Sharing Collections: the future of borrowing and lending

 

 Sharing Collections: The future of borrowing and lending,is a brand new series of free-to-attend live webinars. Each webinar, lasting an hour, will include a panel of professionals working across the arts sector in the UK today. They will explore the journey of borrowing loan objects and exhibition planning, as well as share their insights on the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on museums and galleries and what the future might look like for lending and borrowing as a result. 

 

The live events will take place online from 2-3pm on the below dates, but will also be available to watch on demand after the series has ended. Each session will focus on the following topics:

 

1.     25 March, Thinking about borrowing: research and planning   

2.     1 April, Making the case and getting it funded: securing your funds 

3.     22 April, Preparing for a loan: managing change and risk 

4.     29 April, Marketing and audience engagement: building a strategy 

5.     6 May, What do we do now: the future of borrowing and lending 

 

The series is closely connected to the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund, which provides funding for museums and galleries to borrow works from national collections, encouraging the sharing of works more widely across the UK. Attending the webinars will be a useful introduction for potential and new applicants to the programme but isn't a prerequisite and is open to all. Visit  artfund.org/supporting-museums/programmes/weston-loan-programme or contact Katie Lloyd, grants manager, at klloyd@artfund.org for further information.   

 

The series is supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation, and brought to you by Art Fund in partnership with the Touring Exhibitions Group (TEG), National Museums Directors’ Council (NMDC) and the UK Registrars Group (UKRG).

 

Register and find out more information about the series here.

 

Installing Loans at the Captain Cook Memorial Museum, Whitby

Thursday 12 February 2015

Leeds Museum and Galleries are regular lenders to the annual exhibitions on Cook related themes at the Captain Cook Memorial Museum in Whitby. This years theme is 'Fashion and Fibres: Island Dress in Polynesia' and on Thursday morning Emma Bowron, the conservator at Leeds Museum DiscoveryCentre, and I drove to Whitby in the museum van with a European style Samoan barkcloth dress probably dating from the late 1800s. The drive takes around two hours. Arriving in the attic exhibition space we met long-standing friends, MEG members, and ex-colleagues, Barbara Woroncow and Adrian Norris, who were there helping Sophie Forgan and other Whitby staff with the install. Barbara and Adrian are active trustees of the Captain Cook museum. In the large case where the Samoan dress was to be laid gently on a calico covered plastazote 
slope, a 1970s Fijian barkcloth hung at the back, which was one of the last gifts Barbara’s father hunted down for her in a bargain sale, a while ago now. 

The other item in the case is a beautiful modern reconstruction of the tapa waistcoat that Mrs Cook made for her husband, but never finished.  The partial garment, Cook died before it was finished, survives in Australia. This new waistcoat is by Alison Larkin. It has a linen back which laces up the centre, and fine silk floral embroidery enhanced with tiny silver coloured sequins or spangels. There are real pockets under the flaps.

We stayed to help with the install of a stunning tapa poncho cloth from Kew, and to watch the others installing two Maori flax cloaks on loan from the Great North Museum.  The Leeds Samoan girl’s dress is made from tapa coloured with traditional designs, and tailored with a yoke, collar and sleeves and buttons down the front. It may have been made for an indigenous girl, or perhaps for the child of a European missionary or official. It is rare for such dresses to survive. A good photograph of it can be found on the exhibition page of the Cook museum. The dress was transferred to Leeds Museums in 1964 from Leeds Corporation Works Department. The notes say: Formerly in the house of Mrs Bell, cleared by Corporation Housing Department. Items brought to the museum by Mr Fitzgerald of Housing Dept. The material seems to have been brought home by E.R.G. Bell (husband or father in law?) and includes a sketch map of Samoa and its islands.  I’ve tried to trace ERG Bell, but no success so far.

The exhibition opens this Saturday, 14 February and will run until the Captain Cook Memorial Museum closes for the winter at the end of November.

Antonia Lovelace  

Curator of World Cultures

Leeds Museums and Galleries

Loaning a Matakau Ancestor Figure

This month Birmingham Museums loaned its Fijian Female Ancestor Figure to the National Gallery of Australia for the forthcoming Atua exhibition.

1918A17.24 Fijian Ancestor Figure © Birmingham Museums

The figure was bequeathed by Captain Norman Chamberlain in 1918 along with 27 other Fijian objects. It was collected in 1877 / 1878 by his father, Herbert, and uncle, Walter who had bought the Fijian island of Naitauba and its cotton and copra plantations. 

The figure is one of only a dozen or so in existence and features a shell bead necklace, fibre skirt -or liku- and tattoos on the mouth and hips. To the back of the figure, a label reads “Figure from the mountain district of Viti Levu – (the tatoo about the mouth shews the married woman), HC”.

While the figure itself was sound, specialist conservation work was required on the fragile skirt which travelled separately in a custom-made box with integrated supports.

Travel Crate for the Ancestor Figure © Birmingham Museums

Following the exhibition tour, the figure will go back on display in Gallery 33 at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Adam Jaffer

Curator of World Cultures

Birmingham Museums

Atua: Sacred Gods from Polynesia

23 May – 3 August

National Gallery Australia