National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, July 30, 2012

 

Two paintings from the Walker Art Gallery’s collections have gone on display at Liverpool Cathedral. ‘St John’s Market, Liverpool – Saturday Morning’ and ‘Bold Street from Waterloo Place’ by Charles Trevor Prescott give an insight into everyday life in Liverpool at the end of the 19th century. The lively scene of Bold Street is instantly recognisable and shows the transport and fashion of the time. The bustling stalls in St John’s depict a thriving market.

 

The paintings provide inspiration for the Cathedral’s annual photographic competition. The theme this year is Liverpool Life. So all you budding photographers should involved!

 

Make sure you get to the Cathedral before 16 September 2012 to see these wonderful paintings before they go back into the stores. And if they whet your appetite for more Victorian art, there’s plenty more to see down the road at the Walker Art Gallery.

With funding from the Molly Tomlinson Bequest the Ethnology department at World Museum and the Tibetan Institute for Performing Arts (TIPA) in Dharamshala, India are working together on an exciting 3-year project to create a collection of contemporary ache lhamo or Tibetan Opera for Liverpool's spectacular Tibet collections.

You may well be asking yourself what is ache lhamo (pronounced a chey lha mo)? Its unlikely you will have seen any mention of it in a museum with Tibet collections and so it remains relatively unknown to people in Europe and America who may well be familiar with the cham dances and sand mandalas of Tibetan monks.

For Tibetans ache lhamo is an incredibly popular art form, as it is a fast-paced mixture of drama, acrobatics and opera performed 'in the round' under a magnificent blue and and white tent. Spectators find themselves a good spot with their family and friends and watch whilst having a delicious picnic.

The Buddhist stories of good triumphing over evil are brought to life with dazzling masks, sumptuous costumes and simple props and it is these costumes, masks and props that we are collecting. The photographs you can see show Choeden Dorje, senior mask maker at TIPA making one of our masks. This red satin balaclava-type mask is for the child of a flesh-eating ogress, which you can probably guess from the fangs!

Ben Whittaker, Curator of Port History reports:

A recent visit to the Maritime Museum for Barbara Cotton took her on a boat trip down memory lane. Barbara was delighted to see the Melody speedboat that is displayed in the museum foyer.  Melody was raced locally off New Brighton with Wallasey Power Boat and Ski Club, and Barbara's father was also a member and owned a very similar boat.  The museum was delighted to receive a copy of some home movies Barbara has of her father and other Club members racing boats off New Brighton from the late 1950's to early 1970's.  The films are fascinating slice of local history, especially of the New Brighton area.  And eagle eyed staff spotted a brief cameo of the Melody speedboat!  
 

Louise Beard is volunteering with the Marketing and Communications team at the moment. Last week we sent her out to see Wild Planet, the latest exhibition at World Museum (runs until 28 October). Here is what she made of it:

---

Rajan snorkelling © Jeff Yonover/ Wild Planet

I visited the rather wonderful Wild Planet exhibition at the World Museum today. I’m no wildlife fanatic or, indeed, photography fanatic and I like nature programmes as much as the next person. But I was bowled over by this collection of stellar images.

The exhibition illustrates both how nature just slots together and, pardoning the pun, is naturally beautiful. Nature quite simply exists. Most of the photographers mention in the descriptions that they waited out most of day to capture the shot. The irony, of course, is that these moments happen everyday, unnoticed, but are near impossible to capture ‘like that’. There’s a rather spectacular shot of reef fish grazing on a green turtle’s shell. They feed themselves whilst cleaning the shell. It’s a million miles from the gaudy fish foot spas that now pepper the British high street. Instead, it’s a bargain brought about naturally, which makes it quite special.

Sadly, humans pose the biggest threat to nature. Yet oddly, we’re the only ones who can now help. The exhibition highlights how delicate the eco-structure is and how aspects of it are heading towards disaster. This is something we humans prefer to keep on the peripheries of our conscience and this exhibition goes a small way to making us think a little more about nature.

Wild Planet is owned by the Natural History Museum

At the end of May I left these shores to give a public lecture in Copenhagen as part of the MeLa European Museums in an age of migrations project. MeLa is a four year long research project which aims to define new approaches for museums in relation to the conditions posed by the migrations of people, cultures, ideas, information and knowledge in the global world. Furthermore, the project will evaluate how these changes can interfere with such organizational issues as communication strategies, physical structures and exhibition places. I was invited by the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) who organized this particular event and who presented some very interesting and innovative design solutions focusing on visitor studies.

