within this process of residency i’m finding i’m often returning to looking at myself and my own practice, considering what my own needs are and are they being met.
i’ve tried to be open to the challenges being set and have engaged with as many as possible.
nearly at the end of week three i peer around me looking for external references to gauge where i am within the overall process. is it ok to be slightly bewildered still ? is it ok to be wanting to get into the flow of making?
my friend and partner in the reseidency process is my forest school leader practice.
the museum is investing in and becoming a beacon for the steam educational ethos. to help me understand this ethos i’m bringing with me elelments of the forest school ethos, as both processes are holistic in nature.
considering steam for a moment, what i currently know and understand of the ethos is that it is project based, holistic and leaning on the creative arts as a way of expressing and exploring science, technology, engineering and maths.
i’ve done alot of on line research into it and it will eventually come down to me putting into practice the theory.
the challenges of this have the potential to set up philosphical differences within the maker group. we might struggle to explore this in an environment of continual positive langauge.
i have wondered at times in the last three weeks about how challenging this residency is for the staff who have overseen the reimagining of the museum since the outset. potentially they have a group of makers responding to what they see and having different stand points and different needs and wants. how do the staff cope with this?
something i seem to have set up for myself is the re-imagining of the snee snaw for the figment festival in august. this takes me out of my comfort zone.
at the beginning of the residency we were urged to be ambitious. re imagining the snee snaw takes my ambition levels to new heights. it would appear that the staff really want the snee snaw to be part of the festival. to do this and all the other makes and activities i’ve said i would do is going to test my resolve and my ability and maybe at the end of the whole process i can look back and see what i can do when i leave comfort zone and place myself in the moment of making.
i missed my moment of making yesterday. i note when i miss it i feel unhappy. making really does feed my well being.
our residency is also being supported by the museum’s partner status in the maker ed, #makercorps summer programme. i participated in a google hangout session last week. i can recommend the hangout app as a means to communicate and advise an initial exploratory session prior to using it for a meaningful means.
in the hangout session i started to get an in site into the differences of experiences and attitude to making around the world.
last thursday i took to observe the maker bar to work on an idea for the big bang school exhibition on the 30th june. at this a group of us will represent the museum with things to do based on the steam ethos. i’ve gone into steam powered carnival mode.
there’s a small amount of anxiety connected to delivering that project… the museum mantra being feel the fear and do it any way.
implies a certain amount of being outside what we know and are comfortable with. are all the staff at the museum working in this manner ?
with my friday forest school session not happening last week i was able to visit and observe the under 5 session at the derby museum and art gallery. i’m interested in the brief at the silk mill to develop an under 5 programme of activity for the silk mill. it’s a user group i’ve done the least with yet i feel most at home with them because of their kinesthetic learning style. the invitation is to unpack that idea later this week.
writing this is starting to make me feel happier. there are so many threads happening at once that writing helps me to order and process them. it helps me to create a perspective.
i spent some time yesterday with another member of the museum curatorial staff. i’m learning about how they look for narratives originating from the objects and how they can weave narratives from groups of objects. the accession number being the king pin of this system:
site identifier : year : object group number for that year : item number in group.
thoughts of an interactive appear …
i explored further the stores of the silk mill …
and walked to the silk mill in the rain, just as many other of the staff did :
it feels important to me to record what’s happening as the museum’s status is going to be continually updated and the timeline of this in theory informs what happens next.
there have been signals i’ve picked up on of certain major aspects of the re-imagining already being under taken and in place for the future.
i search for my maker moment as this is what i’m being paid to do. this is also what gives me a sense professional achievement and personal happiness.
