CULTURAL
HERITAGE
FELLOWSHIPS
FINAL REPORT
2012-13
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The Cultural Heritage Fellowship 2012/13 was an
international project administered through the
collaboration of University College London (UCL),
Heritage Without Borders (HWB) and the British
Council. In addition, the Fellowship collaborated
with Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, National
Museums Liverpool, Glasgow Museums and Bristol
Museums and Galleries.
“Community Engagement is about how you develop
a museum into being a service for the community”
(CHF Fellow, 2012/13)
The Cultural Heritage Fellowship (CHF) was a fully funded one-year programme aimed at
building the community engagement skills of museum professionals from the Middle East/
North Africa region. It was comprised of two residential group learning sessions, a museum
placement and a one-on-one mentoring programme, during which UK-based mentors visited
Fellows in their home institutions and worked with them on community engagement projects.
The Fellowship aimed to:
– Equip Fellows to address
community needs and include
community voices, particularly
those of young people, in
museum practice.
– Give Fellows an increased
confidence and the skills to
address contemporary issues
in the context of museum
collections.
– Help Fellows understand how to
advocate for greater community
engagement inside and outside
their own organisations.
– Build international links between
museum professionals in the
Middle East/North Africa region
and the UK.
September 2012
October - August
2012/13
Fellows attended a one week
training in London, hosted at
UCL. This included lectures,
workshops and onsite visits.
The Fellows travelled
throughout the UK to spend
a week in their mentor’s
institution, learning first hand
how community engagement
works in daily practice.
The Fellows returned home
to carry out their community
engagement projects. During the
year, their mentors visited to offer
further advice and support in
delivering these projects.
– Give Fellows a better
awareness of the challenges
faced by museum colleagues in
the different regions across the
Middle East and North Africa.
September 2013
The Fellows and Mentors
returned to London in
September 2013 to present
their final projects, network
with international and national
peers and graduate from
the programme.
Tunis
West Bank & Gaza Strip
Jerusalem
Algeria
Beirut
Libya
Mohammad Shaqdi: Assistant
Director for the Outreach
Program for Darat al Funun
Morocco
Nada Sheikh-Yasin: Assistant
Curator, Jordanian Museum
Carla Mardini: Museologist
and member of the Scientific
Committee of Beit Beirut
Tamara Issa Musha’sha’:
Project Coordinator, Birzeit
University Museum
Mohamed Mokhtar: Curator,
National Museum of Egyptian
Civilization
Sayed Ahmed: Curator and
Keeper of Royal Mummies,
National Museum of Egyptian
Civilisation
Sonia Slim: Chief Architect
at the National Institute of
Heritage
Ramdane Kamal: Head of the
Department of Heritage in
M’zab Valley office
Participants
Our Fellows came from a variety of institutions and professional
backgrounds, spanning 6 different countries.
Lebanon
Syria
Iraq
Jordan
Kuwait
Egypt
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
UAE
Oman
m
Ye
en
“I would suggest the strongest element of the Fellowship
was that it introduced me to other museums in the
Middle East. It was interesting to meet other people
from different countries who were facing similar issues.
It made me aware that we weren’t alone and should make
ties with one another.” (CHF Fellow, 2012/13)
Mentors
Lyndsey Mackay: Open
Museum technician, Open
Museum Glasgow
Catherine Laing: Open
Museum Outreach Assistant,
Glasgow Museums
Alastair Callaghan:
Outreach Assistant at
Glasgow Museums
Morag Macpherson: Learning
& Communities Manager in
Museums, NE England
Paul Khan: Deputy Director of
Education, Communities and
Visitors, National Museums
Liverpool
Lindy Gilliland: Senior
Manager, Great North
Museum
Kate Iles: Assistant Curator for
Archaeology, Bristol Museum
Ben Meller: Community
Partnerships Officer, Bristol
Museum
Organised by Heritage Without borders HWB, mentors were paired with Fellows based on their individual
needs and expertise. Mentors hosted the Fellows for a week in their institutions, before visiting the Fellow
during the course of the year to help them produce their final project. At the final week in London, Fellows
and Mentors co-presented their projects.
“The amazing opportunity to travel to another country
and experience someone’s work first hand was absolutely
invaluable and something that I cannot imagine ever
having the opportunity to do without HWB.”
(CHF Mentor, 2012/13)
The Training Content and Structure
The training content was delivered in a variety of formats in order to cater to different learning styles.
Workshops
Part of the UCL week
covering advocacy,
evaluation, handling boxes
and communtiy mapping
Sarah Dhanjal (UCL) explains the benefits and methods
to using a handling box to encourage engagement.
