All aboard the Magic Carpet!

By Gillian McNee, Learning Enabler

Every Wednesday morning at 10am a roll of thunder can be heard at the entrance of the National Museum of Scotland… or so you would think.  It’s actually 15 buggies, mums, dads, toddlers in a hurry, descending on the Museum for a morning on the magic carpet. The new under 5s programme has become so popular we now call the rush to sign up for spaces the “great buggy dash!”

After the transformation of the National Museum of Scotland, with the addition of the Imagine and Adventure Planet interactive galleries, designed specifically for younger visitors, there was an opportunity to develop new activities that would extend the ethos of popular galleries into our public programmes. The aim was to create an engaging experience for little ones where they could explore the Museum further, and the idea of a magic carpet came alive.

Captain Fiona Campbell tells a story.

The Magic Carpet sessions introduce little ones to different things in the Museum. Each week the carpet and its little explorers visit somewhere new, with stories, singing, crafts and object handling. Our trips on the carpet include visiting the stars in the Earth in Space gallery to see all the animal constellations, exploring the jungle of the Animal World gallery where we’ve boogied with the animals, and going fishing in the Arctic winter in the Living Lands gallery.

The magic carpet in the Living Lands gallery.

The carpet has had special guest appearances too, including professional storyteller Mara Menzies. Mara runs her own company, Toto Tales, which brings African stories to life, and she took our magic carpet on an adventure through Africa, with Koko the crocodile. Another special guest was Cuddles the pygmy hedgehog, who was brought along by Visitor Services Assistant Laura Moss for a springtime special all about woodland animals, where the children explored the history of the forests in the Beginnings gallery.

Enabler Anna Downie adds some sparkle at a craft session on the magic carpet.

The magic carpet sometimes gets out and about, away from its home at Chambers Street. It recently flew to East Kilbride to the National Museum of Rural Life for some storytelling at the Classic Car show. For training, it visited Sanderson’s Wynd Primary in Tranent, where the P2 class went on a journey from Scotland through Europe, stopping off and handling objects from each country along the way, with the final destination being Spain, the class’s topic. They then performed a Flamenco dance inspired by their adventure on the carpet.

It is also being used as inspiration for a community engagement project led by Community Engagement Officer Jane Miller. Three family learning groups, Gracemount, Broomhouse, and the Royal Mile, have all taken part in magic carpet sessions in the museum. They are now each creating a fabric square with their favourite object from the Museum on it, which will then be put together to make their own magic carpet. The nursery children and their parents have been working jointly on this project, enhancing learning together. The finished carpet will be complete with objects and a user book, full of songs and activities that can be used with the carpet. Groups will be able to borrow the carpet and resources for their own use. The adults and children have been really enjoying the process of making their own magic carpet. One mum says the only challenge has been that her wee boy was inspired by so many objects in the museum that she had to limit what he could have on his square, as it had to match with what she could actually sew!

Making a magic carpet with the family learning groups.

September will see the launch of Magic Carpet Minis. So far the Magic Carpet sessions have been piloted for little ones under the age of 5.  After the summer, two different sessions will be run – one geared towards 2-5 year olds and one for 0-2 year olds. This means the activities will be more tailored for each age group and parents/guardians can decide which one they and their children will get the most from. So keep an eye out for new adventures on the magic carpet!

Up up up as we go flying on the magic carpet!

For more information on family activities in the Museum visit www.nms.ac.uk/families

 

The sound of distant African drums…

A guest post by Regan Koazubikk, P6, Methilhill Primary and Community School, Fife

Regan’s class is part of The Robertson Trust funded project which is working with schools to develop boxes of museum objects available for free borrowing. Regan tells the story of preparing for a day event showing the work her class has done over the past year with the Museum. The partner school is Methilhill Primary and Community School, Fife, and the event took place on 2nd Feb 2012. You can find out more by reading this previous post by Community Engagement Officer Conor Hull or on the Community Engagement section on the National Museums Scotland’s website.

Before Thursday we had to plan our exhibition.  We had to decide on where our objects and material went. Then on the laptops we made some labels and a title. Eventually area 10 (another class) came to see us practise our exhibition for Thursday – they really enjoyed it!

P6 choosing objects for the African exhibition at Methilhill Primary and Community School, Fife.

Next it was the day! I was so nervous I was shaky. Then we began to walk to the drama studio. Then we suddenly walked in and as we walked in there was Conor, a photographer and a professional cameraman and we had to prepare our exhibition. Soon after break an African man called Chief Chebe was teaching us to play drums, African drums, and some of our parents came. Then we got taught a seed game. I was in a group with Samantha and Melissa.  Then area 13 (another class) came in.  It was very nerve-wracking because they are a bigger class.

