Culture Syndicates CIC

   27th September 2017  In  Annual Impact Reports ,  News And Opportunities

   19th September 2017  In  Reviews After an amazing weekend in London watching the World Para Athletic Championships and taking my nieces to see Wicked for their first live musical theatre experience, I found I had time before my train journey home to visit one more site. Having heard of the amazing things the Wellcome Trust does and knowing its collection was so close to the train station, I am embarrassed to say that I have never visited the Museum before. Well, this was about to change. A Museum of Modern Nature One of the galleries within the Wellcome Collection asks us to consider what represents our personal connection to nature. At the start of the year, the public was invited to bring in objects that fostered their relationship with nature, capturing these stories both visually and verbally. The collection became inundated with objects ranging from a garden gnome and O2 canister, to a pair of trainers and a prayer mat. Change, Imagine, Sustain, Ritual From t...

   19th September 2017  In  Training And Employability Never to be the ones to sit and stagnate, we are constantly striving to renew our practices. Last week, we had our recruitment morning for a new cohort of Heritage Assistants, and we thought that we wouldn’t do things the traditional way. We looked back on five years of experience in recruitment, researched best practice, and decided that the formal type of interview was hindering our opportunity to recruit inclusively. We invited 10 of our 47 applicants to a group interview, and began with a simple question; What exhibition or museum object has recently inspired you? The group interview situation is enough to put The Fear into many people, so we all sat together in a circle and the interviewers started off. This put the interviewees at ease as they then had time to think about their own answers, and know that the interviewers were just people who worked in culture and heritage because they loved it too. This que...

   13th September 2017  In  Industry Trends And Critical Analysis The Speaking Clock gallery at the BHI Museum, which I have already written about on this blog, is getting new interpretation panels very soon. Although these will make the gallery more accessible, written interpretation is not the most interactive or stimulating method. It also doesn’t cater to everyone’s access needs and abilities. Therefore, I have spent the last couple of weeks devising some digital interpretation to accompany the panels. The plan is to install a tablet computer in the gallery, with an inbuilt app containing different kinds of information relating to the Speaking Clock. As someone who has never even contemplated designing an app, or installing a tablet in a gallery, this work has had its challenges. Here are some of the things I’ve learned and have had to consider in planning the digital interpretation.   Affordability Big museums might be able to spend thousands of pounds on l...

   12th September 2017  In  Reviews Splendours of the Subcontinent – A Prince’s Tour of India 1875-6 In August I had the opportunity to visit the ‘Splendours of the Subcontinent – A Prince’s Tour of India 1875-6’ whilst it is exhibiting at New Walk Museum, Leicester. This is a Royal Collection exhibition showcasing the amazing array of gifts presented to the His Royal Highness (HRH), Prince of Wales on his Royal Tour of the Indian Subcontinent in 1875. It was developed in collaboration with Cartwright Hall, Bradford and New Walk Museum, Leicester. The Collection Despite requesting no gifts to be presented during his four month tour, the Prince of Wales still received a great many. This was because they showcased the unique craftsmanship and skills found in this part of the world. Before HRH had even arrived back home, he had already created a plan for the collection to be put on public display. He wanted to show people what amazing skills could be found in the Indian...

   4th September 2017  In  Industry Trends And Critical Analysis Read Charlie’s and Alex Bird’s (Museum Development North West) conversation about the call for T-shaped workers on the Museums Association website. When I read  Arts Council England’s  Character Matters Report calling for the sector’s workforce to be what it termed “T-shaped” individuals [expertise in a single field represented by the vertical; the ability to collaborate across many as the horizontal], I was pleased to see the call for more diversity… But I’m disheartened to see the call for entry-level job applicants to have at least a relevant master’s qualification, which makes the sector impenetrable for many people…  Click  here  to read the full article. You can also read it in the latest Museums Association printed journal.