Hi, I’m Thea, a sixth form student from Shropshire who decided to create this short video as part of my work experience at the National Museum Cardiff.

I had heard about Who Decides? before I became involved in the exhibition, so I was very eager to find out more. After working with the public opinion cards, speaking to the people involved in the museum and doing some short interviews, I created an animation that I thought would best reflect the aims of exhibition and the feedback it had received.

I am passionate about art and against the idea that art and museums are ‘elitist’ or should be for the ‘privileged’ rather than the majority, so I wanted to focus on this issue in the video.

Working with the Wallich

The exhibition itself was incredibly eye opening for me; the museum had decided to work with the charity The Wallich to involve people with experience of homlessness in the process of designing and creating the exhibit and gives the public the chance to choose some of the artwork on display. I haven't seen an exhibition that has ever taken this kind of approach, so I found it intriguing to see how others reacted to the idea.

I hope this refreshing approach to curation will be an archetype for future exhibits and museums because it challenges what we usually connote with galleries and exhibits and hopefully encourages more people to visit exhibitions and museums.

Who Decides? is on show at National Museum Cardiff until 2 September 2018. You can also contribute to Who Decides? by voting for your favourite work to be ‘released’ from the store and placed on public display.

Part 2, Working with our community partners.

Powysland Museum is working with the National Museum’s Saving Treasures; Telling Stories on an Archaeological Jewellery project.

In this update we hear from some of their community partners.

Welshpool Camera Club

The club has around 40 members of all abilities, from pros, advanced, to amateurs, who all ‘club together’ to ensure members’ photographic skills are challenged regardless of technical ability. They look at mastering camera techniques through hands on experience and invite speakers to give presentations.

With many of the archaeological jewellery pieces in Powysland Museum’s project being small, with delicate decoration, it was obvious that the project needed the expertise of good photographers to capture the details and refinement of the pieces.

Powysland Museum was therefore delighted when the Camera Club agreed to be one of the project’s community engagement partners.

The club’s members have got up close and personal with some of the objects and have taken some great close-ups, which have fed into the museum’s work with the other community engagement partners.

Welshpool Young Carers

Welshpool Young Carers are a group of young people who look after and care for one or more members of their family on a full-time basis. Alex Sperr, the project’s community engagement officer, ran a workshop with the group, which produced a delightful and colourful display.

The workshop focussed on the art of the museum display. A display is often the only chance you have for capturing the attention of your intended audience.

It must grab audience members at first glance, hold them there to see what it offers and persuade them to further explore the museum and the artefacts on display.

A display can be used to tell part of an object’s history, and in this workshop we focussed on making jewellery and displays for the Saving Treasures exhibition at Powysland.

The group first visited the Saving Treasures jewellery exhibit, looking at the ways in which objects are displayed.

Exploring how to display rings in the exhibition, the group then made Plaster of Paris hands by using rubber gloves as moulds. Casts of the children’s hands were made using plaster bandage or modroc, and rings were made using recycled materials.

The children then set up their displays as they would like to see them in the exhibition, along with their names.

Buttington-Trewern School

Local poet and writer Pat Edwards has run the “Off the Page” young creative writers’ club at Powysland Museum and is also runs the annual Welshpool Poetry Festival. Her quirky and exciting mind was guaranteed to engage the children.

Pat visited the museum to work with all the junior classes. The children were shown the archaeological jewellery and were even allowed to touch and hold some of the sturdier artefacts – obviously while wearing white, cotton gloves!

This was a unique opportunity for the children to see the objects outside their usual display cases.

Pat Edwards then discussed the theme of jewellery with the children, helping them develop ideas and create stories, poems, posters and other written works involving one or more of the museum objects. Some of the results and photographs from the sessions are on display.

Together with Pat, the museum is planning to develop this creative experience by offering writing classes at the museum during the exhibition period, where visitors can seek inspiration from the objects and practical help from Pat to write and tell their own stories.

The Archaeological Jewellery exhibition runs at Powysland Museum until September, after which you can catch it at Radnorshire and Brecknock Museums.

A huge well done to this year’s winning teams!

Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Llangynwyd - Team Enterprise Winners 2018.

Bryn Celynnog Comprehensive School - People’s Choice Winners 2018.

For the past 3 years Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales has run a competition for students undertaking the Museum’s Welsh Baccalaureate product challenge for Enterprise & Employability (National/Foundation).

The Challenge Brief is to create an innovative product for the Museum shop, which reflects the objects and collections across the 7 Museum sites.

Students have the opportunity to showcase their completed work at a competition event.

This year’s event took place in the newly opened Atrium at St Fagans National History Museum. Pupils presented their work to a panel of judges. They also set up displays and communicated their product to members of the public visiting the Museum.

All the pupils said they would recommend the challenge to others. Pupils described key skills developed as a result; from teamwork and thinking to presentation and communication.

“Fy hoff rhan oedd gweld beth oedd y cyhoedd yn meddwl am ein cynnyrch a clywed beth oedd ei farn am y cynnyrch”

“My favourite part was working as a team and creating a product that we really enjoyed”

“To answer the questions in the pitch required quick thinking skills.”

Pupil feedback

Students from Cardiff & Vale College helped to run the event as part of their Advanced Community Challenge. They were involved in planning and leading on key aspects of the day; from logistics and supporting pupils, to organising and presenting the People’s Choice Award which represented the visitor’s vote.

