When Dr Christian Baars, the Senior Preventive Conservator at National Museum Cardiff, contacted me to ask me take part in his project, I’d never really thought about the work going on behind the scenes at a museum. I’d been on a tour I mean, beyond the ticket desk, café staff, security guards and perhaps cleaners if you’re there right to the end of the day. But have you ever thought about the work that goes into maintaining collections and displays? I doubt it.

Conserving the historic exhibits is one of the largest behind the scenes jobs. There are many things that can damage the artefacts, such as light, air pollution and moisture. But for a big collection of stuffed animals, such as in Cardiff, one of the big problems is pest insects. Lots of different insects, such as carpet beetles and clothes moths, like to eat dead animals. Dr Baars showed me some of the pinned insect collection, which are falling apart or disappearing because one of the beetles has got in to eat them.

We wanted to show the visitors that fighting these insects is a huge job and so we set about making a video that showed the damage the beetles can do. Luckily, Dr Baars had a dead mouse in the freezer (as you do!) which would do just the job. I added some beetle larvae to the dead mouse and left it in a box to be eaten. I used a time lapse camera to film the process of the mouse being devoured by the beetle larvae.  

The resulting video is on the right hand side of this page. Evidently, the mouse is getting progressively smaller as the larvae munch through its body. Now imagine this happening to the woolly mammoth, or the foxes, or any other amazing object at the museum. This is what museum conservators work hard to prevent and this is why we wanted to spread the word.

Once the video was finished, I showed it to museum visitors and asked people to tell me what they thought it was about. Most people had not heard about conservation in museums before nor about the damage insects may cause, even though some had experience with moths or similar insects at home. One visitor described it as fascinating. Another reminded me that “dead things always make good exhibits!” People certainly enjoyed the “gross factor” of a video of a decomposing mouse!

Yet the most important result for me was the finding that everyone wanted to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes at museums. Both adults and children understood the significance of the work. An adult visitor said “once it’s dead and in a case, you don’t really think about it about what happens after”, highlighting the need and the interest in what goes on to make a museum exhibit happen. And a younger visitor exclaimed “imagine you had a billion year old thing and it just got ate… I would very sad”. I couldn’t agree more.

While the purpose of this project was to educate museum visitors about pest management in museums, I think this experiment shows there is an enthusiasm for knowing more about the hard work of museum staff beyond those you see when you visit. In Cardiff visitors can come for free, but in a world where every institution is fighting for funding, we need to show the public that our work is vital and worth every penny. We showed that it is simple to raise awareness and that the work of conservators is worth an exhibit or two all of its own.

Charlotte @scicommchar undertook this project as part of a 'Learning Lab' placement while studying for a MSc degree in Science Communication at the University of the West of England. The University contact was Andy Ridgway, Senior Lecturer in Science Communication and Programme Leader MSc/PGCert in Science Communication, @AndyRidgway1. Many thanks also to Rhodri Viney, the National Museum's Digital Content Assistant, for help with producing the video.

Find out more about Care of Collections at Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales here and follow us on Twitter.

First came the sound, a loud slow regularly timed booming, the constant beat of a drum. Shortly after this rhythmic cacophony of the beat, a clatter and rattle is heard. A blended mixture of clinking and clanging, the sound of metal on metal and within this tumult of sounds the shout “Io Saturnalia” echo's out. Then from around the street corner an armoured figure in ancient dress appears, followed by another and another. Roman legionaries in single file, marching in full armour, rain dripping off their helmets and soaking into their cloaks as they march. Each carrying a lantern or banging a drum, echoing the proclamation “Io Saturnalia” as their hob nail sandals slam down hard onto the modern streets tarmac.

Anywhere else this sight might be considered unusual, not however for Caerleon, the small village on the banks of the Usk, outside Newport. Home to the National Roman Legionary Museum and former Fortress home to the Roman, second Augustan legion. There the sight of Roman legionaries or museum staff dressed as Roman soldiers is practically an everyday occurrence (so much so that people hardly stop for selfies anymore).   
In this instance the staff of the NRLM were recreating the celebrations for the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, in honour of the Roman god Saturn last December. 

Romans believed Saturn ruled the world during a golden time, they celebrated Saturnalia at the darkest and coldest time of the year in December in the hope that he would bring back the sun and usher in a new golden age for the coming spring harvest. Romans would hold large feasts, decorate their homes with greenery, place Janus tablet heads on garden trees, visit friends and family and even give presents. We have inherited many of our own Christmas traditions from this festival. Romans would also wear hats, Phrygian caps (or freeman hats) were worn and slaves were even given a day off. 
  
