by the NPG where children can make their own portraits from various craft materials. One of the exhibitions upstairs was a photographic journey through working-class local childhood but interestingly there was absolutely nothing for children in this exhibit. I can understand why this might be as the presentation of the material was quite unflinching and a lot of the subject matter was pretty hardscrabble and for me, somewhat depressing.

I surprised myself by enjoying my time at the NPG and I did find interesting stories and talking points from some of the pictures. I think because I have an interest in history anyway there were parts of the gallery where I had read about a particular personage and then found myself standing in front of a portrait they had commissioned. I also learned that the preponderance of spaniels in 19th-century portraits signifies loyalty; I didn’t know that spaniels were considered especially loyal as opposed to other dogs.

It was quite a long day and I did enjoy myself overall although as mentioned the National Museum of Scotland was pretty disappointing due to the very short time we got to talk to the education officer. As a side note I particularly enjoyed going to the portrait Gallery as the building is outstanding.

Ahoy mateys (I couldn’t resist).

We had a delayed trip to the Maritime Museum due to the strike action that was taking place. I had been to the MM only once in the time I have been in Aberdeen (about 9/10 months) and had enjoyed it although I have to be honest, it’s not really a topic that engages me. However, the exhibits were interesting (even the inevitable oil and gas ones) and there was plenty of interactive stuff to do. I think my favourite overall was probably the video wall showing film of two guys in a tiny rickety looking kayak travelling around the arctic circle, and the ‘have a go’ robotic submersible.

The purpose of the visit was to talk to the education officer about the kind of work she does, in terms of school visits and outreach programmes. The MM has a huge room for educational visits/conferences etc, with storage cupboards all down one side that hold the handling collection. The education officer (who I think was called Lindsay) talked about how her work was curriculum driven and was mostly geared to primary school children; she explained that it was difficult to get secondary schoolchildren in which I found surprising but that due to the heavy workload and many assessments that GCSE age children have to deal with, getting time away from the classroom was quite an effort.

She also explained that the MM was facing staffing problems due to budgetary constraints and that there was supposed to be two  members of staff working on the education front, but that presently she was the only member of the learning team.

The subjects covered by the MM are: oil and gas, Aberdeen history, fishing, and inevitably, pirates. Pirates seem to be the subject of choice for many museums in seaside towns as pirates are “cool” and engage the interest of children even though historically, pirates are less than savoury subjects for study.

The programme at the MM is heavily weighted towards object-based learning as one might expect, and there are a variety of items used when children come in that are perhaps not good enough for display but are hard wearing enough to be handled by the public. We were shown a rotary foghorn that was a 120 years old and were given the demonstration that it does indeed still work. We also saw a Victorian Noah’s Ark complete with wooden animals which linked back to our toys and games theme for the May event and the exhibition course. I really liked the wooden animals and would happily have played with that when I was a child. In fact, would probably still play with it now at the ripe old age of 37.

We were shown a prosthetic “peg leg” which would have had fastenings attached to it to keep it firmly in place; as someone expecting an amputation it was quite weird to hold a replacement limb (though of course in my case it’s an arm that will be messing rather than a leg). This object could well be included in the concept of “difficult histories” as it has potential to cause discomfort and upset depending on the prior experience that visitors bring to the museum. While certainly not expecting a complete emotional risk assessment to be done on every item displayed, it is something that should be borne in mind when selecting objects for exhibition.

After talking with Lindsay we were set free into the museum to explore the exhibits and think about how we were present them in an educational context. Several of the class took one of the worksheets designed for smaller children and roamed around the museum completing the questions. On finishing the worksheet it could be handed into reception for checking and then if all is correct a badge is issued. The museum mascots are two seagulls, but I’ll be honest, they look much more like penguins to me.

 

With an appreciation for the amount of space we have to fill for the May event, today’s session was the dry run of the craft activities we are going to put on for the visitors. Having done little Internet research I discovered a site with an easy to make “cup and ball game” involving yoghurt pots, pom-poms, and string. It seemed pretty straightforward and more importantly quick to do so should be appropriate for getting lots of visitors through the activity station. However – and this may just be my cynicism showing – I didn’t think that bamboo skewers and the general public would be a great mix. I can almost guarantee I would get children who were more interested in stabbing each other with the skewers then creating a cup and ball game. Talking with Meg, we decided that instead of yoghurt pots we could use empty paper cups which would be easier to decorate with felt pens than the plastic yoghurt pot would have been, and also could just be held in the hand with no need for a handle. We didn’t have to do risk assessments as such (although I expect that Liz or Neil had to fill out some kind of paperwork) but we self censored our activities based on our expectations of the average visitor.

