Canterbury Museums & Galleries Annual Review 2018/19 CANTERBURY MUSEUMS & GALLERIES CANTERBURY MUSEUMS & GALLERIES Annual Review 2018/19 Annual Review 2018/19

Contents

Page Executive Summary ...... 5 Canterbury Museum & Galleries Vision ...... 7 Strategic Objectives - progress report Strategic Objective 1...... 11 Strategic Objective 2...... 13 Strategic Objective 3...... 15 Strategic Objective 4...... 17 Strategic Objective 5 ...... 19 Ambitions for the Future...... 21 Acknowledgements...... 23

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Executive Summary

In 2018, Canterbury Museums and Highlights include: Galleries released a new and ambitious • Over 327,000 visitors Vision for the service; a world of • Providing learning resources for 5,642 school people, places, exploration and children through 129 workshops and activities surprises. • 100% of Canterbury District Primary Schools In this review, we look back at a year of included in the Adopt an Object programme experimentation, innovation and learning, from high profile events to in-depth collection care. • Hosting 63 specialist workshops for people with disabilities or at risk of social exclusion Once again, the team have used their collaborative approach to work with partners • Working with 49 museum volunteers who from artists to academics and have built new contributed a total of 1,465 hours of support relationships in public health and across the local • Using our collection to engage patients authority. suffering from mental health conditions Through hard work and perseverance we including object handling in a hospital setting. celebrate the most successful financial • Protection and preservation of over 50,000 performance the service has had for a long time objects within the museum collection and we present a sample of the new audiences we have worked with throughout the year. • Renewed accreditation for both Canterbury Roman Museum and The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge • We conclude with a little taster of the year to come, including plans for our redesign of The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, and the opening of new and refreshed exhibits at Canterbury Roman Museum.

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Museums & Galleries Vision 2018-2022

Following a detailed review of the Our Values Museums and Galleries service in 2017, We believe everybody should feel welcome to be we felt it was important to refresh our part of the Museums’ family. Whether they are ambitions for the service, building on just passing through, or a regular visitor, our service is open to all. our strengths and seeking to address the potential challenges of the future. We want to start conversations and exploration as early as possible in our communities and, In this report, we will share our vision, our values therefore, we put family at the heart of and our strategic objectives and explore how we everything we do. Our collections, exhibitions and have addressed these goals over the last year. events are designed with access and inclusion in mind. Our Vision, Your Museums & Galleries: a world of people, places, exploration and surprises. We believe in the transformative nature of cultural engagement to improve health and From Roman history to contemporary art, from wellbeing. Through our collections, programming local stories to global commentary, the and learning we want to offer opportunities for collections and exhibitions will inspire creativity, reflection, inspiration and education. discovery and play as a way of unlocking potential and enabling learning. We are a dynamic museum. We believe in preserving and interpreting the past in order to Conversations, connections and collaborations shape the future. We apply learning as much to with our audiences are the foundations of the our operation as our programming and aspire to service, ensuring that our work is relevant and develop our offer through innovations and current, reflecting who we were, who we are and partnerships. who we hope to be.

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Our Strategic Objectives We will: 1. Deliver an innovative programme using our collections and learning facilities to engage and inspire audiences, particularly focused on children and young people. 2. Promote Health and Wellbeing for our communities through cultural engagement and partnership working. 3. Create a resilient service that balances commercial opportunities with our core offer. 4. Act as an example of best practice in cultural and organisational development, from the care of our collections to encouraging development in our staff and the people we work with, we will seek out new ways of working and share learning. 5. Reflect our ambitions in the way we design, operate and maintain our buildings, recognising them as part of our collection to be shared, explored and preserved for future generations.