Chief Chebe and P6 at Methilhill Primary and Community School, Fife.

Soon it was show time! To show our parents what we had been up to with the Museum project we then had to move our exhibition to the hall.  Meanwhile our parents came in.  I was so nervous and a little bit scared stuff might go wrong!

P6 playing African drums to an audience at Methilhill Primary and Community School, Fife.

My parents were very proud of me.  Then we had to play our drums in front of everyone in the school even parents! I was very jumpy, then we finished and everyone cheered and clapped. At the end my parents said I was outstanding. I was very proud of me and my class.  However we had to say our goodbyes. I didn’t want to say goodbye to Chief Chebe. I loved every second of it and it was a GREAT experience.

P6 practising the African drums at Methilhill Primary and Community School, Fife.

 

Schools outreach: the Museum comes to Methilhill

By Conor Hull, Community Engagement Officer

As part of the revamp of the National Museum of Scotland, The Robertson Trust donated a large sum of money toward the development of a brand new Learning Centre.  They also funded an outreach project which would expose the museum’s collections to previously unreached audiences, encouraging these families to visit the museum for themselves.

For more than a year I have been working in partnership with three schools, to deliver this project. Methilhill Primary School Fife, Park Primary Clackmannan and Knightsridge Primary School, West Lothian.  The plan is to put together one box of handling items per school from our collections that could be loaned out to other schools, giving a flavour of the fantastic objects we have here at the National Museum of Scotland.  These will be officially launched in May at the National Museum of Scotland.

The pupils and teachers picked their topics, based on themes from the new galleries – Africa, Rainforest and the Carnival of the Animals.  Next I got together objects from our handling collection to give to the pupils to research.  They visited the museum, asked curators questions and did their own independent research.

Last month we ran a community day at Methilhill Primary and Community School, giving pupils an opportunity to show off their work to other pupils in the school, their parents and wider families.

Pupils, parents and teachers took part in an African drum and music Workshop lead by Chief Sulemen Chebe before performing to their parents later on.

Chief Suleman Chebe with pupils.

Chief Suleman Chebe demonstrates the xylophone.

Setting up a display of African objects.

Pupils explained their exhibitions to parents.

Showing parents objects from the displays.

Parents could also get involved with the musical entertainment!

In this video the pupils explain in their own words what the project has meant to them.

 

A school trip to the National Museum of Scotland

A guest post by Lucy Kay, P7, Park Primary, Alloa

Arriving

Our trip to the museum was wonderful, we all had a lovely time. First we walked through the museum to get to our room and we passed some lovely, interesting things like a giant plane hanging from the ceiling, an old-fashioned motorcar, a magnificent old clock and much more awesome things. When we arrived at our room we sat and Mr Hull told us a bit about the rainforest. Then he gave every group an artefact and told us to guess what it was. My group had elephant skin. It was rough, grey and wrinkly.

Animal Exhibit

Once we had talked about our artefacts he gave every pair a picture of an animal that we had to find in the animal exhibit. Me, Leona and Raegan had a Bengal tiger, which didn’t take that long to find. We found out loads of information that we didn’t know. After we found out our information we were allowed to look in the space exhibit for a little while. I preferred the animal exhibit though because they had so many amazing sea and land animals like sharks hanging from the ceiling and lions on the rocks – it was absolutely fantastic!

Standing in front of the amethyst geode in the Restless Earth gallery.

Adventure Planet

After lunch we walked through the museum to go to more exhibits. At one exhibit I put my hand through a hole and felt something slimy and I squealed, I daren’t check what it was. At another exhibit I got to smell through a speaker thing to smell a skunk (it stunk). I saw many wonderful videos of Earth and Space as well.  We wandered round for a while and then headed back to our room to make rainforest bugs.

Watching the video in the Earth in Space gallery.

Watching the video in the Earth in Space gallery.

Rainforest Bugs

Mr Hull handed out some dough type things to everyone to make rainforest bugs to help us think about hiding in different environments. I made a snail and put it where I thought it would go well. We got to take our bugs back to school to display and show people what we had done at the museum.

Rainforest bugs on display.

Leaving

We said thank you to Mr Hull and had one last walk round the museum before we got back on the bus and set off back to school. We had a lovely day at the National Museum of Scotland.

Lucy’s class visit was part of the Robertson Trust funded project which is working with schools to develop boxes of museum objects available for free borrowing. Find out more on the Community Engagement web pages.

