ITP Week 3 – The Horniman, Wellcome Collection and Preparation for Partners!

Hello All

This is the summary of the third week of ITP – the height of excitement for going to the UK Partner Museums. As all of you know this is the opportunity to travel to other parts of the UK and meet colleagues from other UK museums, sharing ideas and experience with them. We divided into seven groups who are accompanied by one BM staff. I accompanied the Lincoln group. This was also an opportunity for me to meet colleagues again after spending my lovely ten days of UK partnership placement at beautiful city Lincoln and Manchester.

This week we had sessions on various aspects of public engagements discussing the involvement of different groups, communities and volunteers. Also an exciting session of types of exhibitions. Like permanent and temporary exhibition analysing facts of its concept, execution, fund raising, communication and publicity.

Though it was quite a hectic week we spent a lovely evening at the Wellcome Collection. This is the first time ITP participants were invited to the Welcome Collection to get to know about them. We enjoyed their Hands-on session on ‘Brain Drilling’. We went to the ‘Proms’ at Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday evening. Everyone one was dressed up for the evening! The Proms is an eight week series of musical concerts taking place in London in every summer. The first ‘Proms’ happened in 10 August 1895 which is now over 120 years ago!

We had an excellent day trip at the Horniman Museum and Gardens. Director Janet Vitmayer welcomed us in the recently opened Pavilion at the top of the hill from where we can see the city. We had introductory tours of different galleries with curators followed by extra sessions to meet the curators of the aquarium, exhibitions, learning and conservation. Though the weather was bit drizzly some of us enjoyed the rain and lush green gardens after they had been soaked and washed. This was an opportunity for all of us to take photographs in an open portico outside of the pavilion keeping the background of mist and pastel imagery of city!

Here are the expressions from the participants on what they felt and experienced during the week. In their own words:

“Today every session was very interesting, and in evening we went to reception and introduction to the Wellcome Collection, that was fantastic!” Fatma Ali Abbas, Egypt

“Horniman Museum and Gardens might be called a kindergarten rather than a museum as families with kids account for 70% of visitors. Not only are there shows on nature and an aquarium that children love, there are also halls for professional shows on musical instruments and people in Africa. I came across the heaviest rain in London today since I came to the city on this trip. Yet the show still attracted many visitors. As told by staff at the museum, most of the visitors are local residents. At this point, we should mention the role of community services by the various museums in the UK. Museums not only provided comfortable and convenient public venues, they also went into the local communities for work with social benefits: helping other groups in the community to hold exhibitions of various titles.” Olivia Zheng Xuan, China

“We are running out of time! Within all the great benefits we gained; the connection between different cultures is deeply appreciated. Maybe we will be hundreds of miles away, but I will always remember that Turkey is the lucky country that hosts the kindness of Esra and the beautiful smile of Tugba!” Wesam Mohamed, Egypt.

 

“This Saturday was very interesting to me. I went to Birmingham to see my uncle who lives there. I went there with my friend by train from Euston which is not far away from Schafer House. Birmingham is a very beautiful and green city. We visited the farms and enjoyed a Sudanese family get-together but at the same time I missed my son and husband.” Omima Abdelrahman Mohamed, Sudan

“Today is a very precious lazy day for us. But there is a little sadness for the following ten days’ temporary separation from the ITP fellows. We are grateful to our volunteer Bilwa for helping us with luggage arrangements. I hope we will all have a wonderful time at each city. See you guys.” Chenchen Hou, China

See you next week

Regards

Shambo