This year we’ll be celebrating Saturnalia in the museum on the 9th of December. With traditional Saturnalia celebrations such as a shrine to Saturn offering good fortunes to the Gods, off duty Roman legionaries eating and drinking in honour of the festival. Explaining the holiday and also showing off their armour.   

And of course the day will finish with our legionaries marching around the Fortress e.g modern day Caerleon to insure Saturn brings back the light and to usher in a good new year with the traditional Roman saying of “Io Saturnalia”." 

You can find out more about Saturnalia by watching this short film, made last year for the museum for a take over day. 

https://www.peoplescollection.wales/learn/io-saturnalia

When we were designing the exhibition  we discussed different ways visitors could share their connections with the art on show. We designed conversation prompts to get people thinking and post cards for people to give their feedback:

It's been really exciting to read people's responses and we'll be sharing some of our favourites over the coming months along with our thoughts. We'd really like to hear from you as well, tell us what you think, how do you connect with art?

Here's the first one:

I like this comment because it's so positive, starting with self awareness, other people, then the world. Seeing involvement with art and creativity as a journey is something I can indentify with. In a way we all have the same journey but with different twists and turns which is what makes life so interesting. When someone describes or makes something real you can laugh in recognition. Maybe art is about mutual recognition of beauty, horror and humour?

#WallichXart

Takover Day at the National Roman Legion Museum 2017.

Pupils from Lodge Hill Primary reviewed and created a promotional video for our latest digital learning resource called the Roman School.

The aim of the day was to provide pupils with an opportunity to build on their confidence and to enhance their digital and presentation skills.

Pupils took part in a role play Roman classroom session. Then created their own film called – ‘What was school like in Roman times?’ which will be used to promote the resource to other schools on social media and the museum website. They learned how to create a story, write a script and select actors for each scene. Click here to view the video https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/635461

The feedback and the suggestions gathered from the children are being worked into the final version of the Roman School resource. The resource supports our popular roleplay workshop called Grammaticus - Roman Classroom.

During the day the pupils also had a chance to find out more about Roman weapons. After completing the challenge each pupil was presented with a certificate by Eleri Thomas - Kids in Museums Trustee.

Earlier this month saw the takeover of our brand new Atrium space by Cardiff High students. Over 80 year 10 pupils from their Art, Music and Drama departments filled the space with their performances and artworks inspired by the museum’s collections. This was the culmination of 6 weeks of work by the students, although the planning goes back almost 6 months!

We were initially contacted by Eve Oliver from Cardiff High with an idea for a cross-curricular project in the summer. The idea was to bring together pupils studying the creative arts together to work on the same theme. After discussions with Elen Phillips, the Principal Curator Contemporary & Community History at St Fagans, the idea of working around the theme of ‘Protest’ was suggested. This was chosen because it would give the pupils an opportunity to explore their own beliefs and values as they responded to the museum’s collections.

The project began with a visit to St Fagans on October the 4^th for 85 pupils. Elen gave a presentation to the pupils around ‘Protest’ using objects from the collection as inspiration. These included objects around the suffragette movement, anti-racism protest and the miner’s strikes of the 1980s. It was an opportunity for the pupils to hear the histories of these objects but also an opportunity to see them in the flesh, and you could see how inspiring this was for them.

After the visit to the museum, the pupils returned to their school to unpick these themes in more depth. Over the next 6 weeks the pupils enjoyed masterclasses with Timothy Howe from the Sherman Theatre, Anita Reynolds from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the artist Anna Barratt.

The culmination of this part of the project came on November the 16^th. Cardiff High returned to St Fagans National Museum of History to display and perform the work that they had done. We used the new atrium space at the museum which was filled with artworks and performances. We invited the parents of the pupils to watch, and including some museum staff, there must have been around 50 in the audience.

The drama students performed extracts from the play The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning by Tim Price while the music students performed the classic call to arms Yma o Hyd by Dafydd Iwan. The backdrop to the performances were a mass of protest banners and placards created by the art students. The performance culminated in a sing-along of Yma o Hyd by the entire cast as well as the audience. It was truly a powerful performance which brought the atrium to life!

The project has been a great success with the pupils debating and questioning their understanding of ‘Protest’, using contemporary references to deepen their understanding of the past and gaining insights into the beliefs of others. For the museum, it was a fantastic way of engaging with a local secondary school, using a model that we are keen to use again. We have already begun discussion on what other themes we could explore next year!

Diolch yn fawr Cardiff High!