The working life of Museum of London

A book made by one of the group members.

Click here to see more photos.

I’m Shauna O’Brien, an intern on some of the Museum of London’s inclusion programmes. Today was our last session at Coborn Service for Adolescent Mental Health for My Museum project. Over the last few weeks the group have taken their inspiration from objects from the Museum’s collection. Their ideas have developed to include more modern objects in new creations through making collages, sculptures and films. Today the project artist, Emily Candela, taught everyone how to take old story books and make new accordion books.

Everyone each chose a book from a selection Emily bought in and we had to pull out the pages to leave just the cover board. We then removed the spine, leaving the two outside boards. Then everyone cut up some coloured paper to the height of the board and folded it in a zigzag to create the pages of the book. Once these were stuck down, with the addition of a ribbon to tie the book together, a heavy object was placed on the new book to help it stick.

After the break, the glue was dry and the group had books to fill with pictures from the project and new images from magazines to show their journey through the project. Everyone was so creative, and those that weren’t here from the start had the chance to print pictures of the internet and make an autobiography. The books looked really impressive and could be opened up fully to see the whole story develop.

Lucie Fitton (the Museum’s inclusion officer) also bought along some prizes for competitions to guess the historical period of Museum archive images. Everyone was so good and won some London based stationary and books to say goodbye on our last week here!

Click here to see more pictures.

I’m Shauna O’Brien and have been working as an intern with Lucie Fitton (inclusion officer at Museum of London) on some of the Museum’s community projects. Today was our last day working on the Empire project with adult learners from Barnet College. Over the past eight weeks the group have been working on a piece of artwork inspired by Britain’s Empire for an under-floor display case in the new gallery space.

Judith Hope (the artist working on the project), Sousan Luqman (a tutor at Barnet College), Annette and myself worked on completing the waves. We measured out the position of the table and then worked out the placing of the waves. When we had everything right, we used double sided tape to stick them to the base-board. Lots of trimming was required, but at last they were completed, a victory that received a round of applause from the group!

Judith has been embroidering the silk tablecloth for the tabletop and it looked incredible. She used coffee-coloured cotton to stitch with and it looked great with the different sepia tones of the rest of the work. She made Britain much bigger than Africa and India to show the dominance. It fit nicely on the table and the group could see it all coming together.

Lucie, Andre, Maria, Dan and Marion (a support worker at the College) all worked on decorating the crockery with transfers. The blue floral transfers were carefully cut into individual flowers and placed around the crockery. It was really effective, and once glazed with pva glue they looked amazing.

Sousan, Lucie and Marion made some little boats to float across the waves. They used coffee beans, sugar cubes and peppercorns. They will add some interest to the base and are very sweet!

Everyone worked so hard today and it was wonderful to see it all nearly finished. We’ll get back together in a few weeks once the sugar cane table legs have been freeze-dried to finish off the rest of the piece. Everyone’s looking forward to seeing it in the Gallery and it’s been great to be part of the team.

One of the participants, Andre, wrote a blog for today’s session:
‘This was the last day for working on our project and there was a lot to do! We worked in two teams- one with the main display cutting the waves to the right length for the base. Another group worked on the ceramic objects. We stuck transfers on the ceramics to make them look carefully decorated’.

So a few weeks ago we decided to sign up Museum of London on Twitter, feeling a bit sceptical about how many people would really be interested in finding out about us and following our tweets. I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised at the number of people who have decided to ‘follow’ us within such a short period of time.

So far our tweets have been about current and upcoming events taking place at our museums which we think may be of interest to our visitors, with a few general comments thrown in for added benefit.

But is this really what you want? What would you like as to tweet about?

You can find us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/museumoflondon

Feel free to send your comments and suggestions either here on the blog, via email to webmanager@museumoflondon.org.uk, or off course, by tweeting on Twitter, adding the tag #museumoflondon to your comments so that we can follow what you are saying about the Museum of London.

Don’t forget we are also on Facebook!

• Museum of London Facebook fan page:
  www.facebook.com/pages/Museum-of-London/27560776046?ref=ts
• Museum of London Facebook ‘late’ page:
  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7856761651
• Museum of London Docklands Facebook ‘late’ page:
  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20481470787

The group discussing ideas for today’s workshop.

Click here to see more photos from the project

I’m Shauna O’Brien and am continuing my internship here at Museum of London with Lucie Fitton, the Museum’s Inclusion Officer. This week the students from Barnet College came for the seventh week of the Empire project, making an art installation using goods traded in the British Empire to be placed in an under-floor display case in the new Expanding City Gallery.

