Colouring the Nation: uncovering the history of Turkey red

A guest post by Dr Sally Tuckett

Dr Sally Tuckett is postdoctoral researcher on Colouring the Nation, a two-year collaborative project between the University of Edinburgh, School of History, Classics and Archaeology and National Museums Scotland. Colouring the Nation is directed by Dr. Stana Nenadic of the University of Edinburgh and is funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Scottish Government under their Major Research Grants in the Arts and Humanities scheme. The project researches the Turkey red dyeing and printing industry in the west of Scotland in the nineteenth century.

The last Scottish Turkey factory closed within living memory, so we knew there would be an interest in rediscovering the importance of the cotton printing and dyeing industry that once dominated the Vale of Leven. But since Colouring the Nation started in 2011 we have been overwhelmed by the positive response we have received.

Turkey red patterns featuring animals and birds.

Last year on the Feast Bowl, Graeme Yule showed some of the images we had taken of the Turkey Red Collection so far – and more of these are now available in the online exhibition. Digitising part of the Turkey Red Collection was a huge part of the project (we wish we could have done it all but with an estimated 40,000 textile samples there simply wasn’t the time!). However, another significant element has been meeting all the different people who have an interest in the industry – whether from a design perspective, from knowledge gathered working with textiles or from an interest in local history. We held a number of workshops, each with a different focus and each shedding new light (for us at least) on the Scottish Turkey red industry.

In November 2012 we met with a group of quilters from the Quilters Guild of the British Isles and it quickly became clear to us how important quilting is to the survival of Turkey red dyed and printed cottons. Quilts in America and Britain were often made with Turkey red printed cotton as it was a bright, durable fabric and lent itself well to the colourful designs. Surviving quilts are perhaps the largest body of evidence showing us how Turkey red cottons were actually used.

We have also enjoyed investigating the world of quilted garments – sadly, given the current climate, a trend which is not as popular as it was in the nineteenth century! This quilted petticoat, for instance, has survived in excellent condition. It was made by McLintock and Sons in the late nineteenth century and although we cannot say for certain the fabric was dyed and printed in Scotland, the pattern is very similar to those in the Turkey Red Collection.

Quilted petticoat by McLintock and Sons, private collection. Photo by Graeme Yule.

Stana Nenadic (left) and Crissie White, formerly of the Glasgow School of Art (right) with a nineteenth-century quilt made of Turkey red fabric which was brought along to the ‘Show and Tell’ session in Alexandria, December 2012. Photo by Graeme Yule.

In December 2012 we held a ‘show and tell’ workshop in the Vale of Leven, hoping to create an atmosphere of The Antiques Roadshow meets Who Do You Think You Are? The response was incredible. Not only did more quilts come to light, but we were also shown some of the tools used by the hand block printers at the turn of the century, as well as pieces of machinery which had been recovered from the River Leven since the industry and factories had closed.

A particular highlight was meeting with people who had worked in the factories before they closed in the early ’60s. We met Annie Hussey, née Lacey, who started working at the Craft in the 1920s, and James Howard and Hugh Toole who worked for the UTR after the Second World War, all of whom were willing to share their stories.

Sally Tuckett (left) and Stana Nenadic (right) with a length of Turkey red dyed cloth which would have been cut into handkerchiefs.  Brought in by Robert Friel to the ‘Show and Tell’ session in Alexandria, December 2012. Photo by Graeme Yule.

Most recently we held a workshop at the Edinburgh Science Festival. Richard Ashworth of the Society of Dyers and Colourists in Bradford gave us an insight into the history of natural dyes and then we had the opportunity to do some natural dyeing of our own with turmeric, helping to put into perspective just how much effort would have been required to produce natural dyes on a large scale.

Richard Ashworth of the Society of Dyers and Colourists in Bradford explains the effect of turmeric on natural and synthetic fibres at the workshop at the Edinburgh Science Festival.

Adding an acid or an alkali solution can completely change the appearance of a natural dye.

