As the Life of Objects Exhibition enters its last month (the last chance to visit the exhibition will be the bank holiday weekend), we’re busy assessing the impact of the exhibition, looking at lessons learned and taking time to consider visitor feedback. It’s also a chance for us to further engage with our audiences by offering some Collections Encounters. This is a great opportunity for us to share some of the items that didn’t make it into the exhibition due to limited space. It also enables people to have a closer look at some of our collections as we will be showing objects in the historic reading room.
Karen and I were given the enviable task of choosing these objects, so we went for some of our favourites; items that did not meet our exhibition criteria or fit in with the stories we were trying to tell in the cases. However, we still wanted to connect with the exhibition so maintained this by choosing further items related to the people featured. Some of the objects we had out on our table were Li Yuan-chia’s Rose Tinted Glasses, some medals and a silver Pound case which live in his archive; Isabella Bank’s Chinese playing cards and a Russian peasant spoon; Adam Johnson’s mouth organ; and dsh’s ‘Frog Pond Plop’. It was great to be able to chat to visitors about their views of the exhibition and their reactions to the objects – who knew that the origami shape dsh used for Frog Pond Plop was referred to as a chatterbox? It was fascinating to hear which objects had moved and touched the audiences most and lovely to share reminiscences as people reacted to the items on display.
We hope that the exhibition and the Collections Encounter have shown that the Library holds a wealth of interesting material in addition to our amazing books, archives and manuscripts.
Don’t worry if you missed this opportunity to see these extra objects as the Engagement Team are providing another Collections Encounter on August 31st. They also have another event, ‘One Person’s Rubbish is Another Person’s Treasure’ on Wednesday 9th August. See here for details : Whats On Guide
We’ve loved seeing and hearing about your favourite objects. so please feel free to comment using #jrlobjects.
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