Meg kindly donated her empty latte cup and we found some string in the craft supplies cupboard to test run a cup and ball. There were no pom-poms in the basket and neither of us knew how to make them so we just scrunched up some string and hoped for the best. The prototype which really well considering it was very Heath Robinson, and I’m confident that with the addition of proper pom-poms the game will be a success. As we are not using bamboo skewers I think what I will probably do is punch holes in the bottom of the cups prior to the event starting – again, this is to avoid the possibility of a visitor injuring themselves.

We also decided to formalise who was doing what on the day and Jo kindly took on the role of scribe and organised the teams on the flipchart. I am uncertain as to whether I will be up to physically running an activity on the day as I will be having my shoulder plate fiddled with a week or so before the event and while I will definitely be there I am not sure how fit I will be. I have asked to be put on the welcome desk on the assumption that I will be able to slope off for a break as and when I need one. However, this does seem to leave Meg without a partner to run the cup and ball game so we will see on the day as to what I end up doing.

The other teams made dolls and masks from toilet paper tubes and card and seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves as they indulged their creative side. Although we didn’t have an official theme as yet we all were thinking along the same lines; the aspect of toys and games being made from readily available materials (for example the Inuit toys made from walrus ivory). Fortunately the cup and ball game is redolent of the Inuit polar bear toy in the archives, which is perfect for the event as we also have a replica which people can play with. We debated whether the replica should go on the object trolley or at the cup and ball game station but decided to keep it together with all the other objects on the handling trolley on the assumption that we couldn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t “walk off” with a visitor if it were on the station with all the craft materials (especially if Meg was on her own).

I think it would be useful to go back to the event space now we know how long activities take and how much space we need for them. I imagine that each station will have two of the big tables push together so you will seat approximately eight people at a time (not including one or two of us to run the activity).

The session took place in the exhibition space at the back of the library where we will be putting on our event as part of the May Festival. Liz and Neil stressed that this was an opportunity to work out which activities will take place where, make sure we had enough activities to fill space, and decide who was going to do what. The head of exhibitions at the library was also present and gave us lots of ideas as to the amount of craft materials we could use from the stores at the library. Most of this seemed to be fairly standard stuff such as pipe cleaners, wool and yarn, felt pens, and a badge making machine which we hadn’t considered but thought might be quite nice for visitors to be able to take away not only dolls and masks but a more permanent reminder of the time they spent with us. Of course none of us know how to use a badge maker machine so that might be somewhat tricky but I’m sure between us we will figure it out.

The print room is going to be used as storytelling space as it is enclosed and will hopefully be better acoustically than the rest of the space we have been given which does tend to echo quite a lot. If we get lots and lots of people then I imagine the noise level will be pretty significant (which might be annoying for library users as the design of the space immediately above where we are seems to be a bit of a sound tunnel). We had a long roll of brown paper to make plans on and we were encouraged to draw out a “map” of activities. So far we have: maskmaking, object trolley, storytelling, and doll making, with a photo booth against the video wall. We will also need a welcome desk of some sort. We decided that the storytelling should be done at set times with a limited number of participants (about 15 to 20 give or take) as it could get a bit out of hand otherwise. The other activities could take between 5 to 10 people at a time but the turnover should be reasonably fast as it doesn’t take that long to make dolls. I did notice on the plans that there was space to put masks out to dry, which implies paint of some kind – I am not sure that mixing paint and the general public is a great idea but we will see. I also wonder if we have enough activities to occupy visitors and will try and think of anything else we could do with them.