Thanks to everyone who has participated in our various workshops, who has given us tips on sources to follow up, or has shared their experiences and knowledge of the Turkey red industry. We have thoroughly enjoyed this project and hope that others out there are inspired to find out more!

More information about the project and some its results can be found at www.colouringthenation.wordpress.com. You can see the online exhibition at www.nms.ac.uk/colouringthenation.

 

A major milestone in the Glenmorangie Research Project on Early Medieval Scotland

By Alice Blackwell, Glenmorangie Research Officer

Last week saw the culmination of years of research by myself and colleagues working on the Glenmorangie Research Project on Early Medieval Scotland, in the publication of a new book on the period: Early Medieval Scotland: Individuals, Communities and Ideas.

Early Medieval Scotland was a very vibrant and sophisticated place which produced some of the most exquisite objects in National Museums Scotland’s collections. This is the time of the Picts, the Gaels, the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons and, arguably more than anywhere else in Briton, Scotland was a melting pot for numerous different ideas, techniques and styles. This fusion of ideas was helped in great measure by the big new idea of the time – the introduction of Christianity to Scotland.

This period marks the end of pre-history, with the creation of the first written texts. But that doesn’t mean that archaeology doesn’t have its own stories to tell. Very few written documents survive, giving us only a partial and fragmented picture. Almost all were written outside of Scotland, meaning they can give us a one-sided picture. They are also limited in their interest – what they record and preserve for us tends to be focused on kings, battles and deaths.

When writing our book, we wanted to take a fresh look at the period and let the archaeology speak for itself. Every object has a number of different stories to tell, depending on which questions are asked of it. Because of this we decided to look at Early Medieval Scotland at three different scales: at an individual level first, to see what surviving objects could tell us about the people who made and used them.

Drawings on a slate found at Inchmarnock, off the coast of Bute.

The object above illustrates this nicely: it’s a doodle of some horses scratched onto a slate at a site called Inchmarnock, off the coast of Bute. It was likely to have been made by children, perhaps in a bored moment during their monastic schooling.

The next perspective looks at communities, thinking about the different groups of people that made up Early Medieval society. For instance, we look at Christian communities – because as far as we can tell, Christianity was the first religion to have formal and separate communities dedicated to it – and communities of craftspeople who created monuments of devotion like this piece of sculpture from Papil, Shetland (below).

Sculpture from Papil, Shetland.

Finally, we examined the bigger ideas and ideologies, the things that bound society together, and the ways in which objects were used to create and symbolise these important concepts and relationships, here illustrated by the corpus of massive silver chains (below). Massive because they are made from solid silver and can weigh up to 3 kg each: clearly these are extremely powerful objects capable of communicating big messages.

Massive silver chains.

A few teasers of new research you can find in the book include the hidden symbolism and protective qualities of many elaborate gold and silver brooches, such as the stunning Hunterston brooch.

The Hunterston brooch.

And find out why we think that a figure on the Hilton of Cadboll stone, long thought to have been a Pictish princess, may instead be one of the earliest depictions of Jesus from Scotland.

After years of research and writing, it’s a joy to see the book come to life. Its also a great opportunity to once again thank The Glennmorangie Company for their support over the last four years, without which our research just would not have been possible.

Early Medieval Scotland: Individuals, Communities and Ideas by David Clarke, Alice Blackwell and Martin Goldberg is published by National Museums Scotland and can be purchased from the online shop.

 

Turkey red: a study in scarlet

By Graeme Yule, Photographer. Additional Text by Sally Tuckett and Stana Nenadic from “Colouring the nation”, a new in-depth study of the Turkey red pattern books in the National Museums of Scotland. Textile History (Forthcoming 2012/3).

 Working with Dr Sally Tuckett from Edinburgh University I was given the task of photographing examples of Turkey red for an online exhibition hosted by National Museums Scotland. Due to the specific nature of the samples colour accuracy and continuity were of paramount importance to the cataloguing of this collection.

