museumaker is a prestigious national project involving sixteen museums across four participating regions. It is supported by Arts Council England (ACE), Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and its Renaissance programme; and is unlocking the creative potential of collections through imaginative interchanges between the heritage and contemporary craft sectors. As well as offering new experiences for existing museum visitors, museumaker is establishing innovative ways of developing audiences, including young people. Each museum has commissioned one or more outstanding makers to create intriguing new work in response to the venue and its collections. A maker-led participatory project, engaging a wide range of visitors, is integral to each programme.
The Bowes Museum, a magnificent French style chateau in the historic market town of Barnard Castle in County Durham, has commissioned Laura Baxter to create a series of illuminated bird lanterns, inspired by images of birds in the Museum’s collections of ceramics, paintings, furniture and lace.
Laura, an experienced jeweller, metal-smith and lighting designer, will site the lanterns in the Museum’s parterre garden this autumn in an attempt to ‘bring the inside out.’
Using water jet and laser cutting technology, she is creating a menagerie of 35 solar lit lanterns and silhouettes – some singular, some in groups and some hidden in the topiary trees. As dusk falls, the birds’ lace-like filigree patterns will be outlined by solar lighting, casting beautiful shadows, transforming the area into A Garden of Lantern Birds.
The installation allows Laura, who has built a reputation for the quality of her exquisite jewellery and wall art, to involve the community in working with her on this large scale outdoor project.
As part of her brief she will lead hands-on creative workshops for young adults and their families, expanding The Bowes Museum’s drive to actively engage younger audiences in enjoying its collections. These will lead up to the launch of the project on Saturday 30 October, which will be immediately followed by the annual Lantern Parade.
Laura’s workshops include A Day with the Artist, on Friday 27 August; Make a Metal Bird, on Friday 3 September; and Bird Sky Lanterns, on Friday 29 October, all of which take place from 10.00 – 4.00. The first involves choosing a pattern for the filigree element of the lanterns using the Museum’s collection of Blackborne Lace as inspiration. Each group will produce artwork for a lace lantern. The second requires designing and making an object inspired by a bird in the collections, such as a piece of jewellery, bookmark or tealight holder. The final workshop entails creating 100 eco friendly sky lanterns, featuring bird silhouettes, which will be released at the project launch.
Viv Vallack, the Museum’s Head of Exhibitions, successfully bid to involve The Bowes Museum in the museumaker project. She said: “Combining the talents and ideas of a contemporary maker with the outstanding variety of the historic collection at The Bowes in order to create a unique, site-specific artwork is an opportunity not to be missed.”
Further workshops, including jewellery which glows in the dark and making a lantern or tealight holder, will be held later in the year.
museumaker, which started in the East Midlands, offers makers unprecedented opportunities to create work on a range of scales, with many different functions. The partner museums embrace large city institutions, small independent rural museums and two universities. In the North East they include The Bowes Museum, Woodhorn Northumberland Museum & Archives, Middlesbrough Museums Services and Killhope Lead Mining Museum. Other locations stretch from London to Lincolnshire; Northumberland to Sussex.
Major events are taking place in the four regions; and museumaker is also organising a number of public lectures and workshops, as well as a national conference.
The progress of all sixteen projects can be followed on www.museumaker.com.
www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk