museums

The Museum and the City

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Rachel and Thabo standing in a large sports hall behind a table of Museum handling objects. Thabo is holding a shield and Rachel is holding a type of flask.

Rachel and Thabo representing Multaka-Oxford at Oxford Mela 2018 Blackbird Leys Leisure Centre

The Multaka-Oxford team have had an amazing few months and the project is developing rapidly. In this post they talk about their work inside and outside of the Museum, and highlight some of their favourite objects.

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In the Museum…

We have had some great sessions with volunteers over the last months. In May Silke Ackermann, the Museum’s Director, showed the team how an astrolabe worked and practised her Arabic. In June we took out some of the Museum’s objects for a handling session. The objects acted as a focus point for our discussions and we learnt a lot from each other.

Group of volunteers sitting and standing around a table looking at brass astronomical instruments.

Abdullah, Nuha, Cheryl, Rana, Thabo, Megan and Rachel looking at objects. © Tammam Aboukerech.

“I am really happy to be involved – talking and learning about the collection. Getting to learn about these objects from Arabic speakers is amazing.”

“this is the first time I have sat at a table and talked with people from Syria and Iraq. I have enjoyed it today”

“I was really happy because I did some research about these astrolabes and it was great to share it with others today, I was really pleased to do this.”

And Out and About with Multaka-Oxford!

We have also been running activities elsewhere in the city. On Sunday 17 June we went to Oxford Mela 2018 in Blackbird Leys.

“It was a great opportunity to participate in Oxford Mela as a project volunteer. As Multaka-Oxford represents the interchange of diverse cultural and historical experiences through museums as a meeting point, participation is especially important because it helps us see the beauty in diversity and brings about more tolerance and acceptance.
It was my first experience with Multaka to share knowledge, display the Museum objects and give some details about these objects. I hope we did our best to address people in clear and simple language.”

Mohammed – project volunteer

Choosing Objects

On our Tumblr page we have shared objects that mean something to us. Rana Ibrahim, Museum History of Science Collections Officer for Multaka-Oxford, chose an astrolabe by Khalil Muhammad ibn Hasan `Ali:

“For the month of May 2018, I have chosen this small incredible astrolabe to celebrate the Islamic month of Ramadan, the ‘Month of God’. I admire this object very much and I consider it one of my favourites … One of the reasons that this object is my favourite is because of the Quranic inscription of ‘Ayat Al- Kursi’ (The Throne Verse) engraved on the brass, which is a very significant verse in the Quran.”

Read more about Rana’s choice in English and Arabic

Abdullah, one of our volunteers, chose the Museum’s astrolabe with a geared calendar by Muhammad b. Abi Bakr.

“I chose the oldest complete geared astrolabe as I want to find out about the history of Islam through it. I want to find answers to my questions, such as who made it, how was it made, what is for, and more. It is a very interesting museum.”

Read more about Abdullah’s choice

 

You can keep up to date with our news and see more objects on our Tumblr page, or by following the hashtag #multakaoxford on Twitter.

Multaka-Oxford: Creating Opportunities

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Six people from the Multaka-Oxford team sitting around a table discussing astronomical instruments. In front of them are two astrolabes of different sizes, and a globe sitting in a brass mount.

Thabo, Nuha, Tammam, Rachel, Rana and Abdullah from the Multaka-Oxford team looking at objects from our collections.

We are excited to let you know more about Multaka-Oxford, our new project funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund. It will be running until September 2019. The project will create volunteer opportunities for forced migrants and use museums and collections as a ‘meeting point’ to bring people together.

We are jointly delivering Multaka-Oxford with the Pitt Rivers Museum, and with local community organisations, grass-roots groups and individual people. It focuses on two collections at the museums: our Islamic astronomical instruments, and a recent acquisition of textiles from the Middle East at the Pitt Rivers.

Our project is inspired by ‘Multaka: Museums as a meeting point’, based in Berlin. This project trained volunteers to create Arabic tours across four museums in the city. Multaka is Arabic for “meeting point”. The aim of the Oxford and Berlin projects is to create places where people can meet and share their experience, knowledge and skills. Through this, we will improve understanding and engagement with the collections, whilst also supporting people to build confidence, gain work experience and support community integration.

Rana Ibraim, Silke Ackermann and Rachel Harrison sitting at a table. Behind them is a large replica astrolabe that has been attached to the wall.

Rana Ibraim, Silke Ackermann (Director of the Museum of the History of Science) and Rachel Harrison.

The Multaka-Oxford team are Nicola Bird (Project Manager), Rachel Harrison (Community Engagement and Volunteer Officer), Rana Ibrahim (Museum of the History of Science Collections Officer) and Abigael Flack (Pitt Rivers Collections Officer).

Our First Volunteers

Already we have 9 volunteers signed up and giving their time generously to the project.

Photograph of Silke Ackermann, Tammam and Abdullah looking at a replica astrolabe. They are pointing to different areas of the astronomical instrument, which has been dismantled.

Silke, Tammam and Abdullah looking at a replica astrolabe.

Why did they join Multaka-Oxford?

“I want to volunteer to practice in my career. I want to help in exciting things and in a nice environment. Do something useful”

“[I want to volunteer] to regain confidence and self-worth by helping to make a difference, give something back, I will gain and develop new and existing skills and knowledge”

“generally the project is important in bringing confidence to refugees and asylum seekers, encouraging them to engage in cultural activities, it helps newcomers integrate into British society, a chance to learn more about my home country.”

The volunteers have lots of knowledge, inspiration and ideas that connect with our collections. We are looking forward to sharing this knowledge widely.

Everyone has brought a new skill to the project. Tammam Aboukerech has taken lots of the project photographs. Tammam is a photographer and he will be helping us to visually document the project. Gihan – a talented designer – will help us to create our project logo and identity.

You can discover more about Multaka-Oxford on our Tumblr page, or by following the hashtag #multakaoxford on Twitter.

Illuminating objects

Sketch

By Hannah Eastwood

Last Friday evening saw many of Oxford’s cultural venues, including the University museums, hosting late-night events to celebrate the city’s annual Christmas Light Festival. One of the standout contributions to the evening was work completed by local primary school children along with the museums’ six HLF Skills for the Future trainees.

The aim of the project was to build six lanterns, one to represent each of the Oxford museums and collections – the Ashmolean, Pitt Rivers Museum, Museum of Natural History, Museum of the History of Science, Museum of Oxford, and the Botanic Garden and Harcourt Arboretum. The finished lanterns were to go on display as part of the Light Festival on Friday 21 November.

Fire clock

Dragon fire clock (inv. 46586)

As one of the HLF trainees working on this project, I wanted to share our experience of conceiving, developing and building these wonderful lanterns. A group of six children from each school came to visit the museums to select their favourite object from a set prepared by each HLF trainee. The selected object would be the inspiration for the final lantern. For the Museum of the History of Science the chosen object was the beautifully striking dragon fire clock above.

Pupils work on their lantern constructions

Pupils work on their lantern constructions

The real hard work began when we visited the schools to start the construction of the lanterns. We all had very limited experience working with willow, but our lead artist Nikki Gunson thankfully has a lot more experience creating fantastic willow lanterns. Nikki was able to draw up plans for our museums’ selected objects and it was our task to devise a session plan from these designs and to divide up the work for each child.

In my group, we worked with around 15 children at a time, swapping groups so that each child could create a section of the dragon that they would be able to identify as their own once it was finished. The children loved working with the willow and especially enjoyed the more complicated tasks such as sawing the bamboo and creating complex shapes from the design.

Due to the complexity of the design we didn’t manage to cover the willow structure with the paper and glue; this work was completed by a team later where finishing touches and messy glue was applied. It’s a difficult process, where pieces of paper are covered in waterproof PVA glue and then laid on to the willow. The paper needed to be kept taut so not to lose the shape of the dragon underneath.

Building the frames

Building the frames

Nikki Gunson then worked her magic on the completed lanterns: a fancy lick of paint and they were ready for public display on the lawn outside the Museum of Natural History!

Finished lanterns

The finished lantern outside the Museum of Natural History

The six schools taking part in the lantern project were Bayard’s Hill (Museum of Natural History), Wood Farm (Museum of the History of Science), John Henry Newman (Botanic Garden), Rose Hill (Museum of Oxford), Blackbird Academy Trust (Pitt Rivers Museum), and Cutteslowe (Ashmolean).