The Anticipated Return and the Weather

[The below entry was written by Dan T, one of the founding students of Stories of the World Durham and previous 'Blog-writing extraordinaire'. Dan is now at the University of Leicester and went to the Horniman Youth Conference as a part of the Durham delegation. Unfortunately, due to snow, we weren't able to make it from Durham, but travelling from Leicester, Dan went anyway... here are his thoughts!]

Well well well well (too many wells) after an absence of typing in this blog for a few months, that's right I'm back. It is only a cameo appearance.

What a day I have had as you may well know the plan was for the SOTW team to go to London and for me to meet them there then go to the youth conference at the Horniman Museum. There was however a lot of snow and as we all know Britain and especially public transport is rubbish in the snow so unfortunately they had to cancel, and I was gutted at this because I was looking forward to seeing people. Not to worry though I decided to do all I could (which really wasn't that much) to save the day. Armed with a Laptop a semi functioning brain I set off for London, this was because everything else was in Matt's kitchen. With hindsight I should have prepared something the night before but I went to sleep instead. I had the marketplace all planned out steal their printer, which they let me do, and then use this brilliant blog. As the theme of this trip is things not going to plan the Internet wouldn't work, panic time, so in my robust borderline insane or maybe troubled genius I whipped some PowerPoint presentation up in about 8 minutes printed it off and stuck it on the wall. rap but effective. Anyways I did my best to sell the project but after a prolonged absence it was more difficult than I anticipated.

The day started with three papers on youth culture and the challenges they face. This is a wide grouping as each was unique but I can't be bothered to write about each one in detail at the moment (I'm very tired). Two focused around gender roles using young men who modify their cars and do these have a place in museums. Make your own judgments. The second on the skull as a symbol of death in fashion. Quite morbid but so are the team with their exhibition. The final paper was on the high pitched whistling device used by Local Authorities or Supermarkets to target young people and stop them causing trouble, but at what ethical cost. There we are each had its own unique but linked together perspective.  Then there were discussion groups but I skived these to set up the market place.

After the lunch buffet (got nothing on you Matt, especially those chocolate tortes, in fact that would be a great Xmas present hint hint) and the market place the workshops started. I went to one on using applied arts in museums, basically a bit of drama to keep things entertaining for the youngens while they learn. This was incredibly useful and can be considered for events when the SOTW gallery is launched (and I still want to open it, unless you get Stephen Fry nobody else outranks me). The second workshop I attended was on youth led tours I thought this could relate to the already completed trail and the launch event again. This is on how to engage young people more and not just read from a sheet etc. I will post the notes or drop them at the OM in January.

Finally there was an after conference party. After enjoying my food I ventured out to marvel at the brilliant  street entertainers of Covent Garden. I then went to Leicester Square because I could, why not eh? Wandered about saw some sights, meant to take photos of the whole day took my camera but forgot the batteries. Then it was back to St Pancras and home.

All in all an exciting stressful challenging but still fulfilling day. It has been a pleasure to write this I am incredibly proud of the prep work the entire team did. I am also incredibly disappointed you couldn't be there. But I tried to deliver in the style of a martyr, but unfortunately it needed a hero, however I delivered a Legend.

Seriously leaving behind the joking arrogance it has been an honour to be allowed to represent Durham despite having very little contact. I am proud of you all and after looking around today you are the cream of the crop and you are going from strength to strength. People often say the sky is the limit; I say rubbish, there is no limit to what you can achieve if you work for it, and you guys have.
Muchos Gracias (with a hint of sadness)
Dan

Getting ready for London!

Okay, so today Amy, Alex and Jono (US!) came down to the museum to finish the preparations for London Town! On Saturday we're off to London (bright and early D: possibly 5am.....) to showcase what our Stories of the World project has involved these past few months. We created a snazzy powerpoint whilst Jono designed some cool SOTW merch ... HOODIES !!

We're off for food :D so next post LONDON !!

Egyptian video from Saturday

Walk like an Egyptian!

Today we got to handle objects from Ancient Egypt which linked to our exhibition theme of medicine and death. Among our favourites were the amulets and the canopic jar, where we got to smell the marvels of Ancient Egypt, a rare treat. Afterwards, we shared our interpretations of the objects before meeting with a group of Egyptologists to discuss our ideas. It took a while for the group to get going but once they did, we learned all about the importance of honey and pomegranates, the health foods of 4000BC! It was also interesting to hear about how magic was used to prevent illness or attack from wild animals. Armed with this new knowledge, we can't wait to get stuck in with preparations for the exhibition. Tawaret, here we come!

Meeting

We started by talking about the visit to the Chinese residents and what we had learn from the interviews. After this, and much talk of Strictly Come Dancing and X-Factor, we did the 'mystery museum' exercise. There were a range of objects out on the table and we had to rank their importance and value. The owner, Mel, then came in and told us all about them and why they were important to him. This was really funny, and showed that without a 'human narrative' it is hard to get a true idea of an object's importance. Here are some pics from the session!

The mystery museum!

It's a drab dreary day in Durham. A few of us have come up to the Oriental Museum for the Wednesday afternoon session (we can't make the Saturday session). Initially we were given a group of 'mystery' objects, which belonged to one person. We had to rank them in terms of fhier value and importance to that person (without knowing who they belonged too!). We recorded our initial reactions to each of them (we cannot say too much because the people who come on Saturday haven't seen them yet). After recording why we ranked them the way we did and our initial impressions the owner of the objects came and spoke to us about them. We then had to re-order them! It helped us to see how interpretations of a single object could vary depending on who was viewing them! We then recorded some of our intial reactions to Chinese objects and planned the London trip to the Horniman museum SOTW conference!