Reflecting on ITP week 2 (Doris Kamuye, Kenya, ITP 2024)
Written by Doris Kamuye, Curator, Malindi Museum, National Museums of Kenya (Kenya, ITP 2024)
The ITP Programme 2024, came as a pleasant opportunity to travel and learn. I am a curator with a background in Library and Information Science (Master’s Degree from Kenyatta University) and a vibrant professional connection with the Malindi community.
The ITP course presented itself in a crucial moment of my career, having been recently appointed as Curator of a Malindi Museum (the second largest town at the Coast of Kenya and one of the earliest known Swahili City states which played a key role in Kenya’s maritime contact with Indian Ocean Seaboard). Previously, I had been trained by the BM through the GEAP project- a training through which my skills in engaging the public and creating audiences in Malindi Museum was enhanced. I definitely needed an improved set of skills to effectively deliver in the new work assignment. May I thank my sponsor, the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust for giving me this chance at the right moment. Your benevolence has given me an opportunity to learn and work better. May I also thank the ITP team for the warm reception and constant presence to guide us through, you eased our settling in and have made learning exciting and interesting.
The meticulously organized training sessions begun with meetings and introductions with fellows drawn from other museums across the world – a selection which broadened our networks with people in diverse professional backgrounds and work experiences working for the common good of heritage preservation for posterity. We had an orientation session in which our expectations were levelled, this entailed a highlights tour of the BM, departmental meetings with Africa, Oceania and Americas and presentations by fellows to enable us to understand and appreciate useful contributions made by fellows in their respective areas of work. I quickly realized the training is a practical way of learning that combined the sharing of ideas, visits to galleries, site visits and listening from invited speakers/ trainers in specialized areas, including histories of archives and Portable Antiquities, collection documentation, and learning programmes, all which could be emulated in our respective museums.
Trips to Stonehenge and Oxford gave us additional exposure to alternative and interesting curation, conservation, collections and site interpretation activities. Stonehenge stood out as a breathtaking curiosity worth visiting again, and the atmosphere of Oxford evoked a sense of walking through history and a rare contact with a rich built heritage evidenced in the unique architectural designs of its majestic buildings. Everything about oxford was amazingly nice. A morning visit to the Ashmoleum Museum’s elaborate collections spanning centuries and defying geographical boundaries presented a lot to learn from. A guided tour of Queens College and Peet library with special access to the some of the rarest books ever published. This was later followed by a meeting at the Pitt Rivers Museum with a team working on African collections with my Kenyan and Ghanaian counterparts. The global collection on display at Pitt Rivers Museum presented in a classified form provided a fascinating experience. We all reckon collections make no sense if not properly documented, we received training on documentation procedures and policies and carried out practical documentation of a few archival and object collections by recording their descriptive features to ease identification, collocation, access and retrieval.
The 19th July session entailed discourses on organizing permanent displays, with a practical session at the Joseph Hotung gallery showcasing artefacts from China and Asia. The lead designer Pippa Nissen took us through what had been done to redesign the once plain space. An interdepartmental team collaborated on the exercise. The team used colour combinations, alignment of objects, text panel font variations and audio visual learning aids to create a visually appealing and pleasant atmosphere for visitors. The text panels also indicated references to other parts of the galleries hence creating exciting explorations within the museum. We also delved into how provenance research builds narratives and histories for greater accessibility through layers of information and how unique audience needs are catered for in the permanent displays.
Later in the day insights were shared on conservation practices at the British Museum with discussions centered on environmental parameters for each object; separation based on materials (ceramic, metal, glass, pottery etc.), assessment of object conditions and use of preventative conservation / restoration measures. Conservation is factored in gallery management programmes for sustainability. The ITP fellows were taken through the vibrant volunteer programme at the BM, including the policies governing it and how the programme works. The day was closed by a lecture on equality, diversity and inclusion as a key strategy towards meeting and surpassing visitor expectations. ITP participants raised some discrepancies such as lack of sufficient interactive learning aids, inadequate wheelchairs for the disabled and trolleys for children. The day ended with an exciting lecture session at the BP Theatre by the King of Asante Kingdom on restitution of cultural objects to the Asante Kingdom in Kumase, Ghana. It is always a pleasure ending every day of the ITP sessions with a reflection of lots of ideas learnt and an anticipation for new and exciting adventures.