A bright start to VERVE's events programme

The end of April saw one of VERVE's busiest weeks in terms of events so far...proving a lot of hard work to make them a success but also a lot of fun too!

A Friday night hosting a group of suited and booted finance managers from the Saïd Business School - introducing them to some of the histories and highlights of the Museum - was followed by a weekend shifting gear to focus on family groups - a nice illustration of the variety of audiences VERVE aims to involve.

We loaded up the van with bells, bunting and biscuits and made our way to Oxford Castle for our first outreach event at Folk Weekend Oxford. It was a beautiful setting in the gardens of the old prison in glorious sunshine. To fit with both the folk theme and the music and performance focus of VERVE in our first year, we offered families the chance to get hands on by making their own morris dancer's knee bell pads or handling some of our global instrument collections - from a Turkish drum to a Chilean rainstick to a West African kora. 

The Pitt Rivers tent at Oxford Castle Gardens

Children chose different coloured ribbons to decorate their knee pads, in the
same way that Morris dancers have distinguishable 'team' patterns and colours.

A Pitt Rivers volunteer demonstrates the silky sound of the kora

Visitors guess how to play some our
instruments and where they're from

Visitors could also watch and listen to demonstrations by our two special guests: Anna Casserley, who introduced vthe Cornish tradition of hand-whittling 'May whistles' from willow branches, and Michael Wright, a renowned authority on the mysterious Jew's harp - an ancient mouth instrument with a surprisingly futuristic sound. We have an extensive collection in the Museum.

We have a busy summer schedule of tent outings so this was a fantastic way to start  - more than 450 people of all ages had a taste of Pitt Rivers in the tent, including many people who had not been to, or even heard of, the Museum before.

Jew's harp expert Michael Wright demonstrates the instrument 

Iron and steel Jew's harp, China PRM 1932.89.248

A few days later we hosted our first Twilight Takeover event, an initiative to work with young people to help them organize and curate a social evening at the Museum. The many weeks of careful planning paid off - more than 200 people came to experience the Museum with atmospheric lighting, music, bellydancing and contemporary dance choreographed by Rosie Kay. The 'Mask Parlour' was particularly popular, buzzing with industry and imagination. It just goes to show, we are all kids at heart! In addition, we were amazed and impressed by those who came with their own masks - everything from carnival ones to Venetian ones to horror ones.

Guess who? Masked guests at the Masquerade event

Videographer Dan Keeble made this wonderful short film of the night (3 mins) and the student organizers will write a fuller account for this blog soon.

Twilight Takeover: Masquerade at the Museum from Pitt Rivers Museum on Vimeo.

Then, with just enough time to draw breath, we hosted our second Skills in the Making workshop in partnership with NSEAD. Artists Caroline Broadhead and Julie Westbury came from London to deliver a full-day session for 16 Oxfordshire art teachers. Participants were asked to bring a few items such as scissors and a sketchbook and a camera to record both their own work and that of other people. The theme was the 'Performing Objects' and people were asked to think about creating a piece that would in some way change the body's appearance, conceal it, restrict its movement or impact on the wearer's 'personal space'. In this the Museum's Body Arts collections were an obvious inspiration.

After the artists showed a powerpoint of their own work and approaches, the participants were let loose with a variety of materials including flexible furniture cane, coloured thread, wax paper, plastic bands, plastic fibres, foil and newspaper. Soon, a plethora of inventive accessories started taking shape, from rings and ruffs, to head-dresses and hats. Julie and Caroline encouraged everyone to think in new ways - "what if you turned it this way?" or "what sort of sound does it make when you move in it?" Many pieces were items that restricted the senses, such as vision, touch or even breathing. Each person explained their pieces to the rest of the group and many reported how uneasy this stifling of the senses made them feel - the voluntary denial of interaction with one's environment.

An alternative fascinator

The wearer said her brain tried to
'fill in the gaps' in her stripy vision

A punky hand ornament, reminiscent of
some of the Museum's knuckledusters

Dubbed an 'isolation bridle' and inspired by cane-work,
this contraption was designed to keep the wearer's
hands in the correct position when making
quills - a mediative, repetitive action.

