Green Drops and Moonsquirters: welcome to the world of the under 7's

'Green Drops and Moonsquirters; the utterly imaginative world of Lauren Child' opened at the Manchester Art Gallery in June.

Lauren Child is an artist best know for children's illustrations and books. Anyone who keeps pace with popular culture in the world of preschoolers will know that one of Lauren's creations; Charlie and Lola, have been a runaway success. Other characters include the lovable Pesky Rat and Clarice Bean. Lauren's career started by painting spots for Damien Hurst until her own books and artwork took off enough to support her.

Green Drops and Moonsquirters is not just a gallery exhibition for children; it's truly for families. Whatever your age, you just can't help yourself but play in this environment. Collaborative play is a key success of this exhibition and it is truly an excellent example of family learning at its best. It's accessible approach has created a friendly welcoming environment where there are no questions in your head like 'Am I allowed to touch this?', 'Is it ok to talk in here?'.

It is obvious that the exhibition designers have invested time in understanding their audience and developed a coherent and relevant theme. The result is a memorable, immersive and inspiring learning environment for family visitors. It's a rare occasion when a heritage venue gets all the ingredients for the perfect visitor experience in place but Green Drops and Moonsquirters is a definite contender.

The venue as a whole has excellent family friendly facilities and a welcoming tone to its literature. Events accompanying the exhibition include 'I absolutely MUST do dancing now' and 'I really do extremely like sticking things'. Manchester Art Gallery have their audience pegged without sounding patronising or dull. It offers a complete visitor experience including a cafe where you can actually sample the pink milk, green drops and moonsquirters consumed by your favourite characters. And of course there's the opportunity to complete the visit by buying one of Lauren's books in the gift shop.

I think this gem of an exhibition should be on everyone's 'to-do' list this summer.

Also check out 'Neverland: Rediscovering child art' at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. A family focussed exhibition that aims to stimulate the minds of art loving parents as well as their children.

Seen anything family friendly recently?

A few useful links:

• Useful tips for planning family learning experiences in museums and galleries
  
• National Family Learning Network
  
• NIACE Family Learning


• Evaluation report on NW Hub museum family learning
  
• Kids in Museums Manifesto

Do you know your grinding from your zerging?

Well don't panic if not, it shouldn't stop your museum or organisation joining the games revolution.

The China in Yorkshire project dipped a toe into the world of gaming recently when it developed a new addition to its the regional museums learning website; My Learning. Yong's China Quest follows the young disciple Yong on his journey to enlightenment in 500BCE.

Like all good platform games, he has to collect items, skills and knowledge along the way. Some of the eccentric characters in the game share their wisdom (if not somewhat grudgingly) whilst you muse at the quirky puzzles and admire the beautiful artwork of the game. But it's the items that Yong collects that will draw the attention of the museum fraternity - Leeds Museums and Galleries, Museums Sheffield, the Thackray Medical Museum and the National Railway Museum have all 'virtually' loaned objects to the game. Gamers can explore items from Beijing Olympic mascots to ivory figurines, dragon robes and even fight with authentic swords.

Computer games are seriously big business

In 2004 the UK computer and video game industry recorded sales in excess of £2 billion (According to the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association or ELSPA). We have the third largest games market in the world, only after the US and Japan. In short, as a nation, we looooove computer games.

So China in Yorkshire may have been very canny in tapping into this huge and eager market. Only time will tell if this new venture will open up new audiences for the museums involved and engage young visitors more deeply with their objects.

Play Yong's China Quest for yourself.

Hungry for more? Yong's adventure joins a host of other museum and heritage games already out there. You could also try:

• You could also try My Culture Quest where you travel the world collecting objects, developing themes and finally curate your own exhibition (we all know this isn't as simple as it sounds!). Created by Weston Park Museum
• The slightly addictive Penguins in Peril from the Natural History Museum - I just can't bear any penguins getting lost
• Being a Librarian has never been so noisy and stressful as in Nanw's Great Adventure - see how far you can get
• The National Archives try at gaming is truly harrowing as you act as a messenger in WW2 Trench Mission - don't play this one if you are scared of rats. It was all too much responsibility for me
• There are yet more rats in the highly amusing (if a little unimaginatively named...) Church Game by English Heritage which puts you in the shoes of a restoration builder battling against graffiti, leaking roofs and broken windows - how very realistic. Not to be missed!
• The National Museums Scotland Egyptian Tomb Adventure brings archaeology bang up to date
• But my all time favourite and recommendation for Friday afternoon in the office entertainment has to be RoboPoop - yes this is a game about poop from the brave people at Scottish Water. Billed as science in the sewers, you are tasked with blasting away the items blocking the sewers

Will modern gaming help us to engage with new audiences in the future? Leave your comment.

Still unsure when to grind and zerg?

New audiences; new threads of interpretation

Last weekend saw the opening of an exciting new exhibition at Bradford One Gallery; My World My Things. This was a cutting edge costume exhibition with a difference; it's an extension of the audience's wardrobe.




This is one of the projects that I assist in my role as Renaissance Yorkshire Community History Partnership Coordinator (what a mouthful!!).

For the past year, Bradford Museums and Galleries, Mojo Media and the Yorkshire Film Archive have been working together with a group of young people. The project recruited this often ‘hard to reach’ audience through an advertising campaign, a My Space site and open auditions campaign.

Each of the five enigmatic and captivating young participants chosen went out shopping with the film maker to purchase their own outfits. The Curator then matched their outfits with historical pieces from the costume collection and added some 'light touch' interpretation (which included quotes from the participants and famous fashion gurus). Historical and contemporary are juxtaposed side-by-side in an exhibition; along with the short films showing the young people's experiences.

I think that the project has successfully captured snapshots of youth culture and fashion in Bradford. Another key feature of the project is that it's not just a 'one-off'. Bradford Museums and Galleries are using the project to inform their collecting policy and duplicates of the young people's outfits have gone into the costume collections.

I must admit that I was quite nervous when picking my outfit for the opening; after all, what does one wear to a fashion exhibition? My resulting outfit was very 'Lucinda' (from the Apprentice) according to my husband, minus the beret (note to self, buy beret at nearest possible opportunity).

This self reflection only reflects how the exhibition makes the visitor think again about their relationship with their own clothes and what they say about them.

The exhibition is running until 31st August so there's still time to catch it.

If you liked this, you might also like... the Vivienne Westwood exhibition at Sheffield Millennium Galleries.

I am keen to hear about other projects that have used social networking sites like My Space to engage with their audience...