About the project
The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Dynamic Collections campaign was set up to support collecting organisations across the UK to become more resilient and open up their collections.
In summer 2023 The National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded RAMM a Dynamic Collections grant. One of the main goals for the project is to reorganise and streamline how the museum catalogues and shares its collections. This includes the creation of a new digital asset system (which allows more accessible storage of photos, videos, sound files etc linked to objects) and the introduction of digital labels into one of the gallery spaces (allowing a variety of viewpoints on the same object to be displayed).
To create content to trial these new systems, RAMM staff have been working with local communities to explore objects from the Making History Gallery, to collect their views and creative interpretations of objects from the collection. Two community projects are planned as part of the Changing Stories: Connecting and Collecting with Exeter’s Communities project, plus further engagement opportunities with the wider public.
Community Project One: Food
Community Project One saw RAMM partner with Hikmat. Hikmat is a local organisation who work across Devon to support families and individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds, including refugees and new arrivals to the city. The project included people who are from diverse backgrounds including China, Southeast Asia, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan. Hikmat service users attended six pottery making workshops, in which they created ceramic vessels inspired by RAMM’s collections.
The workshops explored the links between pottery vessels, food and place. In the workshops participants shared their own experiences and personal connections with pottery vessels and food. Through the process, facilitators and participants collectively explored the similarities between ceramic vessels, used for food and drink, from around the world and across time periods. Workshop participants were very generous in sharing comments and personal stories with the museum.
“Especially in the pottery, when you look at it, it gives you the feeling that there is lots of similarity all over the world. You think that it’s just us that make it, but when you see it in the museum you think, oh, lots of people have the same ideas. You see how similar everyone is. We have similarities more than differences.”
– Hikmat participant
Artist Simon Lee Dicker ran the workshops. He taught the participants a variety of techniques for hand-building and decorating vessels. This included pinch, coil and slab building, sgrafitto and painting with slips and oxides – all techniques inspired by food-related pottery vessels and sherds from RAMM’s collection.
Simon photographed the participants’ work and also made 3D digital models. These can be viewed on Sketchfab.
The participants kept their original artwork at the end of the project. Participant stories and comments will be added to associated objects, as part of a trial of new digital labels in RAMM’s Making History gallery.
Project partners and collaborators
RAMM is grateful to Hikmat for their partnership in this project. Community engagement workshops with partners and groups in Exeter will continue to take place, to gather a wide range of perspectives from across the city.
This project is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund; thank you to National Lottery players for their support.