“I believe it was a great experience as you interact with all different types of people and different ages.”

Helena Vitoria, CAVC student

“Once again, the National Museum competition proved a resounding success.”

Sara Davies, Swyddog Bagloriaeth Cymru CA4 Cenedlaethol/Sylfaen | KS4 National/Foundation Welsh Baccalaureate Officer

If you would like to take part next year please get in touch.

There are numerous resources to support teachers and students undertaking the challenge, which can be found on the Museum’s website www.museum.wales/learning

What's the Project all about?

“Saving Treasures; Telling Stories” is an all-Wales Project about bringing archaeology to life and enabling community engagement.

It is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and administered by Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales in partnership with the Federation of Museums and Galleries in Wales and the Portable Antiquities Scheme in Wales.

At Powysland Museum the project takes as its starting point the existing collections of archaeological jewellery in the three local authority museums in Powys: Powysland Museum in Welshpool, Radnorshire Museum in Llandrindod Wells and Brecknock Museum and Art Gallery in Brecon.

Some of the objects have been acquired by the museums as recent treasure finds, while others have been in the collections for several years.

What is Powysland Museum doing?

The project encompasses:

• a temporary exhibition on archaeological jewellery from the museums in Powys.
• engagement with a number of community groups in story-writing sessions, art and jewellery workshops and research inspired by the artefacts and their stories, to be displayed in the exhibition.
• art and craft activities, “finds open days” and other events for a wider audience during the exhibition period.

Community Partners

The museum has been working with a number of partners to deliver the promised outcomes, such as Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust, the poet and writer Pat Edwards and the artist Andrew Logan.

The community partners have included Welshpool High School’s Art department, Buttington-Trewern Primary School, Welshpool Camera Club, Llanfair-Caereinion Historical Society, Welshpool Young Carers and Welshpool Kaleidoscope group.

Working with Welshpool Poetry Festival

One of the bonuses of having Pat Edwards involved in the project was that she transferred the idea of archaeological jewellery to the annual Welshpool Poetry Festival, of which she is the founder and the organiser.
 
Every year the poetry festival holds a competition and this year’s theme was ‘jewels’. For the ‘Young People’s Poetry Competition (Ages 7-14) the winners were:

• First Prize – ‘My Jewel’ by Nancy Gargiulo from Criftins Primary School
• Second Prize – ‘Jewel’ by Lila Melnykevicova
• Third Prize – ‘Silver’ by Maisie from Berriew School

Powysland museum is delighted to be able to display these poems and others along with their Saving Treasures-funded Archaeological Jewellery exhibition.

Anna Edwards, yn siarad am y ddarganfyddiad o’r Gelc Bronington ar eu fferm hi yn 2014:

Roedden ni wedi perchen ar y tir am dair mlynedd pan ddarganfyddon ni'r casgliad, er ein bod ni wedi rhentu o am flynyddoedd cyn hynny. Doedd neb wedi bod yno efo canfodyddion metel o'r blaen.

Dw'i bob amser yn gwerthfawrogi hanes a dwi'n cofio gorlethu'n gyffrous.  Mae wybodaeth leol wedi dysgi i ni bod llawer o weithgareddau wedi bod yn yr ardal yn y gorffennol fel yn ystod y Rhyfel Cartref a'r diwydiant halen.  Mae ffermio o dydd i ddydd wedi agor i fyny crochenwaith man, botwmau ond mae arwyddocad a phwysigrwydd y casgliad yn syfrdanol a mwy nag unrhywbeth gallwn i fod wedi dychmygu.

Fel y mwyafrif o bethau pwysig sy'n digwydd yn ein bywyd; mae digwyddiad pegynol fel hwn yn troi i fyny ar siawns.

Collodd fy ngwr ei oriadau yn ystod y cynhaeaf a gofynnodd i'r defnyddwyr canfodyddion metel lleol i helpu. Cafodd fy ngwr ei oriadau nôl a rhoddodd o wahoddiad i'r dynion i ddod yn ôl yn eu hamser hamdden.

Roedd gweld a theimlo'r casgliad yn ryfeddol ac yn gyffrous i fod y person cyntaf i wisgo'r modrwy ers 500 mlynedd. Roedd y cyflwr yn gysefin ac yn edrych yn newydd sbon. Roedd rhaid i ni eistedd i lawr i werthfawrogi'r sefyllfa. I bwy roedd hi’n perthyn? Pwy wisgodd o? Sut bobl oedden nhw? Oedd y trysor wedi ei guddio neu ddwyn?

Mae darganfod y casgliad wedi cryfhau ein cysylltiad efo'r tir ble rydyn ni wedi gweithio mor galed. Mae'n fraint i gyrraedd mor bell ac yn anrhydedd mawr i fod yn gysylltiedig efo'r arian a'r modrwy. Tystiolaeth o'r gorfennol, pressenol a'r dyfodol i ni.

Yn ogystal â hyn mae'n syndod i mi am y diddordeb sydd wedi ei gynyddu yn lleol ac ymhellach. Ymddangosodd yn y papur newydd, derbynion alwadau ffôn o radio Chicago a siaradon yn fyw i holl dalaith Illinois, mwy i ddilyn!

Mae'n bleser gweld y plant ysgol yn cael eu cynnwys yn y cyffro ac aelodau'r gymuned trwy’r prosiect - "Buried in the Borderlands"