Loan box team, an update.

An overview of the last couple of session from Leanne...

We looked at where we all are in terms of research with each of the objects. We brought this together with what information we found out from our meeting with the conversational group at the library.

Now we are getting to know the objects better, other themes seem to be coming up. We originally started with ‘Style and Status’ but one of the common links between the objects is celebration across different cultures. Several of the objects are associated with New Years and Christmas, while others are linked with religion. These are all possible themes we could focus our loan box around.
At the end of the session we decided to

Continue with the research and ideas for activities
Think about any objects we could possibly buy, what cultures/countries are we missing?
Think about titles/themes

The next session we focused on activities and started by looking through some of the activities that are currently being used with the other boxes. By going through these we got a better idea of how they used the objects and got people to interact with them. There were activities that were more practical based and ones that used skills such as art and writing. A wider variety of activities will mean different types of community groups are able to use them.
We are planning to start collecting ideas for activities for our objects and keep researching the pieces.

Creating a Loan Box with Access Artefacts

The loan box team are working with Access Artefacts at NCMG's to create a handling loan box based on the themes of our exhibition.

Here's an over view of their first two weeks from Leanne...

Week 1- Ideas and themes

As this was our first meeting, we started by looking through existing loan boxes to get an idea of how the loan boxes were used and what sort of objects were included in them. From this we began to think of what themes we could use with our loan box.
While brainstorming for possible ideas we used three of the main groups from the Unravelled exhibition, ‘Style and Status’, ‘Symbols and Stories’ and ‘New Owners and New Uses’ as a starting point. We came up with ideas across the three groups but focused more on ‘Style and Status’ and ‘Symbols and Stories’.
With ‘Style and Status’ we expanded it to include celebrations, looking at religious ceremonies, festivals and national holidays across different cultures. For example, weddings and funerals to Christmas and Diwali.


Week2 - Objects

This week we went through more objects from the collection. We went through the items while keeping our themes in mind and chose 5-10 items each. These were chosen based on how interesting we found them, potential stories that were linked with them and if they would work as part of our loan box with our current theme.
Once we had each picked objects we were given a copy of the questions that will be used in the information pack that will eventually go with our loan box. We will be using these questions as we go through the objects and research them.

Leanne

Access Artefacts is Nottingham City Museums and Galleries' artefacts loans service for schools and community groups. Each of their handling loans resources contains unique museum artefacts, as well as a comprehensive activity pack for group leaders for use in their own community settings.

Some of the community resources they currently offer are-

World Stories - Special objects from across the world. Activity ideas and additional resources all included.
Illuminated Stories - Beautiful books from many years ago. Includes full activity pack and Object information.
Treasures - A variety of personal items from the past, loved and treasured by their owners. Includes reminiscence and other activity ideas.
Creative Thought - Artefacts relating to food and drink across time and cultures plus lots of hands on activities ideas. Created with adults with learning disabilities, but also suitable for many other groups.
Pretty Useful - This resources investigates objects from around the world that are both functional and decorative. Great inspiration for arts groups or just those interested in crafts.
What's Under Your Feet - Investigate lost Nottingham. Focusing on 5 archaeological sites across the city that have little or no visible remains today.
The Quest box - A light hearted look at old Nottingham through artefacts, hands-on quiz style activities and a specially created board game!
From de Sunshine to de Snow Exhibition - Developed closely with members of the African Caribbean community this exhibition tells the stories of those who travelled from the Caribbean to Nottingham between the 1950's and 1970's.
Sankofa Exhibition - To mark the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade act in March 1807, Nottingham City Museums and Galleries embarked upon a project to commemorate this significant chapter in history. These exhibition panels show the development and inspiration for the project, the panels are accompanied by a Globe of freedom for display.
Resources for early years - We have resources developed for early years groups based around storybooks. 'Bibi's Museum Adventure' from a specially commissioned Childrens' book with related African artefacts and activity ideas. 'Hari at the Castle'Follow Hari, a young Sikh boy, on his visit to the Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery. We now offer facilitated Museum Stories sessions with these resources for more information


For more info click here

Exhibition photos

The Unravelled exhibition is on until the 16th September at Nottingham City Museums and Galleries. For information on opening times and admission prices go to this link

Unravelled and Living in Silk, are part of Dress the World, a collaborative programme of three East Midlands' exhibitions with Suits and Saris at New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester and The World at Your Feet, Northampton Museum & Art Gallery, forming part of the Stories of the World project for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. www.dresstheworld.co.uk

Credit- Tracey Whitefoot, Whitefoot photography

Install Timelapse

Here's the link to our timelapse film of our install...

 

"Unravelled" at Nottingham Castle, exhibition install timelapse from Illuminate on Vimeo.

Install- Finishing touches

The Finishing touches...

Our vinyl motif is put up.

Labels and panels go up

Rachel, Vicky and Shuang make tassels for our "smell" boxes

The press launch starts at 5.00 and at 4.45 we finish, just time to sweep up.

Install week two- The Manchu Warrior and Dragon Robe

Two of our pieces need special cases built for them.

A large dragon robe is to be hung from the celling and displayed between two sheets of perspex and the Manchu Warrior's amour is having a large case which is to be built on-site.

Metal wire's are attached to the Galleries celling to suspend the robe from...

The robe is then anchored to the floor.

The Manchu Warrior's case takes about 6 people to put it together.

Install week two- The pieces go in.

Victoria Hobbs (conservation officer) helps us get the pieces ready. Each box is cleaned and then the 3-d objects are carefully put in and carried over to the wall to be attached by John, our technician for the week.

Most of the flat objects are mounted onto fabric and board. We attach them to the wall with velcro and then cover them with their perspex case.

Install Week two- the layout

At the start of week two, all the pieces for display are bought up from storage in Brewhouse yard to the Castle.

Jenna and I have unwrapped all the perspex cases and started marking out on the wall where everything will go. We do a dry run where all the boxes are screwed into the wall so we can see how they all look and so we can move anything that isn't working before we start to put the pieces in. We also need to figure out where to put the interpretation panels and objects labels.

By the end of the day things are taking shape, we've only moved a couple of boxes and we are ready to start putting in the pieces from the collection...

Install Day Two

Day Two...

Painting the Mural

and the teal wall

Install Day one

Taken on my phone so sorry for slightly grainy quality!
The start of the mural and preparing the back wall for painting.

Exhibition Lanterns

Part of our Exhibition design is to have clusters of white or cream lanterns hanging from the celling in the Gallery. Rachel and Shuang told us that white lanterns were associated with funerals in China so we thought we should go for cream ones and then paint them with the colours and motifs from the exhibition.

Cafe Tables

Only a couple of weeks to go now so we are getting on with smaller jobs whilst we wait for printers to print the marketing and the technicians to build our cases. Next week is install week, we'll be painting our teal wall and mural and then the week after everything goes in to the gallery ready for our launch on the 29th March.

The Castle Museum has 6 display cases in the Museum Cafe which also double up as tables. We asked if we could use them to display some of the props and puppets that we created for our animation " The Dragon and the Heavenly Peach" which will be showing as part of the exhibition.

Here are the displays we came up with...