To gain some early support from the Danish audience my paper was titled “The Museum’s New Clothes: a way forward” – passing reference to Danish national hero Hans Christian Andersen’s 'The Emperor's New Clothes'. My presentation highlighted the fact that museums are more than one at first perceives, they are not neutral spaces; they can be both controversial and politically charged especially concerning representation and inclusion.   I gave the example of the recent Liverpool Mayoral elections where the National Front candidate announced, “Shut down the left-wing guilt driven divisive Slave Museum and open up an English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh museum of unity and pride.” An oxymoron if there ever was one. I concluded by noting how museums should be shaping a new Pan-European culture of respect for human and social rights, promoting greater democracy, solidarity and social justice. Something which would confront the oppressive ideologies of far-right and ultra nationalist groups.

Although a busman’s holiday in some respects I managed to visit the Danish Design Center, which was located only a few hundred yards from my hotel on, what else, Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard. The Alexandra is a must for design lovers by the way and I was excited to stay in the Finn Juhl themed room (apparently on the bed he actually made!). There is also an Arne Jacobsen room whose classic the SAS Royal Hotel Copenhagen was just around the corner. As someone with a penchant for midcentury and modern design I headed for the 'Denmark by Design' exhibition which showed the development in Danish design from 1945-2010. It was fascinating to see just how much Danish design has become an integrated part of modern society. 

In June I was closer to home (not just Liverpool but  where I was brought up) when I spoke at the  EUROTAST network symposium in York, a pan-European interdisciplinary project exploring the transatlantic slave trade through research projects in history, archaeology and genetics. I discussed the representation of enslavement in a museum context and Professor James Walvin gave the keynote “Then and Now: Viewing the Transatlantic Slave Trade Over Forty Years”. It was a fascinating day and I look forward to further related events.

On a personal note, last week I was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Edge Hill University (I am an alumnus). It was a great honour for me and my family and I would like to thank everyone at Edge Hill for making it a special day.

Bye for nu,

Richard

The Merseyside Maritime Museum has a fantastic ship models collection from the grand Titanic/Olympic/Britannic builder’s model to the delightful ships in bottles, which always continue to fascinate me.

Whilst researching the early models, I came across the Leader which has a very impressive history as being one of the first ship models to be acquired into the museum’s collection in 1862. The model was made by Captain W. Hudson who was the Leader’s first master.

The Leader was a Liverpool Pilot boat who were employed to assist incoming and outward bound vessels to the Port of Liverpool, helping ships navigate through the powerful tides and challenging sandbanks. The pilot boat provided excellent knowledge of these conditions and also the complex dock system. 

The Liverpool Pilots were widely recognised for their sailing abilities. On 8th February 1881 the Leader led a fleet of twelve vessels safely over the Bar at the entrance to the River Mersey, through very challenging conditions. This incident was widely admired and the Leader continued in service until 1896.

The largest object in the museum’s collection is the Edmund Gardner Pilot Ship. Tours of the Edmund Gardner are still running every Thursday and Saturday until the end of September, to book a place ring 0151 478 4788.

On the second floor in the Art and the Sea gallery, just outside the Titanic & Liverpool: the untold story exhibition is the White Star Line model display featuring models from the Merseyside Maritime Museum collection.

Bye for now.

Our work placement student Jacob Cook tells us why the transport collection at NML is so important:

_________________________________________________________

Yesterday I was given the rare opportunity to visit the museum store and I got to see just how many valuable artefacts the museums in Liverpool have in their collections. It’s a shame they don’t have the space to display them all.

We were told that not many people are allowed into the storage facility so I instantly felt privileged. Even though some of the things I saw (century old vehicles) weren’t exactly exciting, they told their own story about my home city and gave an insight into how my family would have lived only a few generations before me.

From fire trucks to taxis, boats to wheelbarrows, it was like seeing the natural progression of travel all in the same place.

There is no denying that this stuff matters. People work hard to preserve these objects so that future generations can learn about their past (not just from a book). I think that this is the ultimate example of pride to be from Liverpool.

