Griselda Goldsbrough, Freelance Community Artist for York Museums Trust, discusses a new York Castle Museum project  working with families from York Children’s Centres  and Beehive – a local Pre-School. 

Remember Me is a visual arts project that introduces families to museum collections, in particular the 1914: When the World Changed Forever exhibition at the Castle Museum -looking at the way objects can be used to tell important stories.

Families from three York Childrens Centres and a pre-school have been invited to work with me in a series of art workshops. We will look at images from The Castle Museum to give us inspiration to create Memory Boxes, using participants special objects as a starting point.

Through-out the project, participants will explore stories that their chosen objects could tell people now and in the future, about their family, their interests and how they live – just as the objects from the 1914 exhibition share stories about the lives of people from the First World War.

The first workshops were at Clifton Children’s Centre and Haxby Road Children’s Centre. We explored various ideas and enjoyed some great discussions about how and why we collect objects.

We then worked creatively to produce drawings, boxes, family timelines and the children were able to add to the boxes and pictures of themselves. We talked about objects which were special to soldiers too – medals, embroidered postcards, books, badges and flags.

Families at Clifton Children’s Centre were given a disposable camera each to explore objects in their own homes. They were asked to talk about special objects with their children and photograph them.

Everyone was really excited to be given the cameras and take special objects – we had photos of christening gowns, bracelets, photographs and of course lots of special teddy bears!

We created the Remember Me boxes to represent their family and their special objects – participants added all the objects they had made into the boxes to take home.

Some lovely ideas were letters which participants made for their children when they were older, a participant choosing the sun as a special object and a family timeline which the children helped make.

So far the project has been really exciting with lots of families discovering new learning opportunities at The Castle Museum. For me the most rewarding part of the project is engaging with families and seeing the energy and ideas coming back each week.

There has been lots of discussion about objects and why we save special objects in Museums – the stories, words and smiles we have shared has been a privilege.

I will share further details of the project over the next couple of weeks – but for inspiring ideas do go and look at the exhibition www.yorkcastlemuseum.org.uk and see what stories you relate to most and think about what objects you have nestled away.

This photo shows a baby blanket that one of the participants brought in. We looked at the idea of soldiers embroidering postcards or larger works such as the embroidery completed by a soldier from the second Dragoon Guards insignia.