- Power walking in the museums with our communities
What happens when you have stories, a responsibility and eagerness to share them and an interest in building relationships? Three crucial questions that we found ourselves grappling with at the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) as we embarked on a year-long programme, Power & Memory, exploring the legacies of empire. An answer for now is the Power Walk series, an… - Making Connections Through Collections
Making Connections Through Collections was a pilot series of workshops exploring how the Fitzwilliam Museum chooses which objects and artworks to collect, and the acquisition process used to obtain them. At the Fitzwilliam Museum, and traditionally in most museums, acquiring objects is handled by a small team of museum staff which is responsible for finding, choosing, and purchasing items for… - Meet Our ‘Celebrating Black History in Cambridge’ Interns
Jade Pollard-Crowe and Selena Scott spent February and March 2023 working on a project called Celebrating Black History in Cambridge as part of the University of Cambridge Museums’ (UCM) ongoing work connected to the forthcoming exhibition, Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance (Fitzwilliam Museum: 8 September 2023 – 7 January 2024). Funded by Arts Council England and Legacies project funds, they… - Changes to regional conservation support
The East of England is home to an astonishing 182 museums within the Accreditation scheme, with a higher proportion of small, independent organisations than the national average. Since 2012, the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) have been proud to support the regional sector through the work of a dedicated Regional Conservation Officer, funded by Arts Council England (ACE), and working… - Where in the World is That From?!
The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) cares for a collection spanning the whole world, but sometimes all that is known about an object is that it came from somewhere on Earth. The Stores Move project is working through five large ‘miscellaneous’ boxes, filled to the brim with mystery and intrigue. Samantha Daisley describes her work on these boxes, and… - Creative Adventures for Families
Based at the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Creative Families course offers young children and their adults a chance to explore the Museum through stories, songs, artmaking, and play. Museum Educator, Nicola Wallis, discusses the Museum’s partnership with The Fields Child & Family Centre and the impact of the course. Funded by Cambridge City Council, Creative Families is a four-week project that… - Pop-Up Museums: From Cambridge to Egypt
David Farrell-Banks, the Participatory Research and Impact Coordinator at the Fitzwilliam, chats with Sara Hany Abed, a museum and heritage content researcher based in Alexandria Egypt. Since 2019 Sara has worked with Helen Strudwick, Senior Curator, Ancient Nile Valley at the Fitzwilliam Museum, on the Egyptian Coffins project, pop-up museums, and more. David lets us listen in on their chat…… - Look Imagine Move – Social Prescribing Courses at The Fitzwilliam Museum
Sarah Villis describes how the Fitzwilliam Museum is using its galleries and collections as positive, healing spaces, by combining music, movement and art, and the impact this is having on older people’s health and wellbeing. The background In the Autumn of 2021 The Fitzwilliam Museum started a partnership with Meridian Primary Care Network (Meridian PCN) enabling the museum to play… - History on my Doorstep
As a part of his recovery from a long-term illness, curator Jody Joy explores the history of his local park at Trumpington Meadows. In December 2020 I contracted Covid and I have never really recovered. I am still suffering from the aftereffects now, nearly two years later. So-called Long Covid impacts every aspect of my life. I have trouble remembering… - A Pacific Journey: caring for the Poignant photographic collection
Kirsty Kernohan, a Photographic Collections Assistant at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), discusses the journey of the Poignant transparencies; part of an extraordinary collection of photographs bequeathed to the Museum by anthropologist Roslyn Poignant and her photographer husband Axel. Making a start When the collection arrived, the first step was to make an inventory of how many and… - A walk to Jupiter: With Distance comes Perspective
This summer, Young Carers from Centre 33 based across Cambridgeshire have been exploring out of this world art and objects. Our summer project is inspired by Our Place in Space, a scale model and artwork of our solar system designed by artist Oliver Jeffers and stretching from Midsummer Common in Cambridge, all the way to Waterbeach, part of the nationwide… - Widening Participation activity across the University of Cambridge Museums
As the new academic year gets underway, let’s look back on a year of exciting Widening Participation activity across the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) – a range of projects to support children and young people who might experience barriers to taking part in our cultural offer. The year started with a collaboration between The Fitzwilliam Museum and Kettle’s Yard… - ‘Zensation’: University Student Wellbeing
Education Officer, Sarah-Cate Blake discusses ‘Zensation’, a stress-busting programme offering university students a space to unwind and engage creatively with the Fitzwilliam Museum. Being a student can be a time when we experience a huge amount of stimulus from new environments, work studies, social excitement or the lack thereof. Experienced over a longer timeframe these stimuli may present as hyperactivation… - Powerful Stories: April-September 2022
Welcome to your twice-yearly round-up of the goings on across the University of Cambridge Museums. It’s been busy! Between April and September 2022, we welcomed… With the return of a substantial post-pandemic offer of events and activities onsite – more about that below – we’ve seen our visitor numbers continue to recover, and welcomed more than twice the number of… - Musical Bumps – Finding our Voice
The arrival of a new baby in a family can feel like living in a kaleidoscope of emotions as everyone settles into new roles, responsibilities, and routines. The Fitzwilliam Museum’s Musical Bumps course used art and music to support new parents to share a unique experience with their babies while affirming their own creative identities at the same time. Life… - A Journey of Discovery through Art and Conversation
The Arthur Rank Hospice support adults living across Cambridgeshire with an advanced serious illness or other life limiting condition. It cares for more than 4000 patients each year at the Hospice in Cambridge, the Alan Hudson Day Care Centre in Wisbech and in patient’s own homes. At the beginning of 2020 a community partnership began between the Arthur Rank Hospice… - Behind the Scenes: Working with the Ugandan Barkcloth Collection at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology
The Stores Move project at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology (MAA) have been busy documenting, photographing and packing over 250,000 objects from 162 countries ready for transfer to the new Centre for Material Culture (CMC). Earlier this year, as part of on-going project work, we prepared a collection of 38 lengths of Ugandan barkcloth at MAA. With no photos… - How much archaeology is too much?
What is supposed to happen to all the stuff that archaeologists dig up? And what do we do when it finds its way to a museum very much like ours? I’m on my hands and knees carefully lifting piece after piece of Roman roof tile from the demolition layer of a Roman villa into trays which will carry each and… - Making an exhibition – Spotlight on Stores Move
There’s a new show in town and we’re excited! Spotlight on Stores Move at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) is a mini-exhibition with a behind-the-scenes twist. We wanted to show you some of the objects which have become close to our hearts over the past couple of years as we prepare them to move to their new home…. - Museums as gateways to the natural world: The sky and beyond
Ruth Clarke, Learning Associate – Inclusion, Fitzwilliam Museum & University of Cambridge Museums (UCM), shares the first of three nature inspired blog posts in which older people provide insights into the question ‘how does engaging with nature, through art and artefacts, support people’s wellbeing?’ During 2022 this question is being explored as part of Age Well , the UCM’s cultural engagement framework… - Creative responses to Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge
In March and April 2022, two inclusion events were held at the Fitzwilliam Museum in response to Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge, a show curated by Dame Magdalene Odundo, one of the greatest ceramic artists working today, and featuring global ceramics from the Fitzwilliam and Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology collections alongside her own work. We shared photographs from the two…