London Museum, ‘Held in the Hand: Everyday Objects, Everyday Lives’ was a brilliant experience for eye Matter members to feel included in the museum.
By Fiona Musgrove.
About his experience at the London Museum Studios Rikki said,”There were plenty of objects to handle. In fact, it was all about handling objects, more than any other previous visits to museums and galleries,of which I’ve been on a few now.”
On Wednesday 25th March around twelve members and volunteers attended the first ever visit to the London Museum Studios for an exclusive object handling session. Everyone was invited to provide a small object which either meant something to themselves, or had a story behind it. As the tray was passed around it was filled with a variety of objects including;a small, soap stone elephant from Africa, a mobile phone, a piece of volcanic rock, a toy car, a yoga ring, a picture of the pope in red chilli peppers and an oil can. Each item held a personal story or adventure similar to many objects laying behind glass cabinets in museums across the UK. Rikki explained about his object, “Mine was a black toy 1960s Humber Hawk police car, a good likeness of my grandpa’s car, except he wasn’t a policeman and his car wasn’t black. He’d take my grandma, mother, brother and me, in it on jolly jaunts in South Devon where I grew up.”
El and Mary (from the museum), alongwith Eye Matter volunteers, who met us at the station, were on hand to offer refreshments and provide more information about the objects, Ricky added, “In my opinion this visit scored very highly because my lovely guide Hayley was very friendly and helpful without being oversolicitous”
Amongst the objects provided by the museum to explore were 250,000 year old arrow heads, a bus ticket machine, a lemonade bottle which contained a marble to keep it carbonated and Victorian school attendance medals. It was interesting to hear how these objects inspired personal stories,such as Suzie threading coins through her school shoe laces and how washing boards could be used as musical instruments.
Rikki said, “Callam, who led the session excellently, handed around a selection of trays containing various objects which wee first attempted to identify and for which he then gave a full description. The first one was real stone-age arrow heads and a replica hand axe, another had two butter paddles on it and one had a lovely old ticket machine. There were many other trays with equally diverse and interesting objects on them.”