Behind the Scenes at Yorkshire Museum

Our adventure in curation began last Thursday, when the Yorkshire Museum presented us with three boxes of artefacts to display in three cases. We divided into pairs (I paired up with Susan), chose a box, and got to work! Our mission: organize the artefacts in our box for a display in one of the Learning Labs. Sounds simple enough, but it was anything but! The initial part of our curating experiment was quite fun; we unwrapped artefact after artefact after prehistoric artefact. It was like Christmas in May! From the outset, our mission involved making a multitude of decisions:

• What exactly have we got?
• What is good enough or interesting enough for display?
• Are there themes or natural groupings in our set of artefacts?
• How might we unite the artefacts in a coherent story?
• Can we give these artefacts contemporary relevance?

Photograph taken by Sara Perry. Posted on the blog "The Archaeological Eye", 

blog post "Heritage Field School at York", 4th May 2013. Found at:

http://saraperry.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/heritagefieldschool2013/.

Let's break this down:

What had we got? - What we had was a collection of Paleolithic and Neolithic flints and stone tools (with one random Mesolithic arrowhead thrown in for good measure). This covers about 400,000 years' worth of history - in one small collection! Could we possibly display all of this and still make our display look attractive and logically organized?

What is good enough or interesting enough for display? - We had a massive mattock in good condition; this we immediately set aside for display. The Paleolithic flints and core were a lovely orange-brown colour, and they illustrated the shape and process of flint-knapping. These we also chose to include, both for their educational potential and to liven up the grey-brown colour of everything else. They also looked stereotypically "Stone Age" - hey, we've got to have a hook! We liked the polished nature of our (relatively) large collection of celts - Neolithic stone axes, named celts by the Victorians - but there were so many that we were worried about how to include them without cluttering our display. There was also a large bag of flints, but they just didn't look interesting enough to justify their inclusion in our exhibit.

Our flint (and part of our celt) collection. Photograph by us.

Are there themes or natural groupings in our set of artefacts? - we both quickly noticed that all of our artefacts were tools, so we settled on a "toolbox" theme for our display. We further categorized our artefacts by type (hammer, flint, celt, etc.), origin (area of Britain or off the island), and time period (Paleolithic, one artefact of Mesolithic, and Neolithic). We scrapped the Mesolithic artefact early on; it just didn't fit, so it was sadly relegated to the storage box once more. Now, which of these groupings best fit our display? Could we use more than one?

How might we unite the artefacts in a coherent story? - Taking the artefacts chronologically was the obvious approach, allowing us to demonstrate how technology and function changed over time. Paleolithic tools had general functions; Neolithic tools were much more specialized. By forming an expansive timeline of artefacts, illustrated with pictures, films, mock-ups, experts standing by at all hours, etc., we could trace changes in lifestyle from hunter-gathering communities to farming communities. It was going to be the best and most informative display ever created - but we simply didn't have the time to bring this glorious vision into reality. Sorry about that! We had to settle for a basic divide between Paleolithic and Neolithic artefacts, organized by general type, with a radial display of celts forming the centerpiece between the two end elevations. But we think we did catch the sense of change and development and convey this to our viewers.

Our Neolithic tools - including the ancient predecessor
of Susan's mattock! Photograph by us.

Can we give these artefacts contemporary relevance? - OF COURSE! That's what heritage is all about! We focused our labels on describing the artefacts' past uses and connecting them to modern-day tools. For example, the mattock is a tool still in use today (Susan has one in her shed. Not a Neolithic one, though!). Because the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages are so far in the distant past, and they seem so removed from our experience, we knew we had to draw upon whatever connections we could make to allow our viewers to empathize with the artefacts in the case before them. We had to make these old stone tools come alive in the 21st century.

Our completed display! Photograph by us.

Now it's Tuesday. We've set up our display, we've poured a great deal of thought and effort and trying new things and all the creativity we could summon between the two of us. We thought we had a pretty good display. But what did the other two groups think?

• They liked the toolbox theme and the idea of progression of the technology.
• They liked continuation of these artefacts into modern life.
• But we all agreed that the labels were a tad wordy. Well, when you put Susan and me on the same project, what did you expect? What did you learn from reading this blog post we just wrote?

How might you make these celts come alive?
Photograph by us.

All in all, it was a good display, especially since it was our first one! We learned a lot about curation and heritage from this exercise: first of all, curation is a lot harder than it looks; think about that the next time you go to a museum! A curator has to take an artefact from the past, however distant or recent, and bridge the canyon of time to reach out to the viewer's imagination, making the past come alive for them. Our only way of communicating with the viewer was through our organization of the artefacts and our labels. We discovered that it is really difficult to distill the wide world of academic analysis, interpretation, and scientific knowledge into fewer than forty words (preferably fewer) on a display label, and to do so in a way that will make an artefact interesting and memorable. We left with a greater appreciation for museum curation.

Look out world! Two new curators are on their way!

The happy curators! Photograph by Emma Carr.