Help Tullie get festive!

We need your help to get Tullie ready for Christmas.  Our guest blogger Geoff tells you how you can put your own fesitive exhibition in THe Shed.

Our tree’s looking a little bare so we need you help!

Making a Festive Exhibition of Yourself, 16th December 2014 – 4th January 2015

With Christmas literally on our doorstep and schools on the verge of breaking up for the festive period, this time is always important for museums such as Tullie House. Families are often looking for things do both before and after Christmas Day itself. So with this and our Shed exhibition project in mind, a family exhibition about Christmas seems an excellent fit.

When planning any activities, families or otherwise, it is important to consider engagement. This can vary depending upon the audience you are catering for and with families, interaction and the provision of fun things to do is paramount. Families often like interaction where they get involved and afterwards, a legacy for their work is often a great means for each family to look back at the activity and say “We did that!!!” Additionally, when working with families, we must think of the children, but also toddlers, teens and of course adults, whether they be parents or grandparents. Any combination of these people can form a visiting family. It’s therefore important that we try and engage with all family members with each group. It’s not always an easy task.

So our Christmas exhibition will allow families to work together to produce something, in this case an exhibition, that they can take pride in. This will be done through a series of family workshops, one for our Tullie Toddler group, the other two for visiting families over the Christmas School Holidays. The families will also have the opportunity of displaying their own Christmas objects. These could range from old presents, decorations or a turkey roasting tin!!! Whatever they choose, we’re hoping there are stories linked to the objects; each family will have the opportunity to share those stories not only with each other in the workshops, but also on the labels they create about their own objects. Stories are something we can all relate to and families are often full of them.

For other families visiting in between the workshops, they can also contribute by adding Christmas artworks to our exhibition banner. As with the workshops, we’ll ask them to draw something important to them and to tell us why that object is so special to them.

In taking part in these activities we’re hoping to give the families a great opportunity to find out some behind the scenes tips and secrets about how we put on an exhibition, whilst at the same time, giving them a fun family visit to Tullie House.

If you would like to book a place on one of the family workshops, call us now on (01228) 618700. We look forward to seeing you.