- COMMUNITY VENUES
On the afternoon of the 14th of September we visited current Open Museum projects and partners to demonstrate and critique some of our work. This allowed delegates to meet some of our participants and led on to discussions about the future role of museums to their communities. We will shortly be updating the blog with information about each of the afternoon sessions and invite you to ask questions, comment on the projects or share similar work.
Out There Community Visit – One Place Storytelling Workshop
An afternoon visit to G
ovanhill’s One Place Storytelling Workshop provided delegates with the chance to explore the Open Museum’s relationship with story and storytelling around Glasgow.
On arriving at the Storytelling Workshop delegates received a warm welcome from One Place founder Rachel Smilie and soon settled down with cups of tea and coffee in anticipation of a story or two; little did they know that by the end of the afternoon they would be storytellers themselves.
Based in Govanhill, Scotland’s most culturally and religiously diverse community, One Place is a community project working to encourage social encounters and community building through traditions of storytelling. Opened in 2008, One Place offers a safe and supportive environment for residents from Govanhill, Pollokshields and surrounding areas to explore one another’s beliefs and cultural perspectives whilst establishing their common ground through the sharing of stories. In support of this work the Open Museum installed a Storytelling Object wall within the centre in the hope that Glasgow Museums’ collections could help inspire, enliven and connect the stories of One Place’s visitors.
As well as giving delegates the chance to explore this object wall and the ways that it has been inspiring groups at One Place, the Out There Community Visit also opened up a great deal of discussion about the ways that objects can be used as a common ground around which people from different backgrounds and cultures can meet.
While these conversations continued, delegates were encouraged to get hands on with artefacts from The Open Museum’s object handling kit, The Storyteller’s Luggage. This resource was developed in partnership with Glasgow Storytellers and is a source of inspiration and wonder. It is a collection of fantastic objects that can be borrowed by community groups around the city. The delegates learned about the history of the Storytellers Luggage; the ways in which this collection of museum objects has been designed and developed as a support for the Glasgow Storytellers’ endeavours to promote and carry storytelling to all corners of the city.
The delegates were interested to learn more about the ways in which Open Museum resources like the Storyteller’s Luggage are being used by health practitioners, care institutions and community groups around Glasgow to bring people and their stories together. They finished the afternoon with a storytelling task of their own which asked them to work together to build an object inspired story that could be used in their own work with communities. The results were fantastic. Stories of seed sewing butterflies, conversations over soup bowls and staged reminiscences of a time now passed filled the room with laughter, applause, questions and debate.
Some delegates wondered how collections from their own museums could be opened up and placed into the hands of communities across their home cities, while others explored possible ways that the story orientated work of One Place and The Open Museum could be replicated within a social landscape that is slowly recovering from years of religiously charged conflict and persecution.
Time, however, would get the better of us and soon the day had to be brought to a close. Nevertheless these conversations would resurface and continue over the remaining days of Out There and hopefully beyond.
Glasgow Museums Resource Centre
This is Glasgow Museums’ publically accessible store and a priceless resource for the Open Museum when encouraging people to interact with their shared heritage. This visit will encompass a guided tour, focussing on how the collections can facilitate issue based discussions.
Between 2010 and 2016 the iconic Red Road Flats will disappear. These huge residential tower blocks were built between 1964 and 1969 by Glasgow City Council. For the new residents they were a vast improvement on living conditions in Glasgow’s slum tenements. But over the years the condition and reputation of the flats changed.
As part of a wider cultural strategy, Glasgow Museums aims to create a legacy recording the passing of these buildings and communities. We are seeking to establish best practice in contemporary collecting, with an emphasis on inspiring community involvement.
This session will take place in the Hidden Gardens where our first living travelling display, The Gardener’s Ark, will be housed. A group of Adult Learners from Leverndale Hospital were inspired by the art and maritime collections to create beautiful still lives, cyanotypes and a travelling garden in the shape of a traditional Scottish fishing boat.
This was part of a 2 year partnership between The Open Museum, Acorn Gardening, Glasgow Life’s Community Learning, Leverndale Hospital and Dykebar Hospital. This is an opportunity to discuss how participation in culture can build confidence and support well being.
One Place is situated in Govanhill, an incredibly diverse area of Glasgow. The centre aims to promote social encounters and community building by encouraging the tradition of storytelling. This visit will highlight the Open Museum’s support of this work; showcasing the venue’s object wall and The Storyteller’s Luggage, a handling kit developed in collaboration with The Glasgow Storytellers. There will be an opportunity to share stories and discuss the potential of storytelling in preserving intangible culture heritage.
This is Open Museum’s flagship community museum, established in 2000, with many of the original community members still involved. The Pollok Kist group utilise Glasgow Museums’ collections to tell their stories. The group are instrumental in deciding the theme for each yearly exhibition, selecting the objects and communicating their message. The value of empowering groups to tell their own stories, the relationship to exhibitions in familiar, everyday spaces and the sharing of authority and control will be discussed.
This is an opportunity to participate in a reminiscence session on the theme of Glasgow cafes and discuss the powerful memories that everyday objects hold. Reminiscence is often thought to be the prerogative of older people, but this is belied by the Open Museum’s work with young people, encouraging those of all ages and walks of life to share fragments of memories, personal experiences and interpretations of objects.We will discuss the role of social objects, the unique benefits of handling collections and the impact sharing recollections can have.
The Open Museum and Theatre Nemo have developed a partnership project, teaching youth groups to create animations with museum objects. This is a chance to discuss how digital media can be used to encourage young people to participate in museums. We will also discuss user-generated content and the various ways in which our audiences can reinterpret collections.
Kennishead
The Open Museum has run a number of projects with the Greater Pollok Integration Network who work with Glaswegians, refugees and asylum seekers in Kennishead to promote social interaction and cross cultural understanding. This afternoon will discuss the difficulties of maintaining relationships with communities that are constantly changing and supporting individuals who are unable to attend regularly. There will also be discussions about Social Enterprises and how we may be able to support this type of work.
