MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES Wa les At this time of continued uncertainty, For so many museums this is embedded Our shared alongside endemic inequalities and in their DNA and driven by a deep sense divisions, more museums, small and large, of purpose. What emerges from the with different audiences and governance, examples here for me is that museums commitment are stepping up to the plate, using their are becoming places with porous walls, fabulous collections and creativity to working with communities and partners to and passion build socially engaged practice. They of all shapes and sizes to harness our are supporting people with dementia, fabulous collections and amazing spaces, for Museums combatting loneliness by bringing people led by a crystal clear goal of changing together, offering training and learning lives for the better. What brilliant opportunities, engaging with children people. What inspiring stories. What Change Lives is and families, and celebrating Welsh incredible collections. more important culture, language and heritage. Please do share your own examples with us so that we can draw on them now than ever. too in order to inspire others. Maggie Appleton President (2018-21) Museums Association

02 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES FOREWORD Powerful, innovative examples of Welsh museums creating positive change for individuals are a network of and communities through museum collections, projects, activities and important community programming are happening across Wales. Museums look after Wales’s resources and the cultural memory – the objects and stories that inspire us to learn from our past, case studies in this in order to understand our present and booklet demonstrate make a better future. Day in, day out, often with no great fanfare, Welsh how much value they museums support their communities, and help deliver key social and bring to Wales and government agendas in areas like community cohesion, the economy, how vital they are health and wellbeing, learning, and to their localities. skills development. Welsh museums certainly change lives – and we hope the case studies here demonstrate just how crucial they are to communities across the country.

Victoria Rogers President (2016-21) Federation of Museums and Art Galleries of Wales

03 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES MUSEUMS ASSOCIATION INSPIRING MUSEUMS TO CHANGE LIVES 01. 02. 03. Enhancing health Creating better places Inspiring engagement, and wellbeing to live and work reflection and debate

• Museums enhance our quality of life and • Museums help us to value the places • Museums work with the public as active improve our mental and physical health. where we live, work and visit and help us and creative participants in the life of the • Museums work in partnership with to understand where we have come from. museum – using it as a space for exchanging health and wellbeing organisations to • Museums create a sense of belonging opinions, experiences, ideas and knowledge. support a range of people in society by engaging with communities and • Museums help us to understand and with different needs. encouraging active public participation negotiate the complex world around us, • Meaningful participation and volunteering in decision-making. encouraging us to reflect on contemporary promotes wellbeing and self-confidence • Museums use engagement, learning and challenges such as discrimination, conflict, and can broaden the horizons of collections to generate understanding poverty and climate change. participants, the museum and the public. within and between different groups • Museums use their research and collections and communities in society. to challenge assumptions, foster debate • Museums generate partnerships with and motivate people to contribute to community groups, charities and third-sector positive change in the world. They are organisations to create spaces that are not neutral spaces. open and accessible to all. • Museums inspire learning and creativity for children and adults and work actively to ensure that a broad and diverse audience can access these opportunities at any stage in life.

05 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES 01.

ENHANCING HEALTH AND WELLBEING By working in partnership with Arts The next stage of the project will be Council Wales, and with support from to bring poetry to the walls, and new the Welsh Government, Amgueddfa writing is being commissioned from Cymru devised Celf ar y Cyd, a series two Welsh poets, Hannan Issa and Elan of ambitious visual art projects that Grug. Inspired by the paintings, the challenge us to share the art collection poetry will be written to offer fresh across Wales during the crisis. By perspectives and new ways of thinking working with health boards across about art, the natural landscape, and Wales, our brief was to make people the importance it has to us all, feel at home, and to act quickly so particularly in hard times. that the spaces would be ready to Amgueddfa Cymru continues to hold receive their first patients. conversations with health boards across As the Covid-19 pandemic worsened Wales to find new approaches to ensure over the winter, and the pressure on that the art collection can be used by NHS staff increased, we continued to NHS teams and patients in a way that take the art collection into hospitals works for them, both online and in to provide inspiration and solace for the workplace. staff and patients. At the start of February 2021, a new Staff Haven facility opened at the UHW Health Hospital site in , partly funded through a charity run by IN COVID-19 When the Covid-19 pandemic began in footballer Gareth Bale and his family, 2020, Public Health Wales announced to support NHS staff wellbeing. FIELD HOSPITALS that it would build field hospitals across We invited hospital staff to choose AMGUEDDFA CYMRU Wales to double NHS capacity. Unlike which artworks they would like to see permanent hospitals, these buildings – NATIONAL MUSEUM and overwhelmingly, the favourite theme were repurposed, sometimes temporary was nature. A selection of paintings was WALES spaces that have one thing in common, made which attempt to bring the magic the walls were bare. Amgueddfa Cymru of the outdoors, indoors, using huge – National Museum Wales’s challenge reproductions of the paintings which was to transform some of these stretch from floor to ceiling. spaces into art galleries.