 

Stories of the World: Victor Gama lends a hand

By Hannah Kyte, Stories of the World Young Ambassador

Victor Gama is a Portuguese-Angolan musician and composer. His compositions are created using a method he terms the Golian Modes. This method involves the construction of the instrument becoming part of the process of composition. Gama draws on knowledge of traditional instruments and societies and combines this with new technologies to create his unique instruments. His instruments are developed for and alongside a specific composition or type of music to become the three-dimensional component of his compositions. You can find out more about Victor Gama at www.victorgama.org.

Victor Gama demonstrates one of his instruments, Tonal Matrix, at the opening of the National Museum of Scotland.

Victor Gama has worked with the National Museum of Scotland on many occasions. He created the four brilliant original musical instruments on display in our Performance and Lives gallery. These instruments were created to be played by visitors in the museum and are specifically designed to sound more harmonious when played by several people at once.

As part of our Stories of the World project we arranged to meet with Victor to hear his opinions on our ideas so far and to ask him about his work. We thought this meeting would be helpful for us with our project because our theme is Sounds Global, looking at music from around the world – something that he knows a lot about! The discussion was very helpful to us in many ways: we thought a lot more about possible designs for the exhibition space, learnt of more relevant case studies to look into and came up with many ways of focusing in on our target audience of 16-25 year olds through new design, presentation and content ideas.

Victor Gama demonstrates one of his instruments, Tipaw, at the opening of the National Museum of Scotland.

Prior to our meeting with Victor we had fixed on the idea of ‘music and controversy’ as our theme for the exhibition and Victor came up with many potential case studies for us to look into, such as the life of Feka Kuti a Nigerian musician and Human Rights activist, music in Libya under Gaddafi and the music of the Orange protest March in Ireland. We then discussed potential design ideas for what is a challenging space to work in. This was very useful and we now feel that we have many potential original and creative ideas through which to make the most of the area and entice people into our exhibition space. Victor was able to help us with ideas on lighting, colour and creating the atmosphere we wanted for our exhibition.

Now our project is moving on to explore possible objects and case studies in more detail, in order to finalise the content of our exhibition. Four of us involved in the project went to a Stories of the World conference in Leeds two weeks ago which was brilliant, as it meant that we got to see what other people were doing for their projects, what stage they had got to and how they were going about the process. Hopefully the information and ideas we gained at the conference will enable us to make the most out of this opportunity to co-curate an exhibition with the National Museum of Scotland.

 

Stories of the World in Birmingham

By Charlotte Kiddell, Stories of the World Young Ambassador. Stories of the World is a UK-wide initiative to coincide with the 2012 London Olympics, harnessing the excitement and world-attention of the Olympics and linking this to objects from around the world, in museums and galleries across the UK.

Stories of the World has a UK based group which meets to talk about what has been happening with the project. The Stories of the World project invites young people to use cultural items to create an exhibition which will hopefully create a rise in young people coming to museums and experiencing this culture for themselves.

Shannon Kiddell and I went to Birmingham for the meeting and spent two days there discussing various topics such as:

• The roles and the responsibilities of the steering group.
•  The group’s future.
•  Making a manifesto of what we want to do as a group and discussing what we like about museums and what we would like to see happen in museums.
•  A day in Parliament next year to show people who we are and what we are doing.
•  What we would like to see in our 2012 exhibitions.
  

  Shannon and Charlotte Kiddell, Young Ambassadors for Stories of the World.

The roles and responsibilities were similar to a job description for people who wanted to be a part of the steering group. We felt that they needed to be serious about the project and to be hard working. The manifesto discussion was based on working out what we promise to do and achieve by 2012. This involves a five-part plan which we feel that museums should uphold and includes:

• Power and participation for young people: this involves allowing young people to have  a say and make a difference within their local museum, by using work experience  or a one off exhibition day.
• Museums beyond their collections: this involves creating a place that is enjoyable for everyone as a social and creative space.
• Museums and the community: this involves bringing the museums to those who don’t have the means to get there and involving the community in their plans.
• Museums and relevance to present culture: making the museums culturally relevant to everyone, meaning they will make them fun and exciting and keep updating them and making them fresh.
• Accessibility for all: finally, creating a means for museums to be accessible for everyone, allowing the community to have a say on what goes on in the museum and making it plain and simple to understand.

The day in Parliament means going to Westminster Abbey to shout about our achievements and make sure that people know what we have done. This will take place in 2012 and will involve a variety of media such as performances and poetry and a live debate discussing what we feel should be done culturally within museums.

