A rich history
Growing up in Bristol, my first experience of a museum was a trip to the City Museum and Art Gallery.
As I remember, there was little on display that really told the story of the city of my birth. But for a new generation of Bristolians, the opening of M Shed is a great opportunity to learn about the people and events that have shaped its history.
The 1950s harbourside transit shed that housed the old Bristol Industrial Museum has been completely transformed. I’m not sure the architecture does much to support the stories told within the museum, but visitor facilities are excellent and visitors get stunning views of the harbour and surrounding city.
With a history as rich as Bristol’s, there is a lot to cover, and M Shed displays are spread across three themes, Bristol Places, Bristol People and Bristol Life. The overriding impression is that M Shed is crammed full with a rich and fascinating collection of objects, photographs and artworks.
There is no lack of interpretation in the form of graphics, interactives and video, all of which supports the stories and exhibits displayed and underpins the overall themes for each gallery.
The Bristol Places gallery attempts to give visitors a feel for how Bristol has grown physically, and includes elements of archaeology, architecture, transport and social history.
There are many highlights; in the middle of the gallery an enormous satellite photograph of the city forms part of the floor over which visitors walk. Most visitors spent time identifying their houses or well-known landmarks.
Close by is a 1960s Lodekka double-decker bus on which thought-provoking stories of passengers and bus crews can be heard. Since the city was badly bombed during the second world war, this topic features strongly in displays, with evocative film complemented by objects donated by local people, including an original Anderson shelter rescued from a local back garden.
Although many museums claim to tell a “People’s Story”, not all can back this up with exhibitions that really do so. Here, there is much evidence of public engagement in the community- based displays around the Places gallery, which focus on a number of the well-known districts in the city such as Easton, St Pauls, Clifton and Hartcliffe.
Each section includes a case of objects supported by images and words from local people. Upstairs in the Bristol People and Bristol Life galleries, the displays teem with the stories of generations of Bristolians.
Although many of the topics dealt with are familiar to local history collections such as schooling, domestic life, work and entertainment, the museum does not shy away from more controversial and challenging areas such as transatlantic slavery and Victorian child exploitation.
The city has been no stranger to social unrest over its long history and the new displays provide welcome context to more recent events by telling the story of the 1831 Bristol Riots and the 1980 disturbances in St Pauls.
Perhaps the best testament to the success of M Shed is that on the two occasions I have visited, it was packed with a huge range of people, young and old, sharing experiences and memories with each other and all clearly enjoying their visit.
Like many, I approached the opening of this new museum with a degree of trepidation, a result of its protracted development and the publicity surrounding its funding, but it’s been worth the wait.
Tim Bryan is the head of collections and interpretation at the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon
Stories of Bristol people
I’ve probably visited Bristol about half a dozen times over the years, have no particular connections to the city and so didn’t really have any particular expectations of M Shed. The only expectations I did have were informed by M Shed’s press releases.
The £27m cost of the museum was sufficient to make it newsworthy. It is housed in a former 1950s transit shed in what’s known as Bristol’s cultural quarter.
The museum covers the history of Bristol, and regards itself as distinct from many other museums in that it presents “many thousands of stories of the people of Bristol, which have been discovered through working with experts and communities across the city, a process that will continue for the life of the museum”.
M Shed’s opening, followed fast on its heels by the new Museum of Liverpool (see link below), raises a host of questions, not only about what museums of place offer, but who they’re for and why.
It also highlights some of the difficulties of opening during a recession. Given that there wasn’t anything in the museum that I absolutely had to see, I took the advice of a member of the museum’s staff, which was to start at the top, take in the view of Bristol from the roof terrace, and work my way back downstairs through the galleries.
This was probably a mistake. The terrace was roped off at both ends – suggesting that it still wasn’t ready for visitors. There was nothing pointing out the major landmarks, or orientating visitors to the city.
Back inside the building, the second floor was more or less shut: the temporary exhibition galleries were closed [photographer Martin Parr’s Bristol and West show had not yet opened] and the events space was locked. A press release promised debates and discussions, but none were announced.
One flight down, and the studio (designed to focus on “personal learning and thinking skills”) and meeting room were also off limits.
Outside the building, none of the “working exhibits” – cranes, railways and boats from the area’s industrial past, maintained and operated by volunteers – were running when I visited.
Inside, the Bristol Lives gallery, situated at the far side of the building, was much quieter than Bristol People and Bristol Places.
These galleries were packed with a multiplicity of small, thematic displays, masses of interpretation and interactives. I found it hard to steer a path though the exhibits, or to grasp more than titbits of Bristol’s history.
The narratives are partial, at best. Themes collide (I wasn’t sure whether the overlaps between shopping, slavery and the “oldest profession”, for example, were deliberate) and there are several layers of interpretation. Bristol Places highlights the city’s diversity, with small displays focusing on different areas.
