I was commissioned to create a book for adults visiting Weston Park Museum. The book offers an alternative perspective to the standard gallery text, helping visitors to delve deeper and to see through the eyes of makers and poets, activists and academics, scientists and machinists, curators and volunteers, the memory keepers and the future thinkers…

 

The aim of the book was help people enjoy and find out more about Sheffield’s museum collections and their local context. It highlights 50 objects from Weston Park Museum, as seen through the eyes of 50 different people. It brings together stories from the Licorice Allsorts factory floor and a poem about electric heaters, memories of building a Mosque and research insights from the Arctic.

Working with the team at the museum, I identified a long list of objects and potential contributors.  I shaped the content, creating a balanced selection of contributors and working with them individually to develop their content in a way which suited them. This included interviewing some participants, transcribing and editing highlights, in order to make a meaningful, engaging passage, which reflected the participant’s voice. I was the main point of contact for design collective Dust as we developed the layouts and overall design of the book. The book is on sale in the Museums Sheffield shops across the city.