Turkey red peacock print.

The production of Turkey red dyed and printed cottons was a major industry in the west of Scotland, particularly in the mid to late nineteenth century. Although the extensive works were pulled down in the second half of the twentieth century, our knowledge of this industry is significantly aided by the survival of approximately 200 pattern books, now housed in the National Museums Scotland textiles collection.

Turkey red floral patterns.

These pattern books are the foundation for a new study into the wider Scottish decorative textile industry. The ongoing examination of these pattern books has shown the variety and longevity of Turkey red dyed and printed patterns, as well as providing insights into wider aspects of the textile industry, including issues of design, manufacture and trade.

Turkey red patterns.

The production of a colour-fast red dye that could withstand frequent washing and sunlight was a long-standing ambition of dyers in eighteenth-century Britain. Called ‘Turkey red’ because it originated from the Levant region, the original process, which was time-consuming and expensive, was based on the extraction of alizarin from the madder root, which was then fixed to the fibre using oil and alum, as well as a host of unsavoury ingredients such as sheep’s dung, bullock’s blood and urine.

Turkey red geometric patterns.

Manufactured in millions of yards and in a huge variety of designs, few of these colourful textiles survive today, other than in the form of samples and designs in pattern books. Historians of textiles and dress have long recognized the importance of pattern books as sources.

Turkey red patterns.

Pattern books were kept by manufacturers as records of their designs, manufacturing processes or orders. The National Museums Scotland Turkey Red Collection consists of 200 bound and unbound pattern books.

Turkey red floral patterns.

In all there are approximately 40,000 items in the collection, consisting of Turkey red dyed and printed cotton samples. The condition of the pattern books and the individual samples vary considerably.

Turkey red patterns.

These were accessioned to the National Museums Scotland collections in the 1960s on the demise of the United Turkey Red Company in Scotland, and have been largely untouched ever since.

Turkey red patterns.

Turkey red printed fabrics were rarely encountered in everyday life in Britain other than by the industry’s workers, as the large proportion of goods were for such markets as Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, West Coast of Africa, East Asia and India. Many of the animals present in the designs represent the wildlife native to these export markets.

Turkey red patterns featuring exotic animals and birds.

The Turkey red dyeing and printing industry in Scotland was concentrated in the Vale of Leven, Dunbartonshire. William Stirling and Sons established themselves as Turkey red printers in the early nineteenth century. Their main rivals in the Vale were two firms run by brothers, John Orr Ewing and Co. and Archibald Orr Ewing and Co.

Hunting scene.

Competition between the Vale of Leven firms was brutal, with much copying and theft of designs among the rivals. Knowing that such design espionage existed makes it harder to definitively say if a pattern book belonged to one or another firm. On present research, just 41 per cent of the National Museums Scotland volumes can be securely connected with a specific Turkey red manufacturer.

Hunting scene.

In 1898 William Stirling and Sons, John Orr Ewing and Co. and Archibald Orr Ewing and Co., along with Alexander Reid and Sons of Milngavie, amalgamated to form the United Turkey Red Co. Ltd. (UTR).

Pattern featuring dancers and musicians.

Having set up a temporary studio in building 15 at the National Museums Collection Centre, great care was taken with lighting and exposure to ensure consistent and accurate results whilst photographing a collection of samples that varied greatly in size, condition and colour.

Each sample was photographed with a colour chart, and a strict colour management work flow was set up to insure the digital processing of the images would maintain the colour integrity of the original sample.

Turkey red pattern book with colour chart.

The large files that we can produce show a level of detail within the design that is not always apparent to the naked eye.

Turkey red pattern with a horse and rider.

Using extension rings on the lenses allowed us to produce extreme detail within the images, to the point where you can almost count the individual threads of the fabric.

Individual threads in a piece of Turkey red fabric.

