Last weekend’s Legacy Workshop, in the spectacular setting of Marine Centre Wales at Menai Bridge, brought together the U-boat project’s partners in a packed two days which explored all aspects of the U-boat project.
Parallel sessions covered both the investigations of the First World War wrecks, including the ecology and the dive schools, and the full spectrum of the activities that our museum partners used to work with groups to create artworks and tell their community’s stories. There were also useful sessions on making museums more community-led, accessible and how to utilise new technologies and platforms to ‘go digital’.
We are very grateful to our wonderful speakers and workshop leaders and to everyone who attended. Thank you!
Victoria Rogers kicked off the weekend by taking us on the Museum of Cardiff’s journey towards being a community-led museum with in her excellent talk on ‘Diversifying audiences’.Dr Mike Robert‘s session on the wrecks he has surveyed for the U-boat project answered some important questions, such as why the wrecks should be recorded and what can be learned from them.Nêst Roberts from Storiel Bangorshowed us how wonderful results can be achieved, even when you have nothing relevant in your own collections, by working with other museums and groups to create artworks. Robert Cadwalader explained how Porthmadog Maritime Museumwas able to provide the rich historical material that was the inspiration for Storiel’s Criw Celf’s installation (below).
Richard Jones from Accessible Wales gave us a practical and entertaining session on increasing accessibility for people with disabilities in our museums – highly recommended!Mel Taylor from the Nautical Archaeology Society gave a session on the U-boat project’s field schools which invited dive groups to come and explore two First World War wrecks – theCARTAGENAand the LEYSIAN. She said: ‘Let’s hope the full legacy of this project is that we can find a way to work together across the disciplines and protect our underwater cultural heritage’.Our Commissioner Dr Hayley Roberts introducing Julie Satchell’s keynote talk on the Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War, a project which, like ours explored First World War wrecks, but they were looking at those off the south coast of England.Julie Satchell, of the Maritime Archaeology Trust talking about their Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War’ project and a host of other projects which explored WW1 wrecks over the commemorative period. You can hear her talk at last year’s Nautical Archaeology Society conference here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWBf02XNu70 The workshop given by Morrigan Mason and Nicola Kelly from Carmarthenshire Museums was one of the highlights of the weekend giving us a comprehensive set of tools with which to successfully collaborate with partners and groups, including drawing together! They used the example of their work with schools and an artist to create the wonderful ceramic boats as part of the U-boat Project.
Tom Pert and Elena Gruffudd leading our ‘Going Digital’ session – looking at low cost solutions and the fantastic free platform for digital material in Wales:People’s Collection Wales.
Comments from our participants:
Great place to network & hear about other projects
Very useful for sharing experiences. Amazing potential for future work
A very interesting and informative event. Very enjoyable indeed. Meeting such a varied and informed group of people was the best bit.
Hyfryd cael gwneud cysylltiadau gwych! Edrych ymlaen at gydweithio!
A fantastic event
Both days have been fascinating!
Surprising network connections made
Interesting connections made!
Both days were excellent – presentations well prepared & informative.
September 13, 2019
