Museum scientists have been popping up in the Capitol Shopping Centre throughout the summer with their I Spy…Nature pop-up museum. Natural Sciences staff spent 9 days there with a variety of specimens from the Museum’s collections. Every day had a different theme from shells, to fossils, plants and minerals to name just a few. The public were able to ask our curators questions and find out about our new exhibition at National Museum Cardiff (I Spy…Nature), which is open until April 2015. We ran a drawing competition alongside the pop-up with some fantastic entries. We have chosen winners in three different age categories and they will be visiting us at the museum to have special tours behind the scenes and to claim their prizes. The winning entries will be posted on-line in the next few weeks. 2437 people visited us on the stand, which is a fantastic figure. Next we will be popping up at Fairwater Library on the 30^th October and visiting 10 schools throughout the autumn.

Amongst the new collections we have received in August was a collection of two ship models and six watercolours. The models and paintings are all by Mr Tony Jackson who was apprenticed to Sir William Reardon Smith & Sons in 1951. The two models are of the BP tanker British Sovereign, and a Liberty Ship. The six watercolours show the Orient City, Homer City, Devon City, Fresno City, Graig and Graigfelen. The photograph below shows Tony Jackson in his uniform aged 15. The next two show the ship model of the British Sovereign ship model and a painting of the Graig.

This photograph is one of three we received showing the basilica and copper mines at El Cobre, Cuba, taken in February this year. These mines were important as a source of ore to Welsh smelting works. We recently acquired a share certificate relating to the Royal Copper Mines of Cobre which you can see in my March blog.  

We have been donated a history of the Ely Brewery called ‘Beer and the Brewery’. This has been compiled by an ex-employee of the brewery who was an apprentice fitter and then fitter there from 1949 - 1962. This month we have also received 35 copies of the Ely Brewery house magazine ‘Mild and Bitter’. The image shows a front page from a 1956 edition.

We have purchased two interesting handbills for the collection. One is for the St. George’s SS Co. Ltd., and dates to 1910. The other is for a cruise along the Cardigan coast in 1968.

This Sharp 'Font Writer' Personal Word Processor (Model FW-710 UM) was purchased by the donor to be used during her university course. The word processor was manufactured by Sharp Electronics (UK) Ltd. at Wrexham in about 1995.

Mark Etheridge

Curator: Industry & Transport

Follow us on Twitter - @IndustryACNMW 

Hello again!

Over the weekend, amidst the armed police and large NATO wall, the second pop-up museum workshop was held.  The aim of these workshops is to find content for the pop-up museum being created at the Museums Association Conference in October and as part of the Welsh Museums Festival. The pop-up is being created with staff from the Cardiff Story Museum, Amgueddfa Cymru- National Museum Wales and the Heritage Lottery Fund with content coming from anyone who has a story to tell about Cardiff.

This time around we tried a different approach and held drop in sessions rather than a 2 hour workshop… Sadly it was a bit of a quiet day. Despite that, we did get some great stories. We heard from a busker who hadn’t been to Cardiff on a Saturday for 20 years but was back for a wedding, and from a man who remembered coming to Cardiff for work and ended up being a regular at the Vulcan pub.

The problem we found with the drop in session is that people did not have objects and if they did, they were not prepared to leave them. This meant that at the end of the 2 hours, we didn’t have a pop-up museum, just a collection of stories. You live and learn!

The next session is going to be on a Thursday evening, 11^th September between 6 and 8pm at Cardiff Story Museum so you can come along and do some late night shopping or have a nice dinner afterwards. We’ll be holding it as a 2 hour workshop again so we have a great looking museum at the end of it.

We hope you can make it to one of our future sessions.

Contact Arran Rees on Cardiffstory@cardiff.gov.uk or 02920 788334 to find out more.

I started out writing a long meandering post about galleries, but what I came to say is this: I've really enjoyed the I Spy Nature exhibition at National Museum Cardiff, which runs until April 2015. Each time I've gone down to see it, the place has been full of families, conversations, and children dressed up as bugs and scientists, hopping from display to display.