Ramdane and Alastair speaking at the
M’Zab Valley, Algeria
Visits
Mentorship
Our Fellows visited their
Mentors within the UK and
were then visited back in
their host institutions
Training
In London, around the UK
and in the Fellows’ own
countries, these visits offered
working example of
community engagement
Talks
Part of the UCL week,
inviting speakers from
around the UK to present
personal experiences
and working models
Debbie Challis (UCL), spoke on curating controversial
material. Other speakers included David Fleming and
Maggie Appleton.
Whilst in London, the Fellows met with the Community
Curator at Whitechapel Gallery.
Learning Framwork
Understanding Communities/Audience Research
Attracting Communities/Reaching New Audiences
Engagement
Method #1:
Conversational
Engagement
Method #2:
Contributory
Engagement
Method #3:
Co-Production
Objects used to inspire 2-way
dialogue between museum
and community on historical
and contemporary issues
Museum exhibition or
programme enhanced
by community generated
content/consultation
Museum exhibition or
programme objectives,
themes, formats jointly
developed by community
and practitioners
Evaluation/Organizational Learning
Engagement
Method #4:
Hosting/
Volunteering
Museum offers platform for
community directed activity
and volunteering
TO: New Museum: Museum is shared by museum practitioners and community
FROM: Old Museum: 1-Way communication, museum practitioner to community
CULTURAL HERITAGE FELLOWSHIP – LEARNING FRAMEWORK
Results: The Fellows’ Projects
ENGAGING SCHOOL CHILDREN IN MUSEUMS
Sayed’s project was to deliver workshops for schools and families.
Starting in May 2013, he delivered eight educational programmes:
seven in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and one in the
Childrens’ Museum. Altogether some 200 children have taken part in
the workshops.
Sayed Ahmed and Paul Khan
Each workshop used a simple evaluation questionnaire that asked
children what they liked and disliked and what they would like to see
changed for the future. This feedback has been used to refine the
activities offered to engage children. As part of this process Sayed
negotiated for permission from the Egyptian Ministry to have space for
educational activities. They now have two classrooms and will have five
additional classrooms, as well as a gallery for children to use; a first for
an Egyptian museum.
In addition, the Museum has developed a relationship with the
Children’s Museum and has produced five workshop models. Sayed
emphasised: “It is not the end of the project for us, it is the beginning.”
His aim is to get children and their families to give a higher priority to
protecting their heritage. He has also observed that the workshops can
inspire improvements in the quality of teaching.
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Tamara Issa Musha’sha’ and Catherine Laing
Tamara wished to inspire local people to give as high status to heritage
as to economics and politics. In light of this, Tamara worked with a group
of six marketing students to carry out research into the museums in
Palestine and barriers to engaging university students with the Museums.
The marketing students interviewed 100 students and produced a report
for the Birzeit University Museum, from this, the Museum organised
an event for the students which attracted 500 people. In addition, the
Museum hosted a self-contained exhibition with museum objects from
the library. Students and the library team attended workshops and
lectures so that together they could choose the objects for the showcase
and its location, and write captions for objects.
Birzeit University has committed $7,000 for further showcases in the
University. With fund raising support from the Museum, the showcase
project also gained £500 from Glasgow City Council’s International
Fund. Partly as a result of the relationships developed during this
project, Glasgow has been twinned Bethlehem.
HOSTING A COMMUNITY STREET FESTIVAL
Ramdane Kamal and Alastair Callaghan
As a result of CHF, Ramdane has created a new organisational strategy,
not only to receive tourists, but to also work with the community.
Ramdane said this is a “180 degree change. Now it must be a place to
help people understand their neighbours.” This radical new approach
has been embedded within the organisation, with Ramdane having
delivered training for volunteers to show the potential for telling stories
through the collection.
In November 2013 Ramdane hosted a three-day festival of traditional
games, in the market place of El-Atteuf. The event was designed to
bring different communities, and age groups, together.
Ramdane fed back the ideas of the Fellowship to other senior
officials in the Cultural Ministry. This has led to plans for a month of
public activities in May 2014 to see how museums can engage with
the community. Alistair, his mentor, commented that the Fellowship:
“Opened my mind to the commonality of interests around heritage.
There is a similarity in the contribution you can make to peoples’ lives.”
BUILDING TEACHER RESOURCES IN SCHOOLS
Mohammad Shaqdi and Morag Macpherson
As Assistant Director of the Darat al Funun Foundation, Mohammad
persuaded the Jordanian Government to agree to work with the
British Council to produce a toolkit that teachers can use in schools.
In October 2013 the Foundation started to deliver workshops for
teachers and students from governmental schools, private schools,
and UNRWA schools.
