This week’s photo challenge is about repurposing? …”discovering an object for which you’ve discovered a clever new use.”
Like Phoebe Anna Traquair?
Painted in 1920s by Scottish Artist Phoebe Traquair for the Great Hall of Lympne Castle, Kent ( National Museum of Scotland)
Art galleries and museums ‘repurpose’ objects all the time to engage visitors, of all ages; to make them inquisitive; puzzled; challenged to compare, and contrast; to critique and make recommendations: to appreciate differences and similarities; to remember images of what they treasured; to open up to wonder. It’s more than just labelling and classifying – they want to get people talking and reflecting on what was most memorable for them.
Most Scottish museums and galleries are free. We visited Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum last year for a special (ticketed) Mucha Exhibition. I’d last been in the building when it was a dusty museum/storehouse last century.
Caught a glimpse of some refurbishment and wondered why they put these objects together – a Spitfire behind an elephant? Did you have to guess which is heaviest?
Our tour guide was very informative but I didn’t get time to ask these objects which caught my eye, so I nipped back and took this photo to look at later.
The curators must have a sense of humour. What do you reckon? These are twice the size of tennis balls and thought to be pre-Viking.
One ‘repurpose’ – You stirred them in the cauldron to help tenderise the meat being cooked.
PS. An adult elephant can weigh up to 4500 kg. This 1944 Spitfire’s max. weight is 3565 kg. For an image of the completed display, click here.
PPS. Yes. The Mucha Exhibition was pretty. But I got fed up looking at so many draped, ornamental women on posters … time to move on. Spent a more engrossing, enlightening time in the galleries upstairs. I’d go again any day.
All text and photos by Meg
Story Twigs the Imagination! by Meg Philp is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Story Twigs the Imagination! 
One of the fun things about archaeology is that our stories that “explain” artifacts are just that – stories. We make them up and put them out there to engage the curiosity, but we will probably never know the full answer. The beauty is in the process: imagining the culture, wondering if they valued the things we did or totally different things, conjecturing about how they solved problems…and then humbly acknowledging that there are no “correct” answers.
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Hey Scilla. You said that better than I could say myself. I always appreciate your comments. Cheers Meg
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I never thought about museum pieces like this, thank you for that point of view 🙂
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Museums are fascinating places – so many stories. Thank you for visiting.
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Love the picture of the three stone balls and caption XD
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Glad you did. The way they were carved really made me want to hold them! M
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I love Kelvingrove. I used to go there all the time 🙂
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And the food in the downstairs cafe is to die for! Really great place all round.
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The carved stone balls were very intriguing
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Yes. I like mysteries too. Thanks for visiting. M
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Dear Meg,
What a great post! I loved the caption of the the three stone objects, and would sincerely love it if the person who wrote that could come and label my house for me.
We are museum people. We were in York on the day Eli turned six, and told him we would do anything he wanted on his special day. He chose to go to the Yorvik Viking Museum, the York Castle Museum, Clifford’s Tower and, being his mother’s son, th bakery where we found a birthday cake that looked like a soccer ball.
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Yep. It’s too long already since we were in each other’s company. I need to write you a longer email. Thanks for being a kindred spirit, Naomi.
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Thank you, Meg. I feel the same way about you.
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