National Museums Liverpool Blog - Thursday, November 20, 2008

As promised in an earlier post, here's an update on the work of Kensington Youth Inclusion Group who have recently been creating their own versions of paintings from the John Moores 25 exhibition. Their interpretation of 'Black Bile' is certainly a refreshing new take on the painting, using an attractive candy pink! Here's Learning Officer Lauren Gould to tell us more...

Over four after-school sessions at the Kensington Youth Inclusion Project centre, we have created some fabulous works.  Local artist Keiron Finnetty help each of the two groups to create a large work based on some of their favourite paintings from the John Moores exhibition.

They collectively worked on a re-interpretation of 'Fontana' by Peter McDonald and 'Black Bile' by Alex Gene Morrison.  I highly recommend making a visit to the Walker Art Gallery once these unique works go on show at the beginning of December!

Each young artist then created a painting of their own, based on sketching done during their visit to the John Moores 25 exhibition in October.  This coming Saturday they will make their final visit to the Walker to write poems responding to the paintings that inspired them most. 

Anyone who has ever carefully wrapped their best china in newspaper before moving house will appreciate what a tricky challenge the handling and transport team faced this week. They had to collect this incredibly delicate 5000 year old Egyptian pot from North Devon and transport it to World Museum Liverpool - a distance of 267 miles.

The good news is that drivers Paul Kelly and Andrew Mountfield delivered it safely, so visitors will be able to see it on display when the new Ancient Egypt gallery opens on 5 December.  You can see their photos of the trip - including a shot of the stunning scenery they saw along the way - in our Egyptian gallery Flickr photo page.

It’s World Toilet Day.  There’s no polite way of introducing it – you’ve just got to say it. You have to wonder who thinks these things up, but then there is a serious and worthy message about the state of the world’s sanitation to be gleaned.

Actually, museums and art galleries have formed a healthy relationship with the toilet that goes back beyond Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ or urinal.  What self-respecting museum would be caught out without the humble (or in some cases the ridiculously ornate) chamber pot? You can see one that was designed for Napoleon, no less, in the Walker’s Craft & Design Gallery.

A quick internet search will reveal more toilet-related museums and collections than you imagine, including the Flushed With Pride gallery at Gladstone Pottery Museum  I love this female chamber pot or ‘Bourdalon’ at the Science Museum. Replica ‘pee’-pots (I’ve sanitised the phrase for blogging purposes) are still very much in demand in the historical re-enactment community. They are incredibly handy for using under inaccessible kirtles and petticoats (as well as in tents).  

In addition to the bog standard collection of chamber pots, National Museums Liverpool has got some top notch toilet exhibits. At the Seized! gallery at Maritime Museum you can see a ‘Special Isolation Unit’ or frost chamber which was used to locate internally smuggled drugs once they passed through the body. According to our web page, ‘Before its invention customs officers used rubber gloves and a colander, so this was seen as a much-needed replacement!’  Yak.

This tuneful toilet was used during an RLPO concert as an April Fool

If lavatories are your idea of a laugh then look no further than The Walker’s truly spectacular Loophonium, which was designed and played by Fritz Spiegl, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s former principal flautist. I’ve heard of toilet humour, but that is just ridiculous. 

Believe it or not we actually have a Loophonium e-card. I can’t think of many occasions when it would be appropriate to send it (although I can think of a few people who would fit the bill) so we may as well make the most of World Toilet Day.

But if you really want to celebrate World Toilet Day in style then how about downloading our podcast, and listening to it ...  on the loo?

Peter Beardsley as you've never seen him before

Curators can find themselves doing all sorts of unusual things in the name of duty. However Tony Parker, assistant curator of zoology, never expected to be signing the transfer papers for Peter Beardsley.

The Peter Beardsley in question was not the famous footballer though but a mounted specimen of a duck. Peter the duck is thought to be a cross between a Pekin and an Aylesbury duck. He was once the beloved pet of local lady, and was named after Peter the footballer's spell at Everton. Unfortunately it was never discovered whether he would live up to his namesake's skills on the football pitch, as he was tackled and killed by a dog (presumably not an Everton supporter) when he was 8 months old.

Peter's owner had him mounted in a display case after his death 16 years ago. She recently donated him to World Museum Liverpool, as she wont be able to take him with her when she moves house. Although she'll miss him, she decided that he would be in good company with the other mounted bird specimens in the museum's collections. Peter is currently on the reserve bench in the museum's stores but is available for researchers and study groups.

