As the ‘Linking Lifetimes’ project continues, it is wonderful to witness how comfortable children and adults has become in each others company, and observe the lovely sharing that has become central to the project.
In April, adults and children came back together to share stories about their special objects or possessions. We had a classroom full of very exciting objects such as a gold fob watch, a prized certificate, a pair of sugar tongs, a thank you gift in the shape of a cushion, a carriage lamp and some first shoes.
Just some of the objects people brought in
As objects always do, they each had stories attached to them and this was the point of this session… to unearth and share those stories. This time we used an interview session to elicit these stories, so children were paired up with an adult to conduct formal interviews using the voice recorder.
Conducting interviews
Children asked the usual Story Explorer questions to find out about the objects and their stories, before swapping roles and being interviewed by the adult. Children also became photographers, setting up backdrops to take photos of the objects and their owners, remembering to take into account composition, facial expression and body position. Interviews and photographs will soon be edited together to make a short film.
We talked about objects and how we often find them in museums, in cases or cabinets. This brought us onto the Cabinets of Curiosity so loved by the Victorians and still beloved of many museums today. Both adults and children made
Working on Cabinets of Curiosity
their own Cabinets of Curiosity on small stamped boards, filling in the compartments and sections with significant words, colours, patterns, drawings of the objects from different angles and portraits. Here are just a few-
The session ended with a mass sharing of objects, stories and cabinets, and a discussion about what kind of sessions they all would like to see happen in the next few months.
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- Sharing objects
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- Sharing objects and their stories
The ‘Linking Lifetimes’ project is kindly funded by the Big Lottery Fund.
