National Museums Liverpool Blog - Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Wave if you're winning! Participants on the Culture Vultures summer course at the Lady Lever Art Gallery enjoying the sunshine.

Michelle O’Callaghan, our youth arts officer, has this great news:

"Young people from National Museums Liverpool Youth Theatre, Lady Lever Art Gallery Junior Guides and Culture Vultures course participants achieved a rip-roaring success when they joined forces last Saturday to have their Young People's Arts Awards moderated.

The Young People's Arts Award, run by Arts Council England and Trinity Guildhall, enables young people to achieve a nationally recognised qualification at three levels (Bronze, Silver and Gold) through their participation and enjoyment of the arts.

It encourages the young people taking part to think about their own development as artists and encourages development of leadership, communication skills and confidence, as well of development of their own artistic skills.

At Bronze level the award involves taking part in arts activity, enjoying the arts as an audience member, researching an arts hero or heroine and leading an arts activity for peers.

This is the first assessment and moderation since NML became an Arts Award Centre in 2007 and there are currently two trained Arts Award advisors within NML; myself and Lauren Gould, learning officer at the Lady Lever Art Gallery.

16 young people's work was moderated last Saturday and we are very pleased and proud to confirm that all 16 were successful in achieving their Bronze Arts Award.

Certificates will be winging their way to the young people very soon and they will be treated to a presentation evening to mark and celebrate their success.

A big thanks goes to all of the young people involved for all their hard work on the award and a massive well done on their success! It is well deserved!

Congratulations to the following young people who successfully passed their Bronze Arts Awards:
 
Sarah Kenny, James Garland, Deniece Courtney, Natasha Sweeney, Marcella May Rick, Kezia-Jaye Atherton-Davis, Charlotte Clynch, Dominic Hughes, Laura Baker, Craig Parry, Kaz Worrall, James Woodfinden, Beckie Clarke, Keily Hogarth, Abigail Hill and Marc Taylor."

Depth charge diagram. Image courtesy Livepool Daily Post and Echo

With eyes bulging and sweat pouring down their faces, submariners crouch fearfully as depth charges explode around them. The sub lurches and shudders, then – in a foaming, noisy climax - water comes pouring in.

This is the popular cinema and TV view of depth charges doing their deadly work against unseen enemies. I find such scenes gripping and unsettling in their intensity – particularly because I hate confined, crowded spaces.

Until 1942 the depth charge was the only weapon that could be used against a submerged submarine. It consisted of a steel drum filled with 200 lbs (90 kilos) of high explosive set to detonate at different depths of water.

In 1939 the standard equipment for small warships was a trap from which charges were rolled over the stern and two mortars, or throwers, which fired them 120 ft on either beam (side of the ship). Soon more traps and throwers were added. Depth charges were dropped in various patterns to give the best chances of success. Eventually heavy weights were fixed to half the charges, causing them to sink faster and explode deeper.

The Battle of the Atlantic gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum includes a coloured diagram showing a cross section of a Mark VII depth charge. It worked on the principle that water pressure increased with water depth. The depth at which the charge exploded was controlled by an adjustable inlet valve at one end. After filling a bellows chamber, the water drove the detonator against the primer causing it to explode and set off the main charge.

A exploding depth charge could destroy a U-boat 25 ft away and damage one at a distance of 50 ft. Even explosions that didn’t hit their targets could cause trauma, similar to shell shock, among U-boat crews.

Depth charges were used in conjunction with ASDIC, later known as sonar, which had been fitted in many of the Royal Navy’s smaller warships in 1939. It was a secret apparatus for locating submerged submarines using sound waves. The device consisted of an electronic sound transmitter and receiver, housed in a metal dome beneath the ship’s hull, near the bow. The gallery has a life-sized reconstruction of an ASDIC hut on a British destroyer at the start of the war.  It features original equipment and a recording of the pinging sounds that bounced back when the sound waves hit a submarine.

After 1942, new weapons such as the forward-throwing Hedgehog and Squid anti-submarine mortars were introduced against U-boats.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

In the latest of our 'hidden treasures' displays, two exceedingly rare gold medals crafted by Tiffany and Co of New York have gone on display at World Museum Liverpool for the very first time. The medals commemorate the role of forgotten hero Captain Joseph Dayman RN  in one of the most important naval expeditions of the Victorian age.