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Strategic Objective 1:

Deliver an innovative programme using This year we have also made significant changes our collections and learning facilities to to our Learning programme. Building on the Case Study 1: success of the Adopt an Object programme, Night at the Museum: Halloween engage and inspire audiences, through which every school in the Canterbury particularly focused on children and District was allocated an object from the Special young people. Collection to learn about and study in more Over October half-term 2018 The Beaney was detail. We have hosted over 5,600 school aged transformed into a Haunted House and Throughout 2018/19 Canterbury Museums and children through various workshops and formal visitors were invited to solve the case of the Galleries have welcomed over 327,000 visitors learning sessions. However, in addition to this, we mysterious disappearance of Edith Miller. The across our two sites: The Beaney House of Art and have significantly increased the opportunities for team used their creativity and knowledge of Knowledge and The Roman Museum. informal learning through special events and the collection to produce an interactive ghost family activities. Our programme was balanced to support a broad trail that offered families the opportunity to explore The Beaney collection in a fun and range of tastes from hosting the work of the From providing family activities alongside exciting way. The event finale included a renowned illustrator Quentin Blake in The BFG in exhibitions, to programming specialist events partnership project with the University of Pictures to our special exhibition Beyond War: such as our Night at the Museum: Halloween Kent’s Architecture department who used a Visualising Peace commemorating the 100 year Special, we have created a welcoming series of lighting and projection installations anniversary of the end of the First World War, environment where families can spend time to animate the museum and galleries. Over including an exclusive commissioned work by together and experience the wonderful heritage 2,000 visitors attended the finale event, 83% artist Kremena Dimitrova. and creativity our service has to offer. of whom were visiting with family. “Really nice work in a museum. Good idea.” “Saw lots of things in the cabinets that we hadn't noticed before.” “Brilliant. Cleverly thought out.” “We did the ghost trail and it was so good! Kids really engaged with it, and fun for adults too.”

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Strategic Objective 2:

Promote Health and Wellbeing for our Through this process we will be testing two communities through cultural hypotheses: Case Study 2: engagement and partnership working. • Working in an organisation with Health & Power of the Object Wellbeing at its core can improve the Health People affected by issues that impact on Since 2013, The Beaney has been working & Wellbeing outcomes for staff. towards becoming a therapeutic museum by their physical health (such as visual placing health & wellbeing at the heart of our • Cultural interventions (particularly using impairment) or their mental health (such as programme. This year was the first year of our museum collections) provide an accessible dementia or depression) are at risk of social four year relationship with the Kent and Medway and effective way to improve personal Health isolation. Our programme, delivered by Museums Partnership Consortium as an Arts & Wellbeing. experienced staff and empathetic volunteers Council National Portfolio Organisation (NPO). provides a free, safe place to meet each Our approach combines science and creativity to month and the opportunity to engage with Canterbury Museum and Galleries are the lead measure the impact of our interventions. By each other through facilitated object partner for the consortium for Health and using tools such as the Warwick-Edinburgh handling sessions. Wellbeing. In this role we will be exploring the Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) we aim to health benefits of creative interventions in a make the case for social prescribing in a Museum This work follows on from a partnership Museum setting and are sharing this learning setting. research study by University College London with our partners, peers and local authority and has been described by participants as This year, we started our series of creative colleagues. “inspirational” and “life changing”. experiments such as Mindfulness Mondays and our partnership with Confidance which offered new and creative ways for visitors to interact with our collection.

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Strategic Objective 3:

Create a resilient service that Canterbury City Council subsidy vs external income balances commercial opportunities with our core offer.

