This was the home of Henry Sanford and his wife Catherine.
First she took us into the exhibition at the moment to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Royal Crescent. Inside this exhibition were multiple depictions of the Royal Crescent in various formats and ranging in time periods - pencil sketches, paintings, photographs, books, etchings, patchboxes, postcards and lithographs. There was even a woman's coat with the Royal Crescent depicted on it.
This was one of my favourites, painted only last year 2016 by Philip Bouchard.
On the wall was a quote from Northanger Abbey 'As soon as divine service was over . . . they hastened away to the Crescent, to breathe the fresh air of better company'.
The main idea which Amy Frost was conveying to us was that Bath in the 18th century was a city of facades, so everything behind closed doors was not as pleasant as it looked on the outside.
Our task for the morning was to design our own exhibition for this space to help celebrate the 250th anniversary. So we had to pick 5 objects, either from the current exhibition or from Sanford's house, then design our exhibition around these but also take into account space, target audience, interactivity, and theatrical techniques such as lighting.
After we explored the house which included kitchen, parlour room, drawing room and bedrooms, we headed to the Museum of Bath Architecture to plan our exhibition.
We got into groups and shared our individual ideas before deciding on an overall theme. My group's exhibition title was 'Under the sophisticated veneer' choosing to compare the lower class, servitude, with the opulence of the upper class. One of the items we picked for our exhibition was a 'Folding screen' as this symbolised perfectly the message we were trying to convey - it looks decorative on the outside but what goes on behind the screen isn't as pleasant.
Then each group pitched their proposals to Amy Frost and the others.
I spent the afternoon going for a walk and relaxing in the park, and enjoying the sunny 26 degree weather.
This morning we headed back to the Museum of Bath Architecture for another session, taken by Education Officer Polly Andrews.
First she gave a history of the Museum which interestingly used to be a church up until the 1970s. It is still sometimes used as a concert venue and theatre venue. It contains many tools that were used in the construction of Bath and its houses. A recent acquisition is John Wood's original drawing instruments.
The session was on the running of education programs in museums, and she went through various activities in the Museum that they had run for children. It reminded me of when I volunteered as an activity assistant at Melbourne Museum.
She provided guidance on planning and preparing workshops for different audiences. Then in groups we were given a target audience and we had to prepare a lesson plan including activities for a group of school kids visiting the Museum.
Then we presented our ideas.
This afternoon I went to the Holburne Museum which houses the collection of Sir William Holburne.
There was a temporary exhibition on contemporary tapestries which was interesting. It actually reminded me of the Tapestry subject at uni I did which I really didn't like. Anyway, some of these tapestries were cool.
In the above tapestry, the creator explores how tapestry can be manipulated to reflect the movements of the sea.
I also thought this tapestry at the entrance of the exhibition was cool - it reminds of a Picasso or a Georges Braque. It was done in 1934/5 by Edward McKnight Kauffer.
After that I met up with two girls at Sally Lunn's Historic Eating House, the oldest house in Bath. It's famous for its buns which are really big. I got one with chocolate butter on it.
Then after a pretty busy day, a group of us watched 'Sense and Sensibility' and 'The Duchess'. Several scenes from 'The Duchess' were filmed in Bath such as the Royal Crescent, the Assembly Rooms, and even Somerset House in London which I went to a couple of weeks ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment