The Australian Museums and Galleries Association has a fabulous Webinar series planned this year, full of interesting and useful topics to consume. There is a pretty wide range of museum skill set being activated (many of which I will be booking in for) and they are easy to access during this time of social isolation.
I was delighted to see that there was a session dedicated to Social Media in Museums, a topic that happily linked in with the university unit I am currently completing – Digital Pasts, Digital Futures. I signed myself up and have taken a few notes that I wanted to share.
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Admittedly, I may be finding myself spending a lot of time at the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) at the moment. Three times in 12 months is surprisingly high, but the topics they have been covering just tickles my brain into thinking more creatively and more broadly.
Digital Directions is an annual symposium, now in its fifth year of existence. The purpose of the symposium is designed to consider the future of our collections in the digital age. Like all good events, the NFSA collaborates with several other excellent institutions including (get ready for some alphabet soup): ABC, AIATSIS, ANU, AARNET, NAA, NLA and NMA. This year’s speakers were fabulous, and the topics were broad and exciting. Will I go again? Absolutely! This is my very brief summary of the talks I managed to get to Today the group had planned tours at the National Museum of Singapore, Battlebox and the Bicentennial Experience at Fort Canning. All three were quite fascinating and had slightly different takes on important national narratives.
The National Museum was incredibly beautiful. The building was completed in 1887 as the Raffles Library and Museum and has been extended and renovated sympathetically multiple times. The building has a combination of British neo-classical styling, with slicker recent renovations. There are some *huge* audio visuals used inside galleries. The interpretation of the collection is fascinating, and shies away from going into grim or gritty details. Instead, it focuses primarily on the successes and future of Singapore as a country. I was particularly struck by this in the Growing Up gallery. The Growing Up gallery focuses on Singaporean history between the 1950’s-1960’s, a particularly complex time for Singapore, but the exhibition mainly focuses on the introduction of education and industry to the country. This isn’t unreasonable, it’s just a tad jarring for this little museum nerd who finds pulling out the raw and ugly truth invigorating. Lesson for today was that maybe a little bit of lightness and pride can actually go a long way. As a side note, being deeply in love with children and public programs, I had been deeply disappointed in the lack of interactivity in the galleries. Then I found the activities section and my mind was blown. I was also highly skeptic although about a children's activity book that included 116 pages - but it totally works! Super impressed. Battlebox was quite different. The Battlebox started it’s life as the Headquarters Malaya Command Operations Bunker. More popularly, many will know of the bunker as the location where Commonwealth forces decided to surrender to the Japanese forces during WW2. It’s not where the surrender was signed. The rooms generally do not include original artefacts, as most were lost either during or just after the conflict. It is certainly quite a somber location. I felt that the story of Singapore was a little lost in the tour. The history of the bunker is explained in length, and the conflicts crescendo builds as films portray the swift advance of Japan down the coast. But story revolves around the commanders that were placed in power, and only briefly touches on the effect of the conflict on Singapore as a country. Primarily, and unsurprisingly I suppose, the story revolves around the bunker and the people within it. Which leads me to our last adventure of the day, the Bicentennial Experience. It was certainly an incredible experience. I never thought I would stand in the rain, under an umbrella, in a building with a roof. Or that I would watch actors playing historical figures while balancing on a conveyor belt. The best word I could honestly use is ‘intense’. I was struck as just how completely earnest the production was. The narrative is really a call to arms, asking Singaporeans to see values in certain traits and to aspire to continue growing in the future. It something that I don’t think would work in Australia. I was pretty impressed through that this Experience at least did peer into some of the unhappier aspects of history. All three are telling a part of the Singaporean story. I would argue that both the Museum and the Bicentennial Experience are telling stories that they hope will become rallying calls towards shared ideals and goals as a society. I think that the way they are telling those stories could spend a bit more time filling in the gaps in history, and not shying away from the messier parts. It felt a bit sugary at times, but they were fantastic places to visit. I feel extremely lucky and privileged to be on the road again in Singapore, enrolled in a heritage unit through the University of Canberra. Over the next 14 days we will be exploring the heritage and museum sector in Singapore, with an itinerary that is looking fabulously interesting. I’ll try and keep this blog updated with my adventures as we go along.
To back track slightly, I arrived in Singapore ahead of schedule, to spend some quality time with Mr Geek. We have trekked, trailed, traipsed and occasionally trudged our way around some of the tourism spots. It has been, in a word, terrific. Highlights: - My first ride on a roller coaster ever, at Universal Studios (Mr Geek insists I popped his ear drum) - Tasting local sweets in Little India (a friendly customer helped us to pick out the treats) - The exhibitions at the ArtScience Museum, which were gloriously beautiful and inspiring - The light and sound show at the Gardens by the Bay (and then an odyssey around the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest) I have experienced the wonder of Kopi, a type of coffee that uses evaporated and milk to create awareness that is unrivalled. I have tried Chicken Rice. And, oh my gosh, the transport system. The subways run on time, in a logical order and the tunnels don’t smell suspiciously of stale urine. I’ve felt really safe the entire time, which is lovely. Anyhow, it has been marvellous. The only downside is Mr Geek heading back home to Canberra today so that I can join up with my Uni group. Maybe I should have smuggled him into my luggage. Firstly, I think I should acknowledge my own naivety before going over the England for the first time. There were many things that I had made assumptions on, or simply underestimated in large ways.
