Projects, News and Events That Showcase the Great Work Going on in Museums Across Wales
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Cylchlythyr ar gyfer Ffederasiwn Amgueddfeydd ac Oriel Celf Cymru The newsletter of the Federation of Museums & Art Galleries of Wales Hydref / October 2015 Hello from the Fed.. Welcome to another bumper edition of Ymag packed with projects, news and events that showcase the great work going on in Museums across Wales. It is a significant time for Welsh Museums. Whilst facing financial challenges, we also have a real opportunity to help transform the sector and build resilience for the long-term benefit of the people of Wales. The Fed urges all of our members to raise awareness of Welsh Museums by lobbying your local AM to respond to the Museums Review, which presents a model of delivery to improve the structure and influence of our sector. If you have heard of any feedback or media reports about the review in your area please share it with us and send a copy to Rachel Silverson. Rachel Silverson (President) Projects Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum continues search for WW1 photos The Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum, Caernarfon has undertaken the mammoth task of collecting photos of individual RWF soldiers killed in the Great War. Each man’s name is displayed on screen on the centenary of his death. Over 10,500 Royal Welch Fusiliers lost their lives during WW1. After 12 months of searching we have more than 2000 photographs, but would dearly love to add a photo to every name. We are appealing to other museums and centenary projects for help so please circulate our plea! We’ve already been greatly assisted by the Flintshire and West Wales Memorial projects, Holyhead Maritime Museum, Port Sunlight Museum and Conwy Archives to name “The Faces of Wales project is but a few. We wish to thank our volunteers too, in particular particularly evocative and John Krijnen, RWF historian based in Holland, and Adrian reminds us how young these Hughes from the Home Front Museum who have contributed young men were.” countless hours. (Ken Skates, Deputy Minister for This project is helping us to fully recognise the sacrifice made by Culture, Sports and Tourism) our men. It is also proving helpful to individuals undertaking family research. We hope to make the final project available online after 2018. A Federation grant has funded a huge panel featuring 320 of the discovered photographs, which is on display at the museum. We hope the panel will spur others on to contribute photographs. Shirley Williams Contact Shirley Williams, Museum Development Manager on [email protected] for more details or to send a photo. Follow progress on our website at www.rwfmuseum.org.uk or on Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, Blogger, Tumblr and Facebook. #wickedwelshwomen Exhibition at Narberth Museum Earlier this year, staff and some visitors to Narberth Museum felt that women were underrepresented in the exhibits. The museum decided to devise a project to work with Year 9 pupils from Greenhill School to address this imbalance and challenge preconceptions along the way. Twelve pupils visited the archive and selected seven women as the focus for an exhibition. Subjects were chosen for their diversity and the way they opposed traditional female stereotypes and domestic ideology. One woman built her own house from bricks she had made herself; another was a renowned actress and bard, and one donated the land used for rugby and cricket pitches to Narberth. The pupils then developed a unique concept for displaying their research using the theme of Facebook profile pages. The idea was to bring the exhibition to life for young people as well as making it accessible to visitors of all ages. The pupils created the hashtag #wickedwelshwomen to open discussion and spread the message across social media. They created puzzles and questionnaires to encourage visitors to engage with the exhibition and to become involved in the representation of women’s history at the museum and beyond. The museum is inviting visitors to share photographs and stories of #wickedwelshwomen from their own families on our ‘Wall of Fame’. The aim is to enrich and expand our archive of local women’s social history and all information will eventually be available not only to researchers at Narberth Museum but nationwide as part of the Women’s Archive of Wales. Pauline Griffiths #wickedwelshwomen is currently at Narberth Museum and will form part of our permanent collection. Thanks to Mrs. Carolyn Penn from Greenhill School, as well as the pupils for their innovation and hard work: Molly Ashton, Elizabeth Stewart-Walvin, Georgia Allen, Sam Swannell, Billy Greenwood, Alex Orchard, Alex Fleming, Drew Croxford, Lizzy Roper, Emilia Dore, Holly Bartlett and Kelis Davies. Glynn Vivian Art Gallery OFFSITE / ODDI AR SAFLE Glynn Vivian Art Gallery’s Artist in Residence (AiR) programme began in 2012 and is an opportunity for the community to interact with contemporary artists living and working in Wales in a relaxed and supportive