Putting our Collections in Action
The University of Cambridge Museums
& Botanic Garden in 2023/24
Introduction
Join us to reflect on the last year across the University of Cambridge Museums – our unique consortium of eight Museums and the Botanic Garden.
April 2023 saw the launch of Collections in Action, our fourth major public programme supported by Arts Council England. Through this National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) programme, we are bringing our audiences and world-leading collections together to explore the big questions: from place, power, and identity, to the future of our planet. We are working with our local community to create new opportunities, broaden access and promote health and wellbeing.
In this transitional year, we trialled new and innovative ways of working to deliver this programme, while exploring how we can embed the legacies of impactful and community-led past projects.
Our Museums and Botanic Garden delivered a jam-packed programme of inspiring exhibitions and engaging events, seeing a positive increase in attendance for both public programming and formal learning sessions.
Together our visitor numbers exceeded pre-pandemic levels and continue to rise.
Our well-established health and wellbeing programmes have continued to open up access and support agency and confidence for those experiencing health inequalities.
Scroll on to take a closer look at some of the numbers and stories behind our year.
Twilight with the Museums 2024
Twilight with the Museums 2024
The year in numbers...
1,285,218
visitors to our
seven Museums*
and Botanic Garden
Our audience numbers continue to rise with an increase of 19% compared to 2022/23, exceeding the national average of 11%.
Arctic Cultures: Collections and Imaginations at the Polar Museum
Arctic Cultures: Collections and Imaginations at the Polar Museum
Beneath our Feet: Archaeology of the Cambridge Region at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Beneath our Feet: Archaeology of the Cambridge Region at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance at the Fitzwilliam Museum
Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance at the Fitzwilliam Museum
Growing a backbone: Rise of the vertebrates at the Museum of Zoology
Growing a backbone: Rise of the vertebrates at the Museum of Zoology
Robert S. Whipple and the Founding of the Whipple Museum
Robert S. Whipple and the Founding of the Whipple Museum
49,802
visitors to events and activities
Audiences are increasingly engaging with our informal learning offer of events, talks and activities - both in the Museum and out in the community. This year we saw an increase of 10% on last year, attracting a spread of all age groups.
The promotion of events is supported by the University of Cambridge Museums What's On and monthly e-newsletter.
Our two major marketing campaigns bring together consortium members with partner heritage sites across the city and county: Summer at the Museums (July to September) and Twilight at the Museums (February half-term). Through these long-running programmes, we provide strategic targeted marketing activity, participation in Holiday Lunch Clubs and exclusive supported visits for families who may not otherwise be able to visit.
Throughout the year our Museums brought activities and objects out to our local communities at nearly 4,000 off-site events, such as Arbury Carnival and Mill Road Winter Fair.
51,486
attendees of formal learning sessions
Participants in our formal learning offer - for early years, schools, Further and Higher education - have also increased by 13%.
We responded to
2,774
research enquiries
and welcomed
1,560
research visitors.
Power & Memory
Power & Memory was our major public programme of events, displays, workshops, and community-led discussions confronting Cambridge’s colonial story. This aligned with the publication of the wider University report on the legacies of enslavement.
Running from October 2022 to January 2024, we asked: Who has the power to choose which stories we remember and tell?
This included programming such as Power Walks, a collaborative tour of two museums inviting the public to discuss objects and their connections to 'power', and a Museum Remix workshop, working with university students and early career museum professionals to explore our collections and create audio content offering an alternative interpretation of some of our objects.
In June and July 2023, we popped up in seven community spaces across Cambridgeshire with our Collections Campaigns Chest, a box of handling objects inspired by Thomas Clarkson’s Abolition of Slavery chest. We enabled 236 people to look, handle and respond to objects with links to empire and enslavement, and learn about the work museums are doing to tell more diverse and inclusive stories.
We are continuing to support staff to engage in decolonial practice going forward. Our team delivered a Legacies Symposium in September 2023, a mini-conference sharing collections research, community outreach and evaluation with 80 colleagues. Regular 'Bitesize' lunchtime talks are ongoing, helping both staff and volunteers to develop their knowledge and confidence.
Collections in Action
In April 2023, we launched our new Arts Council England funded programme, Collections in Action. The programme delivery is structured around four key themes:
Creating Opportunities
Working with young people to raise aspiration, build skills and creative capacity
Health and Wellbeing
Promoting wellbeing and supporting agency, confidence and access for those experiencing health inequalities
Social Justice
Exploring place, power and identity within and beyond the collections
Our Planet
Exploring environmental change, biodiversity loss and unsustainable living
Behind the scenes, we worked to enable the delivery of this programme by strengthening our internal infrastructure. This has included establishing an NPO Board, which held its first meeting in summer 2023, and delivering internal talks and workforce development training, ranging from Carbon Literacy for Museums to supporting visitors with 'hidden' disabilities.
We introduced Collections in Action Research and Development small grants funding to support our consortium members to deliver or participate in activity that engages audiences, responding to the four key themes. This allowed them to develop innovative ways of working, reach new audiences and respond in line with their own individual organisational priorities and specialisms.
Here is a closer look at just four of the many meaningful projects to have emerged from our four themes.
Taruwa
Featuring creative sets of music, spoken word performances and opportunities for conversation, Taruwa (meaning ‘gathering’) at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology was developed by producer Lydia Idakula in response to our Open Call for ideas for activities on the theme of 'Power'.
Based on similar events Lydia had managed in Nigeria for 13 years, the event aimed to explore what power meant to her and the other performers as migrants and underrepresented artists in a new country; and to showcase the work of African and migrant artists in a UK setting.
Attended by over 65 people – some travelling many miles to experience the first Taruwa outside of Lagos – the evening created the opportunity to be more experimental in our programming, and to encourage underrepresented creative practitioners to respond to our collections and spaces in ways which were meaningful to them.
“It was a truly amazing evening and I’ve had quite a few really beautiful and touching messages from people telling me how impactful the evening was for them. We also streamed it live on our Instagram page... I couldn’t have done it without you. I truly hope you are proud of what we pulled off.”
Lydia Idakula, Producer
Read more about our other Social Justice projects, supported by our Research and Development small grants funding:
A Paper Boat Making event at the Fitzwilliam Museum, co-designed and delivered by another Open Call respondent Suman Gujral during South Asian Heritage Month.
My Science Story at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science invited women working in science to explore and share their experiences of working in this field through a Zine making workshop.
Our Bridging Binaries LGBTQ+ Tours continued at the Museum of Classical Archaeology and the Museum of Zoology, which also introduced a new Pride in Nature trail to allow all visitors to access stories from the tours whenever they visit.
The Butterfly Effect
The Climate Past Climate Futures project from the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences aimed to enable young people to take action against climate change, using the museum collections as a starting point. A group from Parkside Community College worked with educators, early career scientists and a creative practitioner.
Over six months the group expanded their learning and skills through workshops and creative sessions including: the history of climate science at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science; a panel discussion and Q&A about climate change and extinction events with Cambridge University climate and earth scientists; what fossil evidence can reveal about changing climates; and how to write for a museum audience.
Inspired by discovering that butterflies act as an early warning sign to changes in the environment, the group collaborated with artist Hilary Cox Condron to create The Butterfly Effect exhibition featuring hundreds of handmade butterflies arranged throughout the Sedgwick Museum, juxtaposed with hand painted warning signs. The exhibition is on display until April 2025.
“I feel glad to be able to put my name to something physical, which I know will be doing its part to stop climate change.”
Young participant
“This programme was created to connect the upcoming generation with our world- leading climate scientists and to give the students a space and voice within the Museum. It’s been wonderful to see them respond to it so enthusiastically and creatively.”
Nicola Skipper, Education Coordinator at the Sedgwick Museum
Through our Research and Development small grants funding, we supported a number of additional events on the theme of Our Planet:
An Around the World Trail and Dear Planet Earth event at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden.
An interactive family workshop inviting families to discover the Sounds of the Earth at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.
A family day and online livestream exploring Winter Wildlife in our cities from the Museum of Zoology.
Our Changing Planet, featuring the collections of the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology and the Museum of Zoology, encouraged families to think about the impact of environmental change and how we respond through the arts.
Creative Schools
This activity grew of our longstanding collaborations with North Cambridge Academy and Soham Village College (part of the Staploe Education Trust).
This year saw the pilot of an in-school youth collective with young people from Soham aged 13-15. Examining local history through a Black history lens, the project focused on fostering co-research and youth voices within the Fitzwilliam Museum, while providing the young people the opportunity to work with a range of artists, curators, and creatives to explore themes of belonging, identity, and place.
Blending physical theatre techniques with poetry and imagery that had been developed across the previous term, the youth collective created a promenade performance showcased at the Fitzwilliam Museum.
“Trying new creative practices. Working with new people. Having freedom and control over it.”
“The Physical theatre. Meeting new people and becoming a collective. Making something from scratch. Learning new history.”
Young participants
“It’s improved my teaching, and it’s developed me. I value being part of something real, something where there’s an outcome. I value being part of something which is incredibly challenging at times in terms of the scope of it.”
Teacher from the CPD programme
Over the summer, we were able to provide a work experience placement for students from Coleridge Community College and North Cambridge Academy.
For A-level leavers, we offered a paid Museum Experience Internship, giving an insight into the many different areas of museum work in preparation for the first steps in their future careers.
Portals to the World
In addition to our NPO programme work, we are continuing to develop our health and wellbeing partnerships.
Led by the University of Cambridge Museums Team, Portals to the World is our partnership programme with local organisation Dementia Compass designed for those living with dementia and their care partner.
In 2024, the programme celebrated its 12th anniversary.
We ran two sessions a month across the Museums and the Botanic Garden. Each session combines a short, adapted talk with a guided museum walk, and ends with refreshments and object handling. A team of highly trained volunteers supported the sessions and allowed respite opportunities for caregivers throughout.
“It puts my situation into perspective, and I realise I am not alone caring for someone with dementia.”
“We like that participants are assigned a volunteer guide and we have felt very well supported on every occasion… it’s hugely helpful for me.”
“The sessions offer a rare reason to get out of the house. This is important. In the colder months it can be hard to persuade my partner to go out.”
“This is something to tell our children we have done – including new things we have learned."
Portals to the World Participants
We published a new Health & Wellbeing web page to showcase the breadth of our work. This includes:
Disability Family Openings, Creative Club and Arts Pioneers, supporting families with children with special educational needs and disabilities
Touch Tours and creative workshops for visitors who are blind or partially sighted
Our Young Parents programme with Romsey Mill
Supported visits for homeless or vulnerably housed participants with Wintercomfort
Dance with the Museum monthly movement sessions for people living in sheltered housing or supported by the Cambridge City Council Independent Living Service.
Thank you
To our funders: Arts Council England, Research England, Cambridge City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council.
To all staff, volunteers and partners that have supported us to deliver our work.
The University of Cambridge Museums are:
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Museum of Classical Archaeology
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Kettle's Yard
The Polar Museum
Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences
Whipple Museum of the History of Science
Museum of Zoology
Cambridge University Botanic Garden
Keep in touch
Follow us on X, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Subscribe to our monthly What's On Newsletter.
Read more on our website and our Collections in Actions blog.
*All annual data figures exclude consortium member Kettle's Yard, which is not part of our current NPO programme.
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