It seems that across Western Europe communities and municipalities are reassessing what it means to have a good life. This week I was invited to Piedmont in Italy to speak at BESAlessandria to talk about the Museum of East Anglian Life and the Happy Museum. Mine was one of a series of talks held throughout […]
Read More →On April 24th, ‘Happiness Economist‘ Daniel Fujiwara was interviewed by The Voice of Russia World Service in a special programme on Maria Miller’s recent speech on value and the arts entitled, ‘Culture Secretary: Arts Must Prove their Worth.’ Fujiwara discusses his recent Happy Museum Project research report on Museums and Happiness, which can be found […]
Read More →In April 2013 the Happy Museum Project (HMP) held Open Workshops in Newcastle and Birmingham. Staged in the Great Northern Museum and The Fazeley Studios respectively, the venues providing magnificent settings for a rigorous two days of discussion, presentations and activity. 17 representatives attended the Newcastle event, from organizations as diverse as National Trust […]
Read More →Bees on the roof of Manchester Art Gallery, Love Food Hate Waste Roman food recipes from the Grosvenor Museum in Chester and monitoring electricity use in the Victorian buildings of Warrington Museum are all sustainability actions being taken by Museums in the North West. On 16 April the Museum Development North West Sustainability conference at […]
Read More →The Happy Museum Project wants museums to play an active part in a sustainable future, by fostering wellbeing that doesn’t cost the Earth. So it’s helpful to have the proof that museums do make you happy, in the form of a report from ‘Happiness Economist’ Daniel Fujiwara of the London School of Economics. Happy Museum […]
Read More →Here is some information about the final two object handling models that we tested over February Half Term. 3. The third model continued in the playful vein, with visitors being invited to find replica objects from the IWM handling collection ‘hidden’ in discrete areas throughout the Main Exhibition Space. In stark contrast to the […]
Read More →Following on from our earlier sessions, the other four models were also unleashed on an unsuspecting public during February half term! Here is some information about the first two models with reflections about the second two models to follow. 1. First was a co-delivered Timestack where the facilitator was joined by a veteran. Although Timestacks […]
Read More →We met to discuss how we might link the past with the present in museum displays, a question which touches on several Happy Museum themes – ‘connect’, ‘mutual relationships’, ‘active citizens’, ‘curate the past, present and future’. Joining in the discussion were staff from Chiltern Open Air Museum, Godalming Museum, the Imperial War Museum North […]
Read More →Take a look at Paul Camic and Helen J Chatterjee’s excellent new article on museums and art galleries as partners for public health interventions: Camic and Chatterjee Paul Camic & Helen J Chatterjee, “Museums and Art Galleries as Partners for Public Health Interventions,” Perspectives in Public Health, 2013; 133: 66.
Read More →Our Happy Museum project is concerned with trialling and evaluating different object handling methods and looking at how we can create more meaningful conversations with our visitors around them. During a rather cold and snowy February we trialled our six object handling models. They consisted of group work, quirky experiments and tweaked versions of regular […]
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