This was much more of a practical session than class-based academical one and so I don’t have much to post text wise but here are pictures from the walkaround and planning stage:

We had today’s class in Marischal College for scheduling reasons and the agenda was to discuss what we might do for the upcoming May festival which forms part of our assessment. This will be my first May in Aberdeen so I was unfamiliar with the format of the event, but it was explained that this is a citywide celebration of which many events take place on campus at Kings. We will be situated on the ground floor at the back of the Duncan Rice library in the big space currently used as overflow tables for the cafe. We will also have use of the old print room which has been moved across the road. I felt a little awkward as almost everyone else in our education class is taking the “curating an exhibit” module and therefore is already familiar with the aspects of object selection and exhibit layout. As I hadn’t done much in the way as research on these topics I wasn’t certain of my own contributions to the discussion, which was quite laboured as it was. I think perhaps everyone was tired as there wasn’t much in the way of energy around the room.

The kind of ideas we were coming up with a fairly straightforward: object handling, storytelling, games, a talk from a curator, and some kind of arts and crafts related to objects from the archives. It seems sensible to tie in our May festival work with the theme of the exhibition that the others have been doing over the last few weeks, as we can then utilise some of the research that has already been undertaken. This also ties into the year the young person which is apparently happening this year in Scotland. And some of the others have already identified objects that they want to use an exhibition this aspect of planning for the May festival was relatively straightforward although it will of course need to be refined depending on which objects we are allowed to have, especially with reference to the object handling trolley for obvious reasons. Some of the toys and games that we had considered would be too fragile to explain to the general public, but there are still quite a lot of items that can be taken out of cases and discussed with interested visitors.

Neil is going to walk us around the space that we can use so we can get a better idea of how many activities will need and where to put them. The space itself is huge but corridor-like in shape so we may need to use dividers to give the space some kind of structure. We can probably utilise dividers from the exhibition currently running in the library exhibition space as it will be over by the time the May festival comes round. Some of the activities we thought of have obvious parallels to items in the collection, such as the Paraguayan bone dolls which we could imitate with toilet roll tubes and other craft materials for decoration, which would be a straightforward and safe activity for the general public to get involved with. I will have to have a think about an activity I would feel confident doing in front of people given I only have one hand now. I do find this all a little bit disappointing as I used to thoroughly enjoy interacting with the public and educating them on the manufacture and use of prehistoric stone tools when I worked with my good friend Karl Lee (a professional flintknapper) only now I wouldn’t feel confident about handling objects in front of people.

Also a slight issue that is niggling at me is that the vast majority of the people who will be coming to the May event will be children; I’m not confident all at ease around children at all and feel very awkward when trying to talk to them. It is slowly becoming more apparent to me as I do this module that if you want to work in museum education you have to be prepared to spend a lot of your time corralling children so perhaps this isn’t the career for me after all. I am unsure if there is any way to specialise in adult education only or at least children from A-Level age upwards. Fortunately I am (mostly) doing this module from interest and desire for self-improvement so these niggles are not major. However I will try to be paired with someone like Meg or Stephanie who are both very good with children.

Before we get into this week’s class, a brief caveat: I was not very well and although I was present in body my mind was certainly not firing on all cylinders, hence the somewhat brief entry for this session. This was somewhat irritating as I am very interested in how museums present their exhibits in a digital way, from both visitor interaction and archival aspects such as online catalogues.

One of the key points to come out of the discussion from the session was that with the ubiquitous nature of smart phones we all had the opportunity to seek knowledge for ourselves; of course whether one uses one smart phone for the acquisition of knowledge or to share Pictures on Facebook is another matter. This led on to the activity that we did which was to try and think of 50 things to do with your phone and preferably relate them back to the museum context. Initially I did not think our group could come up with even half of the required number but it was surprising how quickly we rattled them off once we got going. Unsurprisingly there were a few categories that turned up in every group such as social media, listening to music, reading the Internet, reading emails. Though some unusual options which I had not come across, especially particular programs such as Snapchat or Monzo which are not familiar with. Our class is made up of students from quite a wide age range but clustering at the younger end of the spectrum and I will admit to feeling a little bit old at certain points as the discussion turned to newer programs with which I was unfamiliar.

We did struggle a little to relate every single item to museum context but most of the ones we came up with at some relevance. Most of the bigger museums and many of the medium-sized institutions now have audiovisual media with which to accompany a visit, often in the form of a special app or tablet (sometimes there is a charge to rent these). These can range from simple audio tour as used Cheddar Gorge or the more involved and technologically advanced programs used Culloden battlefield where you can take a self-guided tour and use GPS to provide you with information about the specific part of the battlefield that you are on.

