Christmas

Director’s Christmas Message 2021

Leave a Comment

Missions, meeting points, and curious connections

I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe that we are finding ourselves in December already – where did the year go?!

The challenges posed by Covid-19 continued, of course, but so did the opportunities and the thrill of excitement offered by trialling innovative approaches across all our activities.

On a mission

The year got off to an exciting start with the launch of our new Vision and Mission, a crucial part of Vision 2024, the transformative strategy for our centenary.

The work with our architects Purcell continued apace, with the hugely satisfying achievement of reaching a major milestone in the development of our capital project in late summer. We are very actively seeking funding for the next stages of the development and I am looking forward to sharing progress in future Newsletters.

Multaka: a new meeting point

Talking about funding, we were thrilled to announce the successful collaboration with Alwaleed Philanthropies on the continuation of the multi-award winning Multaka-Oxford project that we are jointly running with the Pitt Rivers Museum.

Of all the projects I have been involved with in my career, Multaka undoubtledly ranks amongst those that I am most proud of, and I can’t wait for this new phase to start.

2021 Highlights

And so much else happened for which there is far too little space here (no surprise the months flew by!):

are just three examples.

Curiosity Calendar

A propos Collections Online, I can’t imagine a more fun way to explore this project than our Curiosity Calendar – one door each day all the way to Christmas and no increase in waistline, promise ☺!

None of this would have been possible without our fantastic audiences, our wonderful supporters – and the incredible team that I have the privilege to lead.

THANK YOU!

With best wishes for a peaceful and relaxing festive season and a happy and healthy 2022,

Silke

Dr Silke Ackermann FSA
Director

Opportunities in a crisis: Silke’s Christmas message

Leave a Comment

HSM Director Silke Ackermann shares her mantra for 2020, reflects on innovative — if occasionally bumpy — times this year, and looks forward to some exciting new initiatives for 2021.

Early in the year, when listening to the Chinese Ambassador speaking about the virus in Wuhan on a BBC politics talk show, I was entirely fascinated to learn that the Chinese word for crisis is a combination of two words: crisis and opportunities.

Never was an interview — or an unexpected language lesson — timelier.

Yes, we can

There are opportunities in every crisis became our mantra – a mantra that enabled us to maintain a positive can-do attitude throughout world-wide challenges to the cultural sector that neither of us could have imagined in our worst nightmares.

We:

  • developed new and agile working practices
  • embraced digital media whose name we had not even heard of a couple of months earlier
  • created innovative displays online for lockdown(s) and onsite for reopening
  • reached audiences globally who were previously not even aware of our existence, and
  • managed to keep all team members safe and supported throughout.

A new vision

Amazingly, we also managed to keep Vision 2024, the ambitious strategy for our centenary, on track and on schedule.

Even better: the necessity to adapt and change at breath-taking speed over the past ten months has provided us with any number of chances to trial and pilot ideas that we want to implement for Vision 2024 – opportunities in a crisis, indeed.

THANK YOU to our fantastic audiences and wonderful supporters who came along with us on the occasionally bumpy ride — we could not have done this without you!

It’s all about teamwork

None of this would have been possible without the incredible team that I have the privilege to lead, and especially my colleagues on our Executive Team who have rolled up sleeves, pulled out all the stops, and were there with me when the going got tough. THANK YOU!

  • One of our curators unveils our iconic Armillary Sphere after Lockdown
  • Browsing ingenious objects
  • Checking out goodies in the Museum Shop

We hope that 2021 will continue to offer opportunities, but ideally less crisis!

With best wishes for a peaceful and relaxing festive season and a happy and healthy New Year.

Silke
Dr Silke Ackermann FSA, Director

How a handbag brings us together

Leave a Comment

Oxford’s Christmas Light Festival is here — hooray! 

It’s wonderful to have an event that draws Oxford’s array of communities together, especially in these difficult times.

And this year, Multaka volunteers are teaming up with the History of Science Museum (HSM) to create our first ever live-streamed, festival family event. 

The activities will take inspiration from one of the star objects in our new exhibition of Islamic metalwork, the 600-year-old Mosul Handbag.  And during the event, we will be celebrating diversity in faith, music, food, and art. 

600-year-old Mosul Handbag from The Courtauld, on display as part of the Precious and Rare: Islamic Metalwork from The Courtauld exhibition

Multaka and the HSM team have been exploring a new way to meet up with our three Multaka volunteers through the pandemic to discuss, organise, and design our activities for Christmas light festival. We have been meeting online every two weeks to exchange ideas and skills, and we want to share this healthy platform for discussion to our online visitors.

Rana Ibrahim — Multaka volunteer and HSM’s Multaka Collections Officer — with a craft bag inspired by The Courtauld’s Mosul Handbag

Jenan, one of our Multaka volunteers, told us:

‘It gives me great pleasure to participate in ​this event based on the Musel historical bag ​at the History of Science Museum in Oxford ​because I love its beauty and magnificent effect. Moreover Al-Musel city with its ancient civilization is the city of my mother back home; that makes me very thrilled and honoured.’

Alison, also one of our Multaka volunteers, added:

“I have enjoyed the Multaka lights festival project as a route to discovering other cultures, meeting new people, and learning about the Arabic language.  I have been exploring some of the designs from objects in the ‘Precious and Rare’ exhibition online, and inventing ways to recreate them at home.  I will demonstrate some ideas to add sparkle and shine to your Mosul bag during the online event.“

Get ready to craft!

Helen, who is a learning officer at the Museum, told me that one of the things that she has really enjoyed is the way that we have all been learning together.  

”All too often the name of the city of Mosul is mentioned in this country in the context of war, so it’s been wonderful finding out about the city’s rich culture and history. One of my favourite activities was when we were talking about the Mosul handbag and decided spontaneously to show our own favourite handbags to each other on Zoom. That led to the sharing of some really lovely stories.”  

So come and join our brilliant Multaka team with your family for some fun activities on Friday 20th November from 4.30-5.30pm.

Get ready to download a template to make your own handbag, learn some Arabic and try your hand at Calligraphy.

Book your place on our website.

Al Salam Al- aykum!