Junior Curators Case Study: Scapa Flow and North Walls Primary School

2020-2021 – Consultancy on Education space

Pupils from North Walls Primary School were invited to the Scapa Flow Museum site in high vis vests and hard hats to see how the building of the museum was coming on and to be consultants on the design of the Education Space within the museum.  The idea behind this consultation was that children and young people would have a stronger connection to their peers and be ‘experts’ in knowing what would appeal to them.

The school brought with them a researched mood board that particularly emphasized that the space should “not be boring”, which meant that it should have colour.  They had discovered that the Architect was going to paint walls in ‘dazzle’ camouflage to reflect the paint treatment of the fleet that protected them from enemy attack.  In the main galleries and foyer space this treatment would be in shades of grey, however, following the pupils research it turned out that ‘dazzle’ on boats was very often in high contrast colour.  This research was shared with the Architect and Orkney Builders and the colour scheme was taken from the bright colours in the picture The Dome by Jim Baikie that would be displayed in the Education Space.  This was a direct example of co-creational practice and creative learning in action.

2021-2022

This was a busy year which saw the creation and graduation of our Junior Curators Team at North Walls Primary School:

National Galleries Scotland Curatorial Training

Firstly the pupils undertook a two day training workshop programme with the Education Lead and a Curator from National Galleries Scotland.  During the training the children worked with images from the national collections and learnt how to ‘read’ a painting and the staff of the National Galleries and Scapa Flow Museum learnt what particular appeals to children about artefacts and images.  It was very much a two-way process in which experts in being children worked with experts in curation and arts education.  What was particularly noticeable was that the children did not just focus on the central element of any picture, the focal point, but were equally interested in the periphery, edges and smaller details of the images, much more so than the adults in the room. 

We all shared how we felt about the images and what mood we thought that the painter wanted to make us feel and what story they were hoping to tell and whether it was successful or not.  We talked about when pictures were depicting things in ways that were not ‘real’ and why they might do that.  The children then produced interpretation for the images that were turned into labels for the artworks.  They focused on what was important to them about each picture and what they thought audiences might want to look out for.

At the end of the workshops each pupil was given a certificate and graduated as a Junior Curator and so our Junior Curator’s programme was born. 

So now we had Junior Curators for the Scapa Flow Museum, what would they do?  How would they help the Culture Service to launch the Scapa Flow Museum.  They had already informed how the Education Space would look, what else could they do to make the museum accessible to their peers and the community?

The Dome Paintings and Sound Label for The Dome by Jim Baikie

Because they had focused on pictures/images in the Junior Curator training sessions, and because they had consulted on the Education Space, it made sense to start with the artwork that would be displayed in the space, The Dome by Jim Baikie.  The Junior Curators made two pieces of work based on this:

Firstly, the children created their own interpretations of The Dome painting.  Using the idea of the World War buildings that abound in Hoy, and Baikie’s own memories of playing in one as a child in the 1950s (the basis of his picture The Dome), each pupil created their own imagined world.  These artworks used the dome shape of Baikie’s work as a basis.  This collection of paintings would then become the basis of the first exhibition in the Scapa Flow Museum building before it was fitted out with the vitrines, cases and exhibition artefacts.

Secondly, returning to the original painting the Junior Curators created interpretation of it for their peer age group.  The decision was arrived at to make this a sound interpretation and they recorded their observations and feelings about the complex imagery of the painting.

Hosted Community Day

It had been felt that the length of time that the building of the new museum galleries had taken (partly due to Covid 19) meant that the Community in Hoy needed to be reunited with the building before the wider public.  The idea of the Community Day was formed to take place in between the completion of the building and before the exhibition was installed.  The Junior Curators had their Dome artwork available to display at that event, however the became much more central to the event by becoming its hosts.  They staffed the front desk, guided visitors to the key speakers of the tours, gathered feedback information and were key to the running of the event.  They produced an illustrated timeline to explain what would happen next at the Museum and when both the ‘soft’ and formal opening days would be.  What became clear was that there was a new generation of Hoy residents who felt a strong ownership of the new Museum.  Most of them couldn’t remember the old one!  This helped bridge adult members of the community into the new potential that the Museum held, after a considerable amount of time without this resource.  It was a very positive experience that couldn’t have happened this way without our Junior Curators.

