ITP UK partner experience in Glasgow (Yanoa Pomalima Carrasco, Peru, ITP 2022)

Written by Yanoa Pomalima Carrasco, Curator, Ministry of Culture (Peru, ITP 2022)

I am Yanoa, a museum curator at the Ministry of Culture of Peru. Over the years, my passion for museums has focused on various topics: digital interpretation, education, exhibition design, narrative, and working with communities. I believe that, in some way, these diverse approaches allow me to create new forms of work within the museum field. My experience in the ITP program is enriching and helps me focus on my upcoming projects.

After a few engagement weeks exploring the British museum and discovering the interdisciplinary work of its different departments, we had to head towards new destinations to experience further museum actions.

At the beginning of the week, my group and I arrived in Glasgow, a Scottish port city with a fascinating local history that, day by day, is reinvented by its inhabitants.

View of Glasgow Cathedral from the Glasgow Necropolis

My first impression upon visiting the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and the Riverside Museum is how important is the collaborative work within the museum. Museums are living spaces in which life stories converge. Each object tells us the story of who created it, when, why, or how. With the correct use of interpretation, label writing, and co-creation displays, visitors can engage and connect with the objects, resulting in a new museum experience where the galleries transform into spaces for dialogue.

Interior view of the galleries of the Kelvingrove museum. The exhibitions seek to connect visitors with stories of social and environmental impact, both local and worldwide.

The Riverside Museum brings us closer through local perspectives. They have worked closely with several communities to curate a variety of displays.

Although these experiences were inspiring, it was only the beginning of the journey. Our next stop was our base camp: The Glasgow Museum Resource Center (GMRC).

This space has become the heart of many museums in Glasgow. In its facilities, specialists research and take care of a fantastic collection. 

The Open Museum operates from the GMRC. Led by a team whose mission is to carry out outreach projects, the Open Museum seeks to take the objects and their stories closer to the communities so that they can be shared and enjoyed by all. Within its lines of work, we spend more time exploring two cases: traveling exhibitions developed with various communities and kits with objects from the collection. Both are part of outreach programs in schools, health centers, libraries, museums, and community centers.

General view of the GMRC warehouses.

After exploring the various themes of the kits (all super creative!), we began to explore the collection housed in the GMRC, which is enormous! But we had to concentrate on accomplishing a critical mission: create a mini-exhibition for the Open Museum. In a collaborative approach with the whole team, we decided to work on the theme journeys. Our exhibition is still in process, so come back to our ITP blog for future updates!

A sneak peek of our upcoming display.

I take many memories of my stay in Glasgow. Not only from the museums but also from the city and Eneida and Priyanka, ITP friends and museum lovers with whom I shared this week. 

I think we have learned a series of valuable lessons and created a bond with the Glasgow team that I am sure will bring new collaborations. I want to thank the team that joined us this week, especially Patricia Allan, Ed Johnson, and John MacInnes, who, in addition to providing us with good conversations and future ideas, focused their time on making our experience memorable.

Left to right. Priyanka Kundu, me, and Eneida de Lemos.

Thanks, girls, for this fantastic week.

Finally, I look forward to sharing and learning about each other’s discoveries at our partner institutions. One experience that I am willing to hear about is Altaieb’s at Lincolnshire. He is a funny and charismatic curator at the National Museum of Sudan, working on archaeological fieldwork missions. As a museum professional, he is involved in diverse areas such as permanent exhibitions, temporary displays, documentation of the collection, and guided tours. I am sure he is finding this experience very fruitful.