A new and permanent community history project gallery has opened at the Museum of Bath at Work.
The Knowing Your Place Gallery consists of a series of displays which have been created from raw material provided by local residents in twelve districts of the city.
Public meetings in the twelve areas were held to describe the project and Director Stuart Burroughs explained the idea:
‘ We asked local residents to look closely at their area and identify and then suggest an alphabetical list of all the features of their locality they felt were most important and that they felt should be celebrated.
The only proviso was that only one item – a local building, personality, natural feature- could be suggested to represent each letter of the alphabet. We then created a pictorial display with text captions written by them. There are 312 photos from 312 suggestions!
The intention was to present, to visitors and other residents alike, an alternative exhibition on Bath – free from all the traditional associations of Georgian elegance for example-which had been created by the residents themselves.
This is a change for us, habitually the museum staff create an exhibition and present this to the public.
In this case it was the other way around -the public presented us with the exhibition – so to speak!’
The exhibition is a permanent feature and the twelve areas are, Bathford, Batheaston, Bathwick, Larkhall & Walcot, Lansdown & Weston, Twerton, Combe Down & Odd Down, Southdown & Englishcombe, the City Centre, Widcombe & Lyncombe, Bathampton and Oldfield Park.
It occupies the entire Top Floor Display Hall.
Admission is free with admission to the museum.
I asked Stuart Burroughs if this was also a subtle way of making people more aware of the history and heritage within their community and encouraging them to care for it.
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