With all the objects and stories they hold, museums have always been an important point of reference and inspiration for other creative industries.
In recent years, several programmes have aimed to develop that creative potential in a more strategic way. One milestone was the Museumaker initiative, which was funded by the now-defunct Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and enabled craftmakers to create museum installations inspired by each institution’s collection.
That initiative came to an end three years ago but elsewhere, organisations such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Design Museum and the Crafts Council have been running successful museum residency programmes with creative professionals for a number of years.
Imaginative approach
But a combination of necessity and imagination has pushed one museum to take this collaborative approach a step further. After losing an application for redevelopment funding, Derby’s Silk Mill museum was forced to find an alternative solution to revamp its 300-year-old building.
Late last year the museum launched an ambitious co-creation initiative funded by the Happy Museum Project which has moved far beyond the one-off interventions of previous schemes.
The Re:Make project has engaged a maker-in-residence (the design and architecture company Studio Tilt) to work with around 250 members of the local community to rebuild the museum “from the inside out”. This will include:
The Silk Mill Museum is in a good position to undertake such a project; its long history in manufacturing means the initiative is a continuation of the building’s heritage, and the museum is already established as a hub for makers and the local creative industries.
Re:Make itself was launched at the museum’s second Mini Maker Faire, a community-led event where makers can network and display their work.
Mutual benefits
Re:Make is proving to be an effective way of engaging local people and giving them a sense of investment and ownership in the museum. Participants get the opportunity to learn a wide range of new skills in a series of free workshops run alongside the redevelopment project.
The first few of these looked at prototyping techniques such as computer-aided design, 3D scanning and laser cutting. Participants were also given the opportunity to lead on elements such as lighting or furniture.
This joining up of community co-creation and professional makers may yet be an exciting alternative to expensive redevelopment projects in the face of dwindling public funding.
“When we failed to get the funding to refurbish the museum, we could have packed up and gone home. We decided on a different option.
We mothballed the building and started experimenting, asking people what they thought we should do. But more than that they did it with us. And we worked out a way forward.
With minimal resources, Re:Make is a programme of rebuilding the museum from the inside out, co-making, co-building, co-producing everything with people who feel passionately about what makes us special.
So far we’ve been thinking about the ground-floor space, our programming and our collections; now we’ve started to design and prototype the elements for the space – from exhibition cases, to cafe tables and research spaces.
Next we will start producing our agreed concepts by manufacturing, wherever possible, the elements on site in our purpose-developed workshop spaces.
Through this we will be developing our skills and learning collectively to see how this informs our sustainability and purpose in the future, including our funding strategy for the redevelopment of the building.
The Silk Mill is reinventing itself for the 21st century and, through reviving the principles of the Enlightenment, expanding traditional perspectives of what a museum is and can be.”
In recent years, several programmes have aimed to develop that creative potential in a more strategic way. One milestone was the Museumaker initiative, which was funded by the now-defunct Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and enabled craftmakers to create museum installations inspired by each institution’s collection.
That initiative came to an end three years ago but elsewhere, organisations such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Design Museum and the Crafts Council have been running successful museum residency programmes with creative professionals for a number of years.
Imaginative approach
But a combination of necessity and imagination has pushed one museum to take this collaborative approach a step further. After losing an application for redevelopment funding, Derby’s Silk Mill museum was forced to find an alternative solution to revamp its 300-year-old building.
Late last year the museum launched an ambitious co-creation initiative funded by the Happy Museum Project which has moved far beyond the one-off interventions of previous schemes.
The Re:Make project has engaged a maker-in-residence (the design and architecture company Studio Tilt) to work with around 250 members of the local community to rebuild the museum “from the inside out”. This will include:
- Co-designing and building furniture and fittings for the museum’s cafe, exhibition and activity spaces
- Selecting objects for display
- Preparing interpretation and signage.
The Silk Mill Museum is in a good position to undertake such a project; its long history in manufacturing means the initiative is a continuation of the building’s heritage, and the museum is already established as a hub for makers and the local creative industries.
Re:Make itself was launched at the museum’s second Mini Maker Faire, a community-led event where makers can network and display their work.
Mutual benefits
Re:Make is proving to be an effective way of engaging local people and giving them a sense of investment and ownership in the museum. Participants get the opportunity to learn a wide range of new skills in a series of free workshops run alongside the redevelopment project.
The first few of these looked at prototyping techniques such as computer-aided design, 3D scanning and laser cutting. Participants were also given the opportunity to lead on elements such as lighting or furniture.
This joining up of community co-creation and professional makers may yet be an exciting alternative to expensive redevelopment projects in the face of dwindling public funding.
Hannah Fox, project manager, Silk Mill, Derby
“When we failed to get the funding to refurbish the museum, we could have packed up and gone home. We decided on a different option.
We mothballed the building and started experimenting, asking people what they thought we should do. But more than that they did it with us. And we worked out a way forward.
With minimal resources, Re:Make is a programme of rebuilding the museum from the inside out, co-making, co-building, co-producing everything with people who feel passionately about what makes us special.
So far we’ve been thinking about the ground-floor space, our programming and our collections; now we’ve started to design and prototype the elements for the space – from exhibition cases, to cafe tables and research spaces.
Next we will start producing our agreed concepts by manufacturing, wherever possible, the elements on site in our purpose-developed workshop spaces.
Through this we will be developing our skills and learning collectively to see how this informs our sustainability and purpose in the future, including our funding strategy for the redevelopment of the building.
The Silk Mill is reinventing itself for the 21st century and, through reviving the principles of the Enlightenment, expanding traditional perspectives of what a museum is and can be.”
