Our collections team have been hard at work beginning the redevelopment of our exhibition space thanks to funding from Museums Galleries Scotland.
The beginning of this year has been very busy for our “Opening the Box” project; as well as the collection returning to the centre after a respite in Perth museum, our brand new cases were installed in March to help show off items in the collection that the public has never been able to see before.
By installing these new cases in the exhibition, we are now able to access items that can educate and inspire the community around us. The team of volunteers that worked on our recent shelter building workshop were amazed to see the architectural ingenuity of the crannog dwellers from 2,500 years ago and getting to see the items inspired them to keep working through the snowy weather!
The ability to access many of the items in our collection was not possible before the funding from Museums Galleries Scotland allowed us to store our artefacts in a secure and accessible manner, and so we are grateful to have the opportunity now to showcase the variety of the pieces left by Iron Age people in Loch Tay.
To do so, we’ve been opening up some of our collection to the public eye through pop-up “meet the curator” sessions – the first of which happened on our official opening day at the end of March. Members of the community who came through our doors to visit and take part in the opening day festivities were able to catch a glimpse at some of the rarer items in the collection, including a butter dish and a lyre bridge, which left them feeling intrigued about the possibilities of our future as a museum.
At the beginning of April, we hosted another pop-up “meet the curator”, this time allowing visitors to really get involved in the curatorial process. We asked everyone, especially our younger visitors, to help identify shards of pottery – more items that were not able to be displayed until the installation of our shiny new case. The hands-on interaction was very popular and the kids loved being able to get a taste of archaeology and the curiosity that comes along with it.
In the coming months, we are developing our exhibition even further, changing and refreshing the older displays to give the space an updated look with even more information on the lives of ancient crannog dwellers. You won’t want to miss it!