We take our duty of care to preserving 25.5% 32.7% Canterbury City Council and protecting our heritage buildings and our collection of over 50,000 objects Extermal very seriously, which is why delivering a resilient and sustainable service is 74.5% 67.3% always at the forefront of our minds. We are immensely grateful for the support we receive through Canterbury City Council, our donors and our members and we understand the importance of a diverse income portfolio. 2017/18 2018/19 In 2018/19, we worked hard to increase our commercial opportunities across both sites such as admission fees to the Case Study 3: Bricks Britannia Roman Museum and an enhanced café offer at The Beaney. We also introduced The curatorial team worked with commercial 6,000 unique customers visited the Special the first ticketed special exhibition since provider Bright Bricks to host the Bricks Britannia Exhibitions Gallery and the event had a 96% the Beaney was opened in 2012. The Lego Exhibition over two weeks including February satisfaction rating. half term 2019. Significant moments in British Bricks Britannia Exhibition was a great “So many active creative brains inspired by the success and all of these activities have history constructed out of Lego were displayed and an interactive Brick Pit and family Lego trail boundaries of red single sized duplo bricks at @ made a positive contribution in our canterburymuseums #legobricks #halftermfun” distribution of subsidy to earned income across the museum were also included. Over ratio, as shown.

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Strategic Objective 4:

Act as an example of best practice in sought to create development Case study 4: cultural and organisational development, opportunities for our front of house team to learn new skills The Collections Review, Inspiration and Preservation from the care of our collections to and act as advocates for a new encouraging development in our staff and way of working. Examples of During the review period members of the Collections database and allowing some fragile items to be team have worked with over 50 volunteers who accessed by the public without them actually having the people we work with, we will seek out these opportunities have included a Marketing trainee role have given thousands of hours of their time to help to be handled. new ways of working and share learning. complete the project. and our two new Health and It was found that 4,587 items did not match our To create an inspiring and relevant service for our Wellbeing Ambassadors. The collections review process gathers information Collections Development aims and these were visitors we know we need to be a team. This year, This year also saw the about the collections and measures this against the ethically disposed of to other museums and arts we have been looking at our strengths and the conclusion of our Collections Council’s Collections Development Policy. All organisations. Disposal of any material needs to be challenges we face as an organisation and have Review and the relocation of Accredited museums have a Collections based on sound curatorial justifications. The primary challenged ourselves to think differently, to Collection Store. Over 37,000 Development Policy in order to ensure appropriate motivation is to improve access to stored items and embrace innovation and remove perceived barriers. objects have been reviewed over standards of care and security for all items to retain items in the public domain at whichever entrusted to them. This policy specifies the areas in location provides the best balance of care, context Through peer learning and support the team has the past five years with 26,000 of which the service collects and its procedure for and access. accomplished great things this year. From these subsequently being disposals. delivering high profile events to working with relocated to a new shared space A follow-on project is the review of our stored art vulnerable clients there has been a willingness to with Canterbury Archeological All objects were assessed for how we could best use collections which has been made possible by a grant learn and develop at all levels of the organisation. Trust. them, be it for display, for research, or as learning from the Museums Association Esme Fairbairn resources. As a result, a number of new objects have Collections Fund. This has allowed us to begin an 18 One of our major areas for development this year been put on display in our refreshed Canterbury month project to assess approximately 10,000 was to harness the skills and knowledge of our Roman Museum and we now have a list of objects pieces of art. An extra element to this review is that Visitor Services Team. To fully realise our ambition that will be worked into new displays at The Beaney we are working with volunteers who are affected by to be a service that supports and encourages active over the next couple of years. anxiety to test the idea that working with heritage conversations, connections and collaborations it collections can increase wellbeing. was and is important for the development of new All items were digitally photographed providing an ideas and programmes to be informed by team invaluable resource for our museum management members that have the most direct contact with our visitors. In order to achieve this, we have 16 17 CANTERBURY MUSEUMS & GALLERIES CANTERBURY MUSEUMS & GALLERIES Annual Review 2018/19 Annual Review 2018/19

Strategic Objective 5:

