UCL Museums & Collections Blog

guest blogger Andie Byrnes

I was at an object-handling session on the 5th March 2013 and as I had arrived early I took the opportunity get out my phone and play with the QR codes set up next to selected objects.  A project called “Tales of Things” has been rolled out at a number of museums, and the Petrie is contributing. The “Tales of Things” project has been set up to explore the relationships that people form with objects.  So when you see a QR code in the Petrie with the words “Tales of Things” above it, you will know that it is part of the project, and you can participate.

QR Codes

QR (“Quick Response”) codes are two-dimensional bar codes.  Unlike the vertical row barcodes so familiar on books, CDs and groceries scanned through supermarket tills, QR codes are combinations of vertical and horizontal lines arranged in patterns contained within squares.  The one on the left links to an article in the Petrie Museum’s blog. The two major benefits of them are that a) QR codes can be generated by anyone using a standard web application and b) they can be scanned by users from print or screen by smart-phones and tablet computers.
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Guest blogger: Chris Webb

Wednesday 12 February at The Petrie Museum, saw our first evening in a series of talks given by our Timekeeper in residence, artist-curator Cathy Haynes, www.cathyhaynes.org, as she took us on a tour of objects in the museum and wider world that give us different experiences of time. The sequence of events is designed to question how we perceive, measure and record time. With the engagement of our lively audience, the evening suggested some interesting interpretations. As Cathy herself said, this first event threw up more questions than answers!

Guided through a world of chronology, we were invited to consider how everyone from the ancient Egyptians to Facebook’s timeline observed, understood and recorded time. We then deliberated on the material culture and objects that shape out understanding of time. Examples from the Petrie’s collection included: concepts of dynasties, votive bowls, shadow clocks/sun-dials, a worn-out leather shoe, a water clock, and the large amount of stelai and memorialisation that represent permanent markers connected with death and the afterlife, not to mention Flinders Petrie’s own meticulous sequential dating of objects.

A Shadow Clock

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Upcoming event: Caesar and Cleopatra, February 6th 2013

By Andie Byrnes

Britain’s first million-pound film, starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains, was Caesar and Cleopatra.  Based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1901 play of the same name, with a screenplay written by Shaw, it opened on 12th December 1945 in the Odeon at Marble Arch in London, and was released in the U.S. in September 1946.  It is showing at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (Malet Place, London WC1E 6BT), hosted by John J. Johnston, on February 6th 2013.

Made during World War II, it was hoped that the investment of over £1,250,000 into the film would help to establish Britain in the American cinematic market.    Filmed in Technicolor, it took two years to complete, most of it set within a custom-built studio in Denham, England. Over 500 pieces of jewellery and 2000 costumes were created for the film and 400 tons of sand were imported into the Denham studio.  The largest scene included more than 1500 actors.  Conceived on an epic scale, it produced an Academy Award Nomination for Best Art Direction for John Bryan.  The main stars of the film, Claude Raines, Vivien Leigh and Stuart Granger, were all household names.  Vivien Leigh was particularly famous for her role as Scarlett O’Hara, six years earlier, in Gone With The Wind, which was one of the highest-grossing films of all-time.
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A new year has begun and our Fellows are now developing their projects back in their respective institutions. The Cultural Heritage Fellowship, which was established in 2012, aimed at promoting and analysing means of community engagement in cultural institutions in the MENA region. With Fellows from such a range of countries and institutions the projects are developing in unique and original ways. Following from our post last year, I will briefly profile our Jordanian Fellows, Nada Sheikh-Yasin and Mohammad Shaqdih.

M Shaqdih

Mohammad Shaqdih started as the Education Officer at Darat al Funun, a pioneering institution for Jordanian and Arab world arts and artists, and now is the Assistant Director for the Outreach Program. Founded in 1993, Darat al Funun has a holistic melange of facilities, including library, gardens and performance spaces, as well as the exhibition galleries and workshops. The current exhibition, “The power of the word”, uses pieces from the private collections from more than 20 artists from a mix of Arab Countries (such as Muna Hattoum, Rashid Quraishi, Lila Shawwa, Adel Abdin etc.). By choosing artworks that include  words and writings, this lively collection seeks to: “provide the public with a bird’s eye view of works of art created by Arab artists and gives the opportunity to witness, as closely as possible, the development of the Arab Art Movement”. With a background in graphic design and a degree in Applied Arts, Mohammad proved a very insightful Fellow, with experience of working on both side of the art industry, as artist and, now, Director. (more…)

One of the things we do as part of Learning & Access is outreach work with London schools. This is teaching with objects in the classroom, most often with Primary school children. I have been away from work for a while and returning recently I realized this is something I don’t talk about enough so I’m just going to share some numbers with you about outreach that’s happening now.

In 2 months staff are visiting 23 different Primary schools on 27 different days. They are teaching in 66 classes and are working with 2000 children, children of all ages from 4 to 12 years old.

The schools are spread across 5 London Boroughs and in this 2 months, staff will have spent about 45 hours in total travelling on London transport to and from schools… (more…)

Guest blogger: Giancarlo Amati (Digital Developer at the Petrie Museum)

On the 3^rd of November 2012, The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology organized “Digital Egypt: Museums of the Future”, a showcase of 3D interactive applications result from Petrie Museum research into the use of 3D technology in the heritage sector. The 3D interactive applications are also part of a new upcoming exhibition, titled “3D Encounters: where Science meets Heritage”, specially designed to celebrate the opening of the new UCL-Q campus in Doha,Qatar.