07 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES INTERGENERATIONAL Across the whole of the UK, the The Memory Café project has Makes those living number of people living with Dementia also resulted in an expansion of MEMORY CAFES is increasing. Monmouthshire Museums our programming for people living with dementia feel MONMOUTHSHIRE Service has been looking for new ways with dementia, including creative MUSEUMS SERVICE to include people living with Dementia workshops and partnerships with human again. in its programmes, building upon our local health authority. our successful volunteer-run Are we making a difference? Carer of participant on the reminiscence programme. We hope so. creative workshops course When we were approached by our local secondary school to help deliver the Welsh Baccalaureate Community Volunteering Challenge, it seemed an ideal opportunity to create a project that brought young people and people living with dementia together: The programme is an intergenerational memory cafes. Our first cohort of 10 young people were exceptional template for trained to use handling objects as other inter-generational conversation triggers and provided with Dementia Friends awareness sessions. projects to follow and The students worked together with will be used as an museum staff to research and organise a series of two hour themed memory example of such to other cafes that included music, handling Dementia Friends groups objects, costume and afternoon tea. throughout the UK. The cafes have been well attended and received, and have also benefited the students, some of whom received a Ian Thomas young volunteers award and stayed on Alzheimer’s Society to mentor the next cohort.

08 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES BUILDING A In November 2019 Cynon Valley Museum It was launched following a period of unknown spaces and potential for in partnership with local charity, Cynon consultation and workshop sessions sensory overload. PARTNERSHIP Valley Pals, introduced the Sunflower with the charity, with Cynon Valley Pals Today the museum continues to work Lanyard Scheme to the museum. sharing their lived experiences and FOR CHANGE with Cynon Valley Pals as part of a Originally implemented across airports, answering questions about the scheme. CYNON VALLEY project funded by the People’s Health the scheme is a more discrete way for The success of this launch has created a Trust. The museum is working with local MUSEUM staff to acknowledge members of the successful relationship with the charity. families supported by the charity whose public who may need additional support The museum has built on the scheme voices will decide how the project on their visit. The scheme was introducing sensory information into its unfurls, while developing new skills and introduced to the museum by Cynon galleries. The signs are designed to give continuing to engage with the museum Valley Pals, who were advocating for its an expectation of what is to come in the and local community. use across the community. museum, reducing the anxiety of The partnership remains one of learning and exchange. Today we are continuing to learn and build upon best practices. Through this working partnership we have done more for the museum and the community than both could ever have done alone.