The central exhibits in the gallery are Bristol-wide. Several visitors were pacing around a large satellite map on the floor, locating particular sites.
Another hot spot was a 1960s double-decker bus, where the oldies were sitting downstairs to chat and teenagers were congregating upstairs. There was something reassuring about people behaving the same way in the museum as they would on the street.
M Shed’s tone and textures vary enormously. Some displays are relatively detached, such as those concentrating on Bristol’s industries – the production of Concorde’s engines, Fry’s chocolate, Wills tobacco and Wallace and Gromit. Others, arguably M Shed’s best, address social controversies associated with city – race, in particular.
The entrance to Bristol People is flanked by displays dedicated to slavery and the city’s history of political activism. The 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott stands out.
Prompted by the Bristol Omnibus Company’s refusal to employ African-Caribbean or Asian crews, this drew attention to racial discrimination in Britain and contributed to the creation of the Race Relations Acts, which outlawed racial discrimination.
Bristol Life also touches on the city’s shameful history of race relations in its exploration of emigrants and immigrants. Incidents highlighted include the forcible expulsion of Jews in 1290, and the abduction of Inuits in 1577.
A particular difficulty of M Shed’s combination of community and curatorial interventions is that such an approach generates complexities around the presentation of public history.
Contemporary museums of place tend to be museums of their communities, rather than museums for their communities. The uneven quality of the museum’s displays reflects a tension between its inward and outward-facing roles, between anecdote and research. Some of the community contributions feel somewhat raw, but that might change over time.
The relationship between the museum and Bristol itself is more frustrating. I’d imagined that there would be an explicit connection between the cityscape, as seen from the terrace, and the content of the displays. I wanted to be better equipped to explore the city as a result of visiting M Shed.
I came away thinking that M Shed has enormous unfulfilled potential. The fact that so much was under-utilised smacked of declining revenues, not what you’d expect of a new capital project.
And given that visits to new museums usually decline once the novelty has worn off, the museum will have to work a bit harder to generate extra revenue from areas such as corporate hire, retailing and catering.
Sara Selwood is a museum consultant
Museums Journal September 2011, p42
Growing up in Bristol, my first experience of a museum was a trip to the City Museum and Art Gallery.
As I remember, there was little on display that really told the story of the city of my birth. But for a new generation of Bristolians, the opening of M Shed is a great opportunity to learn about the people and events that have shaped its history.
The 1950s harbourside transit shed that housed the old Bristol Industrial Museum has been completely transformed. I’m not sure the architecture does much to support the stories told within the museum, but visitor facilities are excellent and visitors get stunning views of the harbour and surrounding city.
With a history as rich as Bristol’s, there is a lot to cover, and M Shed displays are spread across three themes, Bristol Places, Bristol People and Bristol Life. The overriding impression is that M Shed is crammed full with a rich and fascinating collection of objects, photographs and artworks.
There is no lack of interpretation in the form of graphics, interactives and video, all of which supports the stories and exhibits displayed and underpins the overall themes for each gallery.
The Bristol Places gallery attempts to give visitors a feel for how Bristol has grown physically, and includes elements of archaeology, architecture, transport and social history.
There are many highlights; in the middle of the gallery an enormous satellite photograph of the city forms part of the floor over which visitors walk. Most visitors spent time identifying their houses or well-known landmarks.
Close by is a 1960s Lodekka double-decker bus on which thought-provoking stories of passengers and bus crews can be heard. Since the city was badly bombed during the second world war, this topic features strongly in displays, with evocative film complemented by objects donated by local people, including an original Anderson shelter rescued from a local back garden.
Although many museums claim to tell a “People’s Story”, not all can back this up with exhibitions that really do so. Here, there is much evidence of public engagement in the community- based displays around the Places gallery, which focus on a number of the well-known districts in the city such as Easton, St Pauls, Clifton and Hartcliffe.
Each section includes a case of objects supported by images and words from local people. Upstairs in the Bristol People and Bristol Life galleries, the displays teem with the stories of generations of Bristolians.
Although many of the topics dealt with are familiar to local history collections such as schooling, domestic life, work and entertainment, the museum does not shy away from more controversial and challenging areas such as transatlantic slavery and Victorian child exploitation.
The city has been no stranger to social unrest over its long history and the new displays provide welcome context to more recent events by telling the story of the 1831 Bristol Riots and the 1980 disturbances in St Pauls.
Perhaps the best testament to the success of M Shed is that on the two occasions I have visited, it was packed with a huge range of people, young and old, sharing experiences and memories with each other and all clearly enjoying their visit.
Like many, I approached the opening of this new museum with a degree of trepidation, a result of its protracted development and the publicity surrounding its funding, but it’s been worth the wait.
