Innovation Award 2019
In March, Cornwall Museums Partnership and SW Museum Development hosted the annual Cornwall Heritage Awards to celebrate and champion the amazing work that’s taking place across museums in Cornwall.
This week we are looking at the Innovation Award, which highlights projects or initiatives that have made an organisation more resilient.
We would like to thank PH Media for sponsoring this award.
Innovation Award – Winner (Larger Organisation)
Wheal Martyn: Clay Stories
Every two months the staff pick at Wheal Martyn pick a theme to be represented across all aspects of the museum. These ‘Clay Stories’ are shared on social media, installations are shown in the atrium, and a range of themed children’s activities are created. A particularly successful theme was ‘The Kettle Kid’ over the summer in 2018. This theme included an interactive trail, children’s workshops, and a special Kettle Kid café menu. The different themes have proved very popular, gaining coverage from ITV News and BBC Radio Cornwall.
Innovation Award – Winner (Smaller Organisation)
Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol, Looe: Kids Take Over the Museum
Last year, the Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol in Looe took part in the national Kids in Museums’ Takeover Day. As part of the event, staff from the museum went to Looe Primary Academy to talk to pupils about how the museum is run. After researching their different jobs, the children then took on the roles of stewards, marketing, front of house, artists, managers, education officers, and curators for the day. The event was a big success. The museum volunteers have learned a lot about engaging with different audiences, and many of the children wanted to help at the museum again.
Innovation Award – Highly Commended (Larger Organisations)
Cornwall’s Regimental Museum: Museum Late by the Young Curators
The Young Curators are a group of 16 – 18 year-olds who meet weekly at Cornwall’s Regimental Museum. As part of the Kids in Museums’ Takeover Day, they created, planned and delivered a Museum Late. With the theme ‘India: Empire and Influence’ they explored new ways of talking about the controversial subject of British rule in India. Creating an exhibition of previously unseen photographs from the collection, a series of talks examining the objects, and an escape room experience based on the Viceroy’s office.
Museum of Cornish Life, Helston: Becoming the Museum of Cornish Life
Staff, trustees, and volunteers were all involved in rebranding the museum to better reflect who they are, and what visitors will experience at the museum – a glimpse of social history and industrial life on the Lizard Peninsula. They now have a strong visual identity and a clear brand including a new website, leaflet, signage and a new set of photographic images.
Innovation Award – Highly Commended (Smaller Organisations)
The Castle Heritage Centre, Bude: Temporary Exhibition Space for National Loans
A ‘Ready to Borrow’ grant enabled the Castle Heritage Centre in Bude to renovate an existing gallery to become a new temporary exhibition area. The renovation included new showcases, improved security, and temperature/humidity monitoring. The museum is now able to showcase significant objects from major museums, with the aim of getting some of Bude’s important artefacts back to the town. The new temporary exhibition space has also increased the number of local visitors to the heritage centre.
Perranzabuloe Museum: ‘Memory and Now’ Perranzabuloe Scrapbook Project
Working with local artist Felicity Tattersall, Perranzabuloe Museum has built a new relationship with a local art and wellbeing group. Through workshops, they created artwork to go into a new scrapbook inspired by a historic 19th century scrapbook held in their collection. The scrapbook has opened up a different way of looking at history, focusing on the idea that ‘we are the history’. The scrapbook has some empty pages in the hope of further collaborations with other groups in the future.