Last week the group finished decorating the waves for the base of the display and today they folded them to make the ocean more three-dimensional. Judith Hope, the project artist, worked with Sousan Luqman (lecturer at Barnet College) to cover the case of the case with tea-stained calico for the waves to rest on. The table at the heart of the sculpture is going to have sugarcane legs, and Sousan used a saw to cut them to the right length and angle. They are to be handed over to the Museum’s conservation department now to be freeze-dried for preservation.

Amongst the waves will be some small ships carved from ginger, so the group had a go at drawing pictures of ships, using illustrations as a reference. This will be continued next week. Annette and Sousan and Judith worked at gluing the waves onto the display base and had very coffee-stained feet by the end of it!

Judith had printed some decorative images of shackles onto silk, which will be attached onto the tablecloth edges. Nick, Marion (a support worker at the College) and Maria worked at cutting some bondaweb into circles to stick the tablecloth and images together. Judith had made a template, so it wasn’t too difficult to be precise!

As the session was going, the crockery that Lucie had ordered for the table setting arrived and the group was keen to have a look! The coffee set had a beautiful cream jug and sugar pot, and with them were some decorative transfers that Andre and Daniel cut up into smaller pieces. Next week we can embellish the plain crockery with these to make it more decorative.

Andre, one of the participants, wrote a blog for this week:

‘Today we used our hands to very slowly and carefully bend the waves into place. We had to be careful so that the sugar and tea didn’t fall off! We then looked at the ceramics that Lucie had ordered to place on the table. They were plain white but came with transfers which stick to the crockery when dampened. We had to cut out the shapes we liked to decorate the crockery next week.’

Next week is the group’s last working on the artwork. Lots of things are happening at once and it is so nice to see the group’s ideas become real and placing each element into the case is so exciting. We all can’t wait to see the final piece!

Daniel and Maria decorating the waves with sugar and loose tea.

Click here to see more photos from the project. 

I am Shauna O’Brien and have been on an internship at Museum of London with Lucie Fitton, the Museum’s Inclusion Officer. I’ve been helping out on some of the community projects, as you may have seen from the previous blogs. Today was the sixth week of the Empire project. The final plans for the art work to be displayed in one of three under floor display cases in the new Gallery were made over the last couple of weeks and today the group continued decorating the waves.

Last week the group painted sheets of card with diluted coffee and today Judith Hope, the artist working on the project, and Sousan Luqman (lecturer at Barnet College) cut out the wave shapes from the stained paper as the rest of the group decorated. We used loose tea and white demerara sugar to sprinkle on the crest of the waves to create a graduated colour effect. The decorating was very relaxing and the group managed to get them all decorated by the end of the session.

Next week the waves will be attached to the base of the display case and the group will have a go at carving ginger, and gluing coffee beans together to make small ships to float in the ocean the group will have created!

On Saturday 20th June, there is an exiting chance to discover what post-medieval cemeteries can tell us about life in the past.  Meet the archaeologists and osteologists involved in the excavation and analysis of the cemeteries and skeletal populations from 18th-19th century London.

Talks will discuss the evidence gathered from St Marylebone, Westminster and Old Church, Chelsea. This will demonstrate what can be learnt about the lifestyle, diet and diseases of past popluations.

Alongside osteologists, there will also be an opportunity take part in the examination of human remains and learn how the study of a skeleton can provide information about age, sex and disease.

For more information visit http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/studyday

Judith, the project artist and Sousan from Barnet College making the table for the sculpture.

Click here to see more photographs from the project

Hello, I’m Shauna O’Brien, and as you may have read in the previous community blogs, I am an intern here at Museum of London. Today was our fifth week of Empire looking to create a piece of artwork for an under floor display case as part of the new Expanding City gallery.

Today the students from Barnet College came to the Museum of London again after a week off for half term. In the previous session, they came up with lots of ideas for the sculptural piece made from goods traded in the Empire for the new galleries at the Museum. The final piece was decided on, inspired by Maria’s idea to have a table set up for a tea party, using the sugar, coffee, tea, porcelain, silk and spices that would have been first traded during the peak of the British Empire. Other ideas were used, by having the table in the shape of a ship, to have the table cloth embroidered with tea and coffee dyed thread and to have the sea beneath the table, by way of decorated card. The artist on the project, Judith Hope, had made a little model of the case for everyone to see. It made the visualisation easier and was great for us all to have a look at, especially for the people that were not in the last session.

So, today the group started making the elements for the case, which will be under the floor of the new Expanding City gallery, Judith and Sousan Luqman (lecturer at Barnet College) worked together to cut out the shape of the table from large sheets of foam board. They also made the base for the group’s work to rest on. The rest of us were painting sheets of strong paper with diluted coffee to be cut out for the waves of the sea beneath the table.