environment. The programme aims to challenge and engage our community by offering them access to emerging artists, their work and ways of seeing. Our Gallery Exhibitions and Learning teams work closely with artists to open their practice to our community in a meaningful way, while offering them a space for research, reflection, presentation and production. In November 2014, the Gallery welcomed performance artist Joan Jones to the studio. Joan's work is about turning embodied queer experience - often painful – into narratives or "folk stories." Throughout the residency, Joan led writing and performance workshops with young people’s LGBT group, Good Vibes and members of the Terence Higgins Trust. The work which 2 included film, poetry, performance and live music was presented at the YMCA theatre as an alternative Valentine’s Day celebration. In May, polymath Aled Simons was the Gallery’s AiR. Aled’s practice is DATES an attempt to come to terms with the disparate and varying nature of creativity and artistic practice. Aled used the Open Studio format as a Joan Jones Valentine’s Day Performance vehicle for his personas, inviting the audience to join him in a band Friday 13 February, 2015 practice, in a raffle led by Johnny Toppins and in a performance lecture to learn about 1960s band The Monks . Aled Simons Open Studio meet Johnny Toppins Friday 8 May, 2015 From July, the Gallery will introduce its first ever family residency. The Open Studio meet Barrie Hole Bartussek/Dicker family, are five-strong, Anglo-German, 3:2 Friday 29 May, 2015 female/male ratio and occupied in various social education institutions from nursery to university. Their interests include photography, film, The Bartussek/Dicker Family drawing, sewing, music, sports, food and puppetry. The theme of the Puppet Making and Party Games Saturday 11 & Sunday 12 July, 2015 residency is family language and communication which will be explored Open Studio through the creation of a travelling puppet show. Saturday 18 July , 2015 Charlotte Thomas INTO THE LIGHT: CASW Gifts to Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery This July Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Merthyr Tydfil, held an exhibition to celebrate the gifts, since 1947, of thirty-eight artworks from the Contemporary Art Society for Wales (CASW). This collaboration between Museums Officer Kelly Powell and her staff and David Moore and Sue Hiley Harris of Crooked Window, Brecon enabled all CASW-gifted works to be displayed together for the first time, revealing their impact upon the twentieth-century art collection. Since CASW was formed in 1937 it has acquired 850 contemporary artworks and exhibited and gifted them to public institutions - museums, colleges, local authorities and hospitals - in Wales. These have made a vital contribution to many museum collections. Well- known works by Welsh artists include Alfred Janes's 1938 Salome and Cedric Morris's 1930s Caeharris Post Office . Rarely-seen works, which were conserved especially for the exhibition, include Josef Herman's 1950s Sad News , Will Roberts's 1954 Bideford Bridge , Ray Howard-Jones's 1959 South Haven and Arthur Giardelli's 1964 abstract relief Pembrokeshire Panel. Surprising is the inclusion of a c.1913 Cubist drawing by Czech sculptor Otto Gutfreund and 1948 prints by Bloomsbury Group member Vanessa Bell. Research has shed light on largely-forgotten Welsh artist James Wynne Parry, who painted Sunlight and Shadow in 1932. He emigrated to the United States and, together with Evan Walters, showed work in a 1917 exhibition in New York. Important works by 56 Group Wales founder members Heinz Koppel and Eric Malthouse were also included. Additional funding was provided by CASW, Brecknock Art Trust, the Gibbs Trust and the Morel Trust. The collection is explored in a new colour publication by David Moore and designed by Sue Hiley Harris, available from the museum or by post from www.crookedwindow.co.uk. For further information, contact Kelly Powell ([email protected], 01685 727371) or David Moore ([email protected], 01874 610892). 3 Collecting and Engaging with Portable Heritage in Wales Saving Treasures; Telling Stories is a 5-year partnership project between Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, The FED and the Portable Antiquities Scheme in Wales (PAS Cymru) promoting the portable archaeological heritage of Wales through acquiring finds made by the public. The project secured £349,000 of Heritage Lottery Grant funding in October 2014 through the Collecting Cultures programme. The project will contribute to the work of museums and their collections by strengthening community and cultural identities and empowering people through learning, participation and inspiration. The Project will :- • Acquire artefacts for national and local collections. • Bring together metal detector clubs, museums and communities. • Enable diverse communities to engage with evidence for their past. Funded Outcomes • A fund will be available to cover all costs of acquiring treasure and recorded non-treasure finds (over 300 years old) from Wales.