09 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES I think by having a project generated 97 oral recordings with 85 individuals – all person with a learning of which are now archived at St Fagans disability present it can – and nine temporary exhibitions in regional museums and public spaces help put people at ease, across Wales. not just the former Reflecting on her role as project officer and interviewer, Sara Pickard patients but the support from Mencap Cymru said: “We felt that staff because we have having someone like myself as part of the interview would help us get the best shared experiences as interview possible. In some cases, me people with a learning being there has helped our interviews. I think by having a person with a learning disability. disability present it can help put people at ease, not just the former patients but the support staff because we The Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 have shared experiences as people called on local authorities to establish with a learning disability.” long-stay hospitals for people with both Mencap Cymru and St Fagans have mental health conditions and learning further developed this model as a disabilities. Dubbed “colonies” for the framework for Our Social Networks – “mentally defective”, many of those who Hidden Now Heard was a three-year an ongoing oral history project that HIDDEN NOW HEARD were admitted were misdiagnosed and (2015-17) National Lottery Heritage Fund explores the friendships and MENCAP CYMRU IN became isolated from society. Mencap oral history project led by the learning relationships experienced by people Cymru played a lead role in the closure PARTNERSHIP WITH disability charity Mencap Cymru. In with a learning disability living in Wales of these long-stay institutions in Wales. ST FAGANS NATIONAL partnership with St Fagans National today. The recordings generated by this MUSEUM OF HISTORY Museum of History and regional Early in the project development, project will also become part of the museums across Wales, the project St Fagans worked closely with Mencap national collection at St Fagans. AND REGIONAL captured the untold and often painful Cymru to train their staff in the ethics MUSEUMS living memories of patients, their and techniques of collecting oral relatives, and staff from six former testimony, and to develop accessible long-stay hospitals in Wales. consent and copyright forms. The

10 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES 02. CREATING BETTER PLACES TO LIVE AND WORK LITERATURE Literature and Trauma is a community creative writing project run by Swansea AND TRAUMA Council’s Dylan Thomas Service, which DYLAN THOMAS builds on the ’s CENTRE longstanding relationship with local refugee communities. In the early 2000s, after Swansea became a “dispersal area”, we began working with displaced people, launching anthologies of creative writing by refugees, asylum seekers and local people, and holding celebratory community events. Thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we began more sustained engagement with organisations including Swansea Asylum Seekers Support Group, African Community Centre and City of Sanctuary, and most importantly with displaced people themselves. As a result, the Literature and Trauma sessions began in 2017, their writing, while free bus tickets Having had the opportunity to led by Cameroonian writer Eric Ngalle removed the barrier of travel costs. work closely with asylum seekers Charles; his personal experience of The resulting work has featured in and refugees, we are now working displacement and asylum proved crucial cultural events, local media, and collaboratively to expand on these in providing a safe space for participants been read on BBC radio. opportunities. Our new Blooming under to express themselves. the Tall Tales project, supported by the The workshops deliver clear social Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund, will During the Literature and Trauma impact, enabling attendees to feel focus on working with asylum seekers, sessions, people tell their unique part of the wider community, to refugees and community organisations stories through poetry and prose. access cultural venues and orientate to develop family programmes around Holding the workshops in our Learning themselves in a new city. Our venue our collections. Space ensured provision of play facilities has become a focal point and safe space for any accompanying children, thereby for a committed and gifted group from allowing their guardians to focus on this often-neglected community.

12 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES Saba Humayun Literature and Trauma project

As a friend, or as a family now, we just try to encourage people to come to this project to share their story if they want. I like to tell people what we’ve been through. We have lots of problems in our life, but still we are here now. We have a chance to speak in front of people. Before that I was nervous. But Eric always told me, ‘It is only you that can tell your own story to other people’. A SPACE FOR Over a three-year period, the museum increased room use by 460% from 205 COMMUNITIES hours in the 12 months to March 2018 CYNON VALLEY to 965 hours over an 11-month period MUSEUM to February 2020. The museum has become a centre The Cynon Valley Museum has of the community and witnessed a sought to establish itself in Cynon diversification of purpose, becoming Valley since its reopening in 2016. relevant to the people of Cynon Valley. The museum has worked to host local The museum has also become a artists and art groups, recruit volunteers classroom, meeting space, playgroup, locally reflect the community, and support group, yoga class and more. make the museum more relevant to The museum has grown, it has learnt the daily lives of the public, creating more about its community, becoming new ways to bring people through more inclusive on this journey. It has the museum’s doors. become a space for many needs, it has become a canvas for our To do this the museum sought to communities’ co-existing identities. move beyond the restrictions of its own identity, to reflect the identities of the communities in Cynon Valley by utilising the museum as a venue for organisations working to benefit the local community. The museum took a proactive approach to this, building relationships with potential groups such as Project Unity, a LGBTQIA support group. Working with the group they expanded their programming from monthly coffee afternoons to include talks, awareness events and displays in the museum.