Finally we discussed what we would like to see in the end project, our exhibitions. We want basic simple things which we feel would draw the public in more than usual. A few examples of these are:

• Tours done by young people.
• Noisy, music filled galleries.
• Colourful labels.
• Highlight standards of local collections and contemporary technology.

 

Murder at the museum

By Charlotte Kiddell, Stories of the World Young Ambassador

Shannon Kiddell and I created this event for young people called “murder at the museum” at the National Museum of Scotland for the Stories of the World project. As you can guess from the title it involved solving a murder mystery using the clues and dialogue from the characters involved.

We roped in six drama students and one professional actor and let them have free reign in terms of the dialogue, based on characters created by us. The characters were called Richard Penicuik, Monica Greyfriar, Dean Mossman, Louise Bute, Marie Rossend and Humpfrey Mills and all were suspects in the murder of Dr Charlie Lewis, Scottish History Curator. The names were all based on objects in the Kingdom of the Scots gallery where the victim was found.

The whole night’s dialogue was improvised from the actors’ minds and this helped to create a natural effect of nervousness and reality.

The night started with drinks and nibbles in the Boardroom: the weather was amazing and the windows made a cool effect as the sun went down. We had created mocktails and given them names like “murder she drank” and “Midsomer mocktail”.

Gathering for the Murder Mystery Evening in the Bute Room at National Museum of Scotland.

The group then went downstairs to the “crime scene” where they encountered a body, cordoned off with police tape. They had to find the clues stashed about and give them to our off duty “police officer” Ronnie Simons. They were then escorted back upstairs where they had to question the suspects and another character was revealed! Dun dun dun!

The group then paused for a break where they had time to discuss what had happened and find the final clues for the night.

Scene of the crime at the Murder Mystery Evening at the National Museum of Scotland.

After the break, the final character was revealed and all the suspects questioned. The policeman summed up the evidence and then gave the groups time to think things over. Luckily our clues were difficult enough yet not too difficult that the murderer was revealed; only one group got it! They were awarded prizes and then the guests left.

We are very proud of our event and feel that it was a great achievement by the both of us. We are hoping to create more events based for young people and hopefully we’ll be given that chance based on the success of this night.

 

What do young people think about National Museums Scotland?

By Christine McLean, Community Engagement Manager (Project Manager Sounds Global)

As part of our Stories of the World London 2012 project, Sounds Global, we have been working with consultants Space Unlimited to find out what young people think about National Museums Scotland. In three short, intensive and immersive days, staff from the museum worked with Space Unlimited and two groups of young people aged 16/17 years from Canongate Youth Project and Firrhill High School, Edinburgh.

Day one.

The young people drew images to represent what they thought of the museum.

Drawing pictures of the museum.

As the day went on, everyone became more relaxed.

The young people worked hard but were supported and empowered to give honest feedback about National Museums Scotland: their final-day presentation to 10 staff from the museum was powerful and insightful.

For example, we learnt how museums can sometimes seem intimidating to teenagers. ‘They’re just somewhere that you’ve got to be really quiet, and they can be quite dull,’ explained Richard from Firrhill. Hannah, also from Firrhill, pointed out that: ‘The people you see there are always old people or little kids, there’s never really anyone in the middle.’

We all ended the session feeling positive and energised, ready to make changes to how we work together. Here’s what some of the young people said:

‘I learnt that you can work with anyone, even people that you think you won’t get on with, on the first day,’ Hannah, Firrhill.

‘[I’ve gained] More confidence to talk to people, like grown-ups,’ Martyna, Canongate Youth Project.

We all ended the session feeling positive and energised, ready to make changes to how we work together.

We’ve continued our contact with the young people, some of whom visited the National Museums Collection Centre for a behind-the-scenes tour.  They even met composer-musician, Victor Gama, visiting from Portugal to work at our conservation labs on one of four instruments he has created for the new Performance and Lives gallery, which will be one of 16 new galleries unveiled when the transformed National Museum of Scotland fully reopens this summer. The gallery will inspire our Sounds Global installation and it was great  for the young people to hear, first-hand from Victor and Museum staff, more about the project.

Meeting Victor Gama at the National Museums Collection Centre.

Now we know more about what attracts and motivates young people to engage with the museum, we’re starting to feed some of our findings into our programme for 2011, and will continue working with the young people to develop this and the Sounds Global project.

 

 

 

Here be dragons

By Laura Bennison, Community Engagement Officer

Over the course of several Saturdays in autumn, children and families have been gathering together in different venues across Edinburgh to create a monster!