The next phase for the Museum was its fit out with cases and then the return of artefacts, indeed many more from the stores that could now be housed in the temperature-controlled environments of the new galleries.  What could the Junior Curators do next to help?

VR Pod Instructions

One of the new exhibits was a virtual reality tour of the Scapa Flow site as it would have been in the early 1940s.  This new technology was very familiar to the Junior Curators, but not so much to some of the older staff members!  So, who better to ask to produce the instructions for the pod than those who have grown up with this technology all their lives?  So, if you visit and use the VR Pod the instructions in there are written by the Junior Curators and they hope you enjoy the experience!

Hosted ‘soft opening’

Finally, the exhibits were in their cases, and it was time to open the doors to the public.  It was decided to run a ‘soft’ opening to enable the staff to troubleshoot and de snag anything that might need tweaking.  Again, it was important that this opening was hosted by the Junior Curators so that they were seen to be at the heart of the Museum from day one.

2022-2023

Once all the tweaking was done and lots of folk had had a chance to see the Museum for the first time it was the right time for the Formal Opening with Sir Chris Hoy.

Hosted formal Opening

By now the Junior Curators were ‘old-hands’ at hosting.  This time they took on some guiding responsibilities across the Museum too and talked about their favourite objects alongside the Curatorial Staff who led tours on the day.  It was important to see the Museum through the wider perspective of heritage professionals to the young people who would learn from this incredible resource.  As usual the Junior Curators made everyone feel welcome.

Labels for Large Objects

Whilst the interpretation of the Museum is intended to be accessible, it was felt that the skills of the Junior Curators in writing labels could be deployed on the Large Objects that are presented in the Romney Hut.  The Junior Curators spent time with the Museum staff learning all about the guns, crane and boats and then went away and wrote labels for those objects. These will be in situ from 2024.

Treasure Hunt  (conceived, co-designed, produced and tested the Treasure Hunt for peer age group visitors available from 2024)

One idea that came from the Junior Curators when they were asked ‘What next?’ was the idea of a treasure/scavenger hunt.  They spent a year developing the idea in a series of workshops with graphic designer Kerry Cooper. 

The first phase was focused on picking favourite artefacts and coming up with clues to where they were in the Museum.  They then moved on to the design of a leaflet that would hold the clues, deciding on the shape of the flyer and how it might fold to reveal the clues (and answers), on colour and what to put in it.  We also discussed first ideas about how we would be able to identify the right answers in the Museum.  This led onto some training with Museum staff about curatorial ethics – what would and wouldn’t be appropriate for War artefacts – which were particularly sensitive and needed careful management. 

Kerry went away and did some thinking and we had a workshop that looked at codes using the nautical flag alphabet.  We created codes using our names and sentences and challenged each other to decode them.  It was agreed that we would use the flag code so that when someone found them it spelt out something (we’re not telling you what!) on the flyer and they would have cracked the code.  They then won a badge!

Beta Testing with Dounby Primary School

In December 2023 Dounby Primary School approached North Walls Junior Curators to ask them to guide them round a visit to the Museum.  This was a golden opportunity to test the Treasure Hunt to make sure it really worked with visitors. 

And so we had our working idea, design and plan and Kerry produced the leaflet that became available to the public in 2024 and is proving a big success with young visitors (of all ages!).

2023-2024

Developed 3D handling objects for Education Space

The next project focused on being able to handle artefacts. Because the original objects are so precious this isn’t possible, but the Junior Curators had an idea about 3D modelling using 3D printed objects.  They then worked with Museum staff member, Chris Andrews, and chose a number of possible objects that could be printed and made available in the Education Space.  They were also able to handle some of the less precious objects from the collection that might also be sited in the space in the future.