In the summer of 1858 Dayman commanded HMS Gorgon, a support vessel involved in the joint British-American attempt to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable. The Navy assigned the Gorgon to assist the Niagara, the American ship laying half of the cable. Early in the attempt the officers recognised that the Niagara was off course.  Commander Dayman successfully guided the Niagara to its destination in Newfoundland. A reporter on the Niagara noted that Dayman did not sleep for five days during this time. Without his attention the project would have failed. 

In recognition of Joseph Dayman's contribution the Common Council of New York and the City of New York commissioned medals for him from Tiffany's. The medal awarded by the City of New York (shown here) is one of only nine large gold medals they commissioned. The other medal on display is one of only three medals ever awarded by the Common Council. It is decorated with a gilded piece of the telegraph cable around the edge.

You can see the medals in the atrium at World Museum Liverpool for the next 2 weeks. There isn't a confirmed closing date for the display yet so please check with the information desk - 0151 478 4393 - nearer the time if you don't want to miss them.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the sculpture conservation team are recreating missing bronze relief plaques from two of Sefton Park's monuments completely from scratch using traditional techniques. As you can see from this photo, they are making good progress with some of the sculpted figures starting to take shape in the clay. Further photos are on our Sefton Park monuments Flickr slideshow and more will be aded as the project progresses, so do keep an eye on it. Kathy Wedge from Conservation Technologies has this update:

"The project to produce the clay master models that will be used to cast the bronze relief panels that will reconstruct the memorials to William Rathbone and the right honourable Samuel Smith is now well under way. As seen in the first pictures in the Flickr slideshow the wood supports were fixed into place to support the clay and create a rough shape. The clay has been applied and then the design was sketched out in the clay before building out the 3D contours. More wood and metal armatures have been added to support parts of the relief which are almost free standing, such as some of the arms, legs and the occasional head.

Whilst Christopher Dean and Samantha Sportun are sculpting some of the sculptures, elements which have more air around them are drying out faster than the other sections of the panels which can be quite critical to the working of the clay. For this reason both sculptors need to keep a careful watch over the condition of the clay in all areas whilst also concentrating on the area that they are working on. If it appears to be drying out too fast it is sprayed with water and when the work has to stop at night they are covered with a polythene sheet and a wet flannelette blanket.

Once Christopher and Sam are satisfied with the general shape of an area of the sculpture it can then be allowed to dry to leather-like consistency which will allow them to then develop and work on the fine detail of the relief.

So far so good, and for once we are grateful that the weather has not been too warm, but watch this space as the panels develop."

Apparently it’s summer. It bears no hallmarks of the season I once knew; no pavement cracking sunshine, no smell of freshly cut grass and certainly no big decisions like what flavour of ice pop to get from the corner shop to make.

My typical summers day was brightened up today by a visit to the Lady Lever to check out our hardworking team putting the finishing touches to Masterpiece Watercolours and Drawings. The new exhibition opens this Saturday and runs till 9 November and is full of great pieces by Turner, Constable, Rossetti and Burne-Jones.

Looking at Turner’s painting of Falmouth harbour and Helen Allingham’s beautiful watercolour of a cottage in Pinner made me temporarily forget the dreary scene outside. Turner’s sinister depiction of Dudley brought me crashing back to earth though and sums up our current climate. It is an incredibly atmospheric picture, the almost apocalyptic light is how I imagine Vienna was last night during the amazing storm that brought the global coverage of the football semi-finals to a halt. Glad to see our friends on the continent aren’t escaping the rain-sodden summer.

Ah, the lovely British summer

Plenty to look at here.

On our Flickr page there's a series of snaps from the build including some interesting angles that were recently taken. There's also a new group we've set up of public pictures of the build. Lots of nice sunrises there. Will be adding more to both of these shortly.

And on the Liverpool Echo website Samantha Parker presents the fourth of her video progress reports from the site.

