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Claire

Families Made Festive Exhibitions of Themselves

If we cast our minds back to the sparkly events of last month, Geoff our guest blogger, tells us how the festive spirit was alive and well at Tullie House.  Great job everyone! Over to you Geoff...

Christmas has come and gone and some of us may well breathe a huge sigh of relief. To me, it all seems a long time ago however Making a ‘Festive Exhibition of Yourself only came down last Monday.

 

As my earlier post elaborated, the idea of the exhibition was to encourage families to share their Christmas stories with each other based upon putting together a small display of their own Christmas objects. This was done primarily through three workshops. Unfortunately, I wasn’t around to see any of these delivered myself, however, on returning to work last week, I was really happy to see that the families had gone to town with their displays.

Several ingenious methods for displaying objects were developed by the families after a crash course in exhibition design from our trusty staff of Cathy and Sally for our toddlers and Eloise, Laura and Andrea for the school holiday workshops.

 

First to kick off was our toddler session. The toddlers families, the Richardsons, Branchs and Edgars, brought along a small selection of objects based upon memories of their youngsters growing up. Christmas stockings, Christmas decorations and photographs were produced, some of which were from the toddler’s first Christmases. Short simple, but effective labels were paired with each of these beautiful objects.

The Barratt family

Next up was the first of our two school holiday workshops, booked by the Barrett family. Mr. Barrett had a plan up his sleeve. He booked the workshop as an early Christmas present for his family, who were naturally rather suprised when they arrived for their session. After a short period of coming to terms with what was being asked of them, the Barretts dreamed up an amazing display using the objects Mr. Barrett had secretly assembled beforehand. These included a range of board games, advent calendars, decorations and a tree branch. Their theme was based upon their journey through a typical Christmas Day in their household. Careful thought was given to what and when events took place during the day and created their display accordingly, producing time based labels to elaborate on the story they were attempting to convey.

The final workshop, just after Christmas, was enjoyed by the Waite family. They, similarly to the toddler families, decided to base their display case upon memories from their children over the years. As with the toddlers, objects included family photographs, stockings but additionally jewellery, a Santa hat and some craft accompaniments to complete the ‘Waite’s Crafty Christmas’. Once again, some beautifully simple and elegant stories were told on the object labels.

The Waite family

To polish off the exhibition, I can’t forget the contribution of the families who didn’t attend a workshop, but did visit the exhibition to create some beautiful works of art on our display wall. This asked families to produce art based upon what Christmas meant to them. A creative and diverse range of work was produced and filled the wall by the time the exhibition drew to a close.

So it only leaves me to offer a sincere and well deserved thank you to all the families that contributed to the exhibition. I sincerely hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year.

Geoffrey McCarthy

Family Learning Officer

Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery

Needing inspiration for a sportier New Year you?

Happy New Year!  There has been no slowing down over the festive period and it's all change again in THe Shed with a sports exhibition taking shape as I type...

Come Tek a Deek is now open. 

Below is the blog from Claire, Come Tek a Deek's Co-ordinator, who reveals some fascinating facts about our local sports clubs and has infomation about how you can come and meet the people behind the exhibition.  Over to Claire.

Come Tek a Deek evolved out of us wishing to reach into the Sporting Community. We have many different sports clubs and groups in Carlisle who have long histories and their own collections of objects and memorabilia. THe Shed is all about involving the wider community in the museum so we put a call out to sports clubs across the city to get involved in creating an exhibition that celebrates the history of sport in the county. 

We attracted a wide range of interests, from football clubs to a rifle club, each with their own objects and stories to share. Did you know that members of the Border City Wheelers used to cycle as far as Preston, compete in competitions and then cycle back? Or that the Northbank Football club has a member who holds the world record for the longest header? Are you in the picture? Come tek a deek at our local clubs, their stories and history and share your sporting memories too! We have folders around the gallery with photos from the clubs along with pictures on the wall, so take a look and see if you are in the picture!  

As project coordinator I have learnt something new about each of the clubs and the sport they are involved with. I was surprised to learn that to race as a cyclist you needed a licence for example. I had not realised that this is an important part of being able to race legally on the road. Club member Andy told me this was not an issue when the club first started but as the roads became busier with traffic that it became important for the safety of other road users and the cyclists.

Did you know that the museum has an arms licence but for our historic and decommissioned weapons? For this show we had to talk to the police and ensure we were covered legally and that we had any arms displayed securely locked in special cases! 

If you wish to find out more...
Join us here for a Gallery Conversation at 1pm on Tuesday 13 January – meet some of the club members, talk to them about their sport and find out more about the people involved in the exhibition.

A sure-fire way to cure Christmas boredom!

Hello All

A final message from Shed HQ for the year and just to let you know that THe Shed is very much open over Christmas (with the exception for Christmas day, Boxing day and New Year's day) and there is plenty to see and do.

Today we've installed the Video Shed back in the gallery and set up a screen for you to record your own videos.  We're asking 'What object sums up Carlisle now?'  As some of you may know, there's an exhibition in the summer called Carlisle in 10 Objects and we want everyone's thoughts about an object that can represent Carlisle in the present and into the future to put into the display.  So your chosen object may well end up in the exhibition!

Also, there's still time to book onto the Make a Festive Exhibtion of Yourself workshop on Sunday 28th December.  Call Reception on 01228 618781 so that you can see your festive objects and stories on dispay in the museum!  The first workshop was on Sunday and was a great success - you can still see the results of their work if you visit the Shed in the next week.  Check out the Evening News and Star today (Tuesday 23 December) for some pictures of the workshop.