Over the last few weeks the handling and transport team have been helping to prepare the Ancient Egypt gallery, which will open at World Museum Liverpool on 5 December. However in complete contrast to the ancient Egyptian artefacts, today they transported one of the newest works of art in our collections, the popular Superfiveadaybanana.

After spending the summer at the Walker Art Gallery, Superfiveadaybanana has been on display in local schools. Today Paul Kelly, Richard Roberts and Andrew Mountfield took the sculpture from Kensington New Park School to Kensington Junior School. Paul says that the children were really excited to have this unusual guest displayed in the main entrance to the school. You can see more of his photos of Superfiveadaybanana on the move on our Flickr page.

Workshop leader Ildi Szabo wearing one of her amazing woolly creations, with museum demonstrator Pam Hale

I went to a great knitting workshop at Merseyside Maritime Museum at lunchtime. It was organised by the Seized learning team who normally hold events looking at how smugglers try to get firearms, drugs and other illegal substances through customs - and how customs officers stop them. Apparently wool also used to be smuggled out of the country centuries ago - I never knew that I had been knitting with such a precious material before!

As a fledgling knitter I had great fun learning some new techniques and making a few mini projects. If you want to have a go then the good news is that Ildi will be back at the Maritime Museum on Sunday afternoon with some fun things for knitters of all ages and abilities to make in the 'Where there's a wool there's a way' workshop. Have a look at the Seized! events page for further details.

I found myself, for a few fleeting seconds, feeling quite intellectual during my last trip to the cinema. This was quite an achievement considering I had gone to see a romantic comedy about a dentist called Bertram who gains the ability to communicate with ghosts after a near death experience during a colonoscopy. I know - but it was good!

I was watching Ricky Gervais' new film, 'Ghost Town', while munching on some Revels (by the way, I'm not loving the new 'mystery sweet', I won't spoil it for you by saying what it is, but I say bring back the coffee one). In the film, Gervais' love interest is an Egyptologist and they bond over a fascination with the dental hygiene of a mummy (of course!)

They were discussing the mummy's internal organs and it was at this point in the film that I threw down my Revels and sat up excitedly, prodding my friend, as I realised I knew an Egyptian fact! I had been reading about some of the collection items from our new Egypt gallery and so I was able to say; “Look, look, those are canopic jars!”

On display soon: a set of canopic jars belonging to a man named Wahhor, the son of Ptahhotep. Dynasty 26 (about 600 BC).

My bewildered companion nodded and was not as impressed as I'd hoped, but I was quite pleased with myself anyway. There on the screen were indeed some canopic jars, very similar to the ones that will be on display here. These jars were used to store a mummy's organs, before being placed inside a canopic chest and buried in the tomb with the mummy. So if you go to see the film, you too can try to impress your friends with this cool Egyptian factoid. Enjoy!

You can read more about the new Egypt gallery, opening on Friday 5 December 2008 at World Museum Liverpool, on our museum developments page.

Hedgehog. Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

In the 1950s it was very easy to pick up army and navy surplus and I had a friend who was ace at recycling equipment into working gizmos. One that amazed me was a private telephone line between two of our houses. Looking back I’m convinced he used parts of a Huffduff to make these contraptions.

When the United States entered the war in December 1941, the German U-boat submarine offensive entered a new phase which led to the underwater menaces losing the initiative and then the battle.

First the Americans had to learn a hard lesson. U-boat captains were ordered to move to the US east coast and immediately created mayhem. Within weeks the huge losses of ships and supplies suffered by the Americans threatened the whole Allied war effort.

It was six months before the United States finally introduced its own coastal convoy system. This quickly ended what the U-boat crews called their “American turkey shoot” which had cost 149 ships, including many vital oil tankers, totalling well over two million tons.

From mid-1942 more British, Canadian and American naval escorts became available. Some 150 corvettes were in service along with new sloops and frigates. However, many Atlantic escorts were diverted at this time to support Arctic convoys and the Allied landings in north Africa. The escorts themselves were much better equipped than their predecessors.

Examples of equipment and weapons used to beat the U-boats are on display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery. A large blue metal box with dials and knobs was known among crews as a Huffduff – a HF/DF or High Frequency Direction Finder. These were used alongside radar and the improved Asdic equipment to more efficiently detect U-boats.