Tim Bryan is the head of collections and interpretation at the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon
Stories of Bristol people
I’ve probably visited Bristol about half a dozen times over the years, have no particular connections to the city and so didn’t really have any particular expectations of M Shed. The only expectations I did have were informed by M Shed’s press releases.
The £27m cost of the museum was sufficient to make it newsworthy. It is housed in a former 1950s transit shed in what’s known as Bristol’s cultural quarter.
The museum covers the history of Bristol, and regards itself as distinct from many other museums in that it presents “many thousands of stories of the people of Bristol, which have been discovered through working with experts and communities across the city, a process that will continue for the life of the museum”.
M Shed’s opening, followed fast on its heels by the new Museum of Liverpool (see link below), raises a host of questions, not only about what museums of place offer, but who they’re for and why.
It also highlights some of the difficulties of opening during a recession. Given that there wasn’t anything in the museum that I absolutely had to see, I took the advice of a member of the museum’s staff, which was to start at the top, take in the view of Bristol from the roof terrace, and work my way back downstairs through the galleries.
This was probably a mistake. The terrace was roped off at both ends – suggesting that it still wasn’t ready for visitors. There was nothing pointing out the major landmarks, or orientating visitors to the city.
Back inside the building, the second floor was more or less shut: the temporary exhibition galleries were closed [photographer Martin Parr’s Bristol and West show had not yet opened] and the events space was locked. A press release promised debates and discussions, but none were announced.
One flight down, and the studio (designed to focus on “personal learning and thinking skills”) and meeting room were also off limits.
Outside the building, none of the “working exhibits” – cranes, railways and boats from the area’s industrial past, maintained and operated by volunteers – were running when I visited.
Inside, the Bristol Lives gallery, situated at the far side of the building, was much quieter than Bristol People and Bristol Places.
These galleries were packed with a multiplicity of small, thematic displays, masses of interpretation and interactives. I found it hard to steer a path though the exhibits, or to grasp more than titbits of Bristol’s history.
The narratives are partial, at best. Themes collide (I wasn’t sure whether the overlaps between shopping, slavery and the “oldest profession”, for example, were deliberate) and there are several layers of interpretation. Bristol Places highlights the city’s diversity, with small displays focusing on different areas.
The central exhibits in the gallery are Bristol-wide. Several visitors were pacing around a large satellite map on the floor, locating particular sites.
Another hot spot was a 1960s double-decker bus, where the oldies were sitting downstairs to chat and teenagers were congregating upstairs. There was something reassuring about people behaving the same way in the museum as they would on the street.
M Shed’s tone and textures vary enormously. Some displays are relatively detached, such as those concentrating on Bristol’s industries – the production of Concorde’s engines, Fry’s chocolate, Wills tobacco and Wallace and Gromit. Others, arguably M Shed’s best, address social controversies associated with city – race, in particular.
The entrance to Bristol People is flanked by displays dedicated to slavery and the city’s history of political activism. The 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott stands out.
Prompted by the Bristol Omnibus Company’s refusal to employ African-Caribbean or Asian crews, this drew attention to racial discrimination in Britain and contributed to the creation of the Race Relations Acts, which outlawed racial discrimination.
Bristol Life also touches on the city’s shameful history of race relations in its exploration of emigrants and immigrants. Incidents highlighted include the forcible expulsion of Jews in 1290, and the abduction of Inuits in 1577.
A particular difficulty of M Shed’s combination of community and curatorial interventions is that such an approach generates complexities around the presentation of public history.
Contemporary museums of place tend to be museums of their communities, rather than museums for their communities. The uneven quality of the museum’s displays reflects a tension between its inward and outward-facing roles, between anecdote and research. Some of the community contributions feel somewhat raw, but that might change over time.
The relationship between the museum and Bristol itself is more frustrating. I’d imagined that there would be an explicit connection between the cityscape, as seen from the terrace, and the content of the displays. I wanted to be better equipped to explore the city as a result of visiting M Shed.
I came away thinking that M Shed has enormous unfulfilled potential. The fact that so much was under-utilised smacked of declining revenues, not what you’d expect of a new capital project.
And given that visits to new museums usually decline once the novelty has worn off, the museum will have to work a bit harder to generate extra revenue from areas such as corporate hire, retailing and catering.
Sara Selwood is a museum consultant
Museums Journal September 2011, p42
Project data
- Cost £27m
- Main funders Heritage Lottery Fund, £11.6m; Bristol City Council; Fund, £11.6m; Bristol City Council; DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Improvement Fund; University of the West of England; Friends of Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives; Friends of Bristol Art Gallery
- Architects LAB Architecture Studios; Bush Architects
- Main contractor BAM
- Exhibition design and fit-out Event Communications
- Structural engineer Arup
- Project management Full-On