A Modern Makeover

A Modern Makeover

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This year saw another lively and successful Bloomsbury festival with collections, performances, and art installations being opened up for anyone to visit and enjoy. In the melee of such a diverse bunch, the Petrie Museum was mentioned in Time Out for its soundscape interactive which offered visitors the “chance to ‘listen’ to animals from ancient Egypt“. This event for families encouraged children to explore the environment of Egypt, using digital technology, interwoven with the 80,000 piece collection and a hands on chance to make your own animal, based on the sounds and objects experienced. The interactive website follows a team of Egyptian hunters on the Nile facing crocodiles, hippos and lions, using the weapons found within the Petrie Museum to try and be victorious.

An Ancient and Modern hippo

his was a nice, light-hearted event that allowed a younger audience to engage, interact and add to an archaeology collection. As well as this, the event encouraged a new thought process, to think of environment; reallocating the objects within their context of use. Users are posed questions of conservation, such as why are animal carcasses not found, and are then apply their knowledge immediately to draw their own conclusions. Digital Humanities is an ever thrown about term in the museum sector, and the Petrie is certainly a leading figure in this arena. Apps using augmented reality, 3D models and even gesture recognition are creating a whole new way to interact with the collection.

Aside from the digital aspects I am really pleased to see children, and adults, willing to make their own objects for the museum, emulating the ancient models (as above). This may initially seem a little trivial, and certainly our plethora of violently green elephants and pink lions do add a little neon vibrancy to the collection, but the fundamental behind such an activity is the concept of ownership and use of the collection. I consider it an excellent practice to encourage visitors, and workers within the museum to not only look at a collection, but to use it for new purposes. At UCL this is often through the medium of research at school, undergraduate and postgraduate level, but it can also be by creating new pieces, even technologies. I have only been at the museum since 2010 (when I started as a Masters student of the IOA), but a few of my favourite projects such as the Comic Book Workshop in collaboration with Camden University, and Magic Assembly: Magic Assemblage exhibition in collaborations with Central St Martins (UAL), encouraged young students to create new work using the collection as inspiration. I am not suggesting new work is necessarily in a position to replace the old, but as a way of drawing a link between a somewhat alien and separate past and our current environment and sentiments.

guest blogger: Tonya Nelson (Petrie Museum Manager)

This year UCL Museums and Public Engagement entered into an exciting partnership with the British Council to develop and deliver a Fellowship programme for museum professionals from the Middle East and North Africa on the topic of community engagement.  While in the UK museums are increasingly creating platforms for their communities to advise and consult on the use of collections, create exhibitions and host their own programmes in museum spaces, little of this type of participation occurs in museums in the Middle East or North Africa.  Eight Fellows coming from Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Algeria, Palestine, and Lebanon were selected for the programme and attended an intensive 2 week training programme in the UK.  However, the idea behind the Fellowship programme is not simply to teach the Fellows about community engagement practices in the UK.  The Fellowship also seeks to share knowledge and ideas.  The hope is that the UK museums supporting the Fellowship will learn about the practices of museums in other countries, build relationships with museum practitioners and institutions abroad and develop a better understanding of how they might serve Middle East/North African communities living in their communities.  To that end, I will write a series of blogs this year profiling the Fellows and the innovative work that they are doing in their home institutions.  In this blog, I will profile the work of Fellows Carla Mardini from Lebanon and Tamara Musha’sha’ from Palestine.

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The Petrie Museum’s Fit Bodies Exhibition on display in the Museum and North Cloisters is drawing to a close (in the Cloisters space) and, whilst I will be happy to get my trusty wooden lacrosse stick back, I am sad this exhibition is ending. Fit Bodies has included a variety of elements, from photographic competitions to theatrical performances in a light-hearted take on the notion of ‘fit’, an adjective accredited to sporting prowess as well as sexual appeal. However, one notion I realised only after giving a seminar on the exhibition, was this expectation of the elite to be attractive, in particular I think of the recent sportsmen and women who have proved their value through trial, tribulation, yet are still presented on that sordid platter of sexuality.

copyright telegraph.co.uk

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guest blogger: Elyse Bailey (Intern at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology)

Usually when the name “Intern” comes to mind, most people think of a young, determined student looking for future connections, more experience in their field of study, and a resume booster. That dreamy description is typically ruined by the thought that this brilliant student is stuck running dull errands, like coffee runs and standing by a photocopier for hours wondering why the clock isn’t going any faster. Even though I have only been with the Petrie Museum for 3-4 weeks, I still have yet to run into any horrifying experiences and hopefully I won’t, but you never know. The jobs that I have helped with thus far have been fairly relaxed tasks, but they’ve kept me quite busy. I’ve been assigned responsibilities from helping set up for a night event to copying the written archives into a word document. Nothing has taken me by surprise and nothing has been super overwhelming. But, what’s great about being assigned these tasks is that I feel like I’m getting the bigger picture as to how a museum operates and what people need to do in order to keep it standing. If I have learned anything so far, it’s that I really underestimated the skill set that people need in order to work at a museum.

Flinders Petrie, a face I am now quite used to!
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