Call for Proposals – Family Activities

UCL Museums & Cultural Programmes are seeking proposals from artists, facilitators, and creative practitioners for fun and inspiring family activities. This is to be developed and delivered in response to our collections and displays in the Grant Museum of Zoology, Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology and UCL Art Museum. Building on the success of past workshops, self-led activities, and other family-focused events, we are looking for proposals that fit with our themes and explore our collections in new and innovative ways.

UCL Museums & Cultural Programmes: Themes & Key Moments

For general information about UCL Museums please visit the homepage.

Our programmes and exhibitions explore themes relating to:

• Power & social justice
• Biodiversity, climate justice
• Research related to issues that reflect UCL’s impact locally, nationally and globally

We encourage you to make use of UCL Museums’ Collections Online.

There are also museum-specific themes we are interested in exploring:

Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology

• Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Petrie Museum in its current premises (June 1953 – June 2023) to mark the centenary of Flinders Petrie’s birth in June 1853
• Responding to current exhibitions ‘Women and hieroglyphs’ and ‘Tutankhamun the boy: Growing up in Ancient Egypt’

Grant Museum of Zoology

• Invertebrates and their natural habitats
• Threatened species and the impact on ecological systems
• Cross-cultural associations from the species on display
• Using past exhibition ‘Displays of Power’ to explore connections between Empire and natural history collections

UCL Art Museum

• Playful interpretations exploring the link between art, language and culture inspired from new showcase ‘Not Just Words: Learning languages through art and objects’

 

Workshop format

• Workshops are typically three hours in duration at all museums
• Activities inspired by the Grant Museum collections need to be flexible to cater for our Family Members who can usually access the Museum an hour before public opening hours. This benefit will need to be considered in proposing offsite or remote workshops while the Grant Museum is temporarily closed for refurbishment
• Activities must be family-friendly, supporting groups of mixed ages and abilities to work together to make, explore, create and move through our spaces
• Proposals can be for drop-in workshops, durational workshops or set timed events/performances
• Proposals should consider the museums as a space for mixed audiences, with families taking part in a space with other visitors
• Proposals must be suitable for delivery in the museum, but may also consider options for further reach through digital delivery
• Proposals can include a range of materials, but should be mainly ‘dry’ and suitable for a space used for collections display or handling (e.g. no pastels, paint, glue, marker pens or charcoal).
• Please email museums@ucl.ac.uk if you have any queries regarding the museums.

 

Dates

Activities will be scheduled for Saturdays across 2023 starting with the following:

Petrie Museum of Egyptian & Sudanese Archaeology: 13 May, 10 June, 8 July

Grant Museum of Zoology: 24 June* (offsite/online), 29 July* (offsite/online)

UCL Art Museum: 27 May

*Potentially delivered in a different location due to scheduled refurbishment – offsite or online

Please note that these dates are still subject to confirmation.

 

Examples of recent activity

What’s in a Name? at the Petrie Museum

This workshop invited families to explore hieroglyphics on display in the Petrie Museum and look at the contribution to archaeology made by women like Margaret Murray. Participants then learned to write their name using hieroglyphs and create a cartouche.

My Micrarium Masterpiece at the Grant Museum

A workshop using specimens in the micrarium as inspiration for families to design their own invertebrates or recreate their favourite sample. Using illustration techniques, translucent materials and a light box to recreate the appearance of the microscope slides.

Birds of a Feather – Make Together at the Grant Museum

A creative mask-making workshop inspired by the bird specimens in the Grant Museum and understanding their places in the eco-system.

 

Fee

The base fee for workshop delivery is £200: to cover up to four hours of activity, with additional budget for materials. Additional preparation time can be agreed, depending on the nature of the proposal, its link to the museum displays and the required devising time. Please give an indication of this within your proposal.

 

Next steps

Proposals to be completed using the Word template below along with a CV of no more than two pages. Please send to museums@ucl.ac.uk for the attention of George Paris by 6pm on Sunday 19 February 2023.

Family Activity proposal template 2023 (Word)

Further information about UCL Museums:

UCL Museums information pack (PDF)