The Foundation also worked with the Plastic Arts Association to
organise print-making workshops, which has so far been attended by
90 teachers. The Foundation has a relationship, and regular meetings,
with the British Council, helping them establish a sustainable strategy
and continue to develop the program.
DESIGNING TOURS AND HANDLING BOXES
Sonia Slim and Lindy Gilliland
Sonia used insights gained from her visit to Tyne and Wear Museums to
train four staff whom are part of the education team at Bardo Museum.
The Museum organised a ‘thematic circuit’: a tour of the galleries
showing objects from the collection about topics like the four seasons,
games in the Roman era and subjects in the national curriculum. In
addition, the Museum created an object box for a workshop in schools
containing replicas of archaeological pieces from the Bardo Museum
collection (predominantly the Punic era). The box will be used for object
handling sessions in schools, associations, orphanages and hospitals.
The box has the objects hidden in a layer of sand so that the children
have to discover them, rather like an archaeologist.
Sonia has developed and piloted a structure which can be adapted
to other museums and collections. So far, feedback shows that the
majority of participants want to visit the Museum again. In addition,
Sonia has set up a project to engage the public in conservation, in
the form of a website, Save Your Heritage, in which people can post
photographs of buildings in their neighbourhoods that they value.
ADVOCATING COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Mohamed developed partnerships with local organisations by
promoting the idea of organising joint activities that would bring
audiences to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC).
Ten NGO’s visited the Museum and gave ideas about possible
activities. The Museum has since organised community tours and talks
in collaboration with the Friends of Egyptian Museum and El Manial
Palace Museum, the Townhouse Gallery and Darb1718 Contemporary
Arts & Culture Centre.
Mohamed Mokhtar and Kate Iles
The Museum has built long term partnerships; further activities will
be built and designed around their individual interests. There was
some anxiety within the organisation about the value of community
engagement when the Museum is not yet open, but the positive
feedback from the community tours has allayed any concerns.
Mohamed is working with Darb 1718 to host a photographic exhibition
about NMEC that will help promote the museum to a different audience
and community.
INTERVIEWING COMMUNITY MEMBERS
Carla aspired to design a project closely concerned with the locality
and place of Beirut, in order to: “give a person living in a neighborhood
in Beirut the power to be like a curator in a museum.”
Carla Mardini and Lyndsey Mackay
Carla interviewed members of the public about their perceptions of
East and West Beirut, with the aim of creating curiosity, challenging
assumptions about the City and generating limited but rich data
about public perceptions. The participants were recruited because
of a professional or academic interest in the City or because of their
familiarity with the City’s streets. The ten interviews were audio recorded
and posted on a website (Beirut neighborhoods.tumbe.com) together
with photographs of the places. Carla plans on organising tours to
meet the ten interviewees. Once the Cultural Programmer is in post the
website will act as a springboard for an exhibition based on this material.
RELATING ANCIENT CULTURE TO MODERN COMMUNITIES
Nada Sheikh-Yasin and Ben Meller
During the Fellowship, Nada changed jobs and moved to the UK. She
pursued her interest in working with communities from the Middle
East/north Africa region by delivering an education programme for the
Egyptian Cultural and Education Bureau in London. The initial aim was
to engage with the Egyptian community living in London. The project
used an object on loan from the Petrie Museum – a scarab beetle – as
a route into discussions about communication. Participants were asked
to write their own messages on a picture of a scarab beetle as the
Ancient Egyptians might have done and then put it in graffiti art.
At some stage, Nada would like to go back to the Middle East and
implement some of the skills she has learnt during the Fellowship. Ben,
her mentor, believes there are few other opportunities to meet museum
professionals doing the same job across the UK, thus the Fellowship
provided a forum for national and international networking.
“There is no point
reaching out without
reaching in.”
“I learnt that the museum
is not only a place to
exhibit objects, but also
to create community
engagement projects”
“The relationships built
between everyone
involved are a testament “We had a detailed
to the programme and
program and
I am sure that people
everything…mentioned
will continue to work
in this program…[was
together.”
covered] in…[these]…
sessions. All the staff
“Every museum we
and the volunteers
visited was a new
were really helpful and
experience [for me]
excited about what we…
to discover. I enjoyed
[were doing]...”
every moment at my
host museum. The
“The Fellowship helped
experience of this
me widen my career
Fellowship programme
path. If it wasn’t for the
changed …my way of
Fellowship I wouldn’t
thinking.”
have got the job in
Dubai or the Petrie. Both
“My mentor helped me…
of these gave me much
a lot …and I think one
better opportunities.”
of the most important
benefits from this
Fellowship was that
relationship between me
and my mentor.”