Carolyn's ancient Egyptian 'jigsaw puzzle'

Antiquities curator Carolyn Routledge has been busy as her excavation project at Abydos, Egypt draws to a close. Here's her latest report:

"Today we are packing up at Abydos. It is something of a bitter-sweet time here. Up until now we have been working frantically to finish all our work on time. Now the pace has slowed while we wait for the Egyptian inspectors to seal the magazines in which we store the archaeological finds. This means we can relax a bit after all the hard work, which is really enjoyable. What is a bit sad is that for most of us we don't know when, or maybe even if, we will return to Abydos.

Over the past week I have been working with the pottery from the tomb of Senwosret III. By studying the pottery we can separate any ceramics that date to the burial of the pharaoh from the material that dates to when the tomb was robbed. This task is quite difficult. The best way I can explain it is to say that it is similar to having put all your jigsaw puzzle pieces into one box because each of your many puzzles was missing some pieces. Many years later you decide to sort them out and put them together again to see what is missing. For the pottery we sort the pieces just as you would sort the puzzle pieces - by size, colour, type - and then try to fit the similar pieces together. I am happy to say we had some success. It is a good day when you get two pieces to join together!

After today our work will be done because everything is locked away. This will give us some free time to explore the area and then to pack our personal belongings for the 8-10 hour train trip to Cairo. I think I might go visit the Seti Temple again. It is only a 15 minute walk away from our house. This temple has its roof and the coloured scenes painted on the walls are still bright. This is extremely rare for an ancient Egyptian temple that is about 3,300 years old. It is well worth a final visit!"

Hello there

One of the great things about my job is how incredibly varied it can be. I have frequently written about the different themed conferences I have attended, the many well known dignitaries I have met and the trips to other exciting and sometimes challenging museums. But I also get to do some curatorial work now and again, well, for an afternoon anyway!

The International Slavery Museum is part of a collaborative project with UNESCO which developed the Transatlantic Slavery gallery touring exhibition. The exhibition consists of over 30 panels which were part of the now closed Transatlantic Slavery gallery which was located up until last June in the Merseyside Maritime Museum. We have also designed some new panels for the exhibition explaining the work of the International Slavery Museum. It is a great project for two reasons in particular. Although some years old, the panels from the previous gallery are well written and informative and ideal for museums around the world who might not be able to resource new panels on the subject of transatlantic slavery. Secondly, it shows how committed we at the museum are in forging new international partnerships and links with sometimes smaller and less well resourced museums around the world, particularly in Africa.

Before the launch of the exhibition in Paris in July though the panels had to actually get there and this is where I came in! I was for an afternoon under the supervision (bossed around in my view!) of Angela Robinson - curator of transatlantic slavery here at the museum. We needed to get all the panels ready to be picked up by the specialist haulage company who would take them to Paris. This sounds easier than it was. The panels are quite heavy and needed to be carefully packed and inventoried ready for transportation. They were being stored in one of several specialist storage facilities that National Museums Liverpool has in Liverpool (I am afraid I cannot divulge the location though!).  

I have to say I was pretty excited at going behind the scenes of the organization so to speak. Not something I always have the time to do. Well we put in some hard graft as we say in Yorkshire. It is also worth stressing for those of you wanting a career in museums that it is definitely not the quaint profession that people often expect. Museums can be bustling hives of activity where most professionals in various departments have to multitask on most days... me included!

In contrast, earlier today I met with Doreen Lawrence OBE, mum of the murdered Black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Many of you will have heard of the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the subsequent inquiry but I also know that many younger people have not. Indeed not everyone here in Liverpool or Merseyside has heard of Anthony Walker who I spoke about in my last blog post. So it was a very poignant moment for the museum when someone as well respected and determined as Doreen Lawrence visited us. I am pleased to say she liked how we presented the subject of transatlantic slavery and its legacies in the museum. She told me about the newly opened Stephen Lawrence Centre in Deptford, South London  and we also discussed how our two organisations might collaborate in the future.

Watch this space for any developments.

We're cranking it up for the final run down of The Beat Goes On Top Ten. There's only a week left to vote for your favourite band in June's poll, so there's no time to lose.