Reflect our ambitions in the way we The Canterbury Roman Museum The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge design, operate and maintain our Inspired by our Collections review, this year work It has been six years since The Beaney House of buildings, recognising them as part of began on reinterpreting the displays in the Art and Knowledge reopened and much has our collection to be shared, explored and Canterbury Roman Museum. Whilst the museum changed in the City. As the flagship Museum we preserved for future generations. is a popular visitor attraction, over the last few feel that it is important for The Beaney to reflect years the site has been unfortunate to have our ambitions for the service in every aspect, suffered from some damage due to flooding in from the permanent exhibits to the programming the neighbouring properties. Although this and every part of the visitor experience in damage has been superficial, the staining on between. walls and carpets had left the building looking tired and neglected. To this end we have worked with consultants Haley Sharpe Design to review our wayfinding Led by our Collections and Learning team, with and navigation across the building as well as the support of our Operations team, and in testing our current offer against the aspirations partnership with the University of Kent, displays outlined in our Vision. have been fully reviewed and building improvements have been undertaken to refresh This process has helped us form initial ideas the interior decorations, replace the flooring and about the role of The Beaney in showcasing the preparations are being made to update the City’s heritage and creative offer and will be the interpretation and add new exhibits in 2019. inspiration for a project to update our displays, develop our curatorial voice and improve our This has been combined with a complete review visitor experience across the site. of our marketing strategy for the site, which has included improved signage from the high street, Due to the age of the building The Beaney has prominent A1 platform advertisement at also required some additional investigatory work Canterbury West Train Station and improved on the mosaic facade. This work is ongoing and press coverage including being listed as one of will continue into 2019/20. “Five amazing museum day trips” outside London in TimeOut Magazine.

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Ambitions for the Future

In 2018 we were fortunate enough to start new funding relationships with Arts Council England and The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation to help deliver our Health and Wellbeing programme and Collections review. These projects will continue into 2019/20 and beyond. The work, we have already started, to refresh our permanent displays will also continue in 2019 and will be part of a long term strategy to ensure our service is always relevant. We hope to work closely with partners, stakeholders and visitors to explore our ambitions further in order to deliver the dynamic service Canterbury deserves. In 2019 we hope to build on the success of our original curatorial activities such as the Ladybird exhibition and the Brexit Display by introducing a new programming strand of work: Beaney Conversations. This strand of programming will straddle a combination of physical displays as well as digital content enabling us to be responsive and active in current conversations and debates: reflecting who we were, who we are and who we hope to be.

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Acknowledgements

Canterbury Museum and Galleries relies on the Vita Sackville-West’s The Land and the Garden). support and generosity of many organisations His co-curation of Smallfilms displays and and individuals. exhibitions was so hands-on that he would happily make new parts for an Ivor the Engine set This year we would like to make a special overnight, even while he was busy working on the commemorative mention to two long-standing new Clangers TV animation (which brought in a supporters of our service: whole new young audience from 2015). And his Peter Firmin dedication to introducing Smallfilms to new generations was such that he regularly brought 1925 - 2018 Bagpuss in to meet visiting school groups.. Co-founder of Smallfilms Production Company, Peter worked with Oliver Postgate to create Sir Ronald Macintosh childhood favourites The Clangers and Bagpuss 1919 - 2019 along with many other charming characters. A staunch supporter of Canterbury’s Museums Pioneers in children’s animation, Peter lived and and Galleries Sir Ronnie was one of our principal worked in Canterbury for many years and we are donors in the redevelopment of The Beaney very proud to have displayed Bagpuss and friends House of Art and Knowledge. With a passion for at Canterbury’s Heritage Museum since 2002 and art Sir Ronnie sponsored The Drawing Room then at The Beaney. which has, since 2012, specialised in displaying Peter was always a great supporter of the art work on paper including a selection of master Museum and Galleries and it was very important prints from the museum collection, original to him to exhibit in his home city. For decades he artwork by Smallfilm legends Peter Firmin and regularly put time and energy into exhibitions in Oliver Postgate and an exhibition showcasing his local museums in Canterbury and on the charters from the time of the Magna Carta. coast, showcasing not only the Smallfilms stars As always we would like to thank Canterbury City of screen and books, but also the work of his Council and all of our Funders, Stakeholders, talented family and shedding light on his own Members and supporters who make our work talents as a printmaker (eg his illustrations for possible.

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