This striking cone visor started off as a finger
ornament, then increased in scale!

By the end of the day there had been an impressive array of sculptural forms made and everyone took interest in each other's work and discovering new ways of working. Feedback from the teachers was positive. One noted, "a good opportunity to make some work for myself and nice to chat to others about how we can use and recycle everyday objects." After the success of our two Skills in the Making workshops we will be meeting with NSEAD and OAT (Oxfordshire Art Teachers) network to see how we can take the partnership forward. 

So, in little over a week, VERVE has involved more than 750 people from all backgrounds and interests, built relationships with all sorts of new groups, and constructed outreach and workshop models we can take forward into the future. All good stuff, and now the team can put its feet up for a little while before our big summer programme starts - watch this space..!

Twilight Takeover - it's time for Masquerade at the Museum!

** FOR INFORMATION ON PARTICIPATING IN OUR DANCE WORKSHOP, 

SCROLL TO THE END OF THIS POST! **

It's all hands to the deck as we prepare for our pioneering Twilight Takeover event on Thursday 25th April...

CONCEPT & TICKETING

We hope to stage several 'Twilight Takeover' evenings a year for the duration of the VERVE project. One group we would like to encourage to engage more with the Museum is young adults, so the Takeover events offer the chance for young people to conceive and take responsibility for an alternative social evening event in the Museum. Liaising with Museum staff, the young people are supported in  thinking about how to best use the space and combine the Museum's message with a fun and off-beat evening of entertainment that will appeal to other curious young people.

Our inaugural Twilight Takeover event is organised by a small group of postgraduate Anthropology students at the University of Oxford. They have approached the task with huge enthusiasm and a limited budget to come up with what promises to a fabulous evening. 'Masquerade at the Museum' will tie into VERVE's first phase focus on dance and performance by featuring mask-making parlours, live bands, interactive tours, contemporary dance and even a belly dancer. A bar and lighting effects will help transform the Victorian space into a buzzing, social venue. The response has been phenomenal. We can only fit 250 people into the Museum at any one time but at least three times that number have expressed their interest! Hopefully, by repeating these types of events every few months, many more people will be able to attend in the future.

** NOTE: we will be releasing 10 extra tickets this Wednesday 17th April at 17.30 via our online ticket sales. **

So, we're busy preparing for our big night - the Mechanisms, who will be performing musical storytelling and vintage cabaret, have been in for their sound check:

MASKS

The students have also picked a 'Mask-a-Day' from the collections to whet your appetite leading up to the event. These showcase some of the Central American masks that will be going on display soon in the Museum as part of the VERVE gallery improvement plan, and will help inspire those who want to make a mask before they come. You will be able to see the masks on the Facebook event page or our Flickr page.

Mask from the Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins
Mexico (PRM: 1987.16.11)

DANCE WORKSHOPS

We've also been thinking about how to make this a participatory event, to help people interact with the Museum and we'll be holding dance workshops THIS WEEK. This is also a way those unlucky enough not to be able to get hold of a ticket can come to the evening!

So, if you're interested in embodiment, art installations, masks, masquerades, alternative forms of ethnography, new ways to engage with museum collections, and/or dancing, then this is for you! You'll be working with choreographer Rosie Kay to create the dance installation as a way of rethinking and reframing the masks collection. You will then perform the piece on the night in the Museum! The installation will use thoughtful, engaged movements and absolutely no previous dance experience (or rhythm, coordination, musical sensibility, etc...) is required!

The workshops will run this week on this WEDNESDAY 17th, THURSDAY 18th and FRIDAY 19th April, 11.00 – 16.00 (there may be some flexibility if you're very keen but can't make every session). For more details , please email verve@prm.ox.ac.uk expressing your interest ASAP. 

Skills in the Making with Michael Brennand Wood

On Saturday 2nd March the Pitt Rivers Museum hosted the popular Skills in the Making workshop focusing on creative textiles with Michael Brennand Wood.