The National Museums Scotland patterns books, particularly when the details they contain can be linked to other sources, are yielding a more subtle understanding of the Turkey red textile industry in Scotland than was formerly possible, showing us the rich and diverse character of this little understood industry. This joint project between National Museums Scotland and the University of Edinburgh is intended to bring a wider understanding of an aspect of the Scottish textile industry which had a global impact.

For further information about the project please visit www.colouringthenation.wordpress.com. Keep an eye on the National Museums Scotland website for more information on the online exhibition, due in 2013.

 

Past meets present: archaeology and contemporary art at the National Museum of Scotland

By Alice Blackwell, Glenmorangie Research Officer

As part of the Glenmorangie Research Project on Early Medieval Scotland, we have invited a series of speakers to come to Edinburgh and deliver a prestigious annual evening lecture at the National Museum of Scotland. The rationale behind the Glenmorangie Annual Lecture series is to explore the points of contact between the disciplines of archaeology and contemporary art.

The Museum has a strong history of exploring these connections: the archaeology gallery, Early People, which opened in 1998, is home to two major collections of contemporary art. The first is a series of imposing bronzes by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi in the form of abstract – almost robotic – figures that form an avenue leading into the gallery.

Paolozzi sculptures leading into the Early People gallery.

Their presence emphasises that people lie behind everything we do as a museum, behind all the objects in our collections, but that despite our best attempts to connect them through archaeological remains people in the past will always remain shadowy figures.

The bronze figures are grouped into four sets, reflecting the four themes of the gallery itself: a generous land, exploring natural resources; wider horizons, tracing the movement of objects, ideas and people; them and us, exposing the central role of power and status; and in touch with the gods, delving into worlds of belief, superstition and religion. The Paolozzi figures also function as display cases, wearing objects from Scotland’s past, showing people how and where on the body they would have been worn.

Paolozzi statue ‘wearing’ the Westness brooch in the Early People gallery.

Paolozzi figures representing the theme of ‘Them and us’.

The second collection of contemporary art housed in Early People is by the internationally-acclaimed artist Andy Goldsworthy. He kindly accepted our invitation to deliver the inaugural Glenmorangie Annual Lecture, and gave a fascinating talk that held the evening’s audience spell-bound – you can view the hour-long film for yourself here.

Goldsworthy’s cracked clay walls, slate structures and whale bone ball are juxtaposed with archaeological objects, some thousands of years old, made from those very same natural resources.

Andy Goldsworthy’s whale bone ball in the Early People gallery.

The gallery asks people to challenge the use – now and in the past – of these natural bounties. My favourite of the Goldsworthy pieces within Early People is the slate structure: reminiscent of a round house, it brings to mind the sense of standing inside a domestic space.

Slate walls in the Early People gallery, by Andy Goldsworthy.

Contained within are objects relating to the finding, processing and consuming of food and drink. A burnt patch in the middle of this part of the gallery invokes the ghost of the hearth, focal point of the home.

It seemed a natural step to invite Andy Goldsworthy to deliver the inaugural Glenmorangie Annual Lecture, and to further explore the rich potential for dialogue between art in the past and present. We asked him to explore one of the main research themes of the project’s archaeological research to date – colour. Although colour is an important aspect of his practice – think of the deep warmth of the dried clay walls in Early People – he said that this was the first occasion he had to reflect on it as a discrete topic.

Clay wall in the Early People gallery, by Andy Goldsworthy.

For archaeologists, colour is fundamentally important to understanding the past. However, it is also often fragile, wont to fade, to dull, or to decay away altogether. The naturally-coloured clay walls in Early People bring to mind the richness that could be achieved through natural pigments alone; in the museum environment they are kept fresh and bright and provide a hint of what does not survive from the past.

During the Glenmorangie Annual Lecture Andy Goldsworthy spoke eloquently about his temporary works of art: vibrant and fleeting pieces, often created outside to last only as long as the frost on a winter’s day. These pieces in particular brought home the range and use of natural coloured materials – the palette of Autumn leaves for instance.