A small bomb (pictured) was one of 24 which bristled in an anti-submarine mortar appropriately known as a Hedgehog. These were all fired at once and plunged into the sea over a wide area, with great effect.

At the end of May 1943 there was an uneasy underwater peace when all U-boats were withdrawn from the north Atlantic convoy routes for six months. U-boat command had decided to regroup and concentrate on developing new submarines and weapons. Although still a menace to Allied shipping, especially in British and European coastal waters until the very last days of the war, the U-boats were never to regain the upper hand in the Atlantic.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

A future Black achiever visits the museum. Photograph copyright Mark McNulty 2008.

Hello there

Well I have to start by saying what a momentous, historic and exciting past few weeks it has been. Not only the election of the first Black President of the United States, but the first Black (and youngest), Formula One World Champion.  

People have rightly contacted me to say that both President Elect Obama and Lewis Hamilton need to be included on the Black Achievers Wall in the museum (remember you can email the museum with your nominations). But I am also aware that these two fantastic achievements, often against all the odds, expectations and indeed wishes of many who are not too pleased to see Black people achieve, or be in positions of power, were done with the support of other, and often unrecognized, Black achievers. Namely Anthony Hamilton, his father, who has supported him since a young boy and Michelle Obama, the strong and charismatic partner of Barack Obama.  

I have also been recently reminded of the many Black achievers that have now passed away but who have played a great part in challenging both personal and institutional forms of racism in Britain. I am referring in particular to Walter Tull, who was the subject of an excellent dramatization recently on TV called Walter’s War.

It was in fact written by ISM advocate Kwame Kwei Armah about Tull’s life and the racism he regularly encountered. Even so, he became the first commissioned Black officer in the British Army and led his troops into various battles before being killed on the Western Front in 1918. Tull was also one of the first professional Black footballers and played for amongst others Northampton Town. In fact Arthur Wharton, the first Black professional football player, is already on our Black Achievers Wall.

Staying on the theme of Black achievers, the museum held a reception recently at the House of Lords, hosted by the indefatigable Baroness Howells of St Davids who was recently voted as one of the greatest 100 Black Britons. Baroness Howells is a well respected advocate of the museum and she brought together a range of high profile achievers from all walks of life (politics, sport and business to name a few) to highlight the current and indeed future work of the museum. Some of the attendees were from Liverpool such as Levi Tafari, one of the country’s greatest poets and the fantastic singer/songwriter Jennifer John. David Lammy MP, who was interviewed for our Freedom and Enslavement Wall, Baroness Amos (the first Black woman cabinet minister); ex footballer and TV pundit Garth Crooks and Doreen Lawrence were also present.

On an aside I think I slightly surprised Baroness Amos when I told her I had once sped past her home village of Wakenaam, a village on an island in the middle of the Essequibo River in Guyana, on a speedboat whilst travelling to Fort Zeelandia as part of the Commonwealth Association of Museums conference I attend earlier this year. Let’s just say it was the type of journey where you felt every bump!

It was great to see such support form prominent members of the Black community. For me it showed just how far reaching the museum actually is, yes, transatlantic slavery is central to the museum, but the recognition, and indeed celebration, of Black achievement, often against all the odds and a plethora of obstacles, is also key to the museum, and something we aim to promote in some small way by having displays like the Black Achievers Wall. Hopefully in the future we will be visited by those who have recently achieved so much. So Michelle and Lewis, if you read my blog, please have a word with your husband or take a nice drive up to Liverpool for the day respectively!

Bye for now.

Community development officer Alex Shears, Christine with her v50 Award certificate and volunteer co-ordinator Claire Holden

Here's some great news from the v-involved youth volunteering project at National Museums Liverpool. Our first participant has been awarded the v50 Award certificate, after contributing 50 hours of her time as a volunteer. I'll let her tell you all about it:

"Hello. My name is Christine, I’m 24 and I’ve been volunteering here at World Museum Liverpool since 5th June. I have recently achieved my 50 hour target for which I received a v50 Award certificate for my contribution to the museum.

I’ve been helping out on the information desk and making sure leaflets are available for everyone. I occasionally work in the learning office doing bits of admin.

I really enjoy working at the museum, particularly on the information desk as I like giving tickets out to the public.

I am proud that I am the first vinvolved youth volunteer to reach over 50 hours and I feel that it has been time well spent as I have gained more confidence and feel it’s a worthwhile experience to be a volunteer."