A partnership between the Cardiff Story Museum, Amgueddfa Cymru- National Museum Wales and the Heritage Lottery Fund is seeking to create a pop-up museum steered completely by members of the public who have something to say about Cardiff.

The themes, content and display will be decided by the public and will be created and displayed at the Wales Millennium Centre from the 9 to 12 October. Anyone in the locality will be able to come and either see or help put it together, and will also have the opportunity to put their own object or story on display!

Over the next two months we will be hosting a number of workshops for people to see how they can become involved, and to find out how a pop-up museum can actually work.

The workshops will be held at the Cardiff Story Museum on:

• Saturday 30^th August, 11am – 1pm
• Thursday 11^th September, 6pm – 8pm
• Saturday 27^th September, 11am – 1pm

We will be blogging and tweeting throughout the creation of the pop-up, so you can get involved wherever you may live and keep up to date with the progress and some of the stories being shared by Cardiffians and anyone with a Cardiff story to tell. #popupmuseum

In July we have seen the usual range of new accessions entering the industry & transport collections. Amongst others we have received the following -  

A serrated measuring stick used at Dinorwig slate quarry for marking out/measuring a roofing slate for trimming. Roofing slates’ names and sizes were standardized in 1738 when General Hugh Warburton (joint owner of the Penrhyn Estate at the time) devised the famous ‘female nobility’ names for slates of different sizes (measured in inches) with names such as Empresses, Duchesses Mawr (Large), Viscountesses, and Ladis Llydan (Wide Ladies). The naming system soon became the industry standard, although the sizes varied slightly from time to time and area to area. In total there are twenty three serration on the measuring stick, measuring 26 inches in total. There are three serrations are two inches apart (at the top end of the measuring stick, closest to the nail), whilst the remaining twenty serrations are one inch apart.

This measuring stick is long, therefore could be used to mark and measure ‘Queens’ and large slates. The smallest slate that could be marked/measured with this stick are the ‘Narrow Ladies’ and above (16 inches in length and above).

This brass toasting fork depicts a miner and is inscribed 'BIG PIT BLAENAVON'. The fork would have been sold in the Big Pit Mining Museum shop in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Big Pit is now one of the eight museum sites that form Amguedffa Cymru – National Museum Wales.

An empty bottle of Penderyn 'Madeira' single malt Welsh whisky in its original packing. The company was launched in 2000 as the Welsh Whisky Company, but later became Penderyn Distillery. The Penderyn Distillery is situated in the village of Penderyn, which lies just within the southern boundary of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Penderyn Single Malt Whisky was launched by the Prince of Wales on 1st March 2004 at St. David’s Hall in Cardiff. The whiskey is initially matured in bourbon barrels, and then further matured in special Madeira barriques.

This £10 share certificate was issued by the Neath & Brecon Railway. The railway was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1862 as the Dulais Valley Mineral Railway to transport coal to Neath. It was promoted and constructed by the contractor John Dickson who was issued with this share certificate. After being authorised to extend the railway to Brecon, it changed its name to the Neath and Brecon Railway.

Finally we have received two DVD’s. One created by staff and student at Pontypridd High School on the Albion Colliery disaster in 1894. The other is titled ‘Memories of Old Clydach’ and is a collection of photographs, documents and memories from local people who lived in the area during the 1940s and 50s.  There is a section on Clydach Merthyr Colliery and Players tinplate works.

Mark Etheridge

Curator: Industry & Transport

Follow us on Twitter - @IndustryACNMW 

For this year’s Art Carbootique at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, 'Made in Roath' were lucky enough to be able to work with Annette and Jules, the natural science conservators at the Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales in Cathays Park.

The National Museum of Wales has a vast collection of approximately 2000 taxidermy specimens most of which are not on display, and some of which present interesting curatorial challenges because of their history and the stories they tell. Having long been fascinated by the stuffed animal collection on display in the Natural History gallery at the museum, we felt really privileged to be invited behind the scenes and view the specimens in storage.

This was an amazing experience; the conservator’s stores are wonderful -  heartbreaking and fascinating in equal measure. We decided that our mission would be to make a ‘museum’ in our caravan of a selection of these unseen animals, allowing them to temporarily escape the museum archive and be seen by the public. In this context, the specimen is not just being viewed as a singular object but as part of a wider culture, referencing human practices such as hunting, shipping and collecting happening in the Victorian period, but which are still practiced today. Furthermore, a consideration of the specimen’s history within the museum itself, with its changing site,  politics and attitudes, exposes how wider socio-political forces have shaped the specimen’s display, reception and curation at the local level of the museum. Jules and Annette were really helpful and accommodating when we told them what we wanted to do, they went up to Nantgarw to the stores there and selected some more specimens to add to the collection, many of which had not been displayed for many years.

We installed the work, with a lot of help from Jules, and drove over to Chapter – there is something very surreal about towing a caravan full of stuffed animals through central Cardiff on a rainy Sunday Morning, but it was worth it. The response from the public was great, both adults and children have such a fascination for taxidermy, the exhibition was a big success, we’d also photographed the animals and made masks to give to visitors, so the animals had another opportunity to ‘escape’. Although the emphasis was on fun, we had expected to get some criticism with people possibly disapproving of the museums stuffed animals, but apart from some healthy and thought provoking discussion about the way human beings treat animals, it was a hugely enjoyable day. Thanks to AC-NMW, especially Annette and Jules, for making it happen.

The 'Made in Roath' Team!

Find out more about the work of 'Made in Roath' at http://madeinroath.com/ 

Saturday 19th July saw the official launch of the 'I Spy...Nature' Exhibition at National Museum Cardiff. The exhibition was officially opened by BBC wildlife presenter Dr Rhys Jones and many families were able to experience the exhibition first hand. Natural Science curators were also on hand showing a plethora of specimens from the Museum's Natural History Collections, including insects, marine invertebrates, fossils, fungi, plants, minerals and much more. The public helped to create fantastic modern and prehistoric scenes with beautifully coloured pictures.

Click here to find out more about the exhibition

Welcome again!

We are in the final stretch of concluding this interesting and amazing project. We have been working hard during the last few weeks mounting and framing the 66 lithograph prints to have them ready for the exhibition The Great War: Britain’s Efforts and Ideals on the 2^nd August at National Museum Cardiff.

In the following video you will enjoy the framing process carried out by our colleague Richard. As you can see it is a delicate procedure and the framer needs to be really clean and gentile with the work of art.

We have had the 66 frames specially made and stained by a local frame maker. The scratch resistant Perspex* we have used had to be washed with soap and water to remove all traces of adhesive before being taped into the frame. Conservation framing is about making a sealed package to protect the work of art from the outside environment whilst making sure that the content of the package are all up to conservation standards.

Once the Perspex is fitted in the frame, we clean it very well with glass cleaner and anti-static cloth being sure that is completely clean and we don’t want to scratch the Perspex. Then we put the mount with the work which is already free of any fluff over the surface in the frame. After that, we put in the backboard and keep it all together using a framer’s gun. Lastly we seal the frame with gum brown paper tape.

Don’t forget to join us next Saturday 2^nd August for the opening of the show!

*Perspex: acrylic material is useful because it is light and unlikely to break on impact. However, these materials do scratch more easily and because of static, should never be used to glaze pastels, charcoal, chalks, or friable material