I attended the Museums Association Exhibition and Conference on the 8th and 9th of November. This year it was hosted by Edinburgh, at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. There were many keynote speeches, training workshops and debates to attend, as well as a networking event and ceilidh dancing at the National Museum of Scotland on the first evening.
(L-R) Beatrice, Louise and Natasha at the reception evening at the National Museum of Scotland.
I met up with two HLF Skills for the Future trainees, Beatrice McDermott, who is based at the Garden Museum in London and Katherine Reed, who is based at the Chiltern Open Air Museum. Katherine was volunteering as a steward for the conference so she was very busy and we only met briefly. It was lovely to meet in person, having only been in contact via Facebook and Twitter previously! While we were there, we formed a group with Natasha Honeyman, who is an MA student and works part-time for Brisbane’s Living Heritage Network in Autralia. She had come over to England for two weeks, especially to attend the conference. It was great to speak to a museum professional and museum studies student fromthe other side of the world, and find out about how things are done! We also met Louise, an MA student in Scotland.
Natural history ceiling display in the National Museum of Scotland
The most valuable aspect of the conference was the opporunity to attend ‘Smarter Training’ sessions, short 30 minute training workshops run by musuem professionals and consultants. I joined the following:
- Getting your story out there – how to run a media campaign
- Perfect prose – top tips to improve your text
- Focus, focus, focus – producing creative and effective audio and AV
- Running Twitter and Facebook accounts – the nitty gritty
These short training sessions were packed with tips, examples and best practice advice, which I particularly enjoyed and gained a lot from.
Martin Roth – Director of the V&A
There were also keynote speeches by various speakers; Fiona Hyslop (Cabinet secretary for culture and external affairs), Aamer Anwar (Criminal defence lawyer), Martin Roth (Director of the V&A), and Mark O’Neill(Director of policy and research at Glagow Life). These speeches raised various points about cultural identity, social justice, independance for Scotland, international work, partnerships in the UK, opportunities and challenges facing the museums sector, and access.
Other sessions:
- ‘Teaching Museums – shaping the next generation’. This session discussed the future museum professional and what attributes, qualities, skills and qualification or training they may need, as well as the country’s first ”Teaching Museum’ in Norfolk (see Norfolk County Council news for details) – using the idea of a teaching hospital for the museums sector.
- ‘Expanding Horizons’. This session discussed international partnerships, sharing skills and opening communication. A case study of work in the Balkans was presented.
- ‘Unlocking the past’. This session presented case studies of prisoners working with museum collections, and argued for the value of this practice.
- ‘Iobject! Working through conflict in musuems’ – This session talked about various instances of conflict and differences within museums. Groups then talked about any examples of conflict they had experienced and the outcome.
Overall the MA Conference was a great experience, which offered many talks, training and events to attend. It was a shame however, that many of the talks and workshops overlapped, which resulted in having to choose one session and miss other interesting presentations.
Whilst in Edinburgh, I made a pitstop to Glasgow to see friends and visit a museum – this time it was the Riverside Museum. I do intend to go back to Glasgow again soon and sample some of the other museums and galleries on offer there! I thought that the interpretation and display of objects at the Riverside Museum was interesting and bright, a good use of the large and almost clinical space. See pictures below.
cars and dresses…
my friends in an old tram …and part of ‘Main Street’
Upper Clyde Shipbuilders poster
Museum Musings 