Event - Workhouse art (Southwell)

Artists will be able to take inspiration from the historic surroundings of Southwell Workhouse when it hosts a day of drawing.

 

Costumed staff, and artefacts from the workhouse will be on display for visitors to draw, and those feeling ambitious can sketch the workhouse building, rooms and gardens as part of the Big Draw event.

A former art lecturer, Mr Ashley Dukes, will be on hand to offer advice from his art surgery in the old school room.

The event runs from midday to 4pm today. Normal Workhouse admission charges apply, with paper, pens and clipboards supplied free.

 

From: http://www.newarkadvertiser.co.uk/news/view.asp?id=cf106d56-40a9-102f-af38-7dfa703febdd&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

News - Dusting off city’s rich heritage (Sheffield Archives)

IT was an operation planned with near military precision.

Roads were closed. Staff worked through the night. Specialist lorries were hired.

This was the transportation of Sheffield’s most precious historical documents; and every detail was arrange meticulously.

Some 25,000 boxes of artefacts – some dating from the 12th century – were being moved into temporary storage ahead of the current year-long, £500,000 upgrading of Sheffield Archives.

But as with all best laid plans...

“We’d arranged for everything we could think of,” recalls Teresa Januszonok, senior conservator.

“Except we didn’t think of rain.

“It took three months to move all the documents and on one of the first days it started pelting it down. The boxes are specially designed to be waterproof for seven hours but when you’ve got items dating back to 1180, you don’t take chances.

“So I found myself building this tarpaulin walkway between the door and the lorry. I tied a sheet round a tree and a lamppost. It must have looked ridiculous. I’ve been an archivist more than 30 years and I’ve done some unusual things but I never thought constructing a canopy would be among them.”

The hassle, it seems, has been worth it.

The new-look archive will reopen to the public next month – but the 12 months of work will have ensured Sheffield’s documents are safely maintained for...well, hopefully another 900 years.

New controls on temperature, humidity, air circulation and light have all been installed to ensure optimum conditions for preservation.

A revamped reception area, meanwhile, means new documents donated to the archives will undergo a thorough conservation routine before being catalogued and filed.

And that, says manager Pete Evans, is important because the papers there are not just dusty documents (indeed, that new conservation routine includes a specialist cleaning table which sucks the dust off them), but the living story of what South Yorkshire is and who we are.

Items stored there presently include everything from the 1296 Sheffield Market Charter to 21st century interviews with war refugees living in the city; from insurance claims for the 1864 flood to the company records of dozens of steel firms like Firth Brown; from school reports to council minutes.

And, yet, they all have one thing in common.

“They are absolutely vital if we are to maintain an understanding of our history,” she Pete. “Some of the papers have been around 800 years and, by upgrading the building, we are trying to ensure they stay in tip-top condition for generations to come.

“The upgrading means we continue to meet national guidelines and should remain as one of the best archives in the country.”

Moreover, it has also led to one or two surprise discoveries.

“While we were transporting the archives from the building we came across some items which we simply didn’t know we had,” says Pete.

“I think our favourite has been the Charles Dickens rider.

“He gave a reading of A Christmas Carol here in 1855 which is fairly well known but we stumbled on a letter from one of his associates to the event organiser, John Fowler.”

In it, the correspondent says the legendary author expects to be put up at the city’s Royal Hotel and that ‘Mr Dickens will want a large bedroom and sitting room, all with fires’.

“It’s a bit different to the riders of, say, pop stars today,” laughs Pete. “But it’s a fascinating parallel – I suppose he was a ‘star’ of his day.”

Now a second military style operation is under way to bring the documents back from temporary storage.

It’s another three-month job but it’s well under way already ahead of the September 5 reopening date.

“It’s summer now so we’re hoping we won’t have the same problems with the rain,” says Teresa.

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/community/the-diary/dusting_off_city_s_rich_heritage_1_3700002

Nottingham to host the Warren Cup in a major exhibition of Roman artefacts

A famous Roman artefact once considered too shocking to be exhibited is coming to The University of Nottingham as part of a major new exhibition.