This first Glenmorangie Annual Lecture was a huge success – a sell-out, and a fascinating and intellectually stimulating evening. The incorporation of contemporary art within an archaeology gallery was a deliberate and bold step, and one which I greatly admire. So spread the word to your friends and family – come and explore the contemporary art in Early People for a chance to see some of the Museum’s hidden gems!

Look out over for an announcement in the next few months which will reveal the next of the series of speakers, and for a Spotlight talk by myself in September on the latest findings of the Glenmorangie Project’s research.

 

Bright eyes: recreating medieval sculpture

By Alice Blackwell, Glenmorangie Research Officer

I recently had the pleasure in taking part in a Pecha kucha evening as part of Edinburgh Science Festival, hosted by InSpace at the University of Edinburgh. If you haven’t heard of Pecha kucha before (and I hadn’t before the invitation arrived in my inbox), it’s a format for quick and informal presentations, derived from the Japanese term for the sound of chit-chat. The prospect was a little nerve-wracking: speakers present using twenty slides that are automatically timed to be displayed for just twenty seconds each… you have no control and no room for waffling! But on the night it turned out to be easier than it sounds and all involved had a great evening. Speakers from across the museum gave snapshots of their research, from underwater animals, to airshows, to Iron Age archaeology.

My Pecha kucha was about research on early medieval sculpture, undertaken as part of the Glenmorangie Project on Early Medieval Scotland. I’m particularly interested in trying to reconstruct how these archaeological stone treasures would have looked when newly made, around 1200 years ago. This worn and broken piece of sculpture was found built into a garden wall in Aberlady, East Lothian in 1863.

Fragment of sculpture found in Aberlady, East Lothian.

Fragment of sculpture found in Aberlady, East Lothian.

It certainly has suffered the ravages of time and Scottish weather. It is part of an Anglo-Saxon stone cross – originally it would have been a tall and very impressive monument. The first step in reconstructing what it would have originally looked like therefore means thinking about scale. This full-size reconstruction, now standing in the village of Aberlady, gives some idea of the impact such a monument would have had.

Full-size reproduction of the cross at Aberlady.

Like many pieces of Anglo-Saxon sculpture the decoration of the Aberlady cross features life-like birds, animals and people with small drill-holes for eyes. Scholars of Anglo-Saxon art have long suggested that these eye sockets would originally have looked very different: instead of being empty it has been assumed that they would have held small pieces of glass or semi-precious stones (such as amber). However, none survive – not a single piece of Anglo-Saxon sculpture from the whole of Britain has surviving eyes. So are these assumptions correct? Or were the creatures that decorate these important early medieval monuments intended to have (slightly unsettling) shadowy wells for eyes?

The original fragment from Aberlady is on display in the National Museum of Scotland’s Early People gallery. When it was temporarily removed to allow new photographs to be taken, I took the opportunity to have a thorough look at it. I thought I could see something in some of the drill holes, but thought surely it must just be dirt? With the enthusiastic help of colleagues in our Analytical Research division, we took a closer look.

Using a good microscope and a scientific technique called X-ray fluorescence (or XRF for short) we investigated some of the holes. XRF can tell us what things are made from – and in this instance it demonstrated that there was tin inside the most well-preserved eye sockets. Under strong magnification it became clear that we weren’t dealing with mere traces of tin, but an intact sheet of tin, lining the bottom and sides of the socket.

A close up look into one of the bird’s eye sockets.

Soft metals were often used on early medieval objects to hold decorative stone or glass pieces in place, and it seems that they were using the same technique on stone. This provides the first such evidence from Britain and crucially it helps us get one step closer to how the sculpture would originally have looked. A little bit of experimenting gives us an idea of the effect that could have been achieved.

An experiment to see how stone sculpture might have looked with glass eyes.

Just imagine the rising and setting sun glinting off beady-eyed creatures, crawling up a towering stone cross toward the sky. Anglo-Saxon sculpture, like this piece from Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders, features some of the most life-like carvings of animals I’ve ever seen.

