YAG Workshop, Tuesday 02 April 2013

Today the Youth Advisors met with Amy Miller, Curator of Decorative Arts & Material Culture, Research & Curatorial at Royal Museums Greenwich, and Louise Simkiss, Adult Learning Manager. Joan and Piarve tell us about what they got up to...

Meeting in the Queen's House with Amy Miller

  

 

Amy and Louise talked to us about the Alice Kettle Garden of England exhibition inspired by the flamboyant Tudor and Stuart eras and then we moved on to the National Maritime Museum to see the extraordinary Yinka Shonibare's 'Nelson's Ship in a Bottle' which is inspired by Nelson's flagship Victory and Batik textiles ad well as European history and African culture. I found exploring different materials and different techniques to create materials interesting. Understanding how different cultures wore fabrics and interpreted colours was interesting. We also got an introduction to the Silver Arts Award.

Reviews of Alice Kettle's The Garden of England (in the Queen's House until 18 August 2013)

Mercedes Thompson

 

Alice Kettle’s ‘The Garden of England’ is an exhibition in The Queen’s House, taking inspiration from the historical figures around Greenwich.  The first part of the exhibition I went to see was the ‘Flower Helix’ on the Tulip Staircase.  I learnt that the artist was not Kettle alone, but also her students, who had helped to create the beautiful flowers for this wonderful piece. I also visited ‘The Flower Bed’, an installation made of synthetic fabrics with the exception of wool, due to the fabric-eating insects beneath the floorboards.  I really liked this piece because the colours were rather vibrant; I also thought that Kettle’s idea of incorporating patterns from the clothing of royal figures, such as Elizabeth I, was quite unique.  The last piece I saw was a stitch of ‘Queen Henrietta Maria’, which I found amazing as it had a lot of texture and a broad range of colours.  The exhibition was excellent, and I appreciated that Kettle and her students had made a variety of different flowers for the visitor to take away as a souvenir.

My review will be shared through the blog, and I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my experience of this exhibition through writing this review.  The evidence I have for my attendance at this event will be in the form of photos.

Meet the Museum, Tuesday 19 February 2013

Today the Youth Advisors had the opportunity to come and meet National Maritime Museum staff and find out more about what they do, how they got their roles here and what their experience and education was before. Youth Advisor Piarve tells us more...

MEET THE MUSEUM 2013 

The future is unexpected and you just never know where life will take you. One thing which has been constantly stressful to hear is 'think about your career' and 'what do you want to be', and as a young person the answer can sometimes be 'I don't know' or I am very interested in so and so but I don't think there are any jobs in it.

Today I met a wide range of people and careers which I did not imagine existed. I met a graphics designer who did graphic design from university level, graphic design as a first job and is now the graphics designer at the national maritime, but also met a lady, who did an African and Asia literature degree, started her career in media and did some journalism, yet has ended up working as a learning officer at the national maritime (what a mix of skills!). I also met a photographer who despite not attending uni, built a strong portfolio of work, did some freelancing and is now a full time photographer at the museum.

 

Louise Simkiss, Adult Learning Manager

I was amazed at how many jobs were available, from events management, to filming director to organic conservator and each individual showed true passion in their jobs.

The highlight of the day was being able to actually see 'behind the scenes' of a museum, which was nothing as I expected and I learnt that many personalities and talents are needed to form a museum. I also loved the drive, passion and ambition carried by the director as he took time from he's what seemed chaotic schedule to spend some time giving us an insight of he's role but also he's appreciation for the YAG.

I enjoyed the paper conservation part, I found it interesting how we can connect so many old pieces of history together in order to form a story. It also reminded me of the hard work and dedication it takes to unravel history. Elizabeth the paper conservative found the mixture of art and science in one job amazing.

Overall it was a good day and gave me some confidence about the future. I took away that: Whatever I do, I will still find a job which makes the best of me.

 

And Youth Advisors Terri and Tianna tell us their experience...

Today was very interesting and help us youth advisors develop our knowledge on what Jobs were actually like in the museum and it also helped us to think about whether in the future we may want to pursue a career in a museum department. Today was overall very and we hope to continue with days like this in the future round about every other month. Here's what we got up to....