14 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES LLANELLY was gifted by exhibition was co-created with While the pandemic has paused Lady Howard Stepney to in 1912 information and material collected completion of the exhibition, it has POTTERY STORIES as a hub for arts, culture and wellbeing through reinterpretation sessions been an opportunity to try something PARC HOWARD at a time of high unemployment and with specialists; workshops with new: online resources for schools. A MUSEUM IN social unrest. Llanelli is a proud post- the National Autistic Society; family new curriculum, soon to be rolled out in industrial town at the crossroads centre programmes; and local history Wales, allows for the pottery collection PARTNERSHIP between rural and industrial South societies. These uncovered fascinating and the community stories we collected WITH FUSION Wales. Ambitious regeneration schemes past stories about migration, identity, to inspire cross-curricular themes and have put it on the map for culture, sport, language, health, working lives, and an entirely new visiting experience. and the environment. But falling visitor inequalities, which resonated with These will be available later in 2021. numbers to the museum revealed there contemporary issues. was a problem. The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund, managed by the Museums Association, supported our project to use collections differently for social good and create positive changes within the organisation. The Parc Howard collection of Llanelly Pottery (1839-1922), all made by hand and brimming with human stories, was an interesting place to start this journey. The Llanelly Pottery Stories project experimented to see what people enjoyed. Partnering with the Fusion programme helped promote what we were doing through community networks. A 40% increase in visitors within a year and being a finalist in the 2019 Kids in Museums Family Friendly Award were surprising outcomes. We also wanted people to see they could make a difference at their museum. A new permanent pottery

15 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES archaeological artefacts, recently new collaborative working practices, discovered by members of the public, acting to reinforce partner interests for their collections. The project also and roles. brought together metal-detector clubs, An external evaluation report has local museums and communities around captured the feedback received from the new stories revealed by these participants and contributors, also discoveries. outlining the wellbeing benefits Six community projects, felt by diverse participants from led by local museums, engaged key engagement with the project. target groups and communities, including young carers, dementia groups, men’s groups, WIs, veterans suffering with PTSD, young writers, local school groups, museum volunteers, heritage groups, metal-detectorists and landowners. Each project responded in creative ways to significant finds I really enjoyed the made on their doorsteps. Over 100 activities were undertaken, involving whole experience 123 volunteers, and new museum being involved in the exhibits were co-produced. project from early on Young career and student journalists SAVING TREASURES; The Saving Treasures; Telling Stories helped to develop stories and content to its conclusion…it heritage partnership project, between to enhance the PAS Cymru website certainly brings TELLING STORIES Amgueddfa Cymru, the Federation of as an engaging resource on portable PARTNERSHIP LED BY Museums and Art Galleries of Wales heritage in Wales, including linked history back to life. AMGUEDDFA CYMRU – (Fed) and the Portable Antiquities social media and film content. Scheme in Wales (PAS Cymru), received The project developed a strategic NATIONAL MUSEUM funding through National Lottery collecting network and longer-term WALES Heritage Fund’s Collecting Cultures Nick Mensikov collecting culture in Wales for programme (2015-2020). Metal-detectorist talking as the finder archaeological finds, involving training, of a hoard about his involvement with Twenty-eight museums across Wales skills-sharing and volunteering the community archaeology project were able to acquire 168 important opportunities. It also developed led by Museum.

