Gold Arts Award and university place for young person working with Royal Pavilion & Museums!

Fern Hallam, aged 20, has been awarded a Gold Arts Award, securing her place at university! Fern joined us in February 2012 to complete her Bronze Award as part of the Royal Pavilion & Museums’ partnership programme with the Prince’s Trust.

Fern Hallam alongside her work

“I left school without any qualifications, due to my anxiety I could not take my exams. This left me with very little confidence in myself. I had a passion for photography which I wanted to explore but I couldn’t cope with going to college, so when my connexions worker told about the bronze arts award course at Brighton museum with The Princes Trust, that was only a week long, we both thought this would be a great way to ease me back into education. It felt great getting back into education and it was such a positive experience for me, though I had a panic attack I got such support from everyone involved I was able to go on and complete it and get my bronze arts award certificate. I made some new friends; it also helped me to gain some confidence and some new skills.

I went on to do my silver arts award, I was then asked if I would like to go straight on to do my gold arts award as I was already working at gold level. I have had so many great opportunities from doing my arts awards, from my first solo exhibition that gave me such a confidence boost and gave me the skills for future exhibitions, to my one to one workshop with Lynn Weddle who is a professional photographer. The techniques and knowledge I learnt have enabled me to since set up studio lighting for various photo-shoots and has helped me countless times.

Photo by Fern Hallam

Going to university is something that I have always wanted to do but I never thought I’d have the opportunity to, due to my anxiety and leaving school without any qualifications. However I found a foundation degree that the entry requirements were a level 3 qualification in photography and a portfolio of work. Thanks to Brighton museum I have both and was offered a place at the interview, which I have now accepted, I start my course in September. The arts awards and Brighton museum have given me a world of opportunity’s I never thought I could have. The museum feels like a second home to me, I’m very sad to say goodbye. I can’t wait to start a new chapter of my life and start a career in the subject I love, this something that without the help of the staff at Brighton museum and everyone involved in the arts awards I could have never achieved.”

Daydreams. Photo by Fern Hallam.

Fern will be exhibiting her work at Brighton Museum on Saturdays and Sundays in May, along with other young people from the Arts Awards group as part of the Artists Open House Festival.

You can also see Fern’s work on her Tumblr.

Hazel Welch, Youth Engagement Officer

 

 

 

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Making tracks for the Murder in the Manor

Rhys Lamberth recording a story for the Murder in the Manor project.

A couple of weeks ago, our young Little Green Pig writers made audio recordings of their stories for the Murder in the Manor website. Unlike the previous two workshops, which took place at Preston Manor, we used the studio at Pier Productions, just along the road from Brighton Museum.

None of the writers had been to a recording studio before, but they did a great job. Voice recording is harder than you might think: being alone in an unfamiliar room, speaking into a large microphone hovering in front of your face, carefully reading words you have only finished editing a few minutes before — that all takes a lot of nerve and concentration, but our writers pulled it off brilliantly. They were also helped by the sound engineer, Simon James, who did a great job of keeping our writers relaxed, and coping with our slightly unusual methods.

The recordings will be used to tell the story of the murder mystery, alongside text. We’re using audio for several reasons: it provides greater accessibility for visually impaired users, and since the site is being designed with smartphones and tablets in mind, it will provide a richer experience for those using headphones. But one of the more surprising reasons, perhaps, is that it will remind the users that this is a piece of collective creative writing, not a drama. Our writers have written their stories in the voices of characters much older than them, and often of a different gender. Rather than getting actors to interpret their words, we want to ensure that the writers’ works are at the surface of the experience.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the writers on this project are all very talented, and I’m impressed by the quality of their work. I’m reminded of this now, because in my broad role in producing the project I have only been able to sit in on the writing sessions for short periods; after a few  minutes I have usually been called upon to supervise something else in the manor, such as filming, photography, or chasing after lunchtime sandwiches. Having now had a chance to appreciate the stories more fully, I’m struck by how sophisticated some of the narratives are, with a remarkable degree of emotional complexity.

