The Wonderful Horniman Museum and Gardens (Bassem Mohammed Ezzat, ITP 2018, Egypt)

Written by Bassem Mohammed Ezzat, Archaeologist and Photographer, Grand Egyptian Museum (ITP 2018)

On Tuesday (17 July), we had the great opportunity to visit the Horniman Museum and Gardens. For me, this was the best of our museum visits until now.

Once we arrived at the museum we started with free time in the museum and the gardens where we enjoyed the amazing view and the weather was so good. We went to the garden and joined one of the families there with their dogs and we had a good time!

Then we moved to the Natural History Gallery where there was a school visit with students and parents. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the families gathering at the museum and how the parents share their kids’ moments and are eager to make them happy and share the activities with them.

We had a tours of the World Gallery, Natural History Gallery and Musical Instruments Gallery with curators (Sarah Byrne, Margaret Birley and Joanna Hatton). I really enjoyed the Aquarium, the museum’s display methods and how it combines all the cultures around the world in one place. The temporary display, Colour: The Rainbow Revealed, was also well organised.

I selected Management for the specialist tour, for further talks with the Director, Dr Nick Merriman. I was joined by by Claire, Rebecca, Okan and Andrea. We got great and useful information about finance, temporary galleries and staff from Dr Merriman.

I discussed the Grand Egyptian Museum’s issues about museum management: how to get funding for the museum, how to run and manage the shops and cafes of the museum, how to organise events at the museum, and partnerships between museums. We got information about the new strategy of the museum to attract adults and young people to the museum, not only the families, and to expand to more than local visitors.

Bassem