16 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES 03. INSPIRING ENGAGEMENT, REFLECTION AND DEBATE SHEEP EXHIBITION Museum is located in the The Sheep exhibition explored the Artist Ffion Jones was commissioned heart of rural Wales, where the double history, heritage and culture of sheep to work with sheep farmers to make AND FUTURE crises of climate change and Brexit farming communities, through the lens a film in collaboration with local LANDSCAPES uncertainty have had a polemic effect of contemporary art, supported by farmers, creating a voice for the SYMPOSIUM on local communities with vested artefacts from the museum’s collections. farming communities, which are interests in the upland regions of the Funding from Art Fund and Garfield traditionally a very hard-to-reach CEREDIGION county. In response, the museum’s Weston enabled the museum to borrow audience, into the museum. Sheep exhibition, which was highly works relating to sheep by Henry Moore, MUSEUM Building on this outreach work and commended in the Museums & Heritage Joseph Beuys and Menashe Kadishman. the high profile of the exhibition, the Awards 2020, included the Future Displaying these high profile works Future Landscapes symposium brought Landscapes symposium to facilitate raised the profile of the exhibition to together artists, curators, academics, dialogues between the various attract wider audiences. farmers, ecologists, environmental stakeholders. campaigners, policy makers and others to discuss the issues around the heritage and future of Ceredigion’s uplands. The walks, talks and world café-style discussions enabled people to engage within a mutually respectful and active listening context to find shared values and build bridges. The legacy of this ground-breaking event is ongoing; the museum hosts monthly People’s Practice meetings, virtually during lockdown, to keep the dialogue open and an alliance of more than 30 land-based practitioners was set up from the symposium called Cynefin (habitat), with the aim of sharing resources and knowledge around the land and environment.

18 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES REVEALING THE Working collaboratively with the Brecon Regimental Museum of The Royal SECRETS OF THE Welsh, access was provided to similar JAPANESE FLAG artefacts. These Japanese flags were FIRING LINE historically signed by members of a Japanese soldier’s community as they MUSEUM embarked into conflict. The act of translating signatures gave new life to The Firing Line Museum received funding these artefacts, making sense of how from the Welsh Museums Federation to the Japanese flags relate to each other deliver a project to reinterpret Japanese and allowing us as museums to create flags from the Royal Welsh Regimental new interpretations based on Japanese Collections. As a starting point, Tamayo, narratives that contextualise the a Japanese translator and student from traditional (and very limited) regimental Cardiff University, was recruited to meaning placed on them. investigate an artefact within the This has been a new approach to museum; a single Japanese flag that curatorial projects for both museums had been captured by The Welch leading to new interpretative strategies Regiment in Burma. to widen the audiences who engage with As Tamayo skilfully researched and our collections. The Covid-19 pandemic revealed the name of the original owner may have temporarily postponed these of the flag, identified the community it redisplay projects but this project has originated from and identified official helped to pave the way for how the stamp marks that had been left on the stories of regimental artefacts are flag, it quickly became apparent how interpreted in the future. much of the artefact’s symbolism and The funding also enabled us to produce emotional resonance had been lost in its a short documentary film that followed transition from captured flag to the progress of this project, which can museum artefact. be viewed at: https://m.youtube.com/ watch?v=yHkeSnH58W8

19 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES Cultural Exchange. The event encouraged learning and reflection about the riots, challenged long-held misconceptions and encouraged attendees to share, discuss and debate the riots themselves and the impact they subsequently had on the community. Recognising that the riots and their impacts have long been ignored by the city, and knowing that it had very little in its collection that could help it represent them in its displays (especially from the point of view of the communities of colour caught up in the violence), the museum commissioned artists from the community to work with the community to creatively respond. The resulting documentary film (by Gavin Porter, with music by PEOPLE OF The People of Butetown project was a Anthony Ward), painting (by Kyle Legall), collaboration between the Museum of series of photographs (by Zaid Djerdi) BUTETOWN Cardiff and a collective of community and poem (by Ali Zay) have been taken MUSEUM OF artists. Taking the centenary of the 1919 into the collection and now form part CARDIFF Race Riots as a starting point, it shared of the museum’s permanent displays, stories of the prejudice and racism schools resources and programming. experienced by the community, and People of Butetown is an example celebrated its resilience and creativity. of the museum’s commitment to The project began with an event, supporting communities to tell their including talks and displays from stories through their own voices and the museum, Butetown community, to ensure Cardiff’s untold, ignored or Archives, Cardiff Libraries, hidden are heard. Race Equality First and the Heritage

