Re:make the Museum: an update from Hannah Fox, Silk Mill Project Manger
An update of the Re:Make the Museum project at Derby Silk Mill Museum from Hannah Fox, Silk Mill Project Manager.
When we failed to get the funding to refurbish Derby’s Silk Mill Museum, we could have packed up and gone home, but we decided on a different option.
We mothballed the building and started experimenting – asking people from the community what they thought we should do and then we did some of it – but more than that, they did it with us. We worked out a way forward.
With minimal resources, Re:Make is a programme of rebuilding the museum from the inside out, co-making, co-building, co-producing everything with people who feel passionately about what makes us special; our collections, our building, our city and ourselves!
So far…
We have been thinking about the ground floor space, our programming and our collections – now we have started to design and prototype the elements for the space – from exhibition cases, to café tables and research spaces…
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- Participants work together to make a giant pom-pom chair!
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- Planning how furniture will look and function in the space
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- Making prototypes from cardboard is part of the learning and design process
Next…
We will start producing our agreed concepts by manufacturing, where possible the elements on-site, in our purpose developed workshop spaces. Through this we will be developing our skills and learning collectively, to see how this informs the Silk Mill’s sustainability and purpose in the future, including our funding strategy for the redevelopment of the entire building.
This concept for the Silk Mill…
has been developed from a desire to reflect both the 300 year heritage of the building, starting with the claim that the Silk Mill is the site of the world’s first factory, through to the modern day city of Derby, as a leader in advanced engineering.
The Silk Mill is reinventing itself for the 21st century and, through reviving the principles of the Enlightenment, expanding traditional perspectives of what a museum is and can be.
To find out more about the Re:Make project and see work in progress, in pictures, please visit http://remakemuseum.tumblr.com/
Find out more about Derby Silk Mill at http://www.derbysilkmill.tumblr.com/
Follow the Re:Make the museum project on twitter @derbysilkmill, using the #remakemuseum hashtag.
Prefer to join in the conversation by Facebook, no problem, Like the Derby Silk Mill page at https://www.facebook.com/derbysilkmill