Our writers have now completed their work on the project. The photography, recordings and text are all being put together in the website, with the plan to launch  soon after Easter. In the run up to launch, we’ll have another couple of updates on the blog, and even a short film or two.

Kevin Bacon, Digital Development Officer

Update 29/04/13: Murder in the Manor is now live: murderinthemanor.org.uk

Making a Murder in the Manor

Ella Burns of Little Green Pig and writers at Preston Manor.

I’ve spent the last two Saturdays at Preston Manor, where I’ve witnessed twelve young people plot a murder.

You may be relieved to learn that this is an entirely fictional murder, and these young writers are doing for Preston Manor what Brighton crime novelist Peter James did for the Royal Pavilion last year. With the help of creative writing group Little Green Pig, these writers have been producing a murder mystery using Preston Manor as a setting.

However, this is a murder mystery with a difference.  Rather than presented as a linear narrative, the individual pieces of writing will be embedded in a recreation of Preston Manor that you can explore online. The reader will need to search for pieces of the story, much as a detective would hunt for clues.

I’ll talk more about the technology in later blog posts. My focus in this post is to talk about how we are developing the project, and why we have chosen to do this.

Preston Manor

The workshops

The workshops were run by Ella Burns of Little Green Pig. At the first session, the writers, all aged between 12 and 16, were introduced to the project, and shown early work on the website by the developer, Richard Sams of Say Digital. We were then treated to a tour of the manor by our  Programme Officer, Paula Wrightson. The writers were then taken through the various stages of developing the characters and plot.

The writing really began at the second session. The writers chose objects in the manor that would feature in their stories, and were able to write their pieces in the rooms in which they would be set. Richard had the great idea of giving each participant a business card that allows them to view a preview of the website Say Digital are building, so that they can see the ‘virtual’ spaces as they develop online.

There is one workshop left to do, but already the stories tell a tangled tale of greed, romance and scandal that lead to murder. Having had the chance to observe some of the work in progress, I’m impressed by how the manor has inspired the writers’ imaginations, and their use of language in crafting these stories far exceeds my expectations.

Morning Room of Preston Manor

Why are we doing this?

It may seem odd that a museum is creating an experience which is about things that never happened at the manor. We are seen as scholarly institutions, and it may be reasonable to expect that we should spend our time talking about factually correct histories rather than dabbling in fiction.

There are two reasons why we are doing this. The first is that it’s a way of encouraging young people to engage with one of our historic buildings. The project is very much a co-production with the young writers, and based on a model in which they are given a clearly defined space in which they can express themselves. Access to the manor and the digital technology is all used to build a canvas for their creativity. How that space is filled is entirely down to the writers and how they are guided by Little Green Pig. The museum takes no editorial control over the content, and gives the writers ownership of that space, while providing access to the processes that support their work. As my colleague Paula puts it, it is a way of turning the manor into a ‘theatre for the imagination’.

The second reason is to do with storytelling. The project is funded as part of the Arts Council’s Renaissance in the Regions programme, and like several  projects funded by that scheme, it explores how museums can work with other forms of creative practice. Creative writing is often an easy fit for museums; for as much as we are focused on the interpretation and conservation of objects in our collections, we are storytelling organisations at heart. Visit any gallery or exhibition, and it will always be telling you some sort of story about human or natural history. But we also realise that our role is to help others tell their stories too.

Museums are great places to inspire creative writing, but, for me, once the piece of writing comes to be published, it can often become divorced from the source of inspiration. A photograph of the object or building may help illustrate the story, but the ambience and context are sometimes inevitably lost. Digital technology offers ways in which this can be addressed. Our approach here is to create a surrogate digital space which can be reclaimed and reinterpreted by others.

You will be able to judge the results of this soon. We are aiming to launch the website around Easter time. And although we can’t yet reveal whether the butler did it, we can say that it certainly wasn’t the curator.

Kevin Bacon, Digital Development Officer

Update 29/04/13: Murder in the Manor is now live: murderinthemanor.org.uk