20 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES DIPPY AT THE In 2019 Dippy, the Natural History Museum’s iconic diplodocus dinosaur NATIONAL MUSEUM skeleton embarked on a road trip around CARDIFF the UK. For the Welsh leg of the tour, AMGUEDDFA he visited . The remit from the Natural History Museum CYMRU – NATIONAL was that every partner venue should MUSEUM WALES use Dippy as a way to inspire visitors to engage with contemporary environmental issues and engage with an underrepresented audience. We have a Youth Forum at each of our museums across Wales. Young people aged 14-25 are encouraged to be partners in decision making and organising activities. The forums explore the views of young people and address issues that they think are important. Youth-led projects across the museum are part of the Hands on Heritage initiative, made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Kick the Dust grant. Tasked with a way of making Dippy relevant to their peers, the young people chose to raise awareness and inspire positive action around the climate crisis. They identified the environmental impact of the fashion industry as their “big issue” because of its massive environmental cost. They decided to link this with dinosaurs by fashioning a dinosaur from waste clothing and fashion items destined for landfill.

21 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES Once the theme was identified, the The forum decided to involve the public They have also continued their reconfirming its commitment to group explored art within the collections in making elements of the exhibit as a activism around climate change. reducing its carbon footprint. that either engaged with environmental way of raising awareness of the issues. Working in this activist way also had The museum is currently working issues or used fabric and found objects, They developed and delivered making a positive impact on the museum. The to develop a new schools programme as well as working with local sculptural activities with families visiting the exhibition in part influenced the decision linked to climate change and activism artist Megan Broadmeadow. museum during the summer holidays. by the organisation to declare a global as a legacy of the project. In addition, day-long workshops were climate and ecological emergency, run with young people from partner organisations including Llamau and The Prince’s Trust. These workshops also focused on using fashion to raise awareness and spread positive messages. Young people were integral to the whole project; a young writer and activist delivered writing workshops with the group to develop the exhibition text, and illustration and design students from Cardiff Metropolitan University worked with them to develop the 2D design of the exhibition. It’s been really fun, During the project development, Youth Climate Strikes announced a global day working together as of action, so banner-making workshops a team creating art to were held for young people and families in preparation for the strike. steer environmental Participants developed new making change. skills, including sewing and screen printing, alongside skills in planning, team working, creating project plans, Youth forum participant research and event planning.

22 MUSEUMS CHANGE LIVES WALES Image credits Front cover: discussions on the heritage and future of Ceredigion’s uplands, image courtesy of ; p.3 Museum of Butetown portrait © Museum of Cardiff/Zaid Djerdi; p.7 artwork on the wall of a Covid-19 field hospital, image courtesy of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales; p.8 Pixabay; p.9 image courtesy of Cynon Valley Museum; p.10 ward teapot from Bryn y Neuadd Hospital. More than 20 associated objects came into the St Fagans collection as a result of MUSEUMS the Hidden Now Heard partnership project, image courtesy of Amgueddfa Cymru; p.12 Eric Ngalle Charles (centre) with participants in the Literature and Trauma project, image courtesy of Dylan Thomas Centre; LGBTQIA flags, image courtesy of Cynon Valley Museum; image courtesy of Parc Howard Museum; participants in the Saving Treasures; Telling Stories project, image courtesy of Amgueddfa Cymru; p.18 image courtesy of Ceredigion Museum; p.19 Japanese flag, image CHANGE courtesy of Cardiff Museum; p.20 Museum of Butetown portraits ©Museum of Cardiff/Zaid Djerdi; p21/22 displays created by the youth panel for the Dippy exhibition at the National Museum Cardiff, images courtesy of Amgueddfa Cymru. LIVES

Museums Association 42 Clerkenwell Close, London EC1R 0AZ T: 020 7566 7800 April 2020 #MuseumsChangeLives www.museumsassociation.org/ museums-change-lives