The Howls are an awesome three-piece combo that crop up somewhere between The Strokes and Wolfmother. They will be shaking the walls of the Barfly on 4th July.

The Queen Tantrum track is deceptively chilled, but hang on in there –she can really let those vocals rip. The self-proclaimed first lady of Liverpool is a fusion of power and soul – like Chaka Khan meets Audioslave. Impressive stuff.  

If you're recovering from Download Fest and waiting for Leeds / Reading, then maybe Eighth Day Army can fill the gap. Kaleidoscopic swirly guitars build into a full on metal outburst à la Napalm Death or Megadeth. Bourgeois thrash.

Not much to report on Jewel Thief because they split up the day we launched the poll. But they certainly rocked. RIP Jewel Thief.

And that's it for June.

TBGO needs your vote: visit www.myspace.com/thebeatgoesonliverpool

Stewardesses on the White Star Line's 'Teutonic'. Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

Seafarers from all over the world were a familiar sight on the streets of Liverpool and I always enjoyed watching the different personalities and characters. Some would head for local markets while others would congregate around the dock road area. It was the advent of container ships which concentrated activity at the Freeport and changed this way of life for mariners for ever.

Porters who handled luggage from the liners at the Prince’s Stage wore uniforms. The mix was further enhanced when a Royal Navy warship docked and the crew were ‘on the town’ in their bellbottom trousers and broad collars.

The worldwide success of British steamships in Victorian times greatly boosted seafaring jobs in the UK. It also provided most seafarers with greater continuity of work because steamships, unlike sailing vessels, could undertake reliable, scheduled services between ports.

This led to greater job security and company loyalty among mariners. Despite this, by the 1890s ship owners were finding it increasingly difficult – because of the low wages and poor conditions afloat – to staff their ships with good-quality British ratings. They therefore began to employ growing numbers of foreign seafarers on their ocean-going ships. From 1890, the Brocklebank shipping company hired lascars from Singapore and Malaya as deck, engine room and saloon crews. Chinese crews were a feature of the Blue Funnel Line.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there are displays about the working lives of seafarers. A lascar crew is pictured on the Brocklebank ship Pindari in 1891.

Kroo deckhands from Freetown, Sierra Leone, are pictured on the Palm Line’s Kamasi Palm in 1954. Krooboys, as they were called, were employed to handle cargo between coastal ports in West Africa. A Chinese certificate of merit was awarded to Chinese crew members by Blue Funnel during the Second World War.

The spectacular growth in the number and size of passenger steamers in the late 19th century created thousands of new seafaring jobs. These ranged from engine room staff to stewards, stewardesses and other hotel-style staff providing services for passengers.

Photographs on display include this one showing stewardesses in starched aprons and caps pictured on White Star Line’s Teutonic in 1889.

Three women who worked as a hairdresser, shop assistant and stenographer are seen on the Empress of France in 1956.

A fascinating model depicts the No 3 boiler room on the Aquitania of 1913. A total of 304 firemen, trimmers and greasers worked in the four boiler rooms on this luxury liner.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

Boudha stupa

Hello or Tashi Delek!

As some of you may know from the World Museum displays and the website pages, National Museums Liverpool has one of the great collections of Tibetan objects.

I'm here in Boudhanath, an area just outside Kathmandu, Nepal, which is home to a large Tibetan community. I'll be living here in Boudhanath for the next two months with a Tibetan family, as I begin to learn the Tibetan language.

Over the next couple of months I be blogging about my classes at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, my (slow) progress with the language classes and about life here in Boudhanath.

So as a quick introduction. The first thing you see as you come into Boudhanath is the stupa. This massive stupa is the centre of Buddhist life here in Boudhanath, with Tibetans, both laypeople and monks, Nepalis and Western Tourists all walking around the base of the stupa throughout the day, turning the prayer wheels found within the walls, visiting the gombas (monastery/place of learning) or giving offerings, particularly for the health of the 14th Dalai Lama. I've added an image of the stupa here.

I'm hoping to do a couple of blogs a week on things that I've learnt, or about events happening within the Tibetan community.

