Monthly Archives: May 2012

Walking for Heritage

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Next week, in June Half-Term as part of ‘We Made It’, I will be running a project called ‘Walking for Heritage’ with a group of young people from Birmingham. Our challenge is to create a walking trail around the heritage landmarks of Digbeth, the area of Birmingham in which Thinktank is based. I’m really looking forward to the week and all the activities I have planned for the participants, including a canal boat trip on the Ikon Gallery’s Slow Boat, a visit to the Central Library and lots more! We will be documenting many of the things we get up to through the blog so look out for lots of posts next week!

I will be helped by a wonderful friend of mine, Rosie Wells, a local freelance artist and presenter who will be helping the group develop presenting skills and a piece of map art. Take a look at the video she has made, introducing herself to the participants and explaining the tasks she has set them.

 

Creating new exhibits

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Over the next few months we will be following the progress of the new exhibits that are being designed for the We Made It gallery. I will be tracking four exhibits in particular, chosen from each of the main areas in the new gallery, ‘Treasure’, ‘Gadgets’, ‘Nuts and Bolts’ and ‘Tins and Things’. Their journey from initial sketches to full working exhibits is a fascinating one and offers a peek into the world of the exhibition team here at Thinktank.
First up is an exhibit from the ‘Treasure’ area of the gallery ‘Be a gemmologist’. This interactive exhibit invites the visitor to test different stones to find out which ones are authentic.  To the untrained eye it is hard or even impossible to distinguish between natural and synthetic gems or between rubies, garnets and coloured glass.  These three interactives give you a chance to have a go using some of the same equipment that gemmologists at Birmingham’s Assay office use.

Take a look at the photos below to see how the exhibit is developing so far and to learn the science behind them!

Brainstorming new activities

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Object Handling Brainstorm
Holly, Jade and Lisa helping to brainstorm a new activity

This afternoon I met up with one of our wonderful season ticket holder families to brainstorm a new activity that will take place in the We Made it gallery. The basic idea is to have a mobile trolley of interesting objects, demonstrations and activities that our enablers will help children take part in.

The girls came up with some fantastic and creative ideas. I learnt that treasure, one of the main themes of the gallery, is a very popular topic! We also talked about how art and creativity could be used to show manufactured object in a new light. As Lisa is a talented jewellery designer, her creativity helped balance my more ’sciencey’ approach. I’m really excitied about how the finished product will turn out!