The project, organised by National Museums Scotland Community Engagement team, has brought three groups of people based in Leith together with an artist to create a spectactular sculpture of a Chinese dragon. This dragon will hang at the entrance to the Imagine gallery, which opens as part of the new National Museum of Scotland in 2011. The eight-metre-long dragon will lure visitors into the gallery, a colourful interactive space where families and other visitors will be able to explore festivities around the world.

Dragon's den: developing ideas for the Chinese dragon.

Several groups, including pupils of the Edinburgh Chinese School, Leith Primary and Macdonald Road Library’s multicultural family learning group, have participated in very successful workshops ofer the last two months. In these workshops, participants have found out more about Chinese culture, researched the significance and meaning behind Chinese dragons, and created their own moving dragons of various shapes and sizes.

Working on dragon designs at Macdonald Road Library.

The artist appointed for this project, Kim Bergsagel, has worked both locally and internationally, collaborating with communities to create large-scale artworks. Most recently she made Big Man Walking, an eight-metre blue puppet who toured Scottish towns to great acclaim.

Over the next few months these groups will visit Kim’s studio to see the dragon take shape. They will also be involved in our Chinese New Year celebrations in Feburary, which will take place in the National Museum of Scotland. We’ll also be involving these groups in other consultation for the Imagine gallery, for instance, working with them to choose books for our Story Corner.

The aim of the project is to further strengthen our connections with local audiences and, by involving families in the creation of content for the National Museum of Scotland’s reopening, ensure that they feel a real part of our new spaces for a long time to come.

Decorating a picture of a Chinese dragon.

A dragon created by families at Macdonald Road Library.

You can see more pictures from the workshops on Flickr.

 

Sounds Global

By Laura Bennison, Community Engagement Officer

‘Careful with the ones that are made out of fish skin’.

I began the morning of Saturday 24^th July by carrying 38 different types of drum collected throughout the world through the galleries of the National Museum of Scotland with the musician Pete Vilk. The drums were being set up for drop-in music workshops that would allow visitors to the museum to take a tour of rhythms from three different areas around the world.

Pete is a drummer, percussionist, composer, sound designer and workshop leader. He keeps his drum collection in his garage at North Berwick and had filled his car with just a fraction of them, to allow visitors the chance to try their hand on a variety of instruments he has collected from around the globe.

As the peace and quiet of the museum gave way to more hustle and bustle towards lunchtime, Pete began drumming high above the central hall and watched as a stream of curious people of all ages appeared.

Those visitors enjoying our Scottish collections on Saturday may have been intrigued by the distant chants and song that filtered through the museum instead of the usual Edinburgh bagpipes. By the end of the afternoon there was a frenetic atmosphere in the space where 70 people had taken part in workshops and learned a lot about the sounds and instruments of the Middle East, Africa and Cuba. You will be able to see many of these instruments and more when they are on display in the Performance and Lives gallery opening in the redeveloped Royal Museum in summer 2011.

‘Sounds Global’ weekend launched our involvement in London’s 2012 Olympic Celebrations. Along with 14 other national UK partners, National Museums Scotland kicked off its project on this weekend to begin a two-year countdown to the games. Our ‘Sounds Global’ project will work with young people aged 14-24 and will focus on our musical instrument collection, culminating in an exhibition here in 2012.

While Saturday’s music came from drums made of wood and animal hide, Sunday’s performers used laptops, iPods and mixing decks, as well as some traditional dhol drums. Tigerstyle, a DJ duo from Glasgow, brought Bhangra beats and the sound of Bollywood to the museum. Tigerstyle are classically trained in Punjabi instrumentation and folk yet merge this with contemporary hip hop and rap. This combination has won them a massive fan base around the world. This wasn’t the first time they had played in a museum: they’ve played  at Berlin Museum before, as well as the opening of winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Punjabi percussion courtesy of Tigerstyle. Photo © Jenni Sophia Fuchs.

The crowd watch Tigerstyle perform. Photo © Jenni Sophia Fuchs.

The Tigerstyle DJ rocks the museum Bhangra style. Photo © Jenni Sophia Fuchs.

‘Sounds Global’ will explore how pivotal music is to people all around the world. We’ll also explore how traditional instruments from around the world feature in the new music that young people in Scotland make and listen to, as well as hopefully using the digital recordings of world instruments that we have here in the museum to create new music ourselves.

Have a listen to the tune that opened Tigerstyle’s set here at the museum ‘Nachna Onda Nei’

It’s a hybrid of Michael Jackson samples, Vanilla Ice and Bhangra!