It was very relaxing painting with the coffee, and we had the perfect weather outside for them to dry quickly! Judith and Sousan made a template to cut the waves from the group’s dried sheets of paper, and began to cut them out towards the end of the session.

One of the group members, Maria, added that she was looking forward to working with the sugar next week when we come to decorate the waves. The group will also make little ships to ‘float’ on the sea and working on what will be going on the table-top too.

This object was inspired by a Victorian hat, however the added balloons allow you to fly!

See more photos from the project on Flickr.

9th May 2009

I am Shauna O’Brien and am doing an internship at Museum of London as part of my MA in Museum and Gallery Education in order to learn more about the workings of the Museum. I am helping Lucie Fitton (Inclusion Officer at the Museum) on the Empire project, working with part-time students from Barnet College on a creative installation for the new galleries, and My Museum project. Today was the second visit to Coborn Service for Adolescent Mental Health for My Museum. Lucie and I were on hand to help Emily Candela (the freelance artist leading the project) with today’s creative workshop. Last week the group looked at a range of objects from the Museum’s collection and had to guess what their original use was. They then made collages using images of the objects as well as modern images to create new ideas.

Emily started by showing the group some of her own artwork in the shape of films. The group saw how she had made small papier-mâché structures and added different layers of other footage she had filmed to create a new film. Mixing the old and the new, the found and the re-created allowed a lot of ideas to come up and the group discussed why she might have made the films the way she did. It was great to see all the different ways of creating montages, from last week’s collage to this week’s sculptural workshop.

The handling session from last week’s workshop gave everyone the opportunity to photograph his or her favourite object and these images were used as references for making new objects.

The group members used chicken wire to build the shape of their chosen artefact using the photographs the group took from last week. Some of the group played about with the size of the object, making it much bigger or smaller. We then got messy and used papier-mâché to build up the structure. These will have time to dry in time for the next session when the group can build new objects onto their structures and decorate them.

15th May 2009

In week three Emily Candela, the freelance artist leading the project, began by showing everyone slides of the previous two week’s work. Last week the group had made sculptures from chicken wire and papier-mâché in response to the Museum’s artefacts that they had handled in the first session. The group then could build up on their original models with new objects. Emily had bought along a range of interesting items, from bouncy balls to balloons and holographic tape to fake hair! The idea was to create something that had a use, so to develop the purpose of the original artefact and turn it into something new. Emily also bought some expandable foam in, which was very exciting and we all got messy experimenting with it!

Some of the ideas were fantastic, with a Victorian fish seller’s bobbin hat growing balloons out of it, so that the hot air of your thoughts could lift you up. Another was the Victorian finger pillories becoming a more modern type of punishment in the form of a spiky bed. Everyone got very creative and the group decorated their new objects using paint and more found materials.

At the end of the session, everyone presented their work to the group and some of the group members photographed and filmed their art. Next time the group will have a go at making a montage in another medium- film.

Dan, David and Sousan sketching ideas for the artwork. Click this link to see more photos from the project on Flickr.

12th May 2009

I am Shauna O’Brien and am doing an internship at Museum of London as part of my MA in Museum and Gallery Education in order to learn more about the workings of the Museum. I am helping Lucie Fitton (the Museum’s inclusion officer) on some of her projects including My Museum at Coborn Service for Adolescent Mental Health, and Empire. Today was our third week of Empire and Lucie, myself, Judith Hope (the freelance artist working on the Empire project) and the students from Barnet College visited the Museum in Docklands. We wanted to find out more about the histories, artefacts and stories from the British Empire, with particular reference to London’s involvement. London was central to the growth of the Empire and many of the things we take for granted today come from the beginning of the Empire when people explored faraway lands, discovered new commodities and created new cultures, languages and opportunities. The new galleries at Museum of London will feature an area on Empire and this week was a great opportunity for us to learn more.

We met with historian and researcher, Angelina Osborne, who gave a presentation on the concept of Empire. She showed the group images of those in power and those that were exploited and we learnt about how the British Empire, under Queen Elizabeth I and James I became so powerful. We learnt about the docks of London demonstrating the power and wealth gained during the 16th-18th Century. Angelina showed images of paintings of the Pool of London, but also taught us that it was from London that the earliest slave traders left. We learnt how Queen Elizabeth went from being horrified at the activities of slave traders to giving a ship to John Hawkins (a pirate who took over ships and sold them to Dominica) so that she could get a cut of the profits.