If you don't have the opportunity to take part in this way, then you can see what other people have been up to and maybe leave a Christmassy drawing on the drawing wall.

And, we still have our glimpse into the Tullie House stores with objects on display that haven't ever been publically shown or been out for a long time.

Thank you everyone who has visited the Shed, left a comment or particpated in a workshop this year.  We've plenty more planned for the New Year so I hope to see you all again soon.  If you'd like to share your comments with me about the space then I'm happy to receive them at enquiries@tulliehouse.org

Have a very merry Christmas and happy New Year.

Claire

Help Tullie get festive!

We need your help to get Tullie ready for Christmas.  Our guest blogger Geoff tells you how you can put your own fesitive exhibition in THe Shed.

Our tree's looking a little bare so we need you help!

Making a Festive Exhibition of Yourself, 16th December 2014 - 4th January 2015

With Christmas literally on our doorstep and schools on the verge of breaking up for the festive period, this time is always important for museums such as Tullie House. Families are often looking for things do both before and after Christmas Day itself. So with this and our Shed exhibition project in mind, a family exhibition about Christmas seems an excellent fit.

When planning any activities, families or otherwise, it is important to consider engagement. This can vary depending upon the audience you are catering for and with families, interaction and the provision of fun things to do is paramount. Families often like interaction where they get involved and afterwards, a legacy for their work is often a great means for each family to look back at the activity and say “We did that!!!” Additionally, when working with families, we must think of the children, but also toddlers, teens and of course adults, whether they be parents or grandparents. Any combination of these people can form a visiting family. It’s therefore important that we try and engage with all family members with each group. It’s not always an easy task.

So our Christmas exhibition will allow families to work together to produce something, in this case an exhibition, that they can take pride in. This will be done through a series of family workshops, one for our Tullie Toddler group, the other two for visiting families over the Christmas School Holidays. The families will also have the opportunity of displaying their own Christmas objects. These could range from old presents, decorations or a turkey roasting tin!!! Whatever they choose, we’re hoping there are stories linked to the objects; each family will have the opportunity to share those stories not only with each other in the workshops, but also on the labels they create about their own objects. Stories are something we can all relate to and families are often full of them.

For other families visiting in between the workshops, they can also contribute by adding Christmas artworks to our exhibition banner. As with the workshops, we’ll ask them to draw something important to them and to tell us why that object is so special to them.

In taking part in these activities we’re hoping to give the families a great opportunity to find out some behind the scenes tips and secrets about how we put on an exhibition, whilst at the same time, giving them a fun family visit to Tullie House.

If you would like to book a place on one of the family workshops, call us now on (01228) 618700. We look forward to seeing you.

Job well done!

Enjoying the special view of the exhibition.

Guest blogger Mary, Project Co-ordinator of Treasures of Cumbria, tells us about the latest exciting milestone from her Cumbria-wide projects.

On Friday 5 December volunteers travelled from as far as Barrow-in-Furness for a special view of the One day in Cumbria exhibition at Tullie House.

After enjoying scones, cake, tea and coffee, the volunteer researchers were thanked by Director Hilary Wade for the special contribution they made to the project. She acknowledged that without their skill and enthusiasm, the exhibition would not have been possible. Hilary also thanked Cumbria County Council archives and libraries and partner museums, Lakeland Arts, the Dock Museum, Penrith and Eden Museum, Beacon Museum and the Haig Pit Mining Museum for their support.

The group made their way up to the exhibition and admired the timeline and items from the collection. They filled out their own updates of what they’d done on 5 December 2014 for inclusion on the contemporary timeline.

Both the 1914 and 2014 timelines are now on show.

Project coordinators Mary Ann Lancaster and Stuart Appley said a few words in the exhibition, sharing what an enjoyable experience it had been to work with such talented participants.

There was also an opportunity to attend a first screening in the Lecture Theatre of Your Country Needs You, a film created for the project by Comely Media. This film responds to research into life in 1914, and follows one man in Dalton-in-Furness as he struggles to decide whether to enlist.

The event was a lot of fun, with many people enquiring when we’ll be getting started on A day in 1915!

There are only 4 days remaining of the exhibition, which now features both the 1914 and 2014 timelines. The project will be published online at http://onedayincumbria.org.uk later this week.

The results are in...

How many of you voted for the Roman object to be included in Tullie's big summer exhibition 'Carlisle in 10 Objects'?  The results are in and are shared by Tim, our Curator of Archaeology, below:

Roman Altar Represents Romans in Summer Exhibition

As part of the preparation for next summer's exhibition which will illustrate the history of the city in 10 objects, one of the first projects in THe Shed was to ask our visitors to decide which object from our large Roman collection sums up the impact of the Romans on Carlisle.

Each object was chosen to illustrate an aspect of life that was introduced by the Romans when they arrived. Six ideas were selected and information about them, along with a picture of the object that would be in the exhibition. These were made into posters and put up on the wall in THe Shed. Voting papers were supplied along with an authentic ballot box. Visitors were asked to vote for their favourite. The voting period was between October 20 and November 10.

A big 'Thank You' to all who voted. Here are the results:

Altar to Mars Barrex

As can be seen, writing was seen by nearly a third of the voters as the most important thing the Romans introduced into Carlisle. This means that the altar dedicated to Mars Barrex that was found in English Street, Carlisle in 1861 is the object that will represent what the Romans did for Carlisle next summer.

If you didn't get to vote on this one, don't worry, there'll be another opportunity to have your say in what will be shown in the Carlisle in 10 Objects exhibitions very soon.  Watch this space!

Claire