The Warren Cup, a silver cup decorated with scenes of male homosexual love, was recently featured in the BBC series A History of the World in 100 Objects and has its permanent home in the British Museum. It is only the second time the cup has left the Museum to be displayed outside London.

The cup will form the centrepiece of a three-month exhibition Roman Sexuality: Images, Myths and Meanings running at the University’s Weston Gallery at the Lakeside Arts Centre, which brings together a wide variety of artefacts and images from Roman art and archaeology and investigates what they meant to those who made and used them.

The exhibition marks the first collaboration between The University of Nottingham Museum and the British Museum and will offer people in the city and region the chance to see rare and celebrated Roman artefacts without having to travel to the capital.

The exhibition is co-curated by Clare Pickersgill of the University of Nottingham Museum, Dr Paul Roberts of the Department of Greece and Rome, British Museum in collaboration with Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham

Dr Roberts said: “When we think about the Romans we think of gladiators, emperors and soldiers, but this exhibition focuses on ordinary people — and a fundamental part of their lives.

“Roman writers had set views on sex but objects like the Warren Cup or even humble oil lamps tell a different, more diverse, story. These objects — and people’s reactions to them — also make us think about issues of sexuality in our society.”

The Warren cup was made in around 15BC–AD15 and believed to have been found at Bittir near Jerusalem. It is named after the American Edward Warren who purchased it in 1911. Warren was one of the most well-known collectors of his day — other famous pieces in his collection included Rodin’s The Kiss, now on display in the Tate Modern Gallery in London, and the painting of Adam and Eve by Lucus Cranach, now at London’s Courtauld Institute.

Following Warren’s death, the cup was offered to several institutions, including the British Museum, but was considered too sexually explicit to display and none would take it. In 1953, the cup was turned away from the United States after its images offended the sensibilities of a customs official.

Only in 1999, following major changes in the law and public attitudes towards homosexuality, was the Cup finally given a permanent home in the British Museum, where it is now one of its most celebrated and discussed pieces.

The new exhibition begins by looking at how Victorian attitudes have affected the way we have collected, displayed and studied objects like the Warren Cup and looks at all aspects of love and sex in the Roman world including the gods, goddesses and myths associated with sexuality.

The Roman world was more comfortable with sexual imagery than many other cultures. Roman art, from luxury items such as the Warren Cup, to wall paintings, sculpture and everyday tableware and lamps, was filled with depictions of the body and human intimacy. The Romans, like the Greeks, believed that sex and sexuality were governed by several deities, including Venus, goddess of love, and Bacchus, god of wine and fertility, and their images fill Roman art and mythology.

In addition, the exhibition features objects which to modern eyes may appear to be sexual but to the Romans conveyed other meanings connected to fertility, superstition or humour.

Terracotta body parts such as wombs or breasts, and figurines showing birth or nursing mothers were common offerings at temples and shrines and also graves. Superstition provided the largest body of sexual imagery. Images of the phallus were made from materials including gold and bronze, pottery, bone and coral. Statuettes, plaques, mosaics, shop signs, tintinabula (wind chimes) and jewellery were used to protect businesses, households, children and even animals.

Clare Pickersgill said: “The University Museum currently displays a wide variety of Roman artefacts from regional excavations, especially Margidunum at Bingham, that show many aspects of everyday life. This exhibition enables another Roman topic, not commonly discussed and often misunderstood, to be explored.”

The exhibition also contains objects from The University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections Department alongside pieces from Nottingham City Museums and Galleries and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.

Roman Sexuality: Images, Myths and Meanings runs at the Weston Gallery, Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park campus from January 14 2011 to April 11 2011 and is open Monday to Friday 11am to 4pm and Saturday and Sunday from 12pm to 4pm.

A series of lectures and gallery talks are planned to accompany the exhibition and more information can be found at lakesidearts.org.uk/Exhibitions.html

Entry to the exhibition is free but please note that the explicit imagery on some exhibits may be unsuitable for children and it is advised that adults accompany children under the age of 16.

From: http://presszoom.com/story_163746.html