Carved slab found in Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders.

Because the Jedburgh slab is particularly well preserved, if you look closely it is still possible to see the fur on the back of this little mouse: just imagine him with bright, shiny eyes!

Close up of the Jedburgh mouse – imagine him with bright eyes!

You can find out more about the Glenmorangie Early History project here.

 

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.

 

Stories of the World: creating a lasting legacy

By Lauren Campbell, Stories of the World Young Ambassador

The first Stories of the World national steering group meeting of 2012 took place over the weekend of 14 and 15 January at the MIC hotel and conference centre in London. I joined other young people from projects in London, Manchester, Norwich, Barnsley, Brighton, Durham and Shropshire to discuss our projects, work on creating a manifesto based on young people’s experiences in museums and to discuss what our involvement in Stories of the World means to us.

Following an uneventful train journey from Edinburgh to London I met my fellow young volunteers for the first time. We spent the first half of the afternoon bringing the rest of the group up to speed with what had been happening with each other’s projects. We learned that sadly the project in Barnsley had come to an end; unfortunately their project leader left and following this the project came to a halt. While the young volunteers from Barnsley are understandably upset about the end of their project they are proud of what they accomplished with their project and are still happy to be involved on a national level.

Other projects throughout the country are moving on quickly and most groups have had great success with youth involvement. The Brighton project has held youth led arts projects and the Geffrye Museum in London has involved various youth groups to work on events such as film nights and family days. The Geffrye also has a scheme in place where its young volunteers can gain V50 or V100 volunteering credits through working on the project. The Manchester group have been working with young ‘freelancers’ such as writers, musicians and artist to form the content of their project and in Nottingham they have been basing their focus around what young people want to see in museums. The London Transport Museum has been holding events and workshops for young people and in Durham there has been youth led tour guiding and a summer school.

The Iron Bridge Museum in Shropshire are fairly new to the project, but along with myself, took inspiration from the way that the other projects have been led by young people and made young people the central focus of both their exhibit and events.

The second half of our first day was devoted to refining the Young People’s Manifesto which had been developed at previous steering group meetings. The Kids in Museums Manifesto has been updated to look at young people’s experiences in museums and, while we all agreed that the Kids in Museums Manifesto was fantastic for its purpose, we felt that it didn’t really relate well to young people. As a group we agreed that this update was not sufficient, mainly due to the fact that all of the points were very family focused and that young people were not consulted during the writing of the manifesto. Our group felt that, as an important group in society, young people deserved their own manifesto to represent the experience they want and deserve when visiting a museum. We believe that it is our job to be the voice of young people in museums and our goal goes further than just the experience young people have when visiting museums: we want to imbed young people into the running of the museums and to sew the seeds for the next generation. We spent the rest of the afternoon fine-tuning our document, until we all signed off on a one page manifesto that we feel pin-points exactly what we want for young people in museums.

As our first day drew to a close I was satisfied that we had accomplished something important, and following a delicious dinner, a good night’s sleep and a huge breakfast, I was ready and excited for the next day of the steering group meeting.

The majority of the following day was devoted to developing case studies, and each of the young volunteers created a presentation explaining what the Stories of the World project meant to them. Each volunteer was asked to look at questions relating to their experiences before and during the project and also what they hoped for after the project had come to an end. Each volunteer offered different insights but some common themes included wanting to be part of the Stories of the World project because it offered the chance to be part of something big and to leave a lasting legacy. Our young volunteers also wanted to gain experience in the museum and arts world and to maintain involvement after the project had finished. Most importantly we felt that we were providing a voice for young people in an area where they were under-represented and we hoped to make a lasting difference.

During the small amount of time left to us we discussed the exciting prospect of taking the Stories of the World project to an event at Parliament in July, a place we felt would be perfect to showcase our manifesto. Following this we said our goodbyes, walked to Kings Cross and I boarded my train home, feeling very lucky to have had the chance to work with such a fantastic group of people.

 

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.