Internationally regarded as one of the most innovative and inspiring artists working in textiles in the UK today, Michael's work varies from public art pieces to exhibition work addressing political and aesthetic themes. He explores a wide range of textile practices including embroidery, pattern, lace and floral imagery. He has developed many techniques and imaginative ways of integrating textiles with other media.

Michael took the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum as a starting point for an exciting mixed media workshop involving 25 art and design teachers from Oxfordshire and beyond.

After an initial presentation about the workshop's objectives and how it related to the collections in the Museum, there was a short introduction on techniques and materials illustrated by examples of Michael's artwork, which served both as reference and inspiration.

A visit to the galleries to source imagery for the workshop - taking photos and making drawings - was followed by nearly four hours of ‘making’ time in our new, multi-purpose "Museums' Annexe" space. Participants were asked to bring a selection of scrap fabrics, a basic sewing kit, and art equipment as well as smaller objects with a personal memory to incorporate them into layers of cloth or laminate and add an interesting angle to the textiles frames.

Gradually the pieces emerged, incorporating tensioned layers of cloth, collage, stitch, paint and other mixed media. The overall effect of the 25 personal and colourful textile laminates was stunning; each showed a journey through successive layers from different directions revealing unexpected configurations and relationships.

A discussion and critique acted as a plenary for what was a highly enjoyable and creative day! Here's what some of the participants had to say:

'A fabulous day thank you. It has been so good to explore a new technique and craft - and just have time to develop my own work.'

'Excellent, well worth coming and very good location.'

'Excellent day. Very good - unstressed, creative and instructive. Best value day's instruction I have ever attended.'

[Quotes: Skills in the Making workshop for teachers, delivered by NSEAD in partnership with Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford Art Teach]

Skills in the Making workshops are supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and delivered by NSEAD. Facilitated by some of the UK's leading designer-makers, they are designed to support teachers to extend their knowledge and practice of contemporary crafts to develop art, craft and design programmes in school. This video gives a flavour of the workshops and the programme's goals.

The next Skills in the Making workshop is on 27th April 2013 at the Pitt Rivers Museum with jewellery-maker turned textile artist, Caroline Broadhead. Drawing inspiration from the collections, participants will make objects that relate to and transform with the movement of the body. Click here for more info and to reserve a place.

An Evening of Striptease, Carnival & Forest Spirits

We hosted our second After Hours event on Wednesday. Entry to the Museum after 4.30 is via our South Door down Robinson Close off South Parks Road. It can be hard to find for those not familiar with it, so our technician Jon designed a top-storey sign to help visitors navigate to us in the dusk!

Mike O'Hanlon gives an illustrated talk about display in PNG

The theme this time was 'Masquerade and Performance' and visitors were treated to a talk by the Museum's Director, Dr Michael O'Hanlon, on the elaborate ceremonies of the Wahgi people of Highland New Guinea, amongst whom he conducted first-hand anthropological fieldwork some years ago. Enticingly entitled 'Striptease', it was fascinating to hear about the way the putting on and taking off of colourful costume, dance, shiny skin and expensive bird feather headdresses carry so much social meaning among the various clans who live there.

Also on hand were members of Sol Samba, Oxford's vibrant Brazilian carnival act. Even with just three performers, they still managed to whip up a torrent of invigorating sounds with their drums. After a demo and explanation of the history and tradition of the maracatu genre from northern Brazil, they encouraged visitors to get involved by having a go with the instruments.

Sol Samba get into the rhythm

We see these evening as great opportunities to showcase some of our recently digitised sound and film collections. In 2009, the Museum acquired an 8mm film shot in Ladakh, Tibet by Major Peter Hailey during his service there in the Second World War. The footage shows various scenes of the people and landscape, including the courtyard at Hemis Buddhist monastery where the 'cham' (masked dance) representing the eight forms of the guru Padmasambhava is performed to a large crowd. You can see the whole film here (18 mins).