No 1 Royal Crescent, visited for a workshop conducted with the Open Palaces Programme, was one of those underestimated locations. I have been to many heritage houses in Australia, and so I was mildly interested but not overly enthusiastic. By the time I had completed my first two sessions with the Bath Preservation Trust (Beckford’s Tower and Museum of Bath Architecture), I could not wait to listen and learn from Dr Amy Frost again. Honestly, I would have happily listened to her in any location, No 1 was just a receptacle for another workshop and I was okay with that. No 1 Royal Crescent is not simply a heritage house. It is part of a series of 30 houses, joined together like modern townhouses, forming a concave crescent. Built between 1767 and 1774 by John Wood the Younger, it is a stunning piece of Palladian design. The Georgian architecture is stunning, and standing on the parkland in front of the houses it was hard to imagine the person power it would have taken to build these houses before modern building machinery. No 1 is the first building on the eastern end of the crescent, and is dedicated as a museum for Georgian life. Up until this point, I could not have imagined what standing in front of the crescent would feel like. I am still struck by just how big so many of these grand buildings are. The crescent is spectacular, and standing in the parkland in front of the building I felt so very very small in comparison. Behind me, is lovely park land for creating a beautiful vista to look out upon from the houses windows. Up until this point, I had never seen anything comparable. During this trip, I would regularly find myself in awe of the sheer presence these buildings had in the landscape. Being greeted at the door by a very convincing Georgian butler was also lovely. The workshop at the museum focused on the creation of engaging and small exhibition. Given a space in which to design a concept, and objects that had be included, our group was given a limited amount of time to come up with some ideas and then present to the group. I had the chance to team up with Helen, Marian, Trisha and Rachel, who were awesome to work with. We decided on an exhibition that focused on leisure during Georgian times with the title of the exhibition being “A Game of Class”. It was a lot of fun banging the idea together and considering what ways we could activate participation in the displays and exhibition as a whole. A few of the big take away points here (and this is an extreme summary, because there was a lot to think about from this workshop) included:
There was so much more then just these points, but these are the parts I have already started using back in my home museum. I must admit, having originally looked at the Open Palaces Programme, I was so excited about the workshops. Finding out that they were group activities, turned my smile into something more akin to ‘The Scream’, with nightmare visions of university group work. But I am so glad that we had so many opportunities to work together. Everyone had slightly different backgrounds and interests, and I have come away from the program somewhat disappointed that chances to work with these incredible people are going to be limited by time and space. They were delightful to work with and learn from! When I first started studying at the University of Canberra, I saw a poster for the Open Palaces Programme on the wall and thought “One day, I am going to do that”.
And friends, that is a goal I can tick off my list now. Why did I want to do the Open Palaces Programme? At first, honestly the idea of walking around in palaces sounded like a beautiful thing to do. I had been involved in a medieval reenactment group, and castles sounded exciting and filled with medieval ‘stuff’. As I grew into my studies a bit more, and worked in the industry, the program started to embody the excitement of learning about heritage and museum practice in a different country. To look at ideas from a different point of view. I wanted to be steeped in museum ideas and saturated in heritage. It certainly achieved all of those things and more. The program is run by Glasscastle Ltd, and designed by Jean MacIntyre. Jean has an incredible wealth of experience in the GLAM sector, and was a very warm and inviting person to work with. The purpose of the program is to provide a unique learning experience for students and emergent professionals in the GLAM field. The program works with a number of organisations (including the Bath Preservation Trust and the Historic Royal Palaces) to provide talks and workshops on different topics. There was a good combination of theory and hands on, with time to discuss and ask questions. The networking opportunities were vast and highly enjoyable. Travelling with a group of like minded and fantabulous museum professionals for 20 days was wonderful. One of my favourite parts of any convention is knowing that everyone around you has the same style of passion, but they only last 3 days. Having 20 days to discuss, and theorise, and debate was just lovely. To ensure that the program runs smoothly, a team leader and mentors are assigned to the group. This years team leader for our session was Robbie Ladbrook, an entirely inspiring individual who organised and sorted the group seamlessly. Jill Eastcott and Tyler Mills were our mentors, providing valuable insights and a hearty dose of humour. Travelling for a fair amount of time and taking in a huge amount of information, these 3 lovely individuals made sure our brains were not entirely falling out of our heads and even cared for some of us as we fell sick from lurgies. I have no doubt that these connections that I made will continue to be a valuable resource in my future career path. I’m lining up a number of blog posts about the places that we visited, talking about some of the topics that we covered. The program has inspired me to keep writing and has left me feeling reinvigorated after a bit of a low point. Over the course of the program, and then with the additional 20 days of travel that I tacked onto the end of the program, I visited 50 different museums, galleries and heritage sites. I have a fair amount to talk about! For future posts, I’ll tag which of the sites we visited as a part of the program, just in case there is anyone else out there looking for information about some of the places visited in the 2018 sessions. They do change the program regularly though, so please if you are reading this, make sure to check the official website if you are looking for concrete future information. If you are looking for further information, you can find plenty on their official website: http://openpalace.co |
Museum working, game playing and dog loving geek. Tune in for musings about the GLAM sector, and generally geekiness.
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