I snapped the picture below at one of our interactive stations, only just avoiding the lunchtime rush (and sticking out my elbows to maintain our younger visitors' privacy!)

I Spy... Nature gives you a chance to see the world as seen through the eyes of a bat, a scientist, or a fly. Provided you're under 10, you can even to dress up like one as you explore the creepy-crawly specimens, 3D printed corals, interactive quizzes and activities. The giant, interactive microscope screen mentioned in David's post can be found in a beautiful cabinet of slides. For those of you who prefer 'the real thing', there's also a working laboratory microscope, with a spinning table of fascinating slides to choose from.

The I Spy... team have also been taking the show outside to different places, bringing their amazing collection with them. For example, here's @CardiffCurator with a curious object at the Eisteddfod:

Mae @CardiffCurator wedi denu lot o sylw gyda'i chragen enfawr ar stondyn @AmgueddfaCymru yn yr @eisteddfod heddi! pic.twitter.com/cxsOTVhg7r

— Gareth Bonello (@ghbonello) August 7, 2014

The I Spy... pop-up museum will be, er, popping up, for one last time this summer. Catch them at the Capitol Centre in Cardiff between the 28th and 30th of August. In amongst the handbags, sandwiches and end-of-season sales, you'll find scorpions, creepy-crawlies and a seashell that's bigger then your head. Pop down to see them between 11am and 3pm to see what you can spy!

We are here @Capitol_Cardiff with our pop up #IspyNature exhibition Come and meet our scientists @Museum_Cardiff pic.twitter.com/3YikdnBPfp

— Cardiff Curator (@CardiffCurator) July 24, 2014

#fflachamgueddfa #popupmuseum

The first workshop to create content for the pop-up museum at the Museums Association Conference in October at the Wales Millennium Centre was held today at the Cardiff Story Museum. Staff from the Cardiff Story Museum, Amgueddfa Cymru- National Museum Wales and the Heritage Lottery Fund came together with a group made up of National Museum Wales and Cardiff Story Youth Forum members and volunteers to test the processes that are needed to create a pop-up museum.

Participants agreed that using Cardiff as a theme was a good idea. What is your Cardiff story? Or what does Cardiff mean to you? provides opportunities for people to give their opinion about Cardiff – the capital city of Wales, whether they’ve visited before or not. It includes those who are Cardiff born and bred and those who’ve stepped off the train for the first time; delegates at the Museum Association conference and families visiting the Wales Millennium Centre as part of the Welsh Museums Festival.

A conveyer belt of museum processes was set up with everyone taking turns to write text, photograph their object, be photographed themselves and be filmed talking about their Cardiff story. 

In one hour, we created a mini museum in its most basic form. 12 objects, 8 stories, 7 voxpops, and 12 photographs all saying something different about Cardiff and what it means or has meant to the participants today or in the past.

Arran Rees, Curator of collections at Cardiff Story kicked off the session by showing his chosen object and sharing his Story. 

Everyone joined in and within 30 minutes, a variety of different objects ranging from Welsh cakes to a fossil revealed something about Cardiff. One participant used Welsh cakes to show her fondness of the stall in Cardiff Market and how she identified with Cardiff and Wales by getting to like Welsh cakes even though she hated dried fruit. Another object was a ring that was a symbol of friendship and good times at Cardiff University. Another contributor told of her experience as a performer in the Cardiff Mardigras in 2013.  Everyone wanted to read other people’s stories and the objects inspired discussion about Cardiff – good and bad, past and present. 

The session was incredibly useful. The group confirmed that a broad theme is better, more inclusive and has more potential to inspire diverse responses than something too specific. Simple low tech methods work, and can be used to create interest and discussion – even when technology lets you down.

Now that the method has been tested and some ideas put into practise, we are ready for the next workshop. This will be an open workshop again at the Cardiff Story, 30 August 11am – 1pm. Come along and share what Cardiff means to you.

Contact Arran Rees at the Cardiff Story for more details:

Cardiff cardiffstory@cardiff.gov.uk

02920 788334