Thank you to Izzy Stubbs for helping out in the Exhibitions Department last week. Find out about what Izzy got up to:

_____________________________________________________

As a 15 year old on work experience, I felt intrigued as to what duties I would have to carry out working within the National Museums Liverpool organisation. Over the week I have visited places like the Decorative Art costume storage where lots of clothes, pottery, hats, shoes, toys and more are stored. I especially enjoyed this area of NML because I am currently taking GCSE textiles and I feel as though seeing clothes from as far back as the 18th century has given me a greater understanding of the history behind the beautifully embroidered materials. I also visited the Lady Lever Art Gallery to see the current exhibition, A Pre-Raphaelite Journey (which I highly recommend) and the Merseyside Maritime Museum to see the Titanic exhibition - Titanic & Liverpool: the Untold Story. Even half an hour before closing time the exhibition was still bustling with people!

My favourite exhibition that I have visited this week would most definitely have to be the Rolf Harris exhibition, Can you tell what it is yet? This can be seen at the Walker Art Gallery.

Before I visited the exhibition I didn’t have much of an idea of as to what Rolf painted but afterwards had a wider knowledge! As soon I walked into the exhibition, I was blown away by the sight of the exotically painted grand piano - I was tempted to start playing it myself! Some of my favourite paintings are Snappy Snaps, St Ives (which brought back funny memories from the times I have visited), Greek Fishing Village, The Lion King – Uneasy Truce and Millennium Dawn.

What I like most about each of Rolf’s paintings is the way he paints the angle of light which makes us feel like were actually there with his pictures. Also, I enjoyed seeing “Rolf’s Studio” with the sculpture that had formed out of his paint pallet!

Overall, my experience working within NML has been brilliant and I have a clearer understanding of the different jobs within the Exhibitions Department and how much effort (which is a lot) is needed to make an exhibition happen. I definitely want to volunteer again in the near future and will certainly be taking my family to see the outstanding Can you tell what it is yet? exhibition!

The Museum of Liverpool is such a key part of the waterfront now and has welcomed so many visitors that it’s hard to believe it has only been open for 51 weeks.

On Thursday 19 July it will be the ‘new kid on the dock’s first birthday and we’d like to invite all the other birthday boys and girls who were born that day to celebrate with us. It doesn’t matter how old you are, one or 101, if it’s your birthday on 19 July then we’d love to hear from you.

Please get in touch using this contact form if you are available in the afternoon on Thursday 19 July and can take part in our special events. We will need some sort of proof that it’s your birthday on 19 July. Or if you can’t be with us on the day then you can leave a birthday message in the comments on this blog post.

Ben Forshaw tells us more about what he’s been up to during his work placement:

___________________________________________________________
  
On my fourth day at NML, along with Jacob from the same school as myself, we learnt about illegal importing at the Seized! gallery. We also helped set up a presentation about the smuggling of endangered animals for school children.

Before the school arrived, Sarah Han from the education team gave us a tour of the gallery. I was very surprised to learn that people managed to import substances such as cannabis, by swallowing bags of the drug and excreting them, and that unlikely objects such as garden gnomes and cricket bats have been used to bring prohibited materials into the country. We learnt about the smuggling of items by fake brands eg, Polystation rather than Playstation. Despite it being evident that a Polystation is fake (some items appeared more genuine than others), people still bought them, not knowing the danger they posed. I was horrified to learn that a young child bought a fake Nintendo DS and, as a consequence of how it was made, died through being electrocuted. And while items like fake football kits cannot cause harm, the clear lack of authenticity in most cases suggest that child labour was used to create the clothing. This is why the Customs Officers are so important, as they, for our benefit, try to ensure that the importing of prohibited goods is prevented.

The school session was with a Year 4 class from Knotty Ash Primary School. Sarah focused on the importing of objects that were made by the skin or features of animals believed to be endangered. Certain people know that these animals are endangered and as a result of this want to have an item made by a part of that animal to appear unique. The most popular animals for this appeared to be the tusks of an elephant and the skin of a crocodile. One woman even made a handbag out of the full body of a crocodile, much to the disgust of the 8-9 year old children watching the presentation. At the end, everyone was given permission to touch a stool made from an elephant’s foot, and this proved very popular with the children as they expressed great excitement at its rough surface. It became evident very early on in the session they were a very enthusiastic class and eager to get what they knew across. 

Jacob and I would like to thank Sarah for a really helpful and worthwhile morning. We think that you should take a look at Seized! for yourself.