Creative Schools - 2020-2022

Local pupils from North Walls Community School have been undergoing training with a range of professionals to help them fulfil the role of Junior Curators at the Museum when it reopens.

In September, pupils were visited by experts from National Galleries Scotland Mara Barth (Learning Officer) and Freya Spoor (Curator) - who took them through a two-day workshop to become Junior Curators. 

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.