Setting up the film in the galleries and a scene from the 'cham' dance

Ejengi spirit dance at Mongengé village (PRM: 1997.21.3.6)

Our ethnomusicologist Noel Lobley created a great soundtrack for the evening, featuring 'ejengi' music from the Central African Republic. Ejengi is a Bayaka spirit summoned to dance at initiation ceremonies that can last for months. The sounds represent ejengi emerging from his lair, men and women singing polyphonic songs, and leaves 'popping' in the forest. The 'spirit', dressed in plant fibre, assumes a myriad of dance forms - charging at singers, collapsing to the ground, and spinning like a waterfall. This music comes from more than 1000 hours of soundscapes that form the Museum's Louis Sarno Collection of Bayaka recordings. 

Finally, a themed quiz sent visitors off in search of masks, instruments and puppets in the gallery...

Here are the answers to the quiz:

'George Washington' puppet made
 for a performance Wilkinson gave
for Eleanor Roosevelt in the USA
(PRM 1985.36.18)

1. Name the New Ireland mortuary ceremony at which tatanua masks are worn?

'Malangan'.

2. In Japanese Noh plays, what feature of a mask denotes a female character’s emotional state – its colour, hair or expression? 

The hair.

3. Can you find and name the four ‘Peep Show’ puppets made and toured around England by Walter Wilkinson in the 1920s and 30s? 

'Russian woman', 'George Washington', 'Sally' and 'Professor'.

Walter Wilkinson was a leading figure in the revival of puppet theatre in England and toured on foot with his handcart containing his camp and a dozen hand-made glove puppets and props.

4. The open-mouth ‘aopa’ drum from Papua New Guinea uses a skin membrane from which animal?
Monitor lizard.

5. What kind of trumpet was used at the Italian festival of Piedigrotta?
Shell trumpet

CONGRATULATIONS to Mrs C. Strudwick who was picked at random from the quiz entrants and got the answers right. You win an Australian Aboriginal rain-shaker!

We'll be holding these evening openings on the third Wednesday of the month - they are a great chance for you to experience the Museum in a different, more relaxed, child-free atmosphere with a light programme of activities or entertainments. What's more they are totally FREE! We're looking forward to our next After Hours on Wednesday, 20 March where we will be launching the results of our 'Reel to Real' sound archive project. See you there!

New member of VERVE team gets to task with masks

This week, an update from our newest member of the team!

Hi, I’m Sian, the VERVE project Curatorial Assistant. I have been working at the Pitt Rivers Museum in the Collections department for 6 years, cataloguing everything from amulets to spinning wheels. I am lucky that every day I work with different objects that have different stories and I am looking forward to uncovering even more of the Museum’s amazing collections during the course of the project.

So, what have I been up to so far? This week I have been cataloguing Mexican and Guatemalan secular dance masks. 'Cataloguing' is a museum term that covers several procedures to ensure we have all the details we ned about any given object. So it involves photographing and measuring the object, adding a detailed description to our database, and noting the object’s condition. Some of masks are very striking - they have piercing painted glass eyes and realistic looking teeth made from recycled porcelain sherds.

PRM 1951.11.17

Some dance masks were made to represent cultural stereotypes or figures from colonial history. The mask below is said to represent Pedro de Alvarado, a Spanish conquistador and governor of Guatemala in the 1530s.

PRM 1951.11.13

Sian

Four-sidedness: boxes, houses and coffins

We continue to prepare the ground for the completion of the lighting installation and other VERVE redisplay plans by moving and re-homing material. Museum conservator Andrew has provided the following update:

Firstly, the large music collection, removed from the Upper Gallery some weeks ago, has now been re-housed in its new home at our off-site storage facility. It took some time to get the space ready due to issues relating to environmental suitability, management and the logistics of ordering enough shelving for 400+ objects and transporting them, but the task is now complete!

Next was the move of the second model house from Papua New Guinea. These were collected in 1888 by H. H. Romilly and were presented by A.W. Franks to the Museum in 1893 so they are old and important ethnographic objects. 

