Belonging
Belonging worked with a range of Black and minority ethnic communities to explore individual, family and group responses to the notion of belonging in the 21st Century.
Coal, Frankincense and Myrrh: Yemen and British Yemenis
Museums Sheffield: Weston Park, September 2007-April 2008
The Yemeni community is Britain’s oldest established Muslim community, and Sheffield’s current population of around 3500 is one of the largest in the country. The exhibition Coal Frankincense & Myrrh: Yemen and British Yemenis at Weston Park explored the stories of Yemeni migration and how these are linked with the shared histories of Britain and Yemen. The exhibition presented a vivid insight into the lives of people from Britain’s oldest Muslim community. Using a mixture of contemporary photographs taken by documentary photographer Tim Smith, alongside archive photographs, oral history and objects, it explored the development of Yemeni communities in Sheffield since the early 1950s. The exhibition examined the journeys people made, the lives they have subsequently led and what their past and future means to them. Links with Britain were explored in present-day Yemen, focusing on how migration has affected those returning, their families and local society.
To download a pdf of the final project report click here
Coming Home
Belonging: Coming Home involved Sheffield’s Yemeni community in creating a long-term display for Museums Sheffield: Weston Park. People from the community worked with Museums Sheffield staff to explore what ‘‘coming home’’ means for Yemenis in Sheffield. The display in the Museum’s popular Sheffield Life and Times gallery drew on the community’s photographs, objects, music and stories to share fascinating insights into Yemeni cultural identity, traditional and modern, in Yemen and in the UK.
The project was funded by Renaissance Yorkshire and Awards for All.
Belonging: China
In Belonging China, Museums Sheffield worked with an artist and with three Chinese groups on a year-long programme of arts workshops during which the groups created objects for display in the Treasures gallery at Weston Park Museum. The project afforded the museum an opportunity to engage with a minority community that had not previously had much involvement with Weston Park at a time when China and Chinese culture are in the spotlight. The objects, based on the themes of ‘Personal’, ‘Powerful’ and ‘Beautiful’, were created by the participants themselves with support from artist Panni Poh Yoke Loh and were on display at the gallery for 18 months.
To download a pdf of the final project report click here
With Sheba and Arwa
With Sheba and Arwa was a Renaissance Yorkshire funded project building on previous work Museums Sheffield have done with the Yemeni community. This phase of the partnership aimed to focus on women in the Yemeni and associated communities, working mainly with two groups of women to explore the role of women in Yemeni culture, both in the past (focussing on two historical queens, Sheba and Arwa) and in modern times. The end products created from the project would include jewellery created by a group of young women, a memory book created by a group of adult learner women, and a painting of Queen Arwa created by local artist Mohamed Lahsoon. These pieces are on display in Weston Park Museum's Treasures Gallery.
To download a pdf of the final project report click here
MuseumSheffield
Our Curator of Metalwork has been blogging about plans to mark 2013's centenary of the discovery of Stainless steel http://t.co/EQsdMT2P
14 hours, 19 min ago
A century of Stainless steel
Museums Sheffield’s Curator of Metalwork, Lucy Cooper on the preparations to celebrate next year’s centenary of the discovery of Stainless steel in Sheffield.
May 16 2012
Sheffield families on show
Photographer Jonathan Turner on his commission to create a series of photographs representing Sheffield families for the exhibition The Family in British Art.
Apr 23 2012