We went on a tour of the London, Sugar, Slavery gallery and got to see a sugar cane mast, sugar moulds and slavery abolition images. Angelina was a fountain of knowledge and it was a first time visit to the Museum for much of the group, so there was plenty to see and learn.

Angelina made lots of suggestions for the piece we will be producing and next week we will be coming up with ideas of what to make to represent the positive and the negative elements of Empire. I think we all left feeling really inspired about stories to tell and images to create.

19th May 2009

Today was our fourth week of Empire looking to create a piece of artwork relating to Empire for a sunken display case that will be in the floor of the new Expanding City gallery.

We were back at Museum of London after taking a research trip to Museum in Docklands last week. There, we learnt from historian and researcher, Angelina Osborne, all about what an Empire is and how Britain came to being the ruling country in the 16th Century onwards. The group of students from Barnet College, me, Lucie and the artist leading the project, Judith Hope had the opportunity to see artefacts in the Museum in Docklands’ London, Sugar, Slavery gallery relating to the British Empire. This week the group put their newfound knowledge and ideas to good use by coming up with ideas for what to make for the new gallery.

The group worked in pairs to discuss ideas of images and the ways the materials could be used to get the positive and negative messages of Empire across. Everyone was so creative, with ideas ranging from slave ships to trading merchant’s family crests, to maps and globes. One idea looked at the triangle of trade between Britain, Africa and the West Indies, with different symbols for each area being represented through the goods traded (such as gold, tea and coffee). Another was to have a Union Jack made from gold leaf and to look at the shape of a boat to be filled with the commodities, including people. There was also the idea of a table laid with the porcelain and silk tablecloth and displaying a tea party, which would show all these new goods and how everyday they have become.

After discussing everyone’s suggestions, an idea was made to have the table in the shape of a boat and below that the sea, as though it were sailing along. As it will be a table set for tea it will include many of the goods that were traded across the Empire. The tablecloth will be decorated with symbols of Empire and the settings can represent each country. Next time the group will start making the artwork from the goods that were traded (coffee, sugar, tea, tobacco etc.).

One of the group members, Nick, has written a blog about today’s session:

We worked in pairs to draw up ideas of how we were going to present the Empire for the display in the Museum. Part of our idea was based on the triangle of movement of ships between Britain, the west coast of Africa and the West Indies. Our idea was to take the port on the west coast of Africa as a symbol of the flow of slaves to the Caribbean and plantations where they worked. We also represented the goods that came from their colonies, traded from the Caribbean to Britain. We then discussed which of our ideas to use in the display. Maria had the idea of a table top as a ship on which to represent the various aspects of the triangle trade of people and goods.

 By Maggie McDonald

How do you know when you’re shaking hands with a finds processor at MOLA? Simple. Rough finger tips. Like needlewomen who sew without thimbles, we all have innumerable pinpricks, fresh and healing on the ends of our fingers. The cause? The staple. How could such an invaluable invention cause so much bad temper and pain? A wonderfully useful device in thoughtful hands, the staple has a rich history, beginning with a lavish device believed to have been invented for Louis XV in the 18th century, then refined and patented from the mid-19th century.

Weighing in at a kilo or so, the early staplers bound together everything from carpet to paper. George McGill patented the first single-stroke stapler in 1879, an elegant cast-iron press decorated with swirling patterns of gold, rather like an old Singer sewing machine. McGill hand fed a staple into the press, then a single push on the handle closed it against a small anvil  . We’ve left the cast-iron a long way behind. Modern staplers are ubiquitous, light weight and indispensable. No one, not even a finds processor with shredded gloves and fingers would disagree with that. It’s the use to which that indispensable stapler is put that causes us grief.

Finds come in to MOLA in plastic bags, stapled shut. It’s a fine, sensible and invaluable way of doing things because we have to keep finds and their context labels together and protected.  It sometimes goes wrong. Why use 17 staples to close a small plastic bag?  

Maybe we processors should use staple removers? Yes, but given mud, dust and debris round a bagged find, those ubiquitous staples are all but invisible. You can pick out the obvious ones with a staple remover, of course, but it’s the hidden extras that slash through rubber and latex gloves on their way to piercing the flesh. No, the only way forward is re-education of those wayward stapling diggers.

Here’s the rule: one bag, two labels, one staple. It’s doable: you just have to put a context label in with the find, take the second label and position it inside the bag, near the top. Fold over the top of the bag, then staple once  through the fold and the label. Worried that the find will fall out? Fold the top over twice, staple once through the double fold and label.  That will earn you the gratitude of your fine finds processors. All we have to do is tug open the fold, and, just like that, the staple springs out.  No ripped gloves, no bleeding fingers.