This second house is labeled: 'Model of a pile dwelling Motu Tribe, S.E. New Guinea'. It's not known how long it has been above the wall cases in the Court, but probably more than 70 years. The houses are made from palm wood and palm leaves which are very fragile and easily damaged, and it was not possible to clean them safely in situ. They were moved to the Conservation lab where we have been cleaning and stabilizing them before they return to new, more visible locations in the Court.

Technician Alan getting ready to move the model house

What 70 years of dust looks like! 

The model palm houses in the lab. The difference between
the cleaned one (foreground, PRM 1893.42.3) and the
dusty one (PRM 1893.42.2) behind it, is marked.

Andrew shows the difference a careful hoovering job can make

Lastly, as the Made for Trade exhibition was dismantled after its successful run, the specially-commissioned Ghanaian coffin from the Kane Kwei fantasy coffin workshop in Accra has been moved to a new position in the Court, above the introductory case on the left as you come down the entrance steps. Painted with product advertisements to make it look like a shop front, it makes a colourful and attractive addition to the newly lit upper levels of display.

After Hours & Meet the Team

So, it's been a busy week as the VERVE team settle into their new roles, phone calls have been made, meetings arranged and real progress made. On Wednesday we hosted our first ever After Hours event, focussing on South and Central America and seventy people ventured into the Museum after the sun went down.

After Hours events will happen each month. It's your chance to enjoy the Museum of an evening, away from the hordes, and you'll also be able to take advantage of a free, themed programme such as talks, music, or screenings (and, as it's the Pitt Rivers, tea and biscuits) or you can simply enjoy the Museum at your own pace.

Next month's will be on Wednesday 20 Feb with a theme of Performance and Masquerade. 

See the website for more details.

Fig Roll Anyone?

Quiztastic!

It's also good to put name to a face so let's introduce you to the team...

I'm Maya - the new VERVE Project Activities and Outreach Officer. Previously an Education Officer at Science Oxford, I have experience running design and technology related workshops and activities and make stained glass and mosaic art as a hobby, so am a great fan of all things craft-related! We're kicking off the outreach element of the project with the creation of a Pitt Rivers pop-up tent which will be designed and customised in time for the festival season starting in May. More details to follow so watch this space!

GRRR - I'm Nicky, I'm the VERVE Volunteers Manager. I've worked at the Pitt Rivers Museum as Executive Research Assistant for the past 3 years. Before that I was an Interpretation Officer at the Museum of Reading and before that I worked at the Museum of the Terracotta Warriors in China as an Interpretation Officer. I'm looking forward to welcoming new volunteers to take part in our exciting range of activities and offering them the support needed to ensure they have a great experience at the Pitt Rivers. 

If you are reading this and are thinking "I'd like to volunteer" then why not send me a quick email.

I'm Drew - the new VERVE project Communications Officer. I've previously done all kinds of things, from organising and promoting music festivals, to starting and running underground an supper club as well as running a small PR & Marketing agency my personal job highlight has to be being santa for a weekend. (ahem - I mean santa's helper). Looking for a new challenge, and being a regular visitor to 'The Pitt' I'm really excited about being here, and even more excited about what's happening in and out of museum over the coming year. Outside of work I love drinking coffee, walking my puppy and buying (too much) vinyl.

And finally, I'm Helen, the VERVE Project Curator / Engagement Officer. I've been lucky enough to work at the Pitt Rivers for six years and every time I tell people where I work it makes feel all warm and glowy inside when they say how much they love the Museum. My research and interpretation work has been varied, from putting together new displays of guns and Aboriginal art, to writing audio tour scripts, setting up social media initiatives and going out to film artists and experts. I've long wanted to work in the cultural sector and spent a good few years juggling studying, volunteering and waitressing. After a lucky break at the V&A, I wound up at the Pitt, my favourite childhood museum. I'm really excited about VERVE and all the things we're going to achieve - new resources, new activities, new audiences - a new era for the Museum. When I'm not here I enjoy the outdoors, pubs, soppy films, and singing loudly and badly in my little yellow car.