Exploring Collaborative Outputs: A Productive Meeting with The Bowes Museum

On Wednesday 11th October, Felicia, Floris, and Oliver travelled to our project partner, the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle. We met with Vicky Sturrs, Director of Programmes and Collections; Jane Whittaker the Collections Manager; Rachel Whitworth, Curator of Fashion & Textiles, and Howard Coutts (Curator of Ceramics) to discuss and plan collaborative outputs, which we are very excited about.

The project will offer an initial series of talks using items from Bowes collections and research to present fresh narratives to new audiences, that chime with the Bowes’ exciting new themes of “Artists, Makers, and Designers” and “curiosity, creation, connection”.

We hope to use our talks as a springboard for further collaboration, which could include new guides and trails, workshops, and teacher resource packs and training events.

            After a lovely lunch, the project went around the museum, brainstorming with Howard and Rachel, about what objects could be used in the planned talks. The objects on display provide many stories and narratives which coincided with research that the project members are doing. Felicia was particularly excited to look at eighteenth-century textiles that Rachel kindly brought out of the stores for her.

            The Bowes Museum has recently received a Lottery Grant to refurbish its premier object, the Silver Swan. Repair work was being undertaken while the project was there, and Howard and the experts from the Cumbria Clock Company (CCC) in charge of the repairs graciously allowed the project to examine the swan in its disassembled form. Speaking with the experts from the CCC, we got a glimpse of the intricacies involved in repairing this highly complex eighteenth-century mechanism.