You can be part of history for future generations – here’s how
Published: Friday, 22 May, 2020
Artistic messages of support are offering hope across our communities – and Stroud District Council’s museum staff want to collect them for a special project.
Drawings of rainbows and messages of support for key workers have appeared in windows and pavements across the district as a response to the Coronavirus pandemic and staff at Stroud District Council’s Museum in the Park are keen to collect as many as possible to form a historical record of this unique period of time.
Rainbows in windows, posters attached to recycling bins, chalk paintings and families dressing up in a different colour every day are just some of the examples the museum has collected already, but they need more.
“Museums don’t just display items from the past, an important part of our work is to document the present and preserve memories for future generations,” said The Museum in the Park’s manager Kevin Ward.
“If your family has created a message, whether it’s to thank key workers, cheer up passers-by or just help you get through the days at home we’d like you to take a photograph and email it to us.
“It’s something everyone can take part in, and it’s an ideal project for children during half term.”
The Museum will accept physical items of drawings and paintings also, but people are asked to keep hold of them until the museum re-opens to the public.
Cllr Mattie Ross, chair of Stroud District Council’s Community Services & Licensing Committee said:
“It has been heartening, that despite the uncertainty we’re all experiencing, many people have spread hope in their communities by creating rainbows and positive messages.
This is an imaginative initiative by the Museum in the Park and I hope everyone who has created a message of hope will become involved.”
You can either:
- Email a photo of your creation to museum@stroud.gov.uk along with your name and address
- Post it on the Stroud District Council or Museum in the Park Facebook pages
- Keep your rainbow message, and when the museum re-opens bring it in, or post it along with your contact details.
The Museum in the Park has created a number of other half term activities to keep children busy based on a Megalosaurus sculpture that is spending half term alone.
You can:
- Cheer up the lonely Megalosaurus by sending him an online message, joke or story
- Draw, paint or sculpt a dinosaur and send in a photo of your creation
- Sing along with some dinosaur songs
- Discover all about the museum’s collection of Megalosaurus bones
The giant sculpture was made by artist Andrew Wood for the old museum, and is still there in the Centre for Science & Arts in Stroud town centre. It couldn’t move with the rest of the museum to its current location in Stratford Park as it is part of the wall.
Find the dinosaur activities on the Museum in the Park’s website www.museuminthepark.org.uk