Open Museum Annual Report

The Dorothy Goodman School borrowed works reflecting a variety of landscapes and environments and used Artworks to support a range of curriculum based work including creative writing, maths, science and citizenship as well as art based activities.

The Worklink project is a voluntary project for people with learning disabilities. It offers day-centre facilities as well as a workshop where furniture is recycled and resold by the volunteers. The Project borrowed the ‘What a Waste?’ display from the Open Museum to exhibit in their seating area as a talking point and to encourage debate in a non-threatening environment among the volunteers,  based on a subject of which they already had prior knowledge and to further raise awareness of issues surrounding waste and recycling.

“Thank-you, the response to the display has been very good”

- Volunteer, Worklink project

Westfield County Junior School undertook a joint art and history/archaeology project in which they used a very large African terracotta pot from Resource Box to inspire the pupils to create something of similar scale.  The pot was broken into sherds before firing (the kiln was too small for the pot), and then rebuilt by the pupils to so they could experience of how archaeologists work. The school also borrowed archaeological specimens including fragments of Roman Samian ware and flint hand axes.  These were buried in compost with modern but fragile / corroding materials like nails and the children ‘excavated’ the objects, learning to differentiate between old and new objects and to learn that some materials can survive intact while others corrode or rot and disappear over time.