Changing Impressions: Remembrance Workshops at Cumbria's Museum of Military Life

Objects and samples ready for the workshop

Earlier in the Summer I wrote a couple of posts about projects I've been involved in connected to the centenary of the end of the First World War. One of the projects I've been involved with was designing and delivering a drop in workshop (two actually) for Cumbria's Museum of Military Life as part of their Remembrance 100 programme.

Stitching

Making a rubbing

Adding stitching

In all honesty drop in workshops are not my favourite; the activity needs to be accessible and achievable in a very short time frame but should also be able to be extended if visitors want to stay, you never know how many people you're going to get and a lot like busses participants tend to either not turn up at all or all come at once! However, they are a great way of getting people in to museums and offer an easy way for people to participate which I do think is a really good thing.

Exploring colour

Rubbings and stitching

Adding stitching

Memory and how it changes over time is a theme I'm currently exploring in my own work so I was interested in creating a workshop that looked quite broadly at remembrance; what it means to remember and how that changes. (I wrote a bit about this on my post about the Remembrance 100 exhibition if you're interested to read more.) I'd also been asked to give the workshop a textiles focus, which was good for me as of course I love working with textiles.

Getting involved

Getting involved

Getting involved

I decided to create a workshop called 'Changing Impressions.' Using fabric crayons and cotton fabric I encouraged participants to make a rubbing of an object, creating an impression of it. If they wanted to they could then further embellish their rubbing with stitch. The idea was that by taking a rubbing from the object you would create an impression of it; it's from the object and bears a resemblance to it but it's not the same in the same way that our memories of things are not the same as the actual things (or events.) Further embellishment further changes the memory of the object imprinted on the cloth, just as each time we revisit a memory it subtly changes.

Workshop results

Workshop results

Workshop results

I really enjoyed running the sessions, both were well attended and what I loved was seeing participants, particularly the children, become very engaged in what they were doing and focusing on the process. In our increasingly fast paced world I think it's increasingly important to find time to stop, slow down and properly engage with an activity, especially one that uses the hands. I think I created several converts to hand embroidery, more than one child was heard to ask if they could go and buy threads to do some sewing at home. It was also lovely to see family groups sit and work together, supporting and encouraging each other and creating memories as well as exploring them.

Workshop results