We were given a task to do where we had to come up with some kind of digital innovation further a museum with no budgetary constraints at all. Then we had to rein in our creativity to try and produce something slightly more realistic. Our group went all out with ideas of using tablets to interface with museum catalogues and then give visitors the ability to choose an artefact to print out on a 3-D printer installed in the exhibit. If for example the exhibition was on toys and games, a visitor can choose their favourite toy and create their own replica with which to interact and take home. However this would obviously costs a lot of money to set up and the ongoing budget would have to be reasonably high in order to provide the raw materials for the 3-D printing and to provide technical help when the printer inevitably breaks down.

I hope to revisit this topic when I’m not full of lurgy as it’s something that I find very interesting and ties into other areas of the syllabus that engage me; for example having the Internet at your fingertips promotes the kind of self-directed learning that I read about in the first week and has obvious influences on continuing education which is an area I would like to explore further for the reflective essay.

Curating difficult histories is something that comes up quite often for museum staff, especially those working in museums such as the Imperial War Museum, the Holocaust Museum, or the M Shed Museum in Bristol which covers the transatlantic slave trade amongst other things. However all museums from small local authority museums, heritage centres, or multi-million pound developments will have objects that touch on sensitive topics in some respect. How the museum approaches this and displays the objects to the public is a difficult and sometimes thankless task.

The session that we had to discuss difficult histories was a group based activity where we were directed to use a selection of craft materials: card, packing paper, felt pens and crayons, Sellotape and anything we could scrounge from the craft basket in the cupboard. We were asked to use these materials to create an exhibit covering a difficult history; we could choose whatever topic we wanted but it had to be “challenging” and/or “something that makes you feel uncomfortable”.

Our group decided to create an exhibit based on the slave trade of the 19th century between Britain and the colonies. We decided that aspect we wanted to cover included: slave ships, lynching, the KKK, and emancipation. This was quite a tricky brief to be whipped up out of coloured pens and A3 paper but we were up for the challenge and certainly ran with the brief of “feeling uncomfortable”.

I used to be quite artistic (see posts past) and took on the challenge of drawing a 19th-century slave ship even though I didn’t really know what they looked like. Fortunately with ubiquitous smart phones I was able to find a decent picture to copy from Google. Obviously using felt tips and my wrong hand I couldn’t quite convey the horror of a ship packed to the gunwales with frightened slaves chained below decks or the stench of hundreds of unwashed bodies crammed into tiny spaces for weeks on end. I can’t recall ever having visited an exhibit on slavery and would be interested to compare my experience with the method used by “proper” museums to convey these aspects to visiting public.

As we were supposed to be making uncomfortable imagery we also made a noose from twisting the stout brown packing paper provided, and rolled up a cone of white paper to form a KKK hat complete with eye holes (although to be honest it looked more like a dunce’s cap to me). It was interesting that although we were talking animatedly while we made these things when they were finished and attached to the backing paper for our exhibit we all stop talking the same time and looked vaguely uncomfortable as we surveyed our handiwork.

The overall narrative was difficult to explain in such a limited format but I think it came across reasonably well and the other groups appreciated what we had tried to create and understood the points that we were attempting to make. As groups we were asked to circulate around the different exhibits before coming together for group discussion on curating difficult histories.

One group had also used the topic of slavery although they had approached it slightly differently to us (see pictures). The other two groups had roughly similar ideas. The first group worked with the concept of displacement and modern refugees while the second group covered the removal of Native American children from their families to boarding schools in Canada where they were taught “civilised” ways.

The group that dealt with the forced resettlement of Native American children was very interesting for me as I did not know anything at all about this. While I have seen the statue of the Duke of Sutherland I did not realise that he was responsible in part for the majority of the Highland clearances; as someone who grew up on the south coast of England the clearances did not factor greatly in my understanding of British history as unsurprisingly, our history education was somewhat Anglo centric. When I look back on my memories of learning history at school it seemed like all we ever did was crop rotation, Tudors and Stuarts, or the Nazis. I was moved enough by this groups presentation to do a little research outside of class and found a good article that summed up many of the aspects of this tragedy. It must be one thing to present this kind of material to a group Museum students in Scotland, and another to make an exhibit on the subject to be shown in areas that have a strong local connection to forced resettlement. I think for me this session really brought home how much cultural sensitivity is required of exhibition staff in modern museums.