Before I sign of here's your first word of the day: 'Key'. Key means Dog.

Director of art galleries Reyahn King has this update from the end of the judging process for this year's John Moores competition:

"Friday was the last day of judging and the jurors came in to review the 41 paintings selected for the exhibition. Interesting that the competition with the most entries ever is going to become the exhibition with the fewest exhibits to date. The exhibition is going to be clearly about painting today and reflects an approach from the jurors that amongst them was coherent and much considered. As Sacha Craddock put it "We've argued a lot in the first stage but we found now we had a coherent sense of what we had got". All the jurors, Sacha Craddock, both Chapmans, Graham Crowley and Paul Morrison, agreed that the works selected all reflect a self conscious and sophisticated approach to painting that has absorbed and moved on from earlier debates. Jake Chapman put it well "All paintings have to emerge from conceptual rules. You can talk about pictorial art but not figurative".

The day finished up at lunchtime with a barbecue with guests from Tate Liverpool and Liverpool Biennial in A Foundation next to the paintings' warehouse – and despite their pleas, our lovely colleagues were not allowed in for a sneak preview! The art handlers had a well earned break over lunch – without their behind-the-scenes moving around of paintings and their flexibility – bringing out some paintings, taking them back, bringing them out again – the process could not have been so smooth or so well considered.

The next big dates are 8 and 9 September for the exhibition layout and hang. Between then and now we need to plan the exhibition, catalogue and so on and we'll keep you posted."

Here's the latest update from director of art galleries Reyahn King, who has had a busy couple of days at the critical final stages of selection process for this year's John Moores competition:

"After sifting to make a first selection yesterday the judges looked again at their choices which our art handlers had set out around the warehouse so all were visible. Wandering around they then all pointed out works they wanted to discuss again and confirm whether they should stay in the exhibition or not and I had my work cut out as they moved about sometimes together sometimes separately marking the works to be reconsidered.  They decided to discuss about 15 in more detail.

As each work selected was brought before the panel back in the viewing area the discussions were almost always excited and occasionally sparks flew if only for a moment. Early on it had been agreed that critical distance was important and discussions were frequently about what could be understood about the intention of the artist when viewing the painting. Be prepared for an exhibition likely to challenge older concerns about painting. In relation to definitions, one juror commented "the competition's not about whether or not it's a painting, it's about whether or not it's good." And on those criteria, the judges selected the final show and with a surprising degree of agreement the prizewinners!"

Here's an update on prgress with the excavation at Abydos from antiquities curator Carolyn Routledge.

At our lunch Umm-Ibrahim showed us two of her young pigeons. In Egypt pigeons are kept for eating like we keep chickens.

"We are now half-way through our excavation project at the tomb of the Pharaoh Senwosret III here at Abydos in Middle Egypt. Jen Wegner and I have been working very hard on our drawing and recording of the small objects. The work at the tomb is winding down as Josef Wegner turns to drawing and planning the portions of the tomb that have been cleared. It has been quite a task with around 60 Egyptian workmen breaking up and moving large quantities of stone in extreme temperatures.  During this time we have been experiencing a heatwave with daytime highs consistently in the mid 40 degrees Celsius. At night it has not been getting below 30 degrees Celsius.  

Under these conditions we need to take some breaks. Our first day off we were invited to have a meal with one of the workmen and his family. Josef, Jen, their son Alexander (who turns 5 this month!) and I went to eat lunch made by Umm-Ibrahim. Because of the heat, we sat in the courtyard of their home cooled by fans. Alexander ran around chasing the chickens and searching for lizards. Umm-Ibrahim served us a typical Egyptian meal of chicken, molokhia, and a mix of rice and pasta. Molokhia is a particular favourite here. It is a gelatinous soup made of the leaves of the molokhia plant flavoured with garlic and spices.

The next weekend we took an extra day off and travelled to Luxor. It is about 2½ hour train ride from here. While there are many ancient Egyptian monuments to see in and near Luxor, the main attraction to us was staying in a nice hotel in order to get a rest from the heat through air-conditioning and swimming in the pool. We arrived back at Abydos refreshed and ready to take on the next few weeks of work."