The Gospel Ship, a project at Ceredigion Museum, was developed in collaboration with artist, Janetka Platun, People United and Happy Museum.  Through the project the community will co-create modern day responses inspired by the themes and subjects of an original 19th Century print (The Gospel Ship) in the museum’s collection.

Ceredigion held several community workshops and gathered 120 pieces of writing for the project.  Further funding is currently being sought to create a full sized Gospel Ship in 2017. The gathered responses will be painted directly on to the sails of this traditional clipper which will sail along the Welsh coastline, stopping off at least six locations. The voyage will be enriched with commissioned events, artist commissions and a touring exhibition of the museum’s rich collection of maritime paintings and artefacts.

Evaluation

The project vision is that community relationships are strong and inclusive, and the museum is seen as a positive catalyst for change

Highlights included the development of new seafaring partners eg RNLI.  It has created a new theme which has been taken up across the museum including collections and HLF plans and the team have gained new marketing and crowd funding expertise.

Challenges have included austerity and consequent difficulties in juggling bids, match funding and PR.  The large scale of the Gospel Ship ambition has been a challenge and some participation was challenged by the fact project leads were not Welsh speaking.