The Bowes Museum Blog

Mon 7th July:

Monday began with Co-Production Volunteer Manager, Jess, meeting us at reception and giving an overview of our schedule, before introducing us to the members of staff around the third floor, and then joining a quick spotlight tour.

After that, just before lunch, we went to the HIVE gallery and met Lead Activator, Hana. We picked three objects there to write a quick plan for and present our notes, before lunch at 1pm, where we sat outside in the sunny grounds.

At 2pm, we wrote reflections on our first day and a review on the Spotlight Tour, before discussing the rest of our plans for the week.

Tuesday 8th July

Today, we were greeted by Connor and Harriet, from the Learning Team, and they took us to the Create space, introducing what they do, examples of their work and then touring us around the Curiosity Galleries.

We then went back to the Create space, where we had to collectively mind map ideas around a certain topics: Storytelling, Childhood and Labour.

After this, we discussed the mind maps before heading to lunch.

After lunch, we saw the Silver Swan and walked around the museum, taking notes on different art pieces linked to the aforementioned topics. We got back to the Create space and discussed them, before being dismissed.

Wednesday 9th July:

On Wednesday we worked with Faye from the Marketing team. We had a brief overview of the job, what she does, some examples, and then we were tasked with finding three objects from the Joséphine: A Woman of Taste and Fashion exhibition to make notes on, in preparation for a real social media post. We also took pictures, planning for after lunch.

We had lunch, and then back inside the HIVE we started to create captions, thinking about audiences on different platforms and about scheduling, times, etc. We sent the captions to Faye via email or Airdrop and scheduled accordingly before uploading them and being let out at 4.

Thursday 10th July:

On Thursday, we met the Productions team, originally just Vinny and Catherine. We were first assigned to drill screws out of walls so they could hang new paintings in the Conversation gallery, before that was interrupted by the delivery of a painting.

Then, after it was put up, George came with us to paint some boxes for the new exhibition, Pippa Hale: Pet Project.

We had lunch and then went with David to sit in on a Welcome Team session, about autumn/winter events. It was interesting to see what sort of things they have to think about before these events.

Friday 11th July

On Friday, we hung out with some people doing a session with the Wear Teesdale art group, to come up with different ideas for new pieces of art in the reimagine galleries, “Love Letters to Joséphine.” We took pictures of different textures around the museum until lunch.

After lunch, the plan changed and we were with the Collections Team, where me and another boy got to clean some artifacts for the Curiosity Gallery, before heading out for a last evaluation session with Jess, and then heading home early.