Meet Me at the Museum - Around the World in Our Treasures

Over the past year I have been working with wonderful older people from across Oxfordshire, welcoming them in to the Pitt Rivers as part of the Meet Me at the Museum programme.

Meet Me at the Museum is an opportunity for older people and those living with Dementia to bring their curiosity and their continued thirst for learning to the Pitt Rivers. Every first Monday of the month we have been spending two hours together touring the galleries and handling objects that tell the story of the museum and bring to life the cultures behind the objects.

Object Handling, Meet Me at the Museum © CDAN 

Our first season of MMAM at the museum was in partnership with Creative Dementia and Arts Network (CDAN) Flourish funded artist, Charlie Henry. In collaboration with Charlie we shared our own special stories and objects, which culminated in Around the World in Our Treasures. This co-produced exhibition showcased our spoken memories and personal objects through a wonderful set of stop-animations that brought the objects to life.

Around the World in Our Treasures ©Pitt Rivers Museum

One of the most important aspects of this programme was that everyone in the group - carers, older people, people living with Dementia, volunteers and staff -  shared their object stories. This created an equality of purpose. Having had experience as a carer for someone living with Dementia, carers are not always actively engaged in the activities provided. Meet Me at the Museum is an opportunity to see the person you care for as having the ability to take part, contribute and to learn. Most importantly, it is also an opportunity to socialise with others living similar lives and to go away having learnt and contributed something yourself. MMAM has further highlighted to me the importance of ensuring that museums continue to develop opportunities for vulnerable older people to participate and make meaningful contributions to our museum activity. 

Touring the Museum  ©CDAN

This month we have widened the group further to include older people who would probably not think of themselves as vulnerable. This has changed the dynamic again – creating more active discussion and empowering some of our vulnerable members to participate with confidence.  We are currently looking at life stages and the rituals and ceremonies that we use to mark these. So far, we have covered birth, childhood to adulthood, and marriage, so we have heard lots of good stories!

If you are interested in finding out more about this group or in joining in then please contact me - Beth - on 01865 613004. Our sessions run every 1st Monday of the Month.

Beth McDougall
VERVE Activities Officer

Pitt Rivers Team at the Oxford University Museums Staff Conference

The Pitt Rivers had a strong presence at the Oxford University Museum Staff Conference, held on Monday 26th September in the Ashmolean's Lecture Theatre.  The Conference allowed colleagues to share their work through a series of 5-8 minute 'lightning talks'.

It was great to see the public engagement work of the Pitt Rivers represented by Beth McDougall, VERVE Activities and Outreach Officer, and Madeleine Ding, VERVE Volunteers Officer.  They talked about how the HLF-funded project VERVE has enabled them to better connect the public with displays in the Pitt Rivers Museum:

Visitors in the Museum © Pitt Rivers Museum

Public Engagement © Pitt Rivers Museum

Rejuvenating Collections and Display  © Pitt Rivers Museum

Outreach Activities © Pitt Rivers Museum

From boat-building to kintsugi workshops © Pitt Rivers Museum

One of the successful VERVE Takeover Events was described further in the lightning talk on 'Joint Museums Youth Forum Project'.  This was a sell-out evening event on Mythology by Moonlight organised by Matthew Arnold students with the support of the Secondary School and FE Education Officer, Katherine Rose.

Poster Advertising Youth Takeover Event
© Pitt Rivers Museum

The Conference ended with a director-led panel discussion in which future strategy was touched on. Dr Xa Sturgis, Director of The Ashmolean, stressed the importance of the University Collections working closely together and communicating to their audiences that they are part of the University of Oxford's mind-blowing collections.

Lucy Shaw(left) leads a discussion with Directors © Pitt Rivers Museum

It was great to see so much energy and enthusiasm emanating from the conference and there are lots of new initiatives to look out for from a LGBT trail across the University Collections to a mobile app on which you can play musical instruments at The Bate Collection.

Becca McVean

Education Officer (Primary)

Out and In, Around and About - Activities and Outreach Summer Highlights

My name is Beth and I am the new VERVE Outreach and Activities Officer. Since joining the Museum’s VERVE team in April I have met many hundreds of wonderful people participating in and collaborating with Pitt Rivers activities. Here are some of the highlights so far:

Around the World in Our Treasures
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Meet Me at the Museum

Meet Me at the Museum is a collaborative project with older people and those living with Dementia. Over the last six months our team of older people have met monthly with Charlie, a Flourish artist funded by Creative Dementia Arts Network and Helen Fountain, the Oxford Museums’ Reminiscence Officer, and worked towards creating a temporary case exhibition called Around the World in Our Treasures. Each month we all learnt new things. We navigated the museum with object tours, handled objects from the Pitt Rivers Education Handling Collection, tested out our creativity on short stop-animation films, and chatted over tea and biscuits.

Object Handling © CDAN

Museum Tour  © CDAN

Tents on Tour

On July the VERVE and Education Team have been out and about popping up at festivals, fêtes and carnivals and sharing the museum and its (handling!) objects with our local audiences. First stop was Flofest in Florence Park on 25 June, a day of warm sunshine and welly boots. Check out our short film of the event.

We then visited Bayards Hill Primary School as part of their School Fete and bopped to Bayards Got Talent while creating our very own stop-motion with the school’s families.

Final stop, Cowley Road Carnival on 10 July. The Pitt Rivers Tent was organised by Carly, our fantastic Families Officer, and supported by our joint museum volunteers. We had families making their own puppets from the Ramayana story, and badges inspired by museum objects pressed in the perfect early summer sun. 

Woodland Way Workshops

Working with Danny and Joe from Woodland Ways has been a great way of understanding our collection through making. July saw our first workshop with Woodland Ways on Bone flute making, which involved a lot of puffed-up faces and high-pitched sounds as our workshop attendees blew their newly made flutes. Joe specialises in making these flutes and spoke eloquently about their early history and gave top tips on the importance of selecting the right bone for the job. 

Joe from Woodland Ways  © Pitt Rivers